“You must have suspected something,” Suzanne probes, holding me captive with those icy grey eyes. “Did you never wonder whether something strange was going on?”
“No!” I say, but then I hesitate, remembering the odd events and her sudden absences, the excuses why she couldn’t meet for coffee at the last moment, her obsession with the fabric shop and super-hero capes.
My face must betray my doubts as she nods, her face softening. “I thought I’d given myself away a thousand times before today,” she says. “After all, we’ve been besties for ever and a day.”
“Since we were five years old,” I say, then a memory drops from the skies, making me cough so hard, she has to wallop me on the back with all her might. Actually, not with all her might; that would kill me, but with a tiny fraction of her might.
I stare up at her, catching a glimpse of the green cape tucked hastily under her burgundy t-shirt. “It started then!” I splutter. “At school, didn’t it?”
She stops whacking my back, checks my vital functions with her x-ray vision and sits back in the seat opposite me, stirring her coffee with pretended nonchalance. It turns from boiling hot to an iced latte in an instant. “Whoops,” she mutters to herself. “Rein it in, Suzanne.”
A couple nearby are staring at us, obviously concerned by my apparent choking episode. The waitress is staring at Suzanne’s coffee in confusion.
Suzanne waves her hand in the air, that peculiar idiosyncrasy she’s possessed all her life, and only now do I see the real purpose of it. Steam rises again from her coffee. Other customers in the café pause, cups and pastries in mid-air. The couple who are staring at us turn slowly away, as if someone is exerting a magnetic force on their faces, while the waitress glides away from our table, her confused face now a blank.
“You used to do that to the teachers, whenever they found us chatting,” I remember. “I could never understand how we kept out of trouble.”
Suzanne smiles at me fondly. “You always were such an innocent, Eve.”
“And those boys that tried to grab me at the school disco, when we were eleven or twelve…the ones who started pushing each other instead? That was you?”
“It was,” she admitted.
My mind races back and forth over the inexplicable moments in my life, all linked to Suzanne. “What about my boss at Clarkson’s – the one who said I was incompetent and sacked me?”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. He got used to his retirement incredibly quickly.”
“He was thirty-two, Suzanne! I never did understand why he would suddenly resign like that, re-instating me in his place.”
“Your lucky day,” Suzanne grins. “My 21st birthday present to you.”
“I was so happy, but so confused that day,” I muse, looking back over more than twenty years. What else had she managed to change in my life? I peer at her with suspicion tingling my nerve ends. “Tell me about what you do again,” I say. “I’m struggling to believe all this, Suzanne, I can’t lie.”
Suzanne smiles. “No, you’re not, Evie. I can read your mind, my friend. You’re struggling not to believe it now.”
I lean forward. “So, you’re really a super-hero? You can change coffee temperatures as well as people’s minds!” I laugh hollowly. “Wow, this is so weird. My friend Suzanne, the super-hero.”
“I prefer ‘Gretna Green,’ actually,” she says, and sips her hot coffee. She points to the piece of emerald-green cape poking out by her neck. “Do you get it?”
“Gretna Green?” I laugh, though it sounds more hysterical than amused. “That’s your Super-hero name? What on Earth inspired that?”
“Family holiday when I was six years old,” she says. “There were an awful lot of sudden marriages and break-ups that week,” she admits. “That’s before I understood my powers properly, and the responsibility that goes with them.”
“So what is it you do, exactly?” I ask.
“Well, you saw a little of that earlier. Let’s say I fix things that need fixing,” Suzanne says.
“Like me and Michael,” I say, before I’ve even had time to consciously think the words.
“Maybe. I also break things that need breaking,” she replies, those empty grey eyes drilling into my own. “You saw a little of that this morning too, didn’t you?”
***
Which brings us back to the incident at Clarkson’s earlier today.
