I usually feel sad when a relationship ends no matter how bad it is, but this time I just felt relieved. His gran was a hardened loyalist like the rest of his family but it was still nice of her to put me up, and living with her beat staying with him any day of the week. I wished his baby's mum the best of luck because she was certainly going to need it.
Luckily one of the friends that I had made during a stint working at a factory to earn a couple of extra quid was in need of a new housemate, so I was able to put off moving home and facing up to my dad's illness for a little bit longer. I should have gone back to comfort my mum but remembered Dad's advice that I should stay in Northern Ireland. My pal lived in the nearby town of Ballymena, a lot bigger than Randalstown and even more divided. It was around three quarters Protestant and the loyalist areas were split between the UVF, the UFF and the UDA.
The street I moved onto was called Patrick Place and could have passed for Coronation Street. It was a cobbled road lined with old-fashioned terraced houses that suited their inhabitants to a tee because a lot of the locals agreed with the politics of the UDA and had very backwards-thinking views on religion. As with Randalstown, nobody made any effort whatsoever to put the past behind them and get on with the Catholics. The two faiths hated one another with a passion and would rather have died than mixed.
The strong UDA presence in the area didn't bother me too much because they sold gold jewellery, which I have always been into. In hindsight it was almost certainly stolen but I was blissfully unaware of that at the time. I didn't ask where it had come from and they didn't tell me.
The girl that I was living with was a drinker, which was also fine by me. There was a pub five minutes from our house so we spent most of our time in there. It was a little more risky going into the local boozers now that I was single though, because the other drinkers were suspicious of a lone English girl drinking in a rough- and-ready Irish watering hole. A few of the regulars thought that I was an MI5 agent sent to infiltrate the paramilitaries. I found this hilarious at the time but in hindsight it could have got me into serious trouble.
Fortunately most of the locals were sensible enough to know that I was about as far from James Bond as you could get. One of them even invited me to a parade on Shankhill Road in Belfast in honour of a dead terrorist. I agreed to go out of morbid curiosity and spent the whole time feeling horribly on edge. Shankhill Road area was a notorious Protestant ghetto with murals commemorating fallen paramilitaries all over the place and bullet holes in the walls. It looked like a cross between a sink estate and a war zone. If I had known what it was like before I went then I would have definitely made my excuses and given it a miss.
The territorialism of the locals in Belfast was even more extreme than I'd seen elsewhere. Shankhill Road was divided up between the UDA and the UVF and the two groups hated one another. I found it unbelievable that you could walk down the road and suddenly enter an area where completely different rules applied. There was political graffiti everywhere so at least you knew who controlled which part of the street. It must have been terrible for the children who lived there because they had to walk past huge pictures of machine-gun-toting blokes in balaclavas every time they went to school. It was little wonder so many people from the area ended up as extremists. Sectarian propaganda was sprayed on every available surface.
At the parade, a local band played pipe music and people stood about and drank. It would have been quite cheerful if there weren't banners emblazoned with pictures of paramilitaries all over the place, and signs warning that anybody caught selling drugs would be tarred and feathered. This was the UVF's way of having a go at the UDA for peddling dope. The UVF didn't approve of criminal activity whether the proceeds were going to 'the cause' or not, which was the claim made by the UDA. How anybody could think that publicly tarring and feathering someone was somehow less immoral than selling drugs was really beyond me.
I left the event later that evening wondering how on earth people could live their lives with so much hatred in their hearts. The Shankhill Road locals thrived on bigotry and seemed to enjoy creating tension. Compared to Belfast, Ballymena and Randalstown were both relatively tame. If I had wandered into a Catholic pub in the capital then I would have no doubt got more than just a friendly warning that I was in the wrong neck of the woods. I might have ended up with at least one less kneecap.
It was funny because even though I was surrounded by sectarian nutters, the thing that really bothered me about my life in Northern Ireland was my housemate's whining. She was quite a bit younger than me and complained bitterly about every little thing. Don't get me wrong, she was a damn sight easier to live with than Jamie, but still drove me round the twist. One of her main whinges was the fact that she never had enough money to go out with. She barely earned enough to pay the rent, which caused me no end of earache. In the end she decided that it would be more practical to live with her parents and left me in peace.
