You meant it for evil - 23 by Maeryn Lamonte Lips brushed ever so lightly, ever so briefly, but enough. I felt the power enter me again, felt the familiar dizzy sensation, felt myself growing, straining the fabric of my clothes. The comforting weight of my hair receded. Delicate nylon stretched and tore, the straps of my sandals snapped and along with them the last of my strength. I sagged to my knees, Ken's knees. Lifted my hands to my face, Ken's hands, Ken's face. I opened my mouth to cry out, but no sound would come. Inside something broke and what poured out and spread through every fibre of my being was a most profound and utter sense of loss that went beyond imagining.

-oOo-
The next thing I remember was a hand on my shoulder. Strong fingers gripping tight. I didn't want to raise my head, everything hurt too much. So much loss. How could I live now?

“You did it.”

It was the old tramp. His wasn't a voice I was ever going to forget, and now the kindness was back in it. I turned slowly to look at him. His eyes were streaming with tears and around them his leather skin stretched into more laughter lines than I'd ever seen on one face. He looked deep into me and said once more with infinite kindness.

“You did it.”

It didn't stop the pain. For so much of my life I had wanted but never dared hope for the life Mary had given me. For the past few months I had lived as I'd always wanted to be, and I had truly lived. I had done such wonderful things, made such a difference in people’s lives, loved like I had never loved before. Just a few short months and I had lived more than I had in all the twenty seven years before.

And now it was gone.

I buried my face in his jacket and wept for the loss. I know it's not what guys are supposed to do, but I couldn't help it.

“I don't know if I can pay the price.”

“You already did child.”

“But I don't know if I can live with the cost.”

Strong arms encircled me and held me close. I cried 'til I ran out of tears, and then heaved up dry sobs of purest misery. Tears were supposed to help, to heal, but there was no ending to this pain. Even when I had no more strength left to cry the consequences of my choice weighed down on me still and it hurt so much.

He waited until I was quiet and lifted me gently to my feet.

“Let me show you what your sacrifice bought.”

The room filled with darkness, which condensed out of the air forming tendrils which coalesced to become... Him.

“What happened here? What did you do?”

His voice was less scratchy than when it played inside my head, but again I recognised him. Dark suit and bowler hat, dark eyes, dark manner.

“She did it. She bested you.”

“She? Have you looked between 'her' legs lately?”

“BE SILENT!”

It was a roar of pure indignation, powerful enough to make even the man in black step back and close his mouth.

“You will not speak your lies here. You spend all of your existence spreading your filth, trying to persuade people down paths they would not choose to make them just as miserable as yourself, just as capable of spreading misery as yourself. All you see are your own selfish desires, all you know is the misery and pain you feel, and the misery and pain you cause others.

“You delight in you little schemes, preying on the base nature in men to corrupt them, encouraging their own selfish nature and all the while backing them into a corner until they have little choice but to bend to your will. You seek to control, to twist and torture for your own pleasure, but you forget, you always forget, that all that is needed to collapse your house of cards is one act of selflessness.

“There were eight others. Bring them.”

“They're mine. They took their own lives.”

“Only after you took every reason they had to live. Bring them.”

Eight transparent figures appeared around the room, all of them copies of me — at least me as I used to be. I would have given anything to trade places with just one of them. Even as a ghost I would have been able to find more happiness than I had hope for now. They were all dressed as I'd last seen them, though the effects of drugs and drowning were no longer evident. Even as I looked, they changed. Growing taller, broader, more male; the skimpy skirts and fishnet tights faded to be replaced by plane grey trousers and shirts. The old man by my side addressed them.

“You have a choice. You can go back where you just came from or take a chance with me. Just come over here if you can believe that what I have to offer is better than what you've received so far.”

To a man they crossed the room. More magical morphing and they were wearing robes. White ones. What kind of cliché was that? One of the eight seemed to be thinking along similar lines.

“Hey what's with the dresses man?”

“They're called robes son. Men have worn them for far longer than they have the trousers you're more used to. Give them a try, I think you'll learn to like them. Of course if you're going to make an issue of it, you can always go back over there.”

That seemed to settle the matter. They all quietened down a moment later they were gone. My companion turned again to the man in black.

Something had been bothering me since they all appeared. I finally figured it out.

"Weren't there nine who died?"

"Yes, but the one you took to the hospital already made her peace."

Asked and answered. He turned his attention back to the dark figure opposite him.

