I smile inside. Ted’s nerdy friend, Stan, has really come up with the goods. Stan, the chubby man with a pregnant stomach and a hairstyle like a cartoon monk. He has been expensive, but discreet. You were so angry when you couldn’t find your computer, the weekend I removed it and deposited it at Stan’s flat on the Archway Road in Highgate. Your grey eyes turned metallic. Your chin jutted out like a strange, contorted gargoyle. You turned on Harry and Ben. Blamed my children. A week later I returned it to your shed in the garden. You believed you had left it there, and apologised. You took the boys to McDonald’s for a treat. I did this to protect myself. As backup. I never realised you had cancer and that your actions would be so perfectly believable.

I look across at John Thornton. I widen my eyes in sadness. ‘Poor, poor Caprice.’

159

Miles

You are about to be released. I’m waiting in the prison car park, on a grey, drizzly day, feeling numb and confused. I don’t think you would deliberately poison my mother. Yet I don’t think my mother would poison herself. Then again, I never thought my mother would be riddled with cancer, and not tell her family. Despite being a philosopher, I don’t know what to think. Aristotle and Plato don’t seem to have provided any answers here. My mother’s death has blown our lives apart.

You step out of prison wearing the clothes they arrested you in. Your black Armani suit, razor-blade heels and Hugo Boss blouse; the one that tumbles with lace and frills. Your long blonde hair streams behind your head in the breeze as you walk towards the car. Your face lights up as soon as you see me. I step out of the car and take you in my arms. You smell of desire. Of warmth. Of love. I hold you against me, guilt-ridden for doubting you.

And I know, the only philosophy I need to understand right now, is that I am part of you, and you are part of me. We will always belong together.

160

Saffron

I’m sitting in the car, as Miles drives me home. Nestling into the soft leather of his Range Rover. Driving me away from my nightmare. Someone pressed a button and my life had stopped.

I look out of the car window and my life begins again. The world moves towards me fresh and colourful. Trees. Fields. Homes. Real homes containing real people. Not just passive objects who are locked behind closed doors, and fed food that tastes like the smell from the garbage dump. We drive past people walking along with a purpose. Friends to meet. Stuff to do. Their bodies not laden with the idle procrastination of those who are incarcerated. Zombies whose lives have stopped.