The Fairy Godmother Part 62

“You’ve been back a week,” said Enid gradually appearing next to me.

“I’ve been thinking,” I replied.

“What’s there to think about?” asked Enid.

“A lot of things,” I replied.

“Such as?” asked Enid.

“You admitted to being my Mother because, well, I suppose, you’d been backed into a corner and didn’t have any choice,” I replied slowly. I wasn’t really sure how to say what I wanted to say without it coming out wrong.

“OK, so I’m your Mother,” said Enid. “I don’t see that it’s such a big deal.”

“Would you have told me, if you didn’t have to?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Enid replied. “It didn’t seem all that relevant to me.”

“It is to me,” I said. “I always thought you didn’t like me. You were always finding fault in everything I did. Nothing I ever did was ever good enough for you.”

“I knew you were capable of better,” said Enid. “I didn’t want you to ever do less than your best with any job.”

“You could have tried praising me when I did well,” I replied.

“How would you learn if I didn’t tell you where you could have done better?” asked Enid.

“How could I learn if you don’t tell me when I’m doing something right?” I asked in reply.

“I don’t see what this has to do with me being your Mother?” said Enid, changing the subject again, though I have to admit I was going off at a tangent a bit.

“I thought you didn’t like me because I’d done something to upset you,” I said. “Now I’ve found out that the one thing I did was to be born!”

“I don’t follow your logic,” Enid admitted.

“If I hadn’t been born, perhaps you and Dad wouldn’t have split up,” I said.

“Very likely,” said Enid.

“No, Mum,” I said. “This is the bit where you say it wasn’t my fault, he’d have left anyway or something like that.”

“But that isn’t the case,” said Enid. “I became pregnant and he wasn’t interested in hanging round. He left me for that woman in the laundry. He just didn’t want to be around children.”

“Yet, from all accounts, he didn’t leave her when she became pregnant,” I said.

“She wasn’t expecting you was she,” Enid snapped.

“Or was it that her baby wasn’t being carried by you,” I replied and waved my wand to take me somewhere else that she wasn’t.

It took me a couple of minutes to realise that I was in the fairy laundry, I think it was all the steam that did it. It felt like my eyes were steaming up and that I should have windscreen wipers on the insides of them or something.

“Hello,” said Violet’s Mother. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here, everything is running smoothly and if I remember rightly, Violet is Head of the Fairy Godmothers now?”

“Sorry, I was having an argument with Enid, my Mother, and it just got a bit much, I just wanted to be somewhere that she wouldn’t follow me,” I said.

“You chose a good place,” she smiled. “This would be the last place you’d find her.”

“I’d better leave you in peace,” I said. “You have work to do and I’d only be in the way.”

“Come to my office,” she smiled. “You look upset. Violet told me that you’d found out about Enid being your Mother.”

“She did a great job of keeping that secret,” I said.

“So I wouldn’t be wrong in guessing that this row has something to do with that?” she asked.

“Seems, it was all my fault, her and Dad splitting up,” I said.

“No,” said Violet’s Mother. “They split up long before you came along.”

“She said he left when he found out that I was on the way,” I explained.

“He wouldn’t have done that,” Violet’s Mother explained. “Your Father wanted children, she didn’t, so he left her. She went frantic, threatened all sorts of things if he didn’t go back to her, so he went back, in the hope that he could get her to realise that they wanted two different lives and that it was best if they parted as friends rather than they stay together to stop her doing anything silly.

“What did she do?” I asked.

“She said stay for a month and we can talk about it at the end,” Violet’s Mum said.

“And then she told them she was pregnant?” I asked.

“Yes,” sighed Violet’s Mother. “She told him that she couldn’t cope with a baby all on her own, that he had to stay with her. So he stayed.”

“When did he leave?” I asked.

“You were six months old,” said Violet’s Mother.

“I thought he left before I was born,” I said.

“He tried to stay with her, but she was too controlling. He even offered to take you with him, but she wouldn’t have that. She said, perhaps, if you’d been a boy, it might have worked, but a girl should be brought up by her Mother. Next thing he knew, you’d been dropped off at the nursery and he’d been denied any access to you,” Violet’s Mother explained.

“Would it be possible for me to talk to him?” I asked.

“The rules that prevent him from having any access to you have passed,” Violet’s Mother explained. “You can talk to whoever you want to and I know for a fact that he would like to talk to you.”

“So why hasn’t he?” I asked.

“I told him what I’d do to him if he came anywhere near you,” Enid hissed.

“I didn’t think you’d find me here,” I said, glaring at her.

“That’s what I was counting on,” said Enid. “He is and always has been, a total waste of space. I don’t know why you would want to waste your time on him.”

“You didn’t think he was a waste of space, not then, or you wouldn’t have tried to use me to keep him,” I said.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” said Enid.

“And which mistake would that be, falling for him or conceiving me?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Enid.

“If that’s what you think of me why have you gone to so much effort to make sure I don’t ever get to talk to him?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she replied.

“So explain,” I said.

“You would have to be a Mother to understand,” Enid replied.

“Well then I’d better talk to him,” I said.

“I forbid it,” said Enid.

“Only I’m too old for you to do that,” I said.

“He’s in the laundry,” said Violet’s Mother. “I thought I’d ring him and tell him what was going on.”

“If you talk to him, then I shan’t ever talk to you again,” said Enid.

“Is that a promise?” I asked.

“You are impossible,” she snapped and with a wave of her wand she was gone.

“Are you sure that was wise?” asked Violet’s Mother.

“Wise,” I said. “She has never been able to stay away for more than a few hours, except when she dumped me at the nursery. We’ll see how long it lasts this time.”

“If you are sure,” said Violet’s Mother.

“Lead on,” I said. “It would be nice to meet my Father and hear his side of the story.”

“It may not be what you hoped it would be,” Violet’s Mother warned me.

“I have no expectations,” I smiled.

“This is your Father,” said Violet’s Mother as a man appeared at the office door.

“And you would be Myrtle?” he asked. “Not that there could be any doubt, you are the spitting image of your Mother at that age.”

“There’s no need to insult me,” I replied.

“She was beautiful then, just as you are now,” he said. “And I’m not just saying that.”

“You’re the only one who thinks so,” I replied. “But that’s beside the point.”

“The point being that you have a lot of questions to ask me,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, trying to get them sorted in my head. “The first one being, who are you?”

By Janice Nye © 2020