The Idiot, the Farmer and Me Ch. 03

Despite my warnings Brian and Carl were now walking around the Sussex Countryside that warm Wednesday afternoon, particularly two small villages Gwyn had apparently mentioned 'Ed's Uncle' living near and they walked about looking for 'a teacher' - Thank God they never found one.

The neighbouring farmer had described 'dumb and dumber' so well, recognising but no overly worried by the slightly threatening demeanour of the pair of them, saying that to his certain knowledge there were no schoolteachers that lived locally and suggested that perhaps the pair might want to contact the police if they were struggling to find a friend.

He went on to say that rural and agricultural thefts are a huge problem and stock, equipment and vehicles were often stolen to order overnight and the pair might find themselves on the wrong end of a shotgun or several guard dogs if they just strolled around peoples' farms like they owned them.

Brian saw the sense but Carl considered it a challenge and wasn't having that from 'no fuckin' Farmer Giles' and if he wanted to look round he fuckin' would, looking contemptuously at the farmer and walking straight past him.

As he manfully swung open a large barn door he was to learn that this was actually 'a byre', when he was confronted by its occupant, a rather large and slightly irate Dexter bull that wasn't happy to have the thick-necked and thick skulled London wannabe villain around the place and disturbing his peace, walking behind him with increasing speed until there was a fence Carl could jump to put between it and him.

"See what I mean?" said the Farmer, "Now you get back in your car and bugger off before someone gets really hurt."

Still seeing the sense of the farmer's advice, Brian pulled Carl by his jacket collar, hearing his semi-brave son still grumbling an almost silent "I ain't havin' that from no fuckin' Farmer Giles..."

"Ain't the fuckin' farmer," said Brian, "it's that fuckin' steak an' kidney on legs boy..."

It turns out that they did drive up to Dave's farm but the gate was locked and they didn't find anyone to talk to and ask. so their tiny little minds decided that there was nothing else for them to check - probably.

They went to the first of two pubs in the village and bought their beer and sandwiches, Carl getting rather annoyed that this 'afternoon country pub', only staying open for him and his Dad didn't have the kind of menu he was accustomed to in the big city and was keen to point out this shortcoming to the landlord.

The barman said that it was a weekday afternoon, they had no chef and if they wanted to come back later that evening, he was sure they could help.

Carl took this as 'cheek' and was leaning across the bar, pointing his finger into the face of a man twice his age, telling him not to give him 'lip'.

This barman apologised somewhat nervously and stepped around the back, staring through a spy hole at Carl's increasing anger at the fruit machine having three of his pound coins and not paying out a similar amount. The Barman picked up his phone and dialled 999 as the thug angrily slapped the machine for a fourth time and called it some very nasty names before kicking it with his heavy boot.

The barman stepped back into line of sight, rang the bell and called;

"time at the bar gentlemen!" ready to run out of the back door if the huge skinhead in the Timberland boots started to kick off.

As it turned out this was precisely the thing to do and the two oafs stood, finished their beer and both stepped out into the car park.

If he'd asked them to leave Carl would have reacted very badly and carnage may have ensued, but the Brains Trust acted on pure acoustic reflex and left without a grumble or word to the landlord.

By the time the police officer arrived she saw their car pulling away from the pub car park and managed to write down the registration number. A check of the computer would show that it had the registration plates of another Ford Focus the same colour that had been stolen from a railway station car park in London three days before.

The officer calmed down the barman and took a full report, noting that these two were looking for a teacher farmer, same as the ones up the road that had been stomping over half a dozen different farm yards that morning.

Dumb and Dumber were really throwing themselves into this search to discover Dave's name and where he lived. The stupid thing was that the Idiot Ex knew it was Ed's Uncle and had signed the church register a few weeks before next to his daughter and under her new father-in-law.

Ed had the same surname as his 'Uncle Dave' of course but the Idiot was too fucking thick to realise it and never would all the time his arse pointed downwards. More than that when his henchmen ACTUALLY MET the so-far nameless 'fuckin'-schoolteacher-fuckin'-farmer' face to face at the hotel entrance while the Idiot was across the hotel and pretty much shitfaced would have barely known his own name let alone someone that was arguing with his specially selected bouncers.

While Dave was unconcerned, I was straight on the phone to the Idiot Ex demanding to know why his best mate and son were in the Sussex countryside and looking for someone I'd had a drink and a dance with.

