Sign Language

A brother causes mayhem in this amusing short story by Ewan Smith.

JENNY spluttered coffee all over the table at motorway services. She was on her way home after a fun weekend catching up with old friends from university.

She had stopped for a break and had been vaguely watching the news on a TV screen on the wall.

The last item was a light-hearted story about a sign that had gone up in a farmer’s field.

I’m thirty-two and I’m lonely. I work hard seven days a week and don’t get the chance to meet new people. So if you fancy a date with a lovelorn farmer, call the number below.

The newsreader gazed at the camera.

“Many people have been touched by the plight of this farmer, so desperate for love that he has been driven to advertise publicly for a partner.

“He comes from the pretty little village of Quanton in Kent, and we can speak to him now. “Darren Trenton . . .”

That was when Jenny had spluttered. For up there on the screen, gawking at the camera like a great idiot, was her brother, Darren.

Jenny missed what was being said for the next few seconds as she wiped the table with some tissues.

When she turned back to the screen, Darren was talking.

“I like to think I have a big heart. I have so much to give the right person. It’s just . . .” He slowed to a stop, apparently overcome with emotion.

“Take your time, Darren,” the newsreader murmured sympathetically as Darren blinked rapidly.

Jenny shook her head. That was nonsense. Darren never cried; not even at the end of “Toy Story 4”.

“As a farmer, I’m on duty twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” he managed to continue.

“Our animals don’t switch off at the end of the working day, so I can’t, either.

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my work. There is nothing I would rather be doing.

“But it means that I have few opportunities to get out and meet people.”

“What’s he talking about?” Jenny muttered.

Darren was at the village pub having a high old time every other night of the week!

If that wasn’t meeting people, what was?

Darren gazed soulfully at the camera.

“I just hope that there is someone out there who is willing to put up with me and all my faults.

Jenny shuddered.

“For goodness’ sake!”

The newsreader brought

Jenny was baffled. Why was Darren looking for romance so publicly?

the item to an end, clearly moved by Darren’s story.

She wasn’t the only one. Two women at a table near Jenny had been watching the news item.

“Did you see that?” one said to her companion. “That poor, poor man.”

“You didn’t get the phone number, did you?” the other one asked.

Jenny hurriedly got her own phone out of her bag.

She and her university friends had agreed to keep their phones switched off over the weekend.

They had wanted to concentrate on having a good time together, rather than thinking of things at home.

She switched her phone on and gaped at the screen.

There were 17 messages waiting for her and 23 voicemails.

She quickly realised that they were all about the same thing.

“You won’t believe what that dozy brother of yours has done,” her friend, Candice, hooted on her voicemail.

“He’s stuck a big sign in the field by the main road asking for dates!”

“There must have been a mistake at the hospital, Jenny,” her mother, Bridie, said in her message.

“I came home with the wrong baby all those years ago. It’s the only explanation.”

Jenny hurriedly finished her coffee and got back on the motorway.

The whole thing seemed so bizarre.

Darren was an affable guy who got on well with everyone.

He had lots of friends, male and female, and he’d always been a great older brother to her.

But she had never known him to show the slightest interest in finding himself a partner. He seemed perfectly happy with his life the way it was.

A few years back, their mum and dad had retired from farming and Darren and Jenny had taken over.

Darren ran the farm itself, assisted by Christo, who had joined them six months earlier.

Jenny ran the farm shop along with some part-time helpers.

She and her brother had a good relationship and any problems that occurred were always sorted out without a fuss.

But Jenny was beginning to wonder if she knew Darren at all.

Could he have been hiding a secret heartache all this time?

****

It was late afternoon when she arrived back at the farm. Everyone was in the kitchen.

“Have a seat and I’ll make you a cup of tea,” Bridie said briskly. “What about your brother’s nonsense?”

“It was a bit of a surprise,” Jenny retorted, looking quizzically at Darren.

He was leaning against the sideboard with his phone clamped against his ear.

He grinned at her and gave her a wink.

“That phone of his has been ringing non-stop,” her dad muttered in disapproval.

“I don’t know what people in the village must think of it all.”

Darren finished his call and rubbed his hands together cheerfully.

“Guess what? I’m going on a date tonight.”

“On a Sunday night?” Bridie frowned.

“Her name is Hania, she lives in town and she sounds a nice lass.