“Now those still altered against their will. Jordan and Evelyn.”

I turned to the door in time to see two familiar forms — frozen in time — shimmer and change. Jordan turned out to be six foot plus with broad shoulders and large muscles, which were now stretching and tearing his sweatshirt and even the denim of his jeans. Evelyn was once more the attractive, silver haired old lady I had first met a week previously. There was something else not right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the man next to me was speaking again and I turned my attention to his words.

“And now this.”

He reached out over Paul's recumbent form and drew a darkness from it into his hand. In time he held a small black sphere, no larger than a marble and swirling as if filled with smoke.

“This power is broken and so are you. You have no more influence in this realm, that assurance has been bought and paid for in full. Now get out of here.”

The last ended up as a booming command that brooked no argument. It hadn't been directed at me and even I felt the urge to run. The man in black struggled to resist, but there was no denying it. With one final howl of rage, he exploded into the darkness from which he had formed, and faded into nothing.

My companion held me by my shoulders at arm's length. I must have seemed less impressed than he'd hoped because his face lost much of its radiant joy.

“I could show you all the thousands of despairing people who would have gone to their graves in misery and without hope had you not stopped this.”

“It's not that. The price was worth it, even for what you showed me. I just don't know if I can afford the cost. This loss is too hard to accept”

I twisted out of his grasp and turned away from him. My body had found a fresh reserve supply of tears and my eyes were filling once more.

“It had to be a sacrifice, child. What you offered had to have value if it was to buy back the lives and happiness of these people.”

I nodded my understanding as his confirmation of my loss crushed the last vestiges of hope within me.

“You found the courage to give it up. You will find the courage to live.”

I shrugged dismissively I hoped. I needed to be alone to face this now. I knew he could read my thoughts, he'd done it before in the park, but he wasn't taking hints this time.

“Do you remember when we first met you wondered how many years I'd spent on the streets with people looking down on me, despising me?”

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice or the words I might say right now.

“The answer is more than you can imagine. I've lived so many lifetimes like this even though I don't have to . Do you know why I keep doing it? Living like this?”

I shrugged.

“It's for moments like this one, when I see humanity's true potential realised. I saw it inside you the day we met, but to witness it brought to a conclusion like this is... glorious. I know you only feel the pain of your loss right now, but that will pass. Soon enough you will find reason to rejoice.”

I knew he meant well, but nothing he said penetrated the anguish that tormented me. I could face him or anyone right now and he sensed this. He squeezed my shoulder one last time, turned and walked away. I thought I heard a few muffled words spoken, as though he were muttering under his breath, then he was gone. I could feel something in the atmosphere dissipate and steeled myself for the flow of time to return and with it the need to face my friends.

There would be well meant words of sympathy, of thanks perhaps, of who knows what. But I was cocooned in my misery and nothing could penetrate the shell. Their best efforts would only serve to add to my pain.

A hand on my shoulder again, smaller and gentler this time. I glanced down at it and recognised Mike's short nails and slender fingers; almost too slender for a man's. I turned my head away, not wishing him to see me like this.

“Mike no. I can't.”

The hand was firm and insistent and I hadn't the strength to resist. He turned me to face him and I dropped my gaze. I couldn't take what I was sure I would see in those eyes. I reached for the ring, thinking he might want it back, but my finger had grown inside of it and was even now swollen and blue. I realised it actually hurt, and the physical pain was a welcome distraction from the turmoil inside me.

I raised my hand to show him.

“I think we're going to have to cut it off. The ring I mean, I'd rather like to keep the finger.”

He cupped my chin and lifted my face until I was forced to look into his eyes.

“He let me see it all. I couldn't move, but I saw everything. At first I didn't understand why you did what you did, but now I know.”

That must have been the wrongness that had caught my eye, his eyes moving in an otherwise still body. It didn't matter, I couldn't endure him seeing me like this. I tried to move my head but he held it still.

“Mike, please. I never meant to hurt you, I never wanted you to see me like this.”

He kept looking into my eyes as if searching for something and I couldn't help but look back. Nothing I had expected to see was there. Not horror or disgust, not sorrow or regret. Just amazement, wonder and... love?

“All I see is the girl I fell in love with.”

With that he leaned forward and kissed me. Mike, my very straight, occasionally unintentionally slightly homophobic, but well-meaning fiancé drew me to him and kissed me gently, softly on the lips.