"Dunno wot yah tawkin' 'abaht Sammy!" said The Idiot Ex with an edge to his voice that told me that he was laughing and very pleased with himself.

"Brian and Carl have been driving around the countryside stirring up the locals," I said, "you will make them stop Les or so help me..."

"I promised I won't gonna come anywhere near yah, din' I Sammy, I promised you that 'din I? Right or Wrong?"

"Not even a good try dickhead," I snapped back at him.

"Nah nah nah Samam'fa," I could all but hear him wiping his nose with the back of his hand in self-righteous glory, "You doan' get it all fuckin' ways sweet'eart, I ain't bin nowhere near YOU, 'ave I? 'Ave I? Right or wrong Sammy? Right or wrong!" he guffawed ending with a braying laugh of triumph.

"You know what I mean Les," I said not wanting to play him at this stupid game of his.

"Like I said to Brian, I ain't 'avin no wife o'MINE..."

"I'M NOT YOUR FUCKING WIFE!"

"LISTEN SAMMY! Jus' fuckin' LISTEN!" he took a deep breath to calm his perfectly reasonable anger, "word is 'aht on the street that you's fuckin' 'arahnd with some country school teaching cunt wot you met at Bella's weddin'."

"And what if I am?"

"I ain't bein' made to look like no twat in front of my own mates, I ain't 'avin no one tawkin' abaht me behind me back 'cos you're putting it abaht." He said with some feeling of threatening self-righteousness.

"Now that's a bit strange Les, when we WERE actually married and you were fucking one woman in eleven at the club," he actually did, I did the sums to prove it when I took my first accountancy course two years after, "you weren't too worried for people to talk behind your back, or was that different?"

"Well..." he struggled for a reply settling on... well, nothing, "Well... I ain't talking about that, that's 'istory, this is now... innit." Again I could almost hear the pride in his conclusion.

"Excellent Les, we're finally talking sense; you were screwing all of those women... what? Seventeen, eighteen years ago?"

He paused,

"Well... yeah..."

"And you say that's history?"

"Yeah." The rising intonation in his voice told me he was losing his new confidence.

"And we were divorced fifteen years ago." I added.

I heard his breath,

"Yeah..." he coughed, "but thas' diff'ren'!"

"How?"

I heard him snort through his nose,

"It jus' fuckin' is... Now just you fuckin' listen," he snarled, "I'm fuckin' done wiv' all this shit; I found out enough from Bella's muver'-in-lore about this fuckin'-farmer-fuckin'-teacher what you bin' seein'... Twat could'n even 'git to yah dorter's weddin' on time!"

I froze, I hoped he wouldn't make the connection between the absent uncle Gwyn had snarled about and the argument at the door Brian and Carl had gotten arrested over. In a flash I figured I would just bluster my way through this - just like he would.

"Really? You know all that but not where his farm is apparently?"

"I'll fuckin' find it," he hissed, "nah' wouldn't it be a bastard if 'is barn went up in flames or some of his sheep went missin' ah? We could do wiv' a bit of mutton down 'ere on the manor..." he let that hang - so I did too, "Ello?"

"Oh, you're back, sorry I drifted off for a moment there - so we're back to your manor then Les."

"Yeah." He growled.

"Right," I said leaving the conversation hanging yet again. "On your manor, right?"

"Right." I was sure I could detect a hint of pride in his ownership.

"I live forty odd miles from your manor?"

"'bout that," he replied.

"And none of your mates came to Izzy's wedding did they."

"Only Brian and Carl to do the door... and the fuckin' pigs woz bang out of order when they took his..."

"But none of your other mates, the ones that are talking about you, were there?"

"Wot you gettin' at?" he sighed like I was taking up his very valuable time.

"So if 'people' are talking behind your back about me shagging the landed gentry it can only be because you fucking told them I was Dickhead!" I snapped.

"Aaah well... Brian and Carl..."

"...Were dropped off at the railway station at seven thirty after they started a bloody fight - just what you need YOUR best mates to do at your OWN daughter's wedding!" My turn to throw that in.

"Yeah... well... fuckin' gate crasher an' 'is kid wot woz 'avin it a bit large wiv' Carl, the lad 'ad to defend himself din' he? Good job they woz there I 'fink, they woz propa' set up for tha..."

