It was one of those cold-eyed Sunday mornings in suburbia that make you wonder why you got out of bed. I was eating my toast slowly, making it last, when I heard the sound of an engine ticking over politely on my front drive. A VW engine. Colin’s VW camper van. I knew he’d come. Sooner or later. I’d been planning to trim the cherry laurel that morning but here he was. I was ready.

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold: the cliché had whispered itself to me so often I’d begun to think of it as a companion, a second skin to wrap around myself during the low times. Now, as I sat in my kitchen, this image developed and, somewhat to my surprise (I’m one of those literal people with no imagination), I saw in my mind’s eye a version of myself opening the fridge door and finding at eye level a glass bowl of orange Jello, with a miniature Colin suspended within it, fully clothed, wriggling, supine. As I stare at him, repulsed by his squirming and his helplessness, I realise I could cut him in half with my butter knife. But I don’t want to.