A Fairy in the Kitchen

Photo by Pırıl Osmanoğlu via Unsplash

Written by Judith Meikle

“Bernice! Quickly! There’s another fairy in the kitchen!” Mum’s voice is high, agitated.

I sigh and close my laptop.  My mother is standing in the middle of the kitchen, hands on hips, glaring at the glass pendants above the kitchen island. I look up, knowing what I’ll see.

“It’s a butterfly mum…a painted lady," I say and take her by the elbow to steer her away. She shakes off my hand with an irritated flick. She’s still glowering at the thing as it bangs hopelessly against the lit bulb.

“I know a fairy when I see one, and that’s a fairy, I’m telling you. They’re bad luck.” Her mouth is a line of grim determination. “I used to have a book on how to get rid of them,” she whispers. “I wonder if it’s still in the bookcase?” She wanders out of the kitchen while I stare at the poor creature, trapped and thrumming against the glass.

 I return to the living room to find her standing in the middle of the room. There are stains on her blouse, and I remind myself that I must do some more washing. Her hair could do with a brush too but I’m late for a teams meeting.

“I was doing something a minute ago…” she trails off. 

“Doesn’t matter mum, shall I make you a cup of tea?” She nods the exaggerated yes of a toddler. “Sit down then.” I switch on the TV. A rerun of ‘The Blue Planet’ is playing.

“Oh, your dad loves this programme,” she exclaims. “Go and see if he wants to come in and watch it would you? He can’t be tinkering in that shed of his forever.”

This time, I play along and tell her that he’ll be in soon, just to spare us both the grief. 

When I return with the tea, she’s not there. A breeze is blowing from the open front door, and I race to the garden gate just as my neighbour is leading her by the hand across the pavement. 

“Saw her from my front room, pet,” she says cheerily.  “I’m waiting on my Sainsbury’s delivery. I says to her, Helen love, why don’t I take you back to Bernie’s? And she says to me ‘I’m going to the airport to meet my Patrick off his flight’, bless her. Her slippers are a bit wet, mind, where she’s stepped in a puddle.”

“Oh, thank God you spotted her. I was only gone a minute…” 

She gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Listen pet, if you ever want to go out, I’ll sit with your mum. You could see your old friends from work. Put a bit of make-up on. Maybe meet that nice lad who used to stop by.” 

“Thanks Mrs Giles,” I say, blinking back tears. She gives me a small, sad smile and puts my mother’s hand in mine.

Back inside, I lock the door and guide her to the battered armchair that came from her house. Her face is empty, and the tea is cold. I kneel to towel dry her feet, icy and bloodless; gnarled like the roots of an old tree.  Her withered hand reaches unsteadily for me, and I feel it in my hair, caressing.

“I used to dry your feet when you and Jenny were wee girls; the pair of you were always jumping in puddles,” she whispers. Head bowed; I linger in the lucidity of the moment; a brief visit to reality. “Your daddy was always letting you jump in puddles… Oh!” A sob catches in her throat. “I miss him so much,” and she bends her head to mine. “So very much.”

It had started with the smallest of things. A cup of tea. We always met on Thursdays in a cafe on the High Street. Just for an hour during my lunch break, but it got her out and about. She would treat herself to a strawberry tart. On that day though, there was no sign of her and no answer on her mobile as I shrugged on my coat and headed into the rain. Outside, I stopped so suddenly that someone blundered into the back of me. There she was at the corner, wet hair plastered to her face.

“Mum! What are you doing? Why didn’t you meet me inside?” 

“I was waiting here! You said to wait under the clock, like always. Silly! It’s not like you to forget.”

Six months later at the hospital, the consultant was gentle, the diagnosis devastating. Frontotemporal lobe dementia he said.  We’ll have to put her in a home then, Jenny had said on a staticky line from Australia. No, was all I said, slamming the phone down.

                                                   ***

“…Yes, I’ve asked HR for that report, it'll be ready Tuesday…” I say, scuffling for a file among the papers bleeding across the dining table. I pause, confused, as I see my boss looking beyond my shoulder from his computer screen. Mum is at the bookcase, tracing her fingers along the spines of books. “I’ll call you back,” I say and slam the laptop shut, but not before I hear his exasperated sigh.

“There’s a book up here on how to get rid of them.” She snatches up a book of poetry. “I knew it was here!” She shuffles back to the living room and settles in her armchair. 

I close my eyes. “Mum, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find the bit that tells you how to banish fairies. ‘Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen. We daren’t go a-hunting. For fear of little men;’ what’s the next bit? Oh yes.” She begins the same line again.

 I take the mugs into the kitchen and pour cold tea down the drain. The butterfly has escaped its glass-shade prison and is now waltzing along the window, feeling it’s way blindly for an exit, any exit. I reach to open the window when there is a bang, and a crack appears along the glass.

The insect lies twitching on the windowsill.

“What did you do that for?” I wail, spinning to confront her. She flinches at the distress in my voice.

“You can’t have fairies in the house,” she mutters, turning the book over and over in her hands. “They’re bad luck.”

“It’s NOT a FAIRY mum!” I slam my hand on the countertop. “It’s not a bloody fairy! It’s a butterfly! A bloody butterfly! I can’t keep doing this! I can’t!”  I screech.

Trembling, I push my hair out of my eyes, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. She looks at the floor, her breathing hard, the book clutched to her chest, a shield.

I gather the creature up in a tissue, its eyelash-thin legs bent at awkward angles; its body mashed. I walk outside into the garden, rain landing on its mangled orange wings. With a twig, I poke a hole in the mud and slide the insect off the tissue. With my fingers I gently cover its jewel-bright wings with brown earth, getting mud under my ragged nails.

She stands beside me watching my gulped sobs, hugging herself and crooning the words she used to use when I was upset as a child. “There, there…there, there…it’s alright…shhh…everything’s alright…”

I take in a shuddering breath and wipe my eyes and nose with the sleeve of my frayed cardi, forcing an over-bright smile. “Let’s get inside and have another cup of tea, shall we?” She nods and takes my arm.

“That’s a good idea, pet. You’d best put a cup out for your dad too - he’ll be in soon and he’ll be parched.”

I swallow hard. “Yes.”