The Fairy Godmother Part 64

“Well?” asked Enid.

“Well what?” I replied.

“You’ve seen your Father,” she said. “And?”

“I’m thinking,” I said.

“Thinking! What’s to think about? He dumped me when I needed him most,” she snapped.

“That’s not the way he saw it,” I said.

“Yes, well, he’s bound to paint things differently,” Enid said. “I know what happened.”

“So, tell me, from your point of view, what happened,” I said.

“This is ancient history,” she said. “Why go over old ground.”

“Because we haven’t gone over it before,” I said. “And because, if you don’t tell me the story, from your view point, I’m going to assume his is the right one.”

“OK, so where do you want me to start?” Enid asked.

“Start at the beginning,” I said. “Start with when you met.”

“He’ll probably have told you it was when he was trying to get a statue through a door which was too small for it to get through,” she sighed.

“This is your side of the story, you start it where you choose to, don’t go second guessing what Adam had to say,” I replied, getting myself comfortable, we were sitting under one of Adam’s sculptures in the park.

“I first saw him in this park, it looked a lot different then, the sculptures weren’t there for a start off. It was spring and there were tons of daffodils everywhere. He was with a group of students from the art college, I think they had been told to make sketches or something, gather inspiration from the park. As a crowd, they were nothing special, but he stood out, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. I had things to do that day, but I forgot what they were and just followed him, watching everything he did, listening to everything he said. He was obviously a student, but he was helping the others with whatever they were doing, yet still managing to do something himself, I hovered behind him, his work had me spell bound, the day passed quickly into night and still I couldn’t leave,” she sighed.

“You would have been an apprentice?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “And the Head of the Fairy Godmothers was not best pleased with me. I spent the next two years at the North Pole organising Santa’s lists of naughty and nice children. I have never been so cold in all my life.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d like being there,” I said.

“The only thing that kept me going was the thought of him and now I find out that he hadn’t even noticed me!” Enid snapped.

“You’ve always said, that when you are following someone you should never let them know that you are there,” I reminded her.

“That’s true,” she said. “I suppose that was what I was doing.”

“What happened when you got back from your stint with Santa?” I prompted her.

“I was walking through the park on my way to do something, I forget what,” she sighed. “The students were there again, most importantly, so was he, his hair was longer and his clothes tattier, but then students don’t tend to look smart. But it was him, I spent the rest of the day following him. The Head of the Fairy Godmothers was equally unamused, but I managed to talk my way out of a return visit to Santa or a job at the south pole, it involved a research team there, I can’t remember the details.

Next day, I saw him with the statue, trying to get it through a door that was obviously too small for it to go through. I was wondering how to explain this to him when he threw something down in anger, he probably thought it only just missed me, I had to deflect it or I wouldn’t be here today. Anyway, that is the point at which he first knew I existed, I’d know about him for a few years by then. What did I see in him? I don’t know, but he dominated my every waking thought and chased me through my dreams.”

“Who proposed to who?” I asked.

“Proposed?” she asked.

“Who brought up the subject of marriage?” I reworded the question.

“It was a leap year, so I asked him,” she said.

“And he said yes?” I asked.

“Eventually,” she said.

“How many times did you ask?” I said.

“The first time I asked, it had just struck midnight,” she sighed. “He finally agreed about ten minutes before the end of the day.”

“How many times did you ask?” I repeated my question.

“I don’t know, about ten or twenty times an hour,” she said.

“You couldn’t take no for an answer?” I asked.

“Of course not, I had to have him, I didn’t care about all the gossip liking him with Velvet, he was mine, I couldn’t live without him, I wouldn’t,” Enid said.

“Did you tell him that?” I asked.

“Yes,” Enid replied smiling. “That was when he told me that he would marry me and that we would always be together.”

“Is that what he said?” I asked.

“Something like that,” she smiled. “It doesn’t matter about the exact words, he was mine and that was all that mattered.”

“And the honeymoon?” I asked.

“Was a honeymoon,” said Enid. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about I with you.”

“But it was a good time?” I asked. “You were both happy at the end of it.”

“I thought so,” she said. “He was annoyed when Mother turned up, I don’t know why?”

“Maybe he thought the honeymoon was for you two to get to know each other?” I suggested.

“He needed to meet the family as well,” Enid said.

“Perhaps he thought that could wait till after the honeymoon,” I suggested.

“I don’t know why,” said Enid.

“After the honeymoon, were you both happy?” I asked.

“He didn’t like what I said about his work,” Enid admitted. “I was only trying to help, but he didn’t want my help, he kept saying he knew what he was doing which was more than I did. We argued and he walked out on me, but he came back when I suggested that we try for a baby. He seemed happy to do that and when you were due, he was more than happy. I thought life was perfect.”

“But?” I asked.

“No one told me that birth was so painful!” she admitted. “I used to worry about you marrying some man and getting pregnant,” she shuddered. “But I realise now that you are too sensible to do something like that.”

“Thanks,” I muttered to myself

“Did you say something?” she asked.

“No,” I replied. Not that it would bother her if she had heard me. The thought that she didn’t think I would ever have a child, was somehow disturbing, not that I’d ever thought about it, but I might.

“After giving birth to you, I didn’t want him anywhere near me,” said Enid. “I didn’t want you either, but practicality meant that we had to go home and someone had to look after you, so I let him do that, he did seem to be totally besotted with you.”

“And how did that work?” I asked.

“At first I left him to look after you, I had my work as a Fairy Godmother and that kept me busy,” Enid replied. “But, he wasn’t doing his usual art work, he was just drawing pictures of you, pretty enough, but nothing to bring in any money.”

“So?” I prompted her.

“I started telling him what to do, finding people who wanted to commission art works, that sort of thing. He said he already had an agent and he didn’t need me to try and do her work for him, especially as I didn’t know what I was doing. I realised it wasn’t working, so I decided you had to go,” Enid said.

“Why me?” I asked stunned.

“Looking after you was taking his mind off his art work,” said Enid. “And I couldn’t look after you, so I took you to the nursery with instructions that there was to be no contact with your Father. After all, the idea was to remove the distraction from him, that wouldn’t work if he still had contact with you.”

“And he agreed to this!” I asked.

“It wasn’t his decision to make,” she said. “You were my baby, I made the decision.”

“I was his baby as well!” I said, trying to keep my voice under control.

“That’s what he said when he left,” Enid replied, sounding rather puzzled.

“Did you expect him to leave, after what you’d done?” I asked.

“All I did was remove a distraction so that he could concentrate on his work,” said Enid.

“And you thought that would make him happy?” I asked.

“I don’t know why it didn’t,” said Enid. “But he went off with Velvet and she seemed to make him happy.”

“And what about me, in all of this?” I asked.

“The nursery did a perfectly good job of bringing you up,” said Enid. “I don’t see that there’s a problem.”

“Except I never knew who my parents were,” I replied.

“You do now,” Enid smiled. “Though I have no idea why you wanted to know about that waste of talent of a Father.”

“He is a very talented artist,” I shouted.

“He would have done so much better if he’d listened to me,” said Enid. “Velvet, she has no ambition, she just let him do what he wanted, that’s why she is still working in the laundry.”

“You are impossible,” I shouted.

“I don’t see the problem,” she said.

“You are the problem and I don’t want to be around you at the moment,” I said, turning my back to her.

“OK, you have a sulk,” she said. “I’ll be around when you want to talk.”

By Janice Nye © 2020