“Tidying, not my favourite job, if it was then my rooms would never become untidy enough to need it, I suppose. Anyway, I’ve done plenty of it lately, so I’m in practice,” I thought looking round the room. Actually, it didn’t look that bad, now the laundry had gone off, Velvet had done the dishes, wiped the surfaces, taken out the rubbish and picked the magazines up off the floor, so there were just a few things littering the floor.
It only took an hour get get the place looking immaculate, of course, the cupboards and the drawers could do with a thorough clear out, but the surface looked good and the rest could wait for a rainy day or some other inspiration. I still hadn’t sorted out what, if anything to do about my family.
“A cup of tea, that would be a good idea,” I told myself and was just about to get underway when the phone rang.
“There’s always someone,” I muttered, picking it up. The phone said Georgie. “Didn’t think I’d hear from her again.”
“Hello Georgie,” I said, trying to sound bright and failing drastically.
“Myrtle,” she said, sounding like she was busy trying to think of what to say next . “I know you probably didn’t want to hear from me, things weren’t so good between us when we last met.” She paused for a moment .
“So why are you ringing me?” I asked, as if I didn’t know that I was the last person she’d ring and therefore she was desperate.
“You’ve done so much for us,” Georgie said, rambling.
“What is the problem?” I asked, trying to cut to the chase.
“It’s Juliet,” Georgie replied.
“What about her?” I asked.
“She’s in trouble,” Georgie sighed.
“About what?” I asked, this was beginning to get annoying.
“It’s very difficult,” said Georgie.
“Well, you aren’t the only people I am helping, so if you can’t explain your problem, perhaps you aught to ring back later when you’ve worked out what it is,” I said, preparing to hang up.
“I know you are upset with us and I am sorry, but I need your help now,” said Georgie. “There is no one else I can turn to.”
“Alright,” I sighed and waved my wand.
“Myrtle!” Georgie screamed as her phone went dead.
“Myrtle! What sort of name is that for someone,” the woman laughed, snatching the phone from Georgie’s hand, throwing it to the ground and stamping on it with her stiletto heel till it was in several pieces on the ground.
“She is my Fairy Godmother,” said Georgie.
“Really, well even she is going to find it hard to locate you, let alone do anything to help you or Juliet,” she replied.
“Not that hard,” I smiled, waving my wand so that the phone rebuilt itself. “It’s amazing the memory some materials have,” I added, directing the phone to Georgie’s hand and then removing both of us from the place.
“What the hell!” shouted the woman as we disappeared.
“And who was that unpleasant woman?” I asked Georgie.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“In my rooms,” I replied. “Now, who was that?”
“You remember my last landlord?” Georgie asked.
“That wasn’t him,” I replied. “Though thinking on, he did look a bit like her.”
“That’s his Mother,” said Georgie shuddering. “And she is no where near as nice as he was.”
“He wasn’t nice at all,” I said. “And why are we talking about him in the past?”
“He didn’t come up to her expectations,” said Georgie. “So she got rid of him.”
“As in killed him?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Georgie. “But don’t tell her I said that, because if she thought I had any prof then I’d be joining him, as would Juliet.”
“She’d have to find you both first,” I smiled. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a minute,” I added, waving my wand.
“Myrtle!” Juliet said. I looked around the room she was in, it was cold, damp and dark, rather like a dungeon and she was chained to the wall, a bit like a prisoner in some ancient film, with a bowl of water just out of reach.
“I take it you wouldn’t object to a change of scenery?” I asked.
“Please,” she said as the door opened.
“You again,” snapped the woman, as I wavered my wand.
“Juliet!” screamed Georgie as we materialised in my rooms.
“There’s more to that woman than just being your ex-landlords mother,” I said to them.
“They say she’s a witch,” said Juliet.
“They say that about most evil, scheming old women,” I said.
“There’s no need to be like that about me,” said Enid appearing on the sofa next to Georgie, the poor girl jumped off the sofa and would have dashed out of the room if she hadn’t fallen over a footstool which I don’t remember having.
“I thought it was time you had a footstool,” said Enid. “I can see me visiting you a bit more often now and I do like to have a footstool, some of us aren’t quiet so tall,” she added as the footstool dashed across the room and placed itself under her feet. Georgie climbed onto a near by chair and pulled her feet under her.
“Things were strange and now they are getting stranger,” she said. “I don’t know if I can cope with any more of this.”
“Who are you ringing?” Mum asked.