Something was different. At first I thought it was me feeling awkward being kissed by a guy when I was a guy myself — at least on the outside — but there was something else too. Nothing changed, at least not immediately. I opened my eyes and looked into his and he was smiling. He glanced down and I followed his gaze. In his free hand he held what looked like a large opalescent pearl.

“He said something to me before he left. He said this was meant for evil but maybe in the right hands, driven by the right heart, something better could be made of it. He said it would only work one last time.”

He grasped my hand — the one with the ring and the swollen finger — and held the small artefact between our palms. A brilliance began to shine out from between our entwined fingers and a tingling warmth spread through me, starting in the palm of my hand and spreading out until it filled every extremity in my body. I could see Mike squinting and realised that the brilliance must have transferred itself to me, shining from every pore in my body and... changing me. Mike seemed to grow a little and I looked down at myself as flesh faded from my limbs. Arms, hands, fingers, feet, legs, waist, all became slender, delicate, beautiful. Hips and breasts grew to match and, like a waterfall in slow motion, those auburn curls I had grown to love — and at times hate — tumbled down over my back and shoulders. I lifted my free hand to explore my face and felt high cheekbones, full lips, small button nose.

“But... I don't understand.”

“He also told me that just because you sacrifice something, it doesn't mean you have to lose it forever. Apparently there's a precedent.”

The glow subsided and he disengaged his hand from mine. The pearl still remained in the palm of his hand, but there was something gone from it. It was inert, lifeless, spent.

It was almost too much. To have been pulled so deeply into despair, only to have that oppressive weight lifted and thrown away was almost more than I could stand. I would have fallen in a boneless heap had Mike not been there to hold me up, and tears like I have never known flowed freely and in abundance from my already weary eyes. Alternately laughing and crying, I clung weakly to Mike and let the relief flood through me.

-oOo-
Time returned once more. The unnatural silence that had surrounded Mike and myself filled with a low sound that wound up like an old fashioned gramophone and we were surround by confused and insistent voices, cries of wonder and joy, cries of confusion and protest. Doctor Marston approached, hovering nearby, torn between his curiosity and his polite discretion. I pulled wobbly legs under me and turned a radiant smile his way.

“It's finished Doctor. You can release him.”

“You sure?”

Paul was straining against his bonds, still immobile.

“I'm sure. Whatever power he had has been taken from him and broken. He can't hurt anyone now.”

The doctor set about loosening the straps and I turned Mike to face the two other people in the room with us.

I disengaged from Mike to give the real Evelyn a hug. Tears were streaming down her face and she kept shaking her head in wordless gratitude and wonder. The clothes hung loose on her and she had to cling to the belt to keep her trousers up.

I turned to Jordan, eyes drawn inexorably down to the large bulge between his legs and something that didn't quite fit.

“I think we need to get you some clothes as soon as we can.”

He looked down and blushed.

“Oh. Actually that's... not me.”

He reached down to pull out the bit that was showing and it detached causing Mike to go pale.

“No it's alright, my little chap's still down there. This is just... You know, what you gave me last week? I guess I don't need it anymore”

The bulge in his knickers confirmed what he was saying. He offered me the prosthetic and I shook my head laughing.

“Don't take this the wrong way but I don't really want it back. Why don't you keep it as a memento. Mount it and hang it on the wall. It'll give you a conversation starter if nothing else. I still think we should get you some clothes though.”

The doctor had finished releasing Paul, who approached his mother apprehensively. She was just as wary of him for a moment, but then her instincts took over and she opened her arms to him. He accepted the embrace silently, burying his face in her neck to hide his own tears. Despite his selfishness and decidedly poor judgement, he'd been through his own hell and needed to heal.

The doctor looked around at us , abruptly all decisive and pragmatic.

“Lunch. No, clothes for you first then lunch. And explanations. Not for the paperwork you understand, for peace of mind for all of us.”

I glanced at the clock. Twenty to two. Just ten minutes had passed, perhaps more subjectively given that interesting trick with time. My stomach growled to tell me I'd been neglecting it, which brought about a few chuckles and a general mobilisation towards seeing the doctor's plan through.

Doctor Marston led us to a conference room and had sandwiches brought to us, and a pair of light cotton scrubs for Jordan — I kept calling him Charley — who disappeared for a moment then re-joined us looking relieved and agreeably more decent. I was given the floor but insisted that we eat first. As well as replenishing all my spent energy, it gave me time to think through what needed to be said.

