The Idiot, the Farmer and Me Ch. 01

Another long story - this time in several parts - based on a story I heard from an old friend but I've changed the circumstances, the locations and even the language. To give the reader the feel of that kind of accent, the speech of our villain should be read phonetically, that or find some 'EastEnders' on iPlayer or some 'Sweeney' re-runs from the seventies.

The Farmer in the title doesn't appear in this bit...

-------------------------------------------

A daughter's wedding is supposed to be a joyous thing. When my Darling Isabel married the most wonderful boy little did I know that despite my ex-husband it would lead to a new relationship and a new life for me after a not terribly great start.

There was an old family saying from my Mum's side that 'Higgins girls never marry well.' My Mum was a Higgins, and there was a whole maternal family history of arseholes the women had married.

I had divorced my particular arsehole of an ex-husband fifteen years previously when I found out that he'd slept around quite extensively, even with two of his Mum's relatives -- he'd slept with quite a few women but it was the cousin and second cousin that really did it for me. Our family and friends were first shocked and stunned, then it became a bit of a joke with me as the naive if not actually slightly stupid, big-titted bird in the middle not knowing what the rest of the neighbourhood did -- the sadly comic but still sexy dopey bitch married to the man of the humorous hour. The day after the discovery my Mum shook her head,

"Bloody hell Sammy, what is it about all of us -- can't JUST ONE OF US get a good one?"

And it was the whole family; my dad was a bastard to my Mum, Mum's sister Aunty Vi had married a serial wife-beating alcoholic who (fortunately) collapsed while dead drunk and drowned in his own vomit, while I'd married the Idiot Ex.

Even my sister Denise had married another pearl who had just gotten up for work one morning and never came back, she is in the process of having her marriage annulled because she hasn't seen hide nor hair of the man in over ten years. When he walked out on her and their four-year-old son Rory they had just spent the last of her redundancy pay from her lost factory job on the nearly new car that he drove off in.

Her Ex Dewi always joked about his relationship with Denise in an 'almost' unfunny way. He was a quite attractive boy from the Welsh valleys that had moved to the city for the bright lights and prospects and made it most plain that he had been attracted by Denise's amazing Higgins figure and wild dark almost black hair, but at the same time also suggesting that he might have if not actually 'settled' for marrying Denise, that he seriously did believe that he had married below himself and could have done better. He was two years younger than Den and for that reason considered a bit of a looker. He had done a Job Centre training course and had a diploma and thought that made him one step away from Einstein rather than a plumber. My brother Mike had taken him to task over one of those comments about the gorgeous Den which had him swiftly denying it and chuckling that it was just his and Den's 'little joke'. Our huge and tattooed big brother still looked after both of us.

He left no note explaining but had already made very veiled suggestion that he wasn't very happy with their financial situation, he was a plumber so quite well paid. Denise had asked why a new car was needed if they were so hard up but he just shook his head and laughed it off in that unfunny way of his. He left a week later taking most of his clothes and a fortnight's wages. He had always insisted that they had separate bank accounts so fortunately he wasn't able to take all her money too -- just her car it seemed.

At first she reported Dewi to the police as 'missing', then at the advice of the police she cancelled that report instead reporting her CAR as 'missing', but it was in his name on the log book so that was complicated.

The house was mortgaged but after he disappeared taking his weekly 'cash in hand' wages from his building site work with him she went into a part ownership deal with the local housing association so that pressure was off. She managed to get a job at the local playgroup she took her son Rory to, and within a few months was making changes she thought obvious and sensible having been a team leader in her last job in retail. When the owner told her ladies that she was selling the business, Den stepped in and with a ridiculously small loan bought it herself. Within months of her purchase and working with the council and the education department she had doubled the number of children she could take in and pretty soon was running her own very successful business having paid off the loan.

