The Fairy Godmother Part 72

The evening meal we had prepared for their return had to be turned down to prevent it from burning, unfortunately it wouldn’t stop it from drying out, so I waved my wand and put it on hold.

“Shouldn’t they be back by now?” asked Enid as the hands of the clock moved closer to midnight.

“They should have been back hours ago,” I sighed.

“Are they in any danger?” asked Enid.

“I don’t think so,” I said checking my phone, when a text arrived.

“GONE TO CELEBRATE WITH THE EDITOR AND HIS GRANDSON. DON’T WAIT UP FOR US,” sent by Georgie.

“Couldn’t they have sent it earlier?” asked Enid.

“They did,” I replied. “But it’s only just got through to my phone, text is not a guaranteed instant service,” I replied.

“So we went to all this trouble for nothing,” said Enid.

“We can box it up and put it in the freezer,” I replied. “It can be eaten latter.”

“Aren’t you in the least bit disappointed?” asked Enid. “You went to all that trouble and they go off celebrating with the Editor and his grandson!”

“I can’t say that I’m not disappointed,” I sighed. “But they have done a lot of work as well, the Editor and his grandson have committed a lot to this.”

“Cobblers, if it wasn’t for you this would have been the last edition of that magazine and they would have struggled to recoup the cost of publishing it. What you did has probably helped wipe out a large proportion, if not all, of the debts they have accrued,” snapped Enid.

“I am too tired to argue,” I replied, waving my wand at the food which divided itself into boxes, labelled themselves up and leapt into the freezer.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Enid.

“I’m going to curl up on this chair and go to sleep,” I said, sitting down and closing my eyes.

“And what about me?” Enid asked.

“You can sleep on the sofa or you could go back to your rooms, the choice is yours,” I replied yawning.

“You were the one who thought I shouldn’t be alone,” Enid reminded me.

“If you stay here with me,” I said. “Then they will feel guilty when they turn up.”

“That sounds good to me,” said Enid. “I think that they should be made to feel guilty for leaving you out of the celebrations.”

“Also, we’ll find out what it is that they are celebrating,” I replied.

“What do you mean?” Enid asked.

“I think they may be celebrating too soon,” I replied. “I suspect they have had good sales today, but one days sales, that isn’t enough to me for a celebration. I could be missing something, but I don’t know what.”

“So we wait here for them to see what they have to say,” said Enid.

“About sums it up,” I said yawning.

Did I sleep? It’s hard to say. At three thirty in the morning I heard a key in the door of the flat, followed by it being opened with a rush and banging against the wall. There was a lot of giggling.

“You could sleep on the sofa,” said what sounded like Georgie.

“I’d rather sleep in your bed,” said what sounded like the Editor’s grandson.

“You make your minds up,” said Juliet. “I’m going to make a cup of tea,” she added and then opened the door of the living room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” shouted Georgie.

“You were going to tell me how things were going, if you remember,” I said.

“We didn’t expect you to wait here,” said Juliet. “And who’s the old bag snoring on the sofa?”

“I hope she’s clean,” said Georgie.

“A dam sight cleaner than you were when I met you,” I replied, standing up and waving my wand. Enid and I were back in her rooms.

“I hope you didn’t mind me leaving you to deal with that,” said Enid.

“I thought you were asleep,” I said.

“I was tempted to say something, but it was your job,” she said.

“And what would you have said?” I asked. “Just out of curiosity.”

“I’d have turned them into toads, they were acting like them,” she said.

“I’ve generally found that toads tend to be grateful of anything you do for them,” I said.

“So what will you do next?” asked Enid.

“Leave them to stew,” I replied. “I have a feeling that this is only the first battle in the war, they haven’t won yet, they’ve only got the attention of the other magazine. They aren’t going to take this lying down, they will fight back and when that happens they are going to need me.”

“And you will go along to do whatever they want,” said Enid.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“For about two seconds,” said Enid. “And then you’ll help. I know you.”

“You’re probably right,” I sighed. “But they’ve got to come to me. Meanwhile, I think we need to talk about your parents.”

“Do we have to talk about them?” Enid asked.

“My instinct is to cut them out of my life, but,” I sighed.

“But?” asked Enid.

“The first thing you did when Lily died was contact your Mother,” I said.

“So?”

“It means there has to be more to her than just a self obsessed egotist,” I replied.

“Why?” Enid asked.

“Because you thought she’d want to know about Lily,” I replied.

“And do you know what she said?” Enid asked.

“Of course not,” I replied.

“Her first words when she answered the phone were “Who is this?” I spent five minutes reminding her I was her daughter, Enid. She asked why I’d rung, I told her about Lily and she said “Lily who?”. I then spent a couple of minutes explaining that she had a daughter called Lily, who had killer herself. She said, if Lily’s dead then she no longer has a daughter called Lily and hung up.”

“Did you tell him what had happened?” I asked.

“I tried,” Enid sighed. “But you heard what he had to say about babies.”

“They are women’s work, nothing to do with men,” I said.

“His attitude doesn’t change when they get older,” Enid sighed. “He told me to talk to my Mother about it and not bother him with trivialities.”

“How do you feel about that?” I asked.

“I think, all in all, I would have preferred to have been dumped in the nursery and ignored,” Enid sighed. “It would have been better than being ignored at home.”

“There must have been someone there who looked after you,” I said.

“Yes, Nanny,” said Enid.

“Would it be possible to meet her?” I asked.

“Do you remember Eve, at the nursery?” Enid asked.

“Of course I remember her, she worked in the kitchens and was the only nice person in the place, I used to go to her whenever I got upset or put upon,” I replied. “What’s Eve got to do with anything?”

“She was my and Lily’s Nanny,” said Enid. “Of course, when we grew up she wasn’t needed so she went to work at the Nursery.”

“Why didn’t she say?” I asked.

“I told her not to,” said Enid. “I said that if she ever told you who I was, that I’d make sure she lost her job and that she wouldn’t get a job anywhere near children ever again.”

“She was always good to me, wasn’t she good to you?” I asked.

“She was the Mother I wished I’d had,” said Enid.

“So why the threats?” I asked.

“She’d have told and I couldn’t bare for you to know who I was,” said Enid.

“You hated me that much?” I asked.

“You don’t understand,” said Enid. “I couldn’t have you around, but things have changed since then, we work together quite well, sometimes.”

“So now I’m tolerated! Thanks,” I snapped and waved my wand. I appeared in the back garden of the nursery, Eve was pegging out the washing on the first of many lines. There always seemed to be a never ending pile of washing to do at the nursery.

“Myrtle,” said Eve smiling. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

“It’s a long story,” I sighed.

“I heard you’d found out who your Mother is,” said Eve. “You do know I couldn’t tell you.”

“Probably a good job that you didn’t,” I smiled.

“I’m making a cup of tea after I’ve pegged this lot out, would you like to join me?”

“That would be nice,” I smiled. “Do you want a hand with the pegging.”

“Many hands make light work,” she smiled.

By Janice Nye © 2020