Before setting off to the US to meet Melinda French Gates, I called a woman I know who had met her a decade ago at a media event in London. Back then French Gates was married to Bill, the Microsoft co-founder, and he was still wealthier than Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. I asked what the world’s richest man’s wife had been like.

“Bewilderingly downbeat. She seemed terribly unhappy in her own body. She was talking about philanthropy and international development, and she absolutely knew her stuff. But she seemed to take no pleasure in being herself. It was really puzzling and sad.”

This didn’t sound at all like the author of the new memoir I’d just read. Nor did it sound like the French