“We’re planning to meet for a drink and we might go for a meal afterwards.”

“What about the evening milking?” his dad growled. “Christo can do that.”

“By himself? That’s hardly fair on the poor lad. You usually do it together.”

Darren came over to Jenny and gave her shoulders a squeeze.

“Maybe my lovely sister will cover for me.”

Bridie looked shocked. “But she’s been away all weekend. She must be exhausted!”

Jenny laughed.

“I was having fun with my friends, Mum, not working my fingers to the bone.”

She turned to Darren. “I’ll cover for you. No problem.”

In fact, Jenny was happy to take on the chore.

She always enjoyed working with the animals and it would give her a chance to get to know Christo better.

He was a reserved person. In the months that he’d worked at the farm, the two of them had done little more than pass the time of day.

It would be nice to have the chance for a proper chat with him.

“Were you surprised to see the sign that Darren stuck in the field?” she asked as they put food pellets in the cattle troughs. Christo smiled.

“I helped him put it up. I hope it goes well for him tonight.

“He’s been good to me since I started here.

“Fingers crossed that he manages to find the right person for himself.”

Jenny wondered if there was a special someone in Christo’s life; she knew so little about him.

It took about an hour for them to finish the milking, and by the end of it Jenny felt that they had taken the first steps towards becoming friends.

****

“How was last night?” she asked Darren the next morning.

He nodded.

“Fine; Hania was very nice. We had a drink and then went for an Italian. It was a pleasant evening.” “Will you see her again?” He grimaced.

“Probably not. We had a good time, but there was no spark between us.” Jenny looked at him. “Isn’t it a bit early to say that?”

“We both agreed; it was all very friendly.” He smiled brightly. “I did persuade her to try our weekly veg boxes for a month.”

Jenny burst out laughing.

“Is that why you’re doing this? To persuade poor women to go on dates with you so that you can sell our products?”

Darren looked outraged. “Of course not! The subject just came up by chance during our conversation.”

Jenny wasn’t convinced. “Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you on the date.”

Darren looked round to see if their parents were in earshot and lowered his voice.

“I’m taking someone else

Jenny wondered if there was someone special in Christo’s life

out tonight.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. “You don’t hang around!” “Her name is Yolanda. We’re meeting for a drink first . . .”

“. . . and you might go for a meal?”

He grinned.

“However, it does require someone to cover for me with the evening milking.” “That someone is me?” Darren had the grace to look apologetic.

“Would you mind?”

Jenny didn’t mind. In fact, she found that she was looking forward to spending more time with Christo.

****

After that, things went a bit mad.

Over the weekend, the story had gone viral and there was no stopping it. Offers and requests of all sorts began pouring in for Darren.

There were radio shows wanting interviews, TV programmes, bloggers, journalists – many of them from overseas.

There were innumerable women who appeared out of nowhere, keen to take him up on his offer of a date.

Darren was amused by the attention. It turned out that he came across well on TV; he had a natural way about him that people found engaging.

Bridie and Clem,

his dad, weren’t best pleased by the developments.

The phone was constantly ringing and it was never anyone they wanted to hear from.

One side-effect was that the farm shop became busier than it had ever been.

Over the years, Jenny had built up a healthy customer base of regulars, but now a steady stream of newcomers started dropping into the shop.

It puzzled her at first, until she realised that they were all women hoping to catch a glimpse of Darren.

That was fine as far as she was concerned, so long as they spent a bit of money at the same time.

The trouble was that, when they didn’t see him, they hung around hoping that he would turn up.

They bothered her and the helpers because they wanted to talk about him, get the latest gossip about his love life and ask if there was a chance of putting in a good word on their behalf.

The farm shop wasn’t particularly big, and now it was often full of dreamyeyed women wandering about with empty baskets and getting in the way of regular customers.

In the end, Jenny came to an agreement with Darren.

He would happen to drop by the farm shop every lunchtime so that anyone wanting to talk to him could do so then.

The idea worked well.

The shop quickly became a hive of activity at that time of day.

Jenny could swear that the temperature in the place rose a few degrees as the poor women got their chance to enjoy a meeting with her brother, whom they clearly saw as some sort of rural love-god.

However, she had to give Darren credit.

Although he was full of his usual blather and bonhomie when he was in the shop, he did manage to turn the conversation round regularly to the matter of what they had to sell.