It took a while to go through the whole story. Most of those present had relatively small parts in the whole and they kept interrupting to ask questions. Eventually I finished with the events of that afternoon, glossing over some of the less essential details.

All that remained was to decide what happened next.

Evelyn and Paul decided to travel back to Grays where Paul would help his mother repair the damage to her home. Small enough penance in my mind, but it was Evelyn's choice. Doctor Marston agreed to drop them off at the local station and they would take the train from there.

Charley — no Jordan — would also be released that same day, there being no further reason for keeping him there as well as some potentially difficult questions if he were to stay. He decided his first stop should be home to reassure his parents. The doctor looked over at Mike and me.

“Jordan's parents live near you. Was wondering if you could drop him home?”

I turned to Jordan.

“I can probably go one better. Do you have a driving license?”

He nodded.

“I'm not sure I'm safe behind the wheel of a car right now. My insurance will cover you if you don't mind driving my little baby to my home and making your way from there.”

“What car d'you have. I mean if it's too girly... You know my reps taken a big enough hit as it is.”

I pointed at the roadster and watched his grin broaden. I handed him the keys.

“Please put the bags and clothes next to the four by four before you leave. The address is in the satnav. Just turn it on and hit take me home. Lock the keys in the boot when you get there, I have a spare set in the flat.”

-oOo-
Mike and I took one last turn around the gardens, both of us feeling the need for their calming influence before we headed off. There was a good possibility that we'd never be coming back this way and, in the few brief visits we'd made, we'd both grown to love and appreciate the quite serenity of the place.

Apart from some of the inmates that is. An elderly man approached us, his face contorted in distress.

“Have you seen my Sally. She's around here somewhere. I have to find her.”

I'd come across him on at least one of my previous visits. Sally, the doctor had told me, had been Mr Dawkins' daughter who'd died in a car accident some years previously. Mr D had never been able to accept the loss and after my recent experience I could sympathise. I reached out a hand to him in comfort and he settled the moment I touched him.

“She's gone isn't she? My Sally's...”

“I'm sorry.”

“No it's... It's alright. I... Thank-you.”

In something of a daze he walked back towards the main building leaving Mike and me staring after him.

“Did what I think just happened just happen?”

“I don't know. It could have been coincidence.”

We walked around a little longer without further incident until three o'clock came round and we had to get off so Mike could prepare for the evening.

“Come back to the restaurant with me? I don't want to be away from you tonight.”

I smiled and nodded my agreement. We followed Mr Dawkins's path back towards the main building, and from there to the car. A question nagged at me. I slipped my arm around Mike's waist and snuggled in close to him.

“If I hadn't changed back, if I'd been stuck as Ken, what would you have done?”

“I don't know. We'd have worked something out, I mean I did make you a promise after all. 'Before the eyes of God, now and forever in all things, I am yours', remember?”

I leaned hard against him, knocking us off course for a moment.

“I don't want to wait 'til August. How do you feel about a Spring wedding?”

“Not much of Spring left.”

“There's still enough if we get our act together.”

“Well the cherry trees behind the restaurant are in blossom. Might last another two or three weeks if we're lucky.”

“Sounds perfect and I feel lucky. Let's see what we can get arranged in the time.”

We reached the car and he helped me to climb up into my seat before walking round the back to load my things in the boot. As he took his place behind the wheel he looked across at me.

“When was the last time I told you I loved you?”

“Not so long ago I've forgotten. Not so recently that that I would object to you doing it again.”

He reached over to kiss me before putting the car in gear.

-oOo-

Epilogue

-oOo-

I pick the frame up off its bracket and carried it to a nearby chair where my cup of tea is waiting. Coffee is a young person's drink, which I gave up over thirty years ago. I settle carefully into the chair, old age making my movements slow and cautious.

The frame shows Mike and me on our wedding day. Me in that great meringue of a dress, strapless and beaded with pearls. My choice and the finest in the Elle-gance wedding collection. Certainly the most expensive. Mike wore a plain charcoal suit with a cravat. Neither of us were that keen on top hat and tails, any more than we liked the idea of ties. The suit and cravat seemed a reasonable compromise and looked just right on him. We were framed on either side by cherry trees, the blossom falling about us like confetti. Our photographer had managed to capture the look of wonder and delight on both our faces at the effects of that sudden breeze.

