The Border Reiver Read Free

the three of them; he saw fear, but he also saw their conviction - at least in the two older men, the young one cowering behind was no more than a child. He said nothing, concentrated, waited for them to give him direction. 
    The guy with the scraggly hair and round face said, “Have you heard of the NSO?”
    “Yes.”
    “Were you expecting us?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know what we are here to do?”
    “No.”
    “Can I explain? Or are you non-compliant?”
    “You explain and I’ll tell you whether I comply,” growled the farmer.
    “The NCO is the new government and we want to improve the...”
    “Save your bullshit. What do you want from me?”
    Nat saw the boy’s face change from ambivalence to deadpan in a split second, and he knew that he was going to cut through the rhetoric and talk directly.
    “We want information from you so that we can account for and record what you produce here and the productivity of the farm. Then, we will look at how that can be improved. After that, we will calculate how many people could be employed on the farm. How your produce will fit the jigsaw of self-sufficiency for the Hexhamshire Collective. You will either come under the umbrella of the collective or you will be re-housed somewhere else.”
    Nat’s face crumpled in thought, his bottom lip began to protrude and his shoulders rose as if to say ‘whatever.' With that, he turned his back on the men and walked off back to the house. His footing was solid, and he didn’t look back. He was done with the visitors.
    The three men followed him, however; they hadn’t finished. The older man strolled back around the North West corner of the house and in through the rough old back door, the same route he had passed thousands of times, except now the three younger men followed. He knew they would follow. There was less room in the house. It was a concentrated space which limited movement.
    Nat pulled out his chair at the table and sat down facing the three men as they entered his kitchen.  It smelled of oil from the Aga and farm machinery and dirt from the fields.
      He was wrought like the gates of a prison. Sitting with one leg over the other at the old oak table where he sat every day, he had his arms lying one on top of the other like a lion warily basking in the sun. His eyes darted between his visitors attempting to make sense of the situation but trying desperately to hide his emotion. The pose offered a pensive calm, but his eyes would betray the whirlwind of anger within.
    The kitchen was warm and inviting with a rich glow from the lights bouncing off the earthen colours of the flagstone floor. The smell of the open fire mixed with the oily tang and the murmur of the wind through the thick walls called for single malt, not the scene that had unfolded.
    Nat attempted to tumble the chaos of the situation into some sort of order in his head, but he couldn’t quite compute. His pulse was racing and his brow beading with sweat, he wasn’t sure whether he was visibly quaking with the fear, confusion and overwhelming anger. He felt like a sealed bottle of water thrown into the fire, it was only a matter of time…
    “What are your names?” he asked, buying time, thinking.
    Bemused, Roland answered, waving a hand at the relevant person in turn:
    “Roland, Gerry and Davey. Now, let’s get down to business as we have a lot of people still to visit after you.”
    “What happens if I don’t do what you want?”
    “You have to do what we want, it is the law. And, it is not what I want, sir, this is government policy.  This is how the country is going to be run from now on.”
    The old farmer leaned in slightly on his elbows, drawing their gaze to his brilliant blue eyes, his face solid as granite.
    “Do you realise what you are saying? You expect me to hand over my land to a bunch of half-cut revolutionaries who have no idea how to work it?”
    “Listen, it is time that everyone had the opportunity to earn a decent living.