I was never lonely in the house on my own because the pub was so close by. Whenever I got bored, I went and had a natter and a drink with the regulars, which helped to take my mind off what was going on with Dad. I would have liked to hide away forever but unfortunately reality always catches up with you. It was a Monday morning when I got the call to say that Dad was dying. It was the worst news I have ever had in my life.
'Terry you've got to come home right away,' Mum told me. 'Your dad's only got a week left to live. He's got pleurisy and his lungs are filling up with liquid. He's in hospital at the moment but we're bringing him home tomorrow so that he can spend his last days with the family.'
Even though the doctor had already told me that Dad wasn't going to get better, I still felt shocked that he was going to die so soon. Pleurisy is one of many secondary illnesses that can be brought about by cancer. It causes the lining of the lungs to swell and can also create a build-up of pleural fluid in them, which is what happened to Dad. It was bad enough that he was being sick all the time whilst he was having the chemo; thinking about him drowning in his own lung juice was unbearable. The difference was that this time, there was to be no more burying my head in the sand. It was time to face up to my fears.
I assured Mum that I would be there as soon as possible and rushed round to my friend's house to ask him if he could look after my place whilst I was away. The area around Patrick Place wasn't hugely upmarket and I didn't want to come back from my father's deathbed to find that somebody had broken in. My mate agreed to check up on it at regular intervals, which gave me one less thing to worry about.
The journey to England was spent on the edge of tears. I knew I had to be strong for Dad's sake but it was easier said than done.
At around four o'clock that evening I arrived at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury to see a pale, stick-thin version of my father struggling to stay alive. He had gone from 14 stone to 9 stone and looked as if he was in a lot of pain. It was heartbreaking to see someone who meant so much to me in such an awful state.
The following day, we arranged for an ambulance to take Dad home so that he could spend his final moments in a comfortable environment. There was no sense in leaving him to die in hospital. He was better off in the place where we had shared so many happy memories.
On Friday 15 June, Dad finally passed away. We were all there when it happened, which made it extra traumatic. The only small piece of comfort that I could take from it was the fact that he no longer had to endure his body being ravaged by disease. If he had died a painless death then we might have been able to cope with it, but as it was, he left this world in horrendous circumstances. I just pray he's in a better place and smiling down on us.
We had the funeral a week after Dad's death. Knowing that he was going to die a long time in advance gave him time to plan his own send-off. An old, Cockney-style horse-drawn cart carried his body from our house to the village church whilst his favourite Irish songs played in the background. The minute it was over, we all headed to the local pub to drown our sorr
ows. Mum and Kelly were both absolutely devastated. Kel has a funny way of dealing with death; she tends to remain quiet and withdrawn rather than letting it all out and having a good cry. It was a lovely, sunny day so I sat on a bench outside and drank myself into a stupor. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully get over my father's death. It's the worst thing that has ever happened to me and believe you me, I've got of a lot of tragedies to choose from.
I only stayed in Wingrave for just under a month after the funeral. It's difficult to come to terms with a death in the family when you're surrounded by memories of the person that you've lost. I would have stayed longer but everything in the house reminded me of him so in the end I thought, 'I've had enough. I need to get out of here.' The Orange Day Parade was on in Northern Ireland so I asked my mum if she wanted to go to it with me. I figured it would help to take her mind off things.
'Yes, why not?' said Mum. 'I need every distraction I can get right now. It sounds like it could be a good day out.'
The Orange Day Parade is a day of festivities to mark the anniversary of the Protestants' victory over the Catholics in the Battle of the Boyne. It is supposedly an occasion when tensions run high between Protestants and Catholics, but it was still quite fun and light-hearted compared to the parade that I had been to on the Shankhill Road. There was no trouble whatsoever in the Protestant areas. It was only when the procession went through Catholic estates that things began to turn a little bit ugly but we stayed well away from that part of the march.
