The Fairy Godmother Part 20

I didn’t think it was polite to comment on the flavour of the hot chocolate. Something seemed a little off, but it was very smooth and soothing for my throat and it did shut that annoying cough up, soon I was fast asleep. Perhaps I have misjudged him and he does have at least one redeeming feature.

“Right,” said Enid to him. “No more miss nice fairy godmother.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You know the good fairy, bad fairy routine,” said Enid. “Well she’s the good fairy.”

“But she’s been threatening me with a laser canon!” he replied. “How can she be the good fairy.”

“Because I am far worse than she could ever be,” Enid smiled. “She was thinking of something along the lines of the old Scrooge story to shake you out of your current state of being.”

“You mean the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future?” he asked nervously.

“Something along that line,” said Enid. “Personally I was thinking of something along the lines of Girlfriends past, present and future.”

“I don’t understand,” he said looking worried his gaze turning to the door and the rather odd sound of someone banging on it.

“Better go and see who it is?” Enid smiled. “You don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Is this Girlfriends past?” he asked.

“You wont find out stand here,” Enid said. “And one of them may still have a key,” she added, laughing as he ran to the door. He opened it cautiously and the small crowd pushed past him and made their way to the kitchen.

“Is this the latest victim?” the first one asked, seeing his Fairy Godmother asleep on the sofa.

“She is my Fairy Godmother and she’s got a cold,” he muttered, trying to make his way into the kitchen.

“Fairy Godmother,” someone laughed.

“Did you give her some hot chocolate?” another asked.

“You had the hot chocolate as well?” the first one in asked.

“We’d better hang around till she wakes up,” said the last one through the kitchen door.

“I wouldn’t,” he shouted.

“Changed have you,” one of them asked.

“She isn’t human, she’s a fairy godmother,” he muttered.

“That wouldn’t have stopped you before,” one of them replied and the rest of them laughed.

“Nothing would have stopped you,” one said bitterly.

“Just part of the plan to get someone to look after you,” said a voice which he didn’t recognise.

“Who said that?” he asked.

“Why are you interested?” they asked.

“Because I don’t remember you, I recognise everyone else, can’t put a name to all of you, but you I don’t remember at all,” he said as the person changed back into Enid.

“It’s nice to know you remember us to some extent,” said one of them.

“Tina,” he said looking at her.

“I’m Lisa,” she said.

“I thought you were Tina?” he mumbled.

“I’m Tina,” said someone else who looked remarkably similar.

“Of course you are,” he said. “I don’t know how I could have mistaken you and I don’t know why I left you.”

“I left you,” she snapped. “You were a swine. You expected me to take time off work when you had a bit of a cold and expected me to go in to work when I was nearly delirious, I had a fervour, even the kiddie thermometer said, go to the hospital.”

“You did work at the hospital,” he said.

“I worked at a dentists,” she snapped.

“Easy mistake to make,” he muttered.

“Shows how much interest you took in my work,” Tina said.

“OK, I’m not perfect,” he replied. “But I tried.”

“That’s the problem,” said Lisa. “You didn’t try. I worked nights.”

“I never complained about it,” he said quickly.

“You never did the shopping,” she snapped. “The shops were shut when I came home from work, I’d have to get up early to go out and get everything. You wouldn’t even tell me what we needed, I had to guess and if I got it wrong, you’d go on about how I couldn’t even sort that out.”

“You went past the shops,” he muttered.

“When they were shut,” she shouted.

“Oh!” he said. “I didn’t realise.”

“You just sat around all day, I had to go out in the afternoon and get everything,” she snapped. “It would have been nice having you there telling me what we needed and helping with the carrying.”

“He wasn’t much good at that,” said another and everyone turned to look at her. “He used to come with me to the shops. All he ever wanted was crisps and booze.”

“Typical,” was the general reply.

“It wasn’t all I wanted,” he replied. “I suggested tissues one time.”

“You are right,” she agreed. “He was coming down with a cold,” she told the crowd. “I was picking the soggy masses up from all round the flat for the next month!”