I’m partly to blame of course. Recently I’d been distracted by personal matters, and this made me less observant of minor changes in the office. This morning, I was chewing over a conversation between my fiancée, Michael, and I the night before. Michael had been annoyingly vague about us moving in together, citing work commitments, financial concerns and his feelings about not wanting ‘to spoil a good thing.’
“What’s the rush, Eve?” he said. “We can both afford our own space, and it’s not like we have offspring to consider. We can please ourselves about timings.”
I was irritated by the word offspring. Why couldn’t he just say ‘children’ or ‘kids’ like anyone else? When he put on the patronising tone, I instantly became defensive, aware deep down that offspring were something I did very much want to consider now. I was in my early forties with little time left to play with.
“It strikes me we’re only pleasing you, not me,” I’d argued. “Don’t you want to get married after all, Michael?”
“Of course I do, Eve, even if it is an old-fashioned concept these days,” he’d replied, his tone patronising and his vivid blue eyes open as the sky. “I just can’t see the urgency, that’s all.”
I could see he was trying hard to seem modern and ‘bang on trend,’ which I believe is the correct term these days. Actually, he just looked trapped, as if I were some Victorian maiden, threatening an unplanned pregnancy and a father with a shotgun. I had neither of those tools at my disposal.
However, I did have my friend Suzanne, and I had phoned her to offload my anger, soon after Michael disappeared to his home. She had been quietly supportive, as ever, and we had arranged to meet for lunch, so we could talk over my options.
***
My mind was still full of this discussion (or argument) this morning. I’d been more careless than usual, not checking each new face at their desks. Any new staff credentials always came my way as a matter of courtesy, but I’d only vaguely acknowledged the new woman working quietly near the coffee machine on the office floor, and could not have told you her name, if you paid me a billion pounds. My error, as it turned out.
She knocked on my glass door but then entered my office without waiting for a reply, shutting the door firmly behind her. I stiffened and stopped searching my mobile phone for messages from Michael. I held her gaze with what I hoped were steely eyes.
“Can I help you, Miss…?” I searched for her name pin, an old-fashioned device begun by my old boss but retained by myself. It leant a certain old-fashioned solidity to the firm, I always felt. “I beg your pardon, Mrs Goode.” I paused, noticing the coincidence. That would be my married name too once Michael stopped messing about.
“Yes,” she said, her harsh voice erupting, scorching me with fiery wrath. “You can tell me what you’re doing with my husband for a start.”
“Your husband?” I repeat, thinking back over recent clients, satisfied or otherwise. No Mr Goodes were in either camp to my knowledge. “I’m sorry but I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs Goode.”
“Then how do you explain this,” she said, slapping a file on the table.
I couldn’t help thinking how very old-school and dramatic this all felt. What was the matter with a plain email or text, for heaven’s sake, if the woman had a complaint? I fingered the file with distaste, half planning to slap it back over the table accompanied by instant dismissal for insubordination. My predecessor would not have wasted a heartbeat in sacking her.
Yet, my fingers seemed compelled to open the file, and the words of dismissal froze in my mouth.
Suzanne’ face drifted across my mind, and I remembered her stark warning on the telephone the night before. “Of course, there is a possibility Michael might be hiding something from you.”
I had denied it absolutely. Michael was careless with my feelings in many ways, but surely, he would never have hidden something so important as this.
“You’re Mrs Goode,” I said, gazing at her and then staring back down with blurred vision at the document and photographs before me.
How I wanted her to snatch the evidence away, to laugh and say, “Oh not that sort of Mrs Goode. I’m his sister, his mother, his long-lost cousin from Timbuctoo.”
“Not his ex-wife or a deceased one?” I said, still searching for escape from the extremely obvious and very inconvenient evidence in front of my eyes.
She vibrated with anger, large hands gripping my desk and her mouth puckering with rage. “I’m not an ex anything and I’m clearly not dead, am I?” She flew at me, hands wrapped around my throat, her face a frenzied mask of hatred. “But you deserve to be.”
