A Cautionary Tale

Who should I find at the Nick taking my blood sample, but my own bleeding doctor; now that was a surprise! The cheeky bastard had the audacity to ask me how the wedding plans were going. Well, I told the old bleeder to mind his own bloody business.

Come on, that wasn't too bad. "Old bleeder" and "bloody business" when the old sods taking a blood sample. Who says that being pissed takes away your sense of humour?

The next thing I know, I'm sleeping it off in a cell. I have no idea how long I laid there. I remember that after sometime a policeman woke me up and we did another breath test thing. Well, that happened several times actually, until one finally showed a negative reading. Strange thing was that this copper reminded me of my Uncle Harry. Uncle Harry had been a nice guy who was always telling my father that he was being too hard on me, when I wasn't in Dad's good books.

I was attempting to put the laces back into my shoes in the charging area, when Lydia and Frank walked in. Ah, well, I got in a couple of quick punches, before I was back in my little cell again. I was beginning to feel quite at home in that little room by then.

On the Monday morning, I'm in the magistrates court where I'm charged with affray in the police station (Frank didn't press assault charges) and being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle. Now the really weird thing was that the chief magistrate reminded me of the boss at the first job I ever had. I was beginning to think that all the booze I'd consumed in the previous few days had had a really serious effect on my mind. Anyway a four hundred pound fine, a three-year driving ban and I was bound-over to keep the peace, for one year by the old bastard. Never did like that bugger.

This time it was Lydia on her own, who met me outside the courthouse.

"I'm sorry but I fell in love with Frank while you were away," was the first thing she said to me!

"Fucking hell, Lydia, I was only gone one night!"

"Well, it happened very quickly. Anyway Frank's much better in bed than you are," she said with a smile on her face.

"How the fuck would you know that so fucking quickly. You wouldn't sleep with me for three months?"

"Ah, well, but we were a little short on time. You said yourself you were only supposed to be away one night."

I didn't have an answer for that one. So all that I could think of to do was walk away from her.

Out in the car park, I found Fiona sitting there in my car. How the hell do I know what the fuck she was doing there; she just was! Anyway Fiona drove me home.

No one will ever believe this, but I hadn't been in the house for more than a few minutes when the telephone rang. Fiona answered it and called out that it was Frank and he wanted to speak to me.

"Look, mate, I hope Lydia and I getting married isn't going to upset our planned partnership?" Frank said.

"What? You bleeding arsehole, of course it is. You've got to trust people before you can go into business with them," I replied angrily. Just where do these people get their ideas from?

"But I trust you implicitly," Frank informed me.

"For fuck's sake! I don't trust you anymore, Frank. I wouldn't trust you to ... to ... to lead a blind man across the bleeding street. There's no way I'm setting up in business with you."

"Oh, damn it, mate, Lydia and I were hoping you'd be my best man at the wedding as well. After all it was through knowing you that brought us together."

"Fuck off, Frank! I never want to see either you or Lydia again." I shouted down the phone and slammed the handset down.

"You're not marrying Lydia then?" Fiona asked.

"Jesus, girl, I couldn't trust her any further than I could trust you. Of course I'm not going to marry her. Anyway she doesn't want to marry me anymore. She says Frank's better in bed than I am."

"Oh, I wonder why she thinks that? I thought you knocked spots off him in bed, if you ask me."

"Which I didn't!" I shouted at her.

"All right, all right, keep your bloody hair on." Fiona admonished me, "But believe me, you're far better in bed than Frank any day, and you can out-last him by miles. Jesus, he's only good for once or twice at the most, and he just won't go down on a girl, no matter how much of an enthusiastic blow job you give him."

"Fiona, shut it. I don't wish to hear about Frank's prowess in bed and I really don't want to know how you would know anyway. Besides Frank's always had a big mouth and I know he doesn't go down on his women. He's told me quite a few times that he thinks it's a demeaning thing for a man to do."

"Yeah, Frank can be a real arsehole sometimes!" Fiona added. Fiona always was one for having the last word.

Damn, this conversation was pissing me even more than I had been. I figure that it wouldn't be long before I lashed out at Fiona. I couldn't understand what she was doing there anyway.

"Look, Fiona, I really need to be on my own for a while. Would you please leave now?"

"No chance! What, me leave now, when you've just broken up with Lydia. You must be joking; this is what I've been waiting for. You need cheering up and I'm just the girl to do it. Come on, you've got the wedding all planned you can marry me again."

"Oh, fucking hell!" I cried out, as I ran out of the front door. I'm not sure what was pushing me along, but in a couple of seconds I was reversing my car out of the drive.

Yeah, yeah, I know I was banned from driving. But if I'd stayed in that house a moment longer, there would have been Fiona's blood all over those nice new kitchen units of mine.

The drive over to Ffestiniog seemed to go far quicker than it ever had done before and the next thing I knew I was kneeling on the cottage floor lighting the fire. Then things got really weird. There was a knock at the door and who should come strolling into the cottage but Jacques and Jose.

I really couldn't understand what the hell Jacques and Jose were doing in Wales, but then they explained that Jose had got a little lost on their flight to France and they had landed in Wales. Of course that didn't explain how they had found me at the cottage, but for some reason that question didn't enter my head at the time.

"Come along," Jacques said. "We are going to have another party at the hotel."

Like a lamb, I followed the obviously extremely drunken pair out of the cottage. From there things got a little hazy. I remember that we were having one whale of a time. There was girls and singing, and Jose dancing one of those flamenco things and then....

Jesus, my head hurt. Christ, my bloody back was killing me as well. My eyes were tightly clamped closed because I feared what effect the light was going to have on my senses. I tried to change position to get myself more comfortable and then I was suddenly falling onto a hard floor. My feet appeared to be caught up somewhere above me and no amount of twisting or turning would get them free.

I very cautiously opened my eyes a little. All I could see was a sign hanging on the wall, but to me it definitely didn't look like it was written in English.

"Ah, you fucking idiot," I thought to myself, "its in Welsh! No, no, it fucking ain't; the bleeding words are much too short."

The Welsh seem to like long unintelligible words. No, this bloody sign was in some other language. "Oh, bloody shit, it's in Dutch!" I sat up and looked around. There were Jose and the other French guy sleeping on some chairs that had been pushed together, obviously the same way I had been.

Suddenly a rather loud Jacques entered the room carrying a tray with four cups of coffee on it and calling for everybody to wake up.

"Where the fuck are we?" I asked Jacques.

"We are in the crew room at the air field. They would not let Jose fly the plane. They say he is too - how do you say? - he has too much beer."

"Ah, he's pissed."

"Yes, they say he has pissed and he must not fly the plane. So we sleep here."

"What day is it?" Jacques

"Saturday, why do you ask?"

"It doesn't matter Jacques, let's just say I'm very happy to hear you say that. And I don't think I'm ever going to drink alcohol again."

Life goes on.