“I didn’t think it was a good idea to put them in the bin,” he said. “It might have spread the infection.”

“You could have put them in a plastic bag or something anything other than leave a trail of them round the place,” she told him.

“I thought you liked living here, with me,” he said looking confused.

“We didn’t move in to be your career,” said one girl.

“We thought it would be an equal partnership,” said another.

“Not us getting a job and then coming home to wait on you,” said Tina.

“That is why we left, you were too much like hard work,” said Lisa. He sat down, shaking his head and one by one all his ex-girlfriends left, except for one, standing in the shadows.

“That is girlfriends past,” said Enid.

“I haven’t got a girlfriend at the moment,” he said. “So how do you plan to do that?”

“Did you think for one moment that I would come back to this tip?” the last of his ex-girlfriends asked him, moving our from he shadows.

“I’ve tidied up a bit,” he started.

“Only because sleepy head here made you and look what’s happened to her, she’s picked up some bug or other that was lying in the dust,” she said heading towards the door.

“I’m no good without you,” he said. “I fell to pieces when you left me.”

“It looks like it,” she said pausing for a second. “But no one likes to be the support person, the one without whom nothing happens, the cook, cleaner and all round dogs body.”

“But,” he said.

“There were things I wanted to do, but after working all night and spending all day looking after you, I didn’t have any energy left,” she replied.

“I didn’t know,” he sighed.

“You never asked,” she said walking out of the flat door and letting it slam shut behind her.

“Girlfriends future?” he asked slowly.

“Come with me,” said Enid holding out her hand to him. He took it and they sailed through the window together, to a dance club where he spent the evening talking to any girl he saw. As the dancers began to thin out and people went home he found himself talking to a girl at the bar.

“So where are you going to now,” he asked as the music stopped and the man behind the bar refused to sell any more drinks.

“Good question,” she sighed. “I’d go home, but I’m not welcome there any more.”

“You could come home with me,” he said. Next thing they were in her car speeding along the road to his block of flats.

“Are you sure you live round here?” she asked as people scurried into the shadows when they pulled up in front of the block.

“I live on the 15^th floor,” he said pointing towards the block and people started coming out of the shadows towards them.

“I’m not that desperate,” she muttered, opened the door, pushed him out and then drove off at high speed. He looked around at the people walking towards him and started running towards the flats. There was an “Out of order” sign on the lift door and he headed for the stairs, running as fast as he could in the hope that they would give up whilst he could still run. He had the key to his flat in his hand two floors before he got there and as he opened his door an avalanche of rubbish fell on him.

He woke up to find himself lying on the kitchen floor fighting with the kitchen bin, Enid was watching him.

“Do you see what needs changing?” she asked.

“So much,” he said. “Not just me and I can’t do it all, I’m just one person.”

“What time of year is it?” Enid asked.

“Christmas,” he said.

“And what do we celebrate?” she asked.

“The birth of Jesus,” he said.

“And he was one person,” Enid replied.

“I am not him,” he said.

“This is one block of flats, not the world,” said Enid. “Start by changing yourself and this flat, then get to know your neighbours, give them a hand with things and work form there. This place needs a bit of community spirit, people helping each other.”

“Is that what she was doing when she got the dealers arrested?” he asked.

“You noticed?” Enid said.

“I hear things,” he smiled.

“That was bringing the place down, making people not want to go out after dark, the residents need to reclaim the night and get things in this place working properly, you got the lift sorted,” Enid said.

“And that will change the Christmas yet to come?” he asked.

“Of course it will,” Enid replied. “The past is history, we can learn from it. The present is where we start from and the future is ours to create.”

“I’d better get cleaning,” he said as I yawned and stretched.

“Your work is done here,” Enid told me, time to go.

“But,” I muttered as the flat disappeared and we stood once more in the Hall of the Fairy Council.

“Sleeping on the job again,” said the Head of the Fairy Council. “We have Christmas to sort. There is work to do, get out of my sight the both of you!”

by Janice Nye © 2019