I touch the picture and it changes, fading into a similar shot but from a greater distance and encircling us are the words, 'Mike and Liz's Wedding'. Not particularly original but what more do you need? I swipe across the picture and it does the digital equivalent of peeling off to reveal the next photograph underneath.

It's called digital paper; a revolution from some forty years ago, and improved with each passing year. It didn't need the frame, but could be awkward to use without something giving it rigidity. The material covers most desks and work surfaces these days, including kids desks at school and home. It's hard to remember how limited the first versions were when compared to this. Touch sensitive with a micro foil computer on the back and WiFied into the UltraNet. Digital data is so these days, it makes you wonder what we did way back when.

The first few shots are more of Mike and me, both together and on our own. I pause on a close up of Mike and blink back a tear. Today would have been our sixtieth wedding anniversary had he survived to see it. He's been gone three years now and I still missed him terribly, but I suppose that's at least one consequence of marrying nine years older than you. Usually I'm able to fill the hole he left in my life with memories of all the things we did together, all the places we visited, but days like today I allow myself a little sadness.

I flip the page and there he is again, this time in an off-guard moment, staring in mute appreciation at the Morgan Plus 8 sitting in the car park in front of his restaurant. Cousin Katie had confided in me that he'd always wanted one but never been able to justify the expense. I hadn't needed to, although the only way I'd been able to buy one in time for the wedding had been to go second hand. Being on the road helped as I had been able to view quite a few around the country. I enlisted the car check services of one of the roadside assistance organisations more than once and managed to escape a few near disasters. Eventually I found one that had been bought and garaged as an investment, and managed to negotiate a fair price. Mike held onto the car for twenty years before soaring petrol prices made it unaffordable for even us to run. He wasn't prepared to convert it to hydrogen cell — sacrilege in such a piece of motoring art — and had eventually donated it to a grateful car museum, where it is still on display. I should know, I visit regularly.

I swipe the screen. Back to me in close up, this time with a good view of my necklace. Mike had taken the pearl like object that had remained after my final transformation to a jeweller he knew. The result was the epitome of simplicity and elegance. A platinum band wrapped around the opalescent sphere and attached to a matching chain. I have worn it every day since our wedding, including today.

Swipe.

A group shot with Phil as Mike's best man and Sharon as my maid of honour. A few years ago Phil and Sharon retired to the south of France where the Mediterranean sun cured them into the sort of invincible, leathery old people you find in such places. Phil will be eighty-seven this year and Sharon just a year younger, but they keep on. Of course the advances in age prevention help no end. I stopped taking them after Mike passed on. No-one to make the effort for, no reason to hang around longer than I need to. The lines are beginning to show and I welcome them. I don't see it so much as giving up, but rather letting nature have its way.

Phil and Sharon have invited me out to visit this summer and I've agreed. It will be my first time out of the country since I lost Mike, and I find I'm actually looking forward to it.

Swipe.

My bridesmaids. Sharon obviously, Charlotte, my fellow catwalk model, Cassie, radiating her delight, and my two nieces, Gemma and Abbie, grinning for England, so pleased were they to be a part of Auntie Liz's wedding. The dresses were lavender. Not my favourite colour, but very flattering on Sharon, Charlotte and even Cassie.

Swipe.

The next was of Cassie and her mother. It's hard to think of little Cassie as being in her seventies now. Life has this trick of catching us unawares at times.

Swipe.

Pastor James and his lovely wife Marion. Pastor James conducted the wedding service. The legal part had been sorted with much giggling at the local registry office. The registrar had spoken to us in solemn tones of the seriousness of our undertaking, and I had been hard pressed not to give in to the giggles then and there. By the time we left with ink drying on our piece of legalese, Mike, Phil and Sharon had caught it as well and we had to sit down on the steps to let the laughter subside. Married three times Mike and me. First when we made our promises that first time together. Second in the registry office. Third and most properly by Pastor James.

Swipe.

Mr and Mrs Anderton-Buckley. I'd taken Clive to one side the Sunday after it was all over and told him how things had resolve themselves. He Nodded his thanks but shown no further emotion. I asked him why he wasn't angry, having gone to all that trouble to put together the two identities, for them to be made useless so soon. The memory of his response drifts forward from the recesses of my mind.

“Oh I wouldn't say useless. A few tweaks here and there and I can give them to another deserving cause. I'm only pleased that I won't be getting any more phone calls from you in the ungodly hours of the morning. I am assuming this is all over now.”

