I’m sitting right at the front in the cheap clingy dress I bought at Primark. Part of the family; responsible for looking after the children. No longer mistress of the household. You and Aiden look smart, in dark suits and ties, flanking Saffron, who is sitting to our right. Saffron looks as funky as ever. She is wearing a black and white block dress, and a tiny black hat with an enormous feather, which curves halfway down her back. My charges are sitting next to me, backs stiff, smart in children’s suits we found in John Lewis; mouths tightly shut, eyes glued to the altar at the front. No wriggling. No giggling. Little angels today, please.

The only person who is lightening the colour of the occasion is the vicar, a young woman with a sweet sing-song lilt. She is wearing layers of white, which represent the righteousness of Christ. Ben told me that. He seems to know so much these days. A purple stole around her neck. We sing Caprice’s favourite hymn: ‘Now Thank We All Our God’. We kneel to pray. The vicar stands up. Time for the eulogy.

‘We are here, not to mourn for our beloved Caprice, but to celebrate her life. She was a devoted wife to her adored Rupert, a devoted and much-loved mother and grandmother. A giver, not a taker. Everyone who met her loved her.’

164

Saffron

Not everyone who met you loved you. Not everyone, I shout in my head. Some of us hated you. Some of us wanted you dead. Then a mystical sensation wraps itself around me. I have been in this situation before, listening to the eulogy at your funeral. I look around. Everything is the same as my dreams, except the church is larger and there is no beach. The same silver cross stands in front of me, moving towards me, growing larger in my memory, in my mind. My body jolts as if I am about to wake up, but nothing happens. This time, my nemesis, you are dead. I will never have to put up with you again. Long may you rest in peace.

165

Hayley

Memories flood towards me. I see Caprice standing in front of me, wearing cream silk, and magnificent waterfall earrings of sterling silver. Kitten-heel sandals in matching cream. Always so smooth. So elegant. Always doused in her favourite perfume, Opium by YSL. She looked a little bit like Audrey Hepburn but paler.