At first it barely made a profit after repayments on the loan, running costs, her wages and those of a few staff members, but with good judgement, some luck and any amount of advertisement in the kind of places she (a young mum at the time) went to it took off in leaps and bounds and now includes four playgroups across the area and makes a tidy but not excessive profit. She never shouted her success from the rooftops because the last thing she wanted was that no-good ex of hers to come back and want what he would consider his share or make a claim on young Rory.

Mum, the ultimate and original Higgins girl, had the cream of the whole bunch though.

My Dad was a hired thug and an out and out villain, and I don't think I ever really knew him. He was often 'inside' and was on remand or in prison for 10 of the 17 years of my life. Aside from that minor inconvenience he seemed to live an opposite, almost nocturnal lifestyle to the rest of his family.

Whatever he did, bouncer, debt collector, beater-upper, thief, thieves driver, disposer of things, he did it working nights then spending the day in bed. All day, every weekday -- no exception, no holidays, no birthday parties, only Christmas Day and Boxing Day did he join the daylight people, but then only grudgingly and heading for the pub to see his mates for much of those celebrations.

He liked the pub and spent most evenings and Saturdays there and at the football, normally Spurs, for home games then back to the pub again. Sunday in bed except for when he came down for dinner in his striped pyjamas, then back to it Sunday night into Monday Morning.

Mum hated it but there was nothing she could do; she knew that if she complained she would get a smack for her trouble. If she had left him he would track her down and take his revenge, and he took great delight in telling her just what his best mate had done to his Missus when he eventually caught up with her four months after her departure. No space in the local refuge, no social worker support, just the busted door of her mother's house and a broken arm and cheek bone for her, and a cracked skull for her mother that had tried to intervene. 'Both bitches were asking for it', Dad had said with a chuckle and a smile.

When Dad went to prison Mum, almost ten years his junior, took up her extra jobs and we had free school dinners and got housing benefit to cover the rent. He'd done time for burglary, aggravated burglary, taking cars without consent (TWOC'ing), assault, robbery and armed robbery and the way he spoke and the way that many of his mates spoke there was quite a few he wasn't caught for.

As I grew up we didn't have much in the way of luxuries but I never remember going without to any massive extent. The thing that still pisses me off to this very day was the way Dad always justified his villainy and spouted the old East End 'Gotta put food on the table for my kids' mantra while most of it was actually provided by my wonderful Mum, my Higgins grandparents or by the state, despite Dad's sanctimonious claims.

I knew all the local policemen of course because quite often I'd get lifted out of bed by them as our house was searched at five in the morning after an armed robbery anywhere in London or the Home Counties that had a modus operandi even remotely close to his. Our front door was smashed in so many times the repairman from the council asked my Mum if she wanted him to put up a curtain instead. I found out that come the end the council and the police came to 'an understanding' that when we had the last new door fitted, the fitter had two extra keys cut and kept them in the cupboard. It was then just a case of the 'Flying Squad' picking one up and letting themselves in. My Dad hated the police with a passion, especially 'The Sweeney' -- big lads and lasses who were just as nasty, just as aggressive and much better armed than he was.

As kids we could never watch the TV programmes or films our school mates talked about in the playground because the police were the 'enemy'. I didn't see a whole episode of 'The Sweeney' or later 'The Bill' until after my Dad had died. Dad looked upon the police simply as a bunch of overzealous bigots that stopped him from carrying out his very simple business - The business of taking other people's property with a view to not giving it back and if it wasn't cash, selling it for as much as he possibly could. I was to discover over the years that the amount of return that Dad and his cohorts made was pitiful and just a tiny single figures percentage compared to the actual value of the pieces, and the damage and heartbreak that their actions had caused.

As the eighties moved into the nineties he started to age of course and added to that the kind of crime that Dad specialised in got tougher. The old, heavy smoking, heavy drinking, overweight Bobbies of those days were being replaced by young, fit, well-trained, paramilitary style police officers carrying machine guns and sniper rifles and having things like helicopters and faster cars than their prey with highly professional drivers in them. Then with the birth of the microchip the targets had better security equipment cheaply and effectively installed and this meant that he spent more and more time inside, most of the time for failed jobs.