I managed to stop myself laughing when tall but cute eleven-year-old Chrissie was described as 'attacking' the Cro-Magnon Carl, but more importantly the Idiot had still not made the connection to one of the two interlopers being the missing school teacher farmer I'd been seen dancing with.

"And they were out of the party by five thirty and in the local Police station," I interrupted, leaving off 'with the guy that is a thousand times the man you could ever be and has taken me to paradise more times than you took me shopping', but I needed to get back to my advocacy, "So I'm guessing you must have told them as well?"

"Yeah... nah... well..."

"So the first lesson here is that YOU need to keep your mouth shut..."

I started to calm down now. The more I thought about it the more I realised that the Idiot hadn't seen Dave at all. He knew that the man I'd danced with was 'Ed's Uncle' and what he did for a living and roughly where he had to drive to the church and the hotel from, nothing more - he hadn't made it into the event having been taken off by the police to answer for the scuffle outside the hotel.

By the time a much calmer Dave had eventually arrived the Idiot was snoring off the brandies he'd been putting away since he'd first opened the mini-bar in the hotel room that morning.

Because of him oversleeping in his hung-over stupor the next morning, Dave and Chrissie had already left before the Idiot eventually appeared, like a foul-mouthed and foul-breathed powder blue elderly prom-nighter.

I knew that eventually he would get back to the fact that his sister and her kids had watched me dance with Dave, then Izzy, Julia and Amy taking the piss out of us, and it would prove an excellent distraction.

I'd always got on well with his sister Fay and she appeared to bear me no ill will despite her mother's instructions, but it must have been them that reported it to him then told on him to pay him back.

Getting back at 'embarrassing Uncle Les' that had kicked off in the hotel reception that Sunday morning and the 'guilty by association' his law abiding nieces and nephews felt; at Uncle Les in his shitty suit with his gut hanging out, at Uncle Les and his embarrassing speech and pissed bimbling around the wedding reception making his family want to hide and pretend to friends of the bride.

They may even have told his evil witch of a mother, the one that had banned them from going in the first place and who they ignored. I could well believe my niece Kris talking loudly about what a really nice bloke Auntie Sammy was dancing with once Uncle Les had passed out cold because he drank too much.

Fired with a Samantha-burning hatred Ex-mother-in-law would have spread it across as much of the neighbourhood as she could reach from the pensioner's flat the council had put her in after his Dad had died, two bus rides away from her Mafioso son, Don Leslie l'idiota on his 'manor'.

After a pause he finally got there and made the connection - I could almost hear his brain working.

"Ahh!" he said in triumph, "Fay and the kids 'woz there!"

"Oooh! So NOW you're saying it's your own sister and her kids that's creating all of this shit about you then?" I paused for emphasis, after all it probably was, "Shall I tell her that she's causing you problems around your manor or are you going to do that?"

"Aaah," he took a breath, "well... well I'm not sayin' it is or it 'int but the fac' of the matter iiiis..." he prepared himself for the big finish, the dénouement, the killer blow; for maximum annoyance I waited for him to take and breath and I interrupted him yet again.

"Les, I couldn't give a single flying fuck about you or that someone is talking about me on your manor, not one. I doubt the entire estate seriously cares two shits about what a woman that moved out fifteen years ago is getting up to; but I do think they might like taking the piss out of you!" my turn to crow now, "which I think you'll agree says more about what they think of you than they do of me," I grinned evilly, "Right or wrong Les, come on, right or wrong?"

"Oooh... fuck off you bitch," he said.

"I will if you will Les," he could hear the laughter in my voice and he hated that.

"I'll find this cunt," he snarled, "and I'll fuckin 'ave 'im! You mark my words Sammy, I'll fuckin' burn 'im!"

"Burn him?" I said, feeling just a tiny bit concerned now but something Izzy had told me a few years back came back to me just in time, "that's a dangerous thing to say Les... you still living in that flat over Peachy Reynolds garage?" I asked innocently.

"Yeah, what if I am?"

"No reason Les, No reason," I let the tension build a bit more, "Peachy keeps that big old tank full of recovered petrol in his lock up round the back, with his oil and the spare paint doesn't he."

The Idiot Ex went quiet,

"I... I dunno..." he said.

"It's under the stairs you use to get up to your place, your fire escape; Izzy told me you didn't want her to report it to the Fire Brigade."