“Ethel,” I said. “There’s more to that woman than meets the eye and I think Ethel can help us find out what.”
“Myrtle?” Ethel replied.
“I have a little job for you,” I replied.
“I think I know what it is,” said Ethel sounding very nervous.
“Is she there?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the woman’s voice and then the phone went dead.
“Do you know her?” I asked Enid.
“Yes,” she said. “At least I think I do?”
“Then we had better go and see,” I replied, giving my wand a quick wave.
“Enid,” said the woman. “I thought if I kept digging I’d find you at the bottom somewhere.”
“What do you want?” Enid asked.
“Straight to the point, no how have you been, what have you been doing, non of the usual pleasantries,” the woman spanned.
“I could say the same of you,” Enid replied. “But then, you never were interested in anyone but yourself.”
“Lily wouldn’t think much of your attitude,” the woman snapped. “She always paid due respect to me.”
“Who the hell is she?” I asked Enid.
“She is my elder sister, your Aunt Ivy,” Enid replied.
“Poison Ivy, you used to call me, whenever you thought I couldn’t hear you,” Ivy replied aiming a clout at her sister.
“Do you have any other sisters or brothers that I haven’t been told about?” I asked.
“Non that I know about,” said Enid. “There’s just her and me!”
“Lily, don’t forget about Lily, she’s not got to be happy when I tell her that you forgot about her,” said Ivy.
“Lily is dead,” I said.
“What happened?” Ivy asked, suddenly looking smaller and less threatening that before.
“She hung herself,” I explained.
“I didn’t know,” she muttered.
“It isn’t as if you are in contact,” said Enid. “I mean, we don’t have your phone number or an address, so we couldn’t contact you.”
“Natasha does,” Ivy replied.
“Well then, you can take that up with her,” I replied. “I want to know why you were bothering Georgie and Juliet.”
“Georgie owed rent, at least six months worth to my son,” Ivy replied.
“Is that the one you killed?” I asked.
“He isn’t dead,” said Ivy. “I didn’t like the way he was working, so I sent him off for retraining. I don’t know where he learnt such evil tactics.”
“Going by what you’ve just done, I would say he learnt them from you,” I said.
“ME!” she shouted.
“You,” I replied. “You are the one who kidnapped Georgie and Juliet.”
“They wouldn’t listen to me, said they were too busy,” Ivy explained. “I was just taking them away from distractions.”
“And threatening to kill them, the way you killed your own son,” I said.
“He isn’t dead,” said Ivy. “I just sent him on a course to learn how to talk to people so that he didn’t have so many disputes. I thought, perhaps they could learn something from it as well. I don’t know where they got the idea that he was dead.”
“It was the way you told your people to deal with him,” said Georgie.
“You have too much imagination,” said Ivy.
“I think you are the one who needs to go on that course,” I replied. “That is, after we’ve seen this son of yours to make sure he is alive.”
“OK,” Ivy replied sulkily. “What about the rent?”
“If I took the authorities round that flat it would be condemned,” I told her. “Then you would be paying compensation to Georgie and be forced to make the place habitable.”
“It was a very nice flat when I gave it to my son,” said Ivy.
“Well, it isn’t now,” I said. “And that still doesn’t excuse what you have done today. Georgie and Juliet are traumatised.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Ivy. “Bye the way, Enid, we have at least two brothers.”
“At least, don’t you know for certain?” I asked.
“Malcolm and Natasha, they are as bad as each other as far as fidelity goes,” Ivy said.
“The more I find out about this side of my family the more I find out I don’t know,” I said. “You need to sort things out with Georgie and Juliet and then. I don’t know what.”
“You could go to the place with my son, I’ll pay for both of you?” Ivy suggested.
“I think you aught to go there,” said Georgie.
“And I don’t want to be anywhere near either you or your son,” said Juliet. “I just want to sort out next months magazine.”
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Natasha doesn’t look as if she’s going to get the next room sorted in time,” said Juliet. “She keeps falling asleep.”
“I’ve got her an apprentice, that should help her finish things,” I said.
“And, I’m short of an idea to hang the magazine on,” said Juliet.
“The summer holidays are coming up,” I said.
“And everyone will have sorted out their clothes,” snapped Juliet.
“But have they sorted out their books, their holiday reading matter, different things for different places round the world,” I suggested.
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that,” said Juliet.
“Now we all have places to be,” I said, giving my wand a quick wave and sending them all there.
By Janice Nye © 2020
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