I nodded and kissed him on the cheek.

“That's for being so fantastic over all this. And if there's anything Mike or I can do for you, any time of the day or night. I mean it's only fair.”

He had taken us up on that a couple of times when he'd needed a place to keep someone safe at short notice, but he hadn't even come close to over-extending his credit with us.

Swipe

Doctor Marston with wife and children. A happier brood I never saw — until I had one of my own of course. It turned out that the incident in the gardens wasn't a one off. The doctor called me during the week to ask if I'd bumped into Mr Dawkins in the garden and, after I explained what had happened, he asked if I would come back to the institute to spend time with some of his other patients. It turned out that I had a calming influence whoever I touched, something that came in very handy when I had children of my own, or even when I was with other people's children. Just one touch and they calmed down. Every mother should be so blessed.

I spent quite a few Saturdays with Doctor Marston and his patients over the years. He was a good enough doctor to make use of a treatment that worked, even if he didn't understand how or why.

Swipe.

Jordan with a very dishy young girl on his arm. He'd delivered the roadster unscathed to my flat and followed all my instructions to the letter before walking the last half mile to his parent's home. We lost touch shortly after the wedding, but from what I saw of him, I imagine he lived a happy enough life.

Swipe.

Cousin Katie, on her own but content enough. Mike and I had continued to ride her horses when we could, right up until the point she sold the stable and retired. She and I still meet regularly to exchange gossip and to share the space Mike no longer filled in our lives.

Swipe.

Michael, Colin, Aaron and a group of others from Way Out. I still love the name we chose for its double meaning. Both a way out from the hopelessness of being stuck on the streets and way out in the sense of it being a crazy idea. It had worked though, and spread throughout the country in slow but steady steps. I'm still president emeritus for the organisation, whatever that counts for, and am asked at times to speak at public events. Aaron and Michael worked with Way Out until they retired. They didn't make much money at it, but they were rich in friends and stories of lives saved. They both told me many times that they had no regrets choosing to stick with us.

Swipe.

A surprise arrival from Mum and Dad. Dad was still on crutches after his knee operation and couldn't drive, which meant he was more or less hostage to Mum's whims, and since she wasn't going to miss her daughter's wedding, that kind of meant that he had to come along too.

I would have liked him to walk me down the aisle, but with his leg and everything it wouldn't have been fair. He never came round to believing that I had once been his son, and he died saddened by the belief that Ken had met an untimely end somewhere.

There had been security footage of the room when I'd been in there with Paul, but neither angel nor demon had appeared on camera, and with all the weird stopping and starting of time, my movements and changes on the video had been so disjointed it looked like a bad fake. Not the kind of proof Dad would have accepted.

Still he had been there, and so had my mother. It had all helped to make the day special.

Swipe

Well, with Gemma and Abbie as bridesmaids and Mum and Dad present, Glen and Lisa had to be somewhere too. There were a couple of shots of them. One on their own and the other with my two little nieces, still looking a gorgeous as ever in their dresses.

Swipe

Mrs Bailey and Paul. Mrs Bailey wearing a tight smile over a navy blue skirt and jacket. Her delight in being there shining from her eyes. Paul was less enthused. Mrs Bailey and I met up once or twice after the wedding, but she wouldn't say much about Paul. I hope he learnt from his experience. I hope he learned to live a better life. Sometimes hoping is all you can do.

Swipe

Detective Inspector and Mrs Chubb. I never did learn his first name. I had phoned him while Mike was driving us home that fateful afternoon and told him all that had happened. He was grateful for the news, knowing he could close that particular file once and for all, and a week later he managed to get my watch and necklace out the Grays police station and returned to me. We didn't really see much of them at the wedding, or after. Another friend briefly met, made and misplaced.

Swipe

Ann and Karen. Dear bubbly Ann of the dreadful coffee and Karen with the eternal phone stuck to her ear. More out of desperation and survival instinct, I had bought Ann a coffee maker and several packets of decent coffee for Christmas the first year we were together. It was a simple filter machine with jugs and hotplates, but I still had to show her how to use it. After that our visits became more bearable, and oddly her client base increased, although I claim no correlation between the two events.

Ann remained my agent and I carried on working with Karen for Elle-gance for the five years I strode the catwalk. Long enough to fill my wardrobe with clothes, and Mike's and my joint account with funds. Enough to help extend his restaurant into a chain.

