Happily Ever After_ - Benison Anne O'Reilly [1]
And that was my story. I married my handsome prince too. However, that’s also where my story and Cinderella’s diverge - the place where fantasy and reality take their different paths and impressionable young girls who believe in fairytales find out they’ve been sold a dud.
The ‘happily ever after’ is the hardest part, you see.
1
New place, new life
I’m trying to create some atmosphere here so imagine, if you will, that you can hear the drone of aircraft engines as you read along. I’m sitting in the business class end of a Cathay Pacific Airbus, cruising several thousand metres above the dry outback of Australia as I write. If you really want to get into the mood you could even imagine a few bumps of turbulence, which would be an appropriate metaphor for my emotions at present, but in truth the flying conditions are really rather smooth today.
I’m a relaxed flier as I’m married to a pilot. I am in fact on my way to meet him, as he’s just taken up a new position with Cathay as a Hong Kong-based first officer. It’s the final stepping stone before becoming a captain: the guy calling the shots, or as they like to say in the aviation industry ‘in command’. I once suggested to Tony that that particular expression had a few sexual overtones about it, but he said it just proved I had a dirty mind.
My husband’s career has not been without its diversions to this point, but it appears he’s finally got things back on track. As a teenager it was his ambition to become a 747 captain by his fortieth birthday and he might yet make it, give or take a year. However, it does beg the question: assuming you do achieve your life’s ambition by age forty, what happens after that? Will he be happy continuing along the same path ad nauseam? Or will a new restlessness set in? I suspect Tony has never really thought about it. He has many admirable qualities but I’m not sure self-reflection is one of them. I just hope it doesn’t precipitate a mid-life crisis in a few years’ time as we’ve had enough crises in our marriage to last us a life time.
We’re currently in the process of selling our Sydney home and our little family - we also have a four year old daughter called Isabel - is moving to Hong Kong to live. We are to become expats. I know I should be excited about this grand new adventure but at present I’m more inclined to sadness about leaving my loved ones behind back home. It’s going to take me quite some time to adjust, I fear.
I booked an early morning flight, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but when the alarm went off this morning and I had to drag my protesting body out of bed and stumble around in the dark, I cursed myself for not thinking things through. Unwisely, I stayed up late last night drinking and reminiscing with my mum, dad and younger sister. ‘Let’s open another bottle of wine,’ I said. Yeah, great idea, Ellie - so now I’m going to arrive in my new home town lugging a hangover as well as jetlag in my carry-on baggage.
As you’ve probably worked out, my name is Eleanor, or more precisely, Eleanor Cooper (née Parkes). The younger sister I mentioned is called Emma, although pretty quickly after her birth Dad re-christened her the Divine Miss Em. I think Mum must have been channelling Jane Austen when she chose names for her daughters, but she claims otherwise. I’m a great fan of Jane’s writing myself but I do feel that Pride and Prejudice, for all its charms, is just a witty and particularly well-written version of the Cinderella myth. It’s no secret that Austen never married in real life. Also my admiration didn’t extend to me liking my name as a child and I always insisted that people called me Ellie. As a consequence I’m rarely called Eleanor these days, except of course by my mother when I’ve behaved in a way she’s disapproved