Suddenly there was a cacophony of glass smashing, alarms peeling and a gut-wrenching scream tearing around the office. A green cape waved in front of my eyes as I struggled to maintain consciousness. Thumbs pressed against my windpipe, and I felt the air decreasing. I shut my eyes, then opened them as the pressure on my throat abruptly ceased. I held my fingers to my silenced throat. It was Mrs Goode who was cursing and screaming, lying on her stomach on the floor, her hands tied behind her back in green ribbon. The initials GG were scrawled in green chalk on her back.
I glanced up to find Suzanne hovering in the air, her green cape billowing behind her. “Oops – caught me in action!” she said, and grinned.
***
Once the police had been, and taken copious, confused notes about green invaders and angry wives, I was allowed to leave, if I promised not to leave the area.
“There might be more questions,” one of the officers warned, although he seemed increasingly confused about what he was meant to be investigating.
Suzanne waved her hand and suddenly the officer, a nice, vague young chap called Platt, said perhaps what everyone needed was a cup of coffee, and wasn’t there a coffee shop nearby?
Mrs Goode, by now standing in the corner of my office, still with her hands tied behind her back was looking even more confused. “What was I doing?” she asked, gazing at me. “What happened? Did I…did I do something wrong? Please, I really can’t remember.”
At the time, I had smirked and flounced out of the office, supported by Suzanne. My own memories of the incident were slightly vague too, though my neck ached enough to let me know something serious had happened.
***
Now, I realise that Suzanne must have done her hand-waving trick on Mrs Goode’s mind too. So Michael’s wife really won’t have any firm memory of what she did or why she did it. I wriggle uncomfortably as I think of that poor woman, sitting in a police cell with no one to support her. Oh, they’ll inform Michael of course, and he’ll realise that she tracked me down and revealed his secret. He’ll be no support, that I can sense already. Only I can tell her what truly happened.
I realise that Suzanne is looking at me, asking me to promise something.
“Pardon?” I blink at her.
“You know it must remain a secret,” she says. “You can’t tell anyone about me, ever.” Her ice-cold eyes remind me of the shards of glass flying about my office as Michael’s wife tried to strangle me. “Definitely not a word to Michael.”
“You never did trust him,” I say, but it’s not a reproach and she knows it.
There are things Gretna Green can fix, there are things she likes to break apart, but I know that some things between Michael and myself were broken long before today.
Once again, the image of his very much alive and kicking wife fills my mind.
“But what about her?” I say. “Mrs Goode. She’s got no idea why she’s been arrested for assault.”
“Well, she did assault you,” Suzanne points out, facetiously.
“I know but…” I’m struggling to explain myself here.
Suzanne senses my discomfort, tutting softly. “You were just the same about the boys at the disco, worrying that their mothers would be upset by their behaviour.”
I shake my head, trying to forget those mangled faces as the boys turned from me and fought with each other all those years ago. I shiver as I truly realise the power my old friend hides behind her extravagant green cape and the chilling grey eyes.
Still, I try to reason with her. “It seems so unfair she’ll never know what really happened or why. The poor woman could go quite mad, Suzanne!”
Suzanne raises both eyebrows, her long face resembling a wolf intent on hunting down its prey. “Dear Eve,” she mutters. “You really must learn to appreciate life’s little gifts when they come your way.” She pauses, head on one side, as if she is receiving a message. “Got to go!” she says, “Trouble brewing in the States, again.” She waves a hand in front of my eyes and with a flash of green, she’s gone.
I sit at the table for a while longer, trying to recall my conversation with Suzanne. It’s often like that with these old friends; you can’t quite recall the tedious details of their life once they’ve finished talking.
I stroke my throat, noticing soreness and wonder if I’m going down with a cold. A man approaches my table, shuffling his feet nervously, but I avoid his vivid blue gaze as he asks if he can join me for coffee.
“No thank you,” I say, my tone sharp as glass, and filled with finality.
He fades away, as trouble has always faded away in my life and I finish my coffee in peace.