He came back much quicker,

"Why d'you wanna know, whadda' fuck's it gotta do wiv' you?"

"Nothing for you to worry about Les, but remember this my dear Ex-husband, my name is Samantha Haymer." I said, and holding my hand over the disconnect button I remembered those words that a young Mike had used to my Dad, "what goes around... comes around - especially burning. Now where's my lighter - oh yeah, here it is." I didn't have one of course but this was for effect, "just you sleep well Les, very VERY well..."

I cut the call and then switched off the phone, contacting Dave via Messenger on my laptop and telling him about my conversation with Les and the very veiled threat I'd used after his.

More importantly I copied in my brother.

Mike did lots of work in the pub trade doing builds, rebuilds and refurbs and within twenty minutes was e-mailing me and Dave photos of Brian and Carl from the Licensed Victuallers Association 'Pubwatch' group, from posters of people that are banned from certain pubs and chains because of crimes they had committed or their attitudes when drunk.

Dave sent it on to the local police team saying he got the poster from a landlord friend of his in London, innocently pointing out that these men were the ones that had assaulted his son and had been seen for the last few days wandering around farms, refusing to leave and asking questions about a 'school teacher' and generally acting very suspiciously. His neighbour had told the police before he told Dave after all.

They read the file with the gruesome twosome's recent activities that day on farms, in a pub, probably driving a car with stolen plates. This went nicely with Brian having had a bent van impounded and crushed some weeks before, a couple of hours after Carl had been released with a police caution for assaulting a young local boy in a country house hotel miles away, and that they were now in the locality looking for that boy's father - it wasn't that complicated.

Sussex police contacted the Met saying that Brian and Carl Lind had been seen acting suspiciously on private land asking questions about and being extremely confrontational, and emailed a copy of a court order they'd got from the local magistrates and would like hand delivered.

That evening and miles away in London, a very surprised Brian and Carl were each given the order from Sussex Police citing what they had been seen doing in far off Sussex and the threatening way they had acted towards Dave's neighbour and a pub landlord, and it banned them from walking around any farmland without permission within three parishes, six Sussex pubs, adding that any repeats of their behaviour would be a criminal offence for which they could be arrested.

This was a new one to the pair and they sat staring at it and it's import all the next day. Pretty pointless really as it was written in legal speak and they struggled with take-away menus. The Idiot Ex rang them that night asking how they'd got on, still burning from the argument I'd just had with him and my simple refusal to see sense.

Brian told the Idiot about the court order.

"It's prob'ley nuffink mate," said the Idiot, after all it wasn't him that would get in the shit if it was breached, "We still got find this school teacher 'int we."

"Yeah," said Brian.

And that was that. Despite the very, very simple and very, very explicit written warnings they'd been handed AND had then had read to them by their own local copper who had even translated the meaning of the words into something that even the gruesome twosome could understand, they arrived back at the small village a second time in a different car that Carl had clearly borrowed with a screwdriver early that Friday morning.

They arrived in the village and walked in the open front door of the other pub local to Dave's place, not liking the other one which only had sandwiches two days before.

This was the one where Dave and I had dinner and breakfast some weeks before, and the door was only open because it was having it's morning deliveries.

The two thug townies, fully expecting it to be open at ten in the morning like the ones in their high street would have been, entered and demanded a full English breakfast and asking if she knew of 'a farmer 'wot was a school teacher wot lived round 'ere.'

The landlady recognised them straight away from the poster that she had printed from the computer not ten minutes before. This barkeep was made of sterner stuff than her competitor at the other end of the village and with a big smile told them to take a seat, made them two teas then headed into the kitchen and dialled 999.

Brian and Carl were on their second cup of tea - the landlady said she was 'sorting out the grill' - when the front door opened and eight of the biggest coppers the gruesome twosome had ever seen, all dressed in riot gear filled the small lounge bar and arrested them both for breaching the court order and loaded them into their van.

At the city station the Police National Computer said that Carl was already on a two year suspended sentence for an aggravated assault months before, so the police officers added the police caution for assaulting a young boy two weeks before and took him straight to the local magistrates court where the District Judge heard the case straight away and sent him back to prison to complete his sentence with an extra 28 days for breaching the notice. Carl stood and stepped down the steps to the cells beneath with the two police officers as if it was just part of life, which for him it was.