James and Sandy opened the first of the new places shortly after we were married, and Mike took on two new sou-chefs to train up. It took eighteen months to train someone up to Mike's exacting standards, which meant we had four other restaurants running by the time I withdrew from the limelight to start a family, all of them doing well enough to mean that my salary wasn't missed.

Joy came along less than a year later, and Ruth twenty months after that. 'A few hours of pain for a lifetime of joy', that's how our first came by her name, and she lived up to it. Except for the times when she came home with skinned knuckles after fighting in the playground — defending her friends she said — or that year when every boy she brought home — and there were a few of them — had long greasy hair and leathers. The last of the bikers, the last of the petrol heads. Perhaps it we should have kept one for posterity.

There were other incidents to deal with, but in the end she grew into a young woman who has made me immensely proud; a firebrand with ideas of her own. She's fifty four now. No husband, no children for me to spoil, but what she has achieved in her life... I look into her eyes sometimes expecting to see sadness and loneliness, but all that radiates back is fulfilment and contentment. I suppose if it is enough for her, it should be enough for me; she's found her own way to live up to her name.

Ruth also lived up to her namesake, and with a lot less hassle. Always respectful, always close to home, always looking after her mother. And happily married with three children. The oldest graduated last year and works in one of the new fusion power stations. They're getting better each year. The first ones hauled us out of the energy crisis by the roots of our hair and the skin of our teeth, and they've only improved since then. What Andrew doesn't know about fusion reactors I doubt anyone else on the planet knows. It does make him a bit of a boring conversationalist, but he's my grandson and can listen to a lot of his drivel without growing tired of it.

Melanie's my second grandchild. She started medical school last year. She wants to be a paediatrician and I wish her well with it. And that leaves Peter, still working towards his A levels with offers at several good universities to read engineering. He wants to work on the space elevator that's being built in Kenya. From what he tells me the first carbon nanotube filament runs are in place and by the time he graduates they should be strong enough to carry test modules and small payloads. It doesn't bother me, I don't expect to live long enough to see anything come of it, but I do delight in his enthusiasm.

No, the future belongs to the young now. Me? I have the present and the past, and what a past. There are times I look back and wonder what my life would have been if I had never met Mary, or if Mike hadn't been able to restore me to my preferred self. I mean in most ways both Ken and Liz were the same person, but I know as Ken I would never have accomplished so much, never have enjoyed life so much. Ken was always a bad fit for me; uncomfortable and clumsy, like wearing someone else's clothes. It was only when I was able to be the person I truly wanted to be that I was able to stop struggling with who I was and turn my attention in other more positive directions.

I take a sip of my tea, but it has grown cold. Like life in many ways. Let other things distract you and before you know it, it turns cold and brackish. Drink it while it's hot and enjoy all its benefits.

The doorbell rings and a small window opens in the corner of the screen. De-localised artificial intelligence they call it. Someone presses the button outside, the AI finds where I am and connects the doorcam to the nearest digital imaging device, in this case the photo frame. This room has cameras on the videophone and the TriV. The AI would have activated both, decided which gave the best image, zoomed in and sent that down to the door viewer. I flip the doorcam image towards the TriV, which turns on to show Ruth looking at me and smiling.

“Hi Mum, are you ready?”

“Just let me get my bag and coat sweetheart, I'll be down directly.”

Directly takes a little longer these days, but this is my day so they can wait a while. I put the picture frame back where it belongs and leave the room, still with the ghost of a feeling that I should be turning things off as I leave, but the AI is already doing so.

I close the door and let Ruth take my arm. She tells me her little lies about how lovely I look and guides me to the waiting car. No hover cars yet, not even this far into the future, but at least what we have is clean and quiet. Ruth helps me up into the front seat before climbing in behind John, her husband. There isn't much to driving these days, but still the man's place is behind the wheel. I vaguely remember once feeling things like that and I don't miss them.

We pull out into traffic. Everything seems so built up these days, it's hard to see the sky. Cloudy today so not much missed. John and Ruth chatter away, telling me the latest news from my grandchildren. They think I think we're going to a quiet little place in town for a light lunch, but Peter let something slip on his last visit and I'm expecting something more elaborate. I suppose I will have to act surprised, but I do feel like company today. Maybe Sharon and Phil will have flown in, that would be special. I fondle the pendant round my neck and think of Mike.

“I'll see you soon my love. Not today, but soon.”