Jenni Fagan - The Panopticon

‘You’ve got enough DNA in there to grow a new me.’

‘We’re not growing new people yet.’

‘Not legally.’

‘We grow organs, Anais. Sheep have been cloned successfully, pig hearts — that kind of thing.’

‘If you grew a new me, you could experiment on the old 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.

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 ashes, and me and Teresa never did make it tae Paris. We had the passports ready and everything. She’s so dead, it’s more than a full stop.

If I lived in Paris, I’d sit in cafés by the river smoking coloured cigarettes and I’d never speak. Or, only rarely — I’d be mysterious.

‘You fucking silly cunt!’

Step out my room and look downstairs over the landing. It’s Shortie. She’s giving this lassie it tight, but really it’s me she wants, she’s chuffed that I’ve come out to look. She’s making out like she’s hard, but right now she’s just being a fucking bully. She glances up and I go back in my room quick as. I’ve been here over a week now — to be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken this long.

Earrings out. Hair scraped back. Boots on. Laces tied.

‘D’ye want a smack in the pus?’

There’s a thud from downstairs, then the girl, pleading.

‘I didnae,’ she says.

‘You didnae what?’ Shortie hollers in the lassie’s face.

I take the stairs two by two, clocking who’s around, hardly anyone; Isla, Tash, they’re watching me descend.

‘I dinnae know,’ the lassie whimpers.

‘You dinnae know what you didnae?’

‘No!’

Shortie smacks her.

‘Leave her alone, she’s fucking leaving the day,’ I say.

‘What the fuck’s it got tae do with you?’ Shortie snaps.

‘Ssssh.’ Tash jerks her head towards the office where the staff are. She’s sitting on the back of the sofa thing. Isla’s lying back on her.

I step between Shortie and the lassie. The lassie doesnae need tae be told; she edges out the front door to wait outside, where it’s safer.

‘If you want a fight, Shortie, all you have tae say is pretty please.’ I shove past her.

‘Aye?’

‘Aye. I dare you. I double-fucking-dare you.’

She’s getting edgy now. Flexing her fingers. Psyching herself up, summoning up the worst memory she’s got in her head, so she can try to batter me. Up on the second floor Brian squats down and grins.

‘Stop being a tit, Shortie,’ Isla says.

Isla tries to stand up, but Tash puts a hand on her shoulder.

Shortie’s heavier than me, and taller, but not much. She’s game. Game is good, it’ll get you a lot further than hard will. I can feel her behind and I turn, slow as. Here it comes. Right. Fucking. Now. She’s pulling her head back tae head-butt me and I swerve — just out of her way, up two steps, and boot her right in the pus.

Spit flays through the air.

‘D’ye think that hurt?’ she gobs as she pushes herself back up.

Grab her by the back of the head, smash my skull off her skull. Crack . She makes a glutty pit-pit noise in her throat.

Tash is standing up now, but she doesnae step in. I can taste blood. Shortie’s pupils are black, and I see it, just for a second — her behind a rose bush with her Granda standing over her. She punches me right in the face, so I grab her hair and smack her face off the stairs, once, twice. John walks in the front door.

‘For fuck’s sake, you could try to separate them, Tash!’

‘Are you gonnae step in between those two, like?’ she says.

‘Fuck off, John, fuck off. I mean it, I’m fucking fine,’ Shortie says, holding her nose.

The office door opens. Brian snickers up on the landing above, his hands splayed on the Perspex. Me and Shortie untangle and limp towards the stairs.