I think he finally got the message when he and his mates tried to turn over a building society in Surbiton. They'd watched it for days sat in an adjacent café dressed in tar stained yellow safety jackets after having a tip-off that the place had been bought out by a rival bank and was being completely refurbished. Apparently once they had finished the safe would be stocked up for re-opening with lots of new staff that wouldn't know the area or the procedures.

The gang waited until the end of the first day of trading and put on their latex masks and charged into the now empty banking hall screaming their heads off and brandishing sawn-off shotguns and some very old revolvers.

The ladies behind the counter, all well trained and seasoned banking veterans of course, leaned back and a button was pressed, and steel barriers shot up in a fraction of a second.

It turned out the most complicated bit of the refurb was the installation of the flying screens, but their hours of observations seemed to have missed that bit. The howling siren and flashing lights had their very young, very green and very scared getaway driver away in his stolen wheels leaving the rest stood in the empty shop front scratching their heads and not ready for the long walk home.

The evening their sentences were announced the CCTV clip was on a 'London Tonight' TV News and it smacked of one of those 'and finally...' stories as the Newsreader had a bit of a grin when he talked about the four 'bungling bank robbers' specicifally the one couldn't run away and was caught within thirty yards of the premises out of breath and gasping for air.

Dad and one of his mates were arrested by a security guard walking to work who had only to snatch the sawn off shotgun from him and the old revolver from the other as they stared at the chain-link fence they had taken a run-up to and had simply crashed into; all recorded for posterity by the many CCTV systems in the area and shown to the delight of the law abiding masses. The Newsreader had a wry grin on his face and said that the two hapless criminals should take the opportunity of working out while they spent the next six years in prison.

My Dad was released after fifteen months for medical reasons and it wasn't his fitness that had let him down on that day in Surbiton.

Dad had emphysema, a disease he'd acquired as a result of the 70 or 80 cigarettes he'd chain-smoked each day since he was 12. Add to that the fried breakfast he'd eaten every morning, and the fast food he often dined out on and I was surprised he lasted as long as he did. He was only in his late forties.

I didn't grieve for my Dad. I hope that doesn't make me sound like a terrible person, but I really didn't know him. He would be the scary sleeping giant in the bedroom I had to tiptoe past getting up for school. If we made too much noise he'd snarl and throw something at the offender. He once hit my big brother Mike behind the ear with a steel toe capped boot and put him in hospital just because he'd hit the squeaky floorboard my Dad had worked loose so no one could sneak up on him.

Dad and my Brother Mike didn't get on. I think Dad felt that Mike should have taken up villainy like he did but Mike had long memories of standing out in the street or sitting in the police car while the entire neighbourhood watched the police tear our house apart, or Dad being dragged out in handcuffs and heaved kicking and shouting into the back of a police van, the subsequent court hearings and the stares from the other kids because he was having free school meals again as his Dad was back in prison.

Mike never shared his Father's opinion of 'the trade' figuring that there was nothing cheeky-charming, roguish, noble or Robin Hood-like in what my Dad and his hoodlum mates did. They were just thieves -- big, threatening, gun-toting, mask wearing bullies that thought it was better to take what some other poor bastard had worked hard for than work hard themselves, kidding themselves that they were taking from the big boys, the insurance companies, the 'City' or the 'state', from 'the establishment', from the rich and the powerful. Mike with his better education knew that the rich and the powerful rarely get poorer, and raised insurance premiums and excess charges, increasing bank charges, and interest rates effect everyone, the poorest more than any.

Hating 'the trade' Mike showed more interest in his schoolwork and getting a real job, a 'career' - something honest like everyone else in the world seemed to have, except for our family, friends and acquaintances. During one of our rare family meetings when we were going to bed and he was getting up, Dad snarled at him about doing his science revision and the books for his exams strewn across his bed, and picked one up staring at Newton's laws as if they were written in a different language -- Dad could only just write his name - then throwing the thing out of the open window paused then said coldly,

"D'ya think yer better than me boy?"