Most of the shopping baskets were full to overflowing by the end of the hour, and that did the daily takings no harm at all.

A new routine settled on the farm. Darren went on dates virtually every night, though it was always with different women.

He took them to restaurants, to pubs or to the cinema, and they would seem to have a good time.

Afterwards he would inevitably tell Jenny that the experience wouldn’t be repeated.

The vital spark was missing and he would have to carry on looking.

Bridie had reproved him for his gadding about because it meant that

Jenny was having to cover for him so often with the milking.

However, she didn’t mind that at all.

She was finding that she looked forward to her evenings with Christo.

They got on well and they were able to talk about anything, as if they had been friends for a long time.

He didn’t have a laughout-loud sense of humour, but there was a lot of joy in him.

Jenny found that, when she was with him, she just felt happy.

****

Then came the reality-TV programme. Darren had been invited to take part in a light-hearted dating show and, to Bridie and Clem’s horror, he had accepted.

He went on the show one week and had to choose one of three women to go out with.

The plan was that the cameras would follow the couple on their date and the results would be shown the following week.

That was when things started getting strange.

Darren had picked a woman called Tonja.

He announced to the family that she would be coming to the farm and that the filming would happen there.

“What are you doing for your date?” Jenny asked.

“Tonja has it organised,” Darren replied. “We’re having the date at the farm. Tonja says she loves the simple life. I’m going to do a barbecue for her.”

Jenny, Bridie and Clem gazed at him in disbelief.

“But you’re terrible with a barbecue,” Bridie retorted.

“Your burgers are either burned or half raw.

“I don’t think Tonja is going to be best pleased if she ends the date with food poisoning!”

“That’s not a problem. She’s bringing her own food. The barbecuing is just an act.”

It was then that Jenny realised that it wasn’t going to be a date like any other.

This was confirmed when Tonja arrived in a caravan packed with assistants – and a boyfriend in tow.

He was called Turk and he acted as her manager.

“Tonja is on her way to becoming a big reality-TV star,” he assured Jenny.

“We’re building her career up step by step.”

Jenny had thought that reality-TV programmes showed something approaching reality.

But everything that was going to happen on this date was already scripted.

There would be Tonja and Darren meeting some animals, walking hand in hand through a wildflower meadow, sharing delicious country fare, then kissing under the moonlight.

The filming took all day and Jenny had the shop to run.

But as she got together with Christo in the early evening, they found that things were being set up for filming the kiss that would be the climax of the date.

She and Christo watched in disbelief as Turk led Darren through every stage of the process: the intertwining fingers, the squeeze of the shoulders, the cupping of the cheeks, the gazing into each other’s eyes and, finally, the kiss.

“And don’t press,” Tonja instructed him with a frown. “It’ll spoil my lippy.”

“I can’t bear this,” Jenny muttered. “Shall we get on with the milking?”

Afterwards, she wasn’t sure how it happened.

They were walking into the milking parlour and she turned to him with a laugh to say something about how ridiculous Darren and Tonja’s date was.

But suddenly Christo was leaning forward.

Then the two of them were kissing and it felt like the sweetest thing in the world.

****

“Sorry, Darren, I’m afraid that you’ll have to do the milking by yourself today,” she said the next morning. He looked at her.

“Why?”

“I’m going on a date.” She smiled. “With Christo.”

Darren gazed at her for a moment, then clenched his fist and pumped it in the air.

“Yes! I knew it would work in the end.”

She frowned.

“You knew what would work?”

“It’s been obvious for months that you and Christo are perfect for each other. But would you dozy pair do anything about it?” “I don’t understand.” “I reckoned that if I got you spending time together on a regular basis then that might just do the trick.” Jenny’s was in shock.

“Do you mean that all this – the dating . . .?” He grinned.

Jenny grabbed him and squeezed him in a bear hug.

“You’re an amazing brother.”

“My life can get back to normal now.”

Then a thoughtful frown crossed his face.

“Though we do seem to have tapped into an unexpected market.

“I wonder if would be a good idea to try to attract men looking for dates to the farm shop as well?”

Jenny looked at him in disbelief.

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“Maybe have a speeddating hour once a week by the fruit and veg display.” “No, Darren. Darren!”

His eyes became bright with enthusiasm.

“I really think that could work. Where’s that sign?”

The End.