The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

one.’
    ‘Now there’s an idea!’
    ‘I bet you did really well at school, ay?’
    ‘Yes, I did quite well. What are you going to be after you leave school?’ she asks me.
    ‘Spaceman.’
    ‘Sounds fabulous,’ she says.
    ‘If you grew a new me, would it have better skin than I do?’
    ‘Don’t worry, we never clone anyone new on a Wednesday.’
    She packs all the wee jars into special compartments of her fancy flight-case.
    ‘Have you met many murderers?’
    ‘More than I’d have liked to,’ she says.
    She clicks her case shut and walks out.
    There’s a sticky circle on the table, where a jar sat. She’s left a piece of paper as well. I feel like starting a fire – one match is all it takes. I could start a great fire, with just one match and that piece of paper.
    I watched a documentary once, about Hindu wives getting shoved on the pyre after their husbands died. It’s cos they’re meant to want to jump on the flames on top of their dead husbands, but some of them dinnae really fancy it. They dinnae want to burn themselves alive – just so’s their husband can have someone to make them a cup of tea in the afterlife. They reckon that sometimes the wife just gets shoved on, like if she doesnae jump on herself, ay. Someone in the family will do it. An elbow in the ribs and a boot up the arse. In you fucking go.
    Angus sticks his head around the door.
    ‘Sorry tae leave you in here, Anais. I had tae see Mrs Patterson out. I’ve got you a vegetarian option, come on.’
    ‘I want tae be alone.’
    ‘So did Garbo. You do know what happened tae her, don’t you?’
    ‘I dinnae give a fuck what happened tae her.’
    ‘Nobody wants tae be a recluse, Anais, we all need friends.’
    ‘Fuck off, Angus.’
    ‘That’s not polite, and I can tell you are a polite girl really.’
    I stare at him.
    ‘It’s sad tae eat on your own,’ he says.
    ‘It’s sad tae get done for an attempted murder you didnae commit.’
    ‘You didnae put PC Craig in the coma?’ he asks.
    It’s funny how many things you never get asked. Things that are totally obvious. He closes the door quietly. I dinnae want to go out there, I dinnae want to sit, with people, in rooms. I just don’t. Why is that such a fucking problem?
    My nails look nice today – red, no chips, not like when I flake them away for hours in the cells. I do that, then I organise all the wee red bits of varnish intae upside-down smiles and leave them on concrete benches. Maybe the next person in the cells walks in and sits down and sees them. Maybe they don’t.
    ‘Okay, Anais, here you go, service with a smile. If you want more cheese, just shout. I put butter on your tattie and I poured you a fresh orange juice. Is that alright?’
    Angus slides a tray in front of me, then touches my shoulder just lightly, like he didnae, but he did. He closes the door behind himself again, really quiet and careful like. I look down at the tray and I feel like crying.

7
    TWO DRAGONFLIES FLUTTER by, then come to rest on the window frame – their wings are metallic blue in the sunlight. I adore dragonflies. I adore the sea, the moon, the stars, vintage Dior and old movies in black and white. I adore girls with tits and hips and class, and old men in suits who have that dignified look about them. Sometimes you see a decrepit old man, and his hop-along mangy dog, and you can tell the dog is hanging on for the old man, it won’t die before he does. The two of them creak back from the shops together every day.
    I adore guys who talk in a way that makes you wonder about their smooth cocks, or that narrow perfect ridge along their hips. I’d like to paint guys like that, in a studio in Paris, somewhere above a bakery where I’d wake up every morning to the smell of fresh croissants.
    Teresa ate cakes from the French pattiserie when she was depressed. She’d sit in her bed, in a kimono, drinking gin and reading. Sometimes I think she’s still here, but she’s not. Pat has the