Mike said nothing. He knew from past experience that there was nothing he could say that wouldn't result in him getting a dig from the old man, unless it was 'lend me a sawn-off, I'm away down the off-licence'. Dad swung a punch and it threw Mike across the room, Mum screamed.

Mike stood up, his face swelling and the imprint of Dad's Gold Sovereign ring in his cheek. Mike looked at Dad and showed no emotion, none whatsoever; it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen, and Denise was trembling. Mike just smiled, kissed Mum and turned to Dad.

"Goodnight," he said, "Sleep well... you too Dad."

Dad squared up to his son, who was now taller than him.

"You don't frighten me BOY!"

"No Dad," said Mike, "I don't frighten you... yet..."

Dad hissed between his teeth,

"Scared of a stuck-up little fuck like you?"

Dad pulled his hand back to slap his sons face, but his son was ready this time and caught it and held it fast. Dad was short and squat, while Mike had inherited Dad's power and Mum's height and had used his PE lessons and the school gym to very good effect, he was training himself up because he wanted to join the army.

There was a silent struggle where Dad realised that his little boy wasn't so little anymore, and sheer force and strength of his personality wasn't going to make Mike back down as it would have done in the years gone by. We could all see that Dad was starting to lose the battle of wills, at least the physical side of things and he was starting to fight for breath.

"You sleep well Dad; remember though," 16 years of repressed anger and resentment was starting to surface, "what goes around... comes around."

Dad pulled his arm free and they stared at each other. Both had to sleep at different times of the day, they both knew that. Mike had just told his much older father that if he tried anything on him, he'd get it back.

There was a very uncomfortable truce in the house with locked bedroom doors and much silent eye contact, right up until Mike left home with his clutch of qualifications for his 'junior leaders' selection board. He had intended to join the Paras, this was late eighties and the Falklands war was still fresh enough to be remembered, and they were still the nation's favourite. I think he also wanted to be a 'tough guy' but an honest tough guy; an attempt not to earn the final respect of Dad, but that red beret that would be a publicly recognisable and acceptable demonstration that he was among the hardest and toughest in a way that would not wreck his life, his family's life or his health in the same way Dad's had.

But when he went for his selection to be a Junior Leader he was interviewed by an officer from the Royal Engineers and told that he could of course join the infantry and learn to fight, or with all of his hard-earned qualifications he could get a trade and learn to fight. So, he went to the Army Apprentice College at Arborfield and did both.

Once out of his training there he joined the Engineers and learned about military construction and also destruction; about building things up or blowing them down, roads to build and rivers to cross, about necessary infrastructure, about electrics and drainage, and at the same time to drive all manner of trucks and plant and later into his career to manage building sites and bigger construction projects. He is now a very respectable and well-paid engineering contractor across the South East of England.

Dad never got to see his many successes -- it didn't matter though because it would never have been good enough. He wouldn't go to Mike's passing out parade because he didn't think it was the kind of work for a son of his and told him so, calling him a coward for running away from his family and his roots. Even Mum snapped at that. Within a year Operation 'Desert Shield' was in place after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and everyone knew that the allies would retake it and Mike's unit in Germany was packing up to make the trip.

So Mike went off to Saudi Arabia and took part in 'Desert Storm', did his duty, stayed safe and got 'mentioned in dispatches' for his 'bravery under fire, hard work, always being first to volunteer and his constant good humour'.

He rang to invite Mum, Denise and I to the Victory Parade that was a tube ride from our house, Dad picked up the phone. It was mid-evening and he spoke to my slightly tipsy father, who had been working his way through the last of one of his expensive bottles of Scotch.

"Raise a glass to honour your son the war veteran Dad," said Mike.

"You bomb the fuck out of a bunch of ignorant fucking rag-heads and think you're some kind of 'ero? It's a waste of good Scotch," chuckled Dad down the line to him, "fuck you!" Mike could finally have his revenge.