I held a breath in anticipation, eager for the response.
Closing his eyes and puckering his lips he answered, "Mounties!"
Enough said.
Chapter 3
Oh Canada!
"Glynis, I’m gonna need my Munro Clan kilt and my steel-capped boots, the ones that can break coccyx!" screamed my father.
The next day, after seven pints of water and a restorative fry-up, I was sitting at the farmhouse-style kitchen table of my parents’ house on their farm trying to gently break the Nathan-bomb to them. As you can see, it was going well.
"Dad, calm down," I pleaded. I sooo did not need this right now.
With a slammed fist on the breakfast bar, my father, turning a lovely shade of crimson – and was that..? Yep, smoke coming from his ears – shrilled in a battle cry-type manner.
"The scrawny English bastard!” Cue excessive rolling of R's. “I'm going to kill the Sassenach prick. As my ancestors before me, I will paint myself blue and cut him from naval to nose. Let the fields of Bannockburn rejoice in the sacrificial slaughter of one Nathan Skellet, another casualty of the Scottish cause: ridding the world of wee English shits! Especially those that f**k with my family!"
I threw my head in my hands.
My father – Gordon - is the best man I know. He is also the craziest man I know. He is 100% Scottish and proud of it, as well as the most hot-headed and impulsive man on the planet.
"Calm down!" I yelled.
"I will not! That beady-eyed wee f**ker slighted my daughter and thus he must pay! Glynis, get my Sgian-Dubh… and make sure its sharp!"
I jumped up and headed after my father’s retreating form. "Okay, okay Braveheart, sit down," I said, grabbing his arm and returning him to his seat. "For a start, there will be no battling on my behalf. We are no longer living in the Middle Ages so 'slighting your daughter' is perhaps too dramatic a term to use towards my ex that I lived with... out of wedlock. And Dad, your Sgian-Dubh is purely decorative for your kilt and about two inches long, so, unless Nathan has joined ranks with Grumpy and Dopey in the last twenty-four hours, it's not exactly an appropriate weapon to wield if you want to be successful in the slitting from naval to nose!"
Taking a deep breath, Dad seemed to mellow out.
"Plus we ran out of your blue face paint at Halloween when we dressed up as Smurfs."
Huffing out a sigh at not getting to beat some English meat, he seemed to restrain himself. "I'm just so angry, sweetheart. I'm raging, you ken?"
"I know, but let’s just forget it and move on. Hey, with any luck I’ll get myself a Scottish boy next," I laughed.
"Aye, that'd be good. But no fenians, you hear? If they support Celtic, dunnae even bother bringing him home! You're my little girl. My miracle," he sniffed, and wiped away a single tear.
I laid my head on his shoulder. "I know, Dad."
One parent appeased, I turned to my mother to see her bottom lip beginning to tremble.
Great, here come the water works!
"Oh, my sweet girl, how could he?" she said, rushing over to me and crushing me into her ample bosom. "And on the imported Italian leather L-shape? Has he no shame?"
"Mam, I’m fine, really," I managed to mumble out of my current suffocation.
Letting go, she grabbed my cheeks and looked me in the eye to check for fibs.
"Honestly, Mam, I think it’s for the best. You know I don't let things get to me. Especially after speaking to the homeless man. I'm just pissed off that he threw a whopping spanner in my life plan. I mean I’m twenty-eight and no spring chicken, but, thinking about it, I never really loved him; he just fit the profile I was looking for in a potential partner."
My parents furrowed their brows at how I could talk so coldly about someone I had been in a relationship with for three years, but it was true – I don’t think I ever really loved him. He was just... convenient.
"But how could he?” my mother continued. “After all you have been through, the insensitive little shit! Wait, did you say you spoke to a homeless man?"
I waved my hand in front of me, dismissing her worry. "It doesn’t matter about the homeless man, Mam. Please stop worrying. I’m not a charity case!" I shouted in exasperation.
My mam tutted at my little outburst. "Firstly, I do not think you are a charity case, but you have had more than your fair share of bad luck in this life, and I for one cannot believe that Nathan, knowing all of that, still betrayed you in such a way," she cried into her hands.