The parade held a dual purpose for the Protestants. It allowed them to gloat about their victory over the Catholics and also gave them another excuse to get drunk. I couldn't have cared less about the Battle of the Boyne; it was the drinking that I liked. I just saw it as a day of music and boozing. Mum enjoyed the procession so we were both happy. When she finally left for England, I felt pleased that I had managed to put a smile on her face. Nothing could ever erase Dad's death from her memory but I had at least been able to momentarily divert her attention from that fateful day. It was just a shame that I was unable to stop thinking about it for even a single second.
The next few weeks were spent drinking myself into oblivion in a desperate attempt to forget. A lot of the clubs in Randalstown and Ballymena had a strict 'no soldier' policy, which meant I knew which places I could go to without having to worry about bumping into Jamie. One of my favourite spots to dance the night away was at a big club in Ballymena town centre that played garage and house music. This was where I first laid eyes on Billy. He was small with spiky hair and had a cheeky look to him that I was immediately attracted to. I spent half of the night eyeing him up before eventually making a move and kissing him.
Within a matter of days, Billy and I were girlfriend and boyfriend. He was a lot more cheerful than Jamie had been and I appreciated the warmth of his character. Our relationship developed very quickly and we soon became incredibly close to one another. He was a fanatical Protestant but that came with the territory. You would have been hard pushed to find anybody in Ballymena who wasn't extreme in their views.
I felt as if I fitted into Northern Irish life a lot better as part of a couple than I did on my own. Nobody accused me of being a secret agent any more and I was able to live a relatively hassle-free life. Up until this point, the country's sectarian issues hadn't caused me any serious problems; I had been able to ignore them and go about my business without getting involved. This was all about to change. In Northern Ireland, you don't always get to choose which side you're on. Sometimes one of the sides chooses you and the first you get to hear of it is when the cops are hammering on your door.
Chapter 11
TERRY THE TERRORIST
It was ten thirty on a Friday night when the boys in blue came knocking. I had been drinking and felt a little worse for wear but managed to stumble down the stairs to answer the door. The sight that greeted me when I undid the latch will stay imprinted on my brain until my dying day. Patrick Place was rammed from one end to the other with police and army men. The soldiers were in full uniform but the coppers were plain-clothed, although it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were Old Bill. I could have deduced that from their knock alone, which sounded as if they were attempting to cave the door in.
'We're here to execute a search warrant. We have reason to believe that you have firearms on the premises.'
My jaw dropped so low that I'm surprised it didn't leave a dent in the floor. By this stage I was used to being accused of things I hadn't done but this was something else. What on earth made them think I had a gun in my house? Was it something to do with my arrest in Spain? A million questions buzzed about in my head as I stood gobsmacked in the doorway. I had hung about with some unsavoury characters in the past but had never come into contact with a firearm, let alone decide to keep one in my home.
'Before we start the search, have you got anything in the house that you shouldn't have? We're going to tear the place apart so you might as well say now.'
'No, feel free to take a look,' I told them. 'I've got nothing to hide.'
'Has anybody else got access to your property?'
This was when it struck me. My friend still had the spare key that I had given him on the day I hurried back to say goodbye to Dad. Had he hidden something in my house without letting on to me?
'Yeah one other person does,' I said. 'What the hell is all of this about?'
'Wait here with me,' the copper told me, completely ignoring my question and carrying on with what he was saying as if he hadn't heard. 'The other officers are going to have a look around the house. If they find anything then you'll be arrested on suspicion of possessing illegal weaponry.'
As the police rifled through my belongings, I felt very foolish for giving somebody else the means to come and go as they pleased. In a place like Northern Ireland, this was an unspeakably bad move. I had met the lad I gave the keys to at the local pub and trusted him despite only being friends with him for a matter of months and not knowing a great deal about his life. It wasn't as if it had been essential for him to check up on the house either; it was just something that I thought would put my mind at rest. What if he was a member of the UDA? They were always looking for places to hide their arms, drugs and stolen property. I was frantically attempting to get this thought out of my head when a smug-looking copper came striding down the hallway to confirm my fears.
'We've got a sawn-off shotgun, some ammunition and what looks to be a pipe bomb, Sarge,' he told his superior. 'They were hidden in a box under the stairs. There's a load of balaclavas in there too so somebody was obviously planning on doing something nasty. It's a good thing we found them when we did or we could have had a major incident on our hands.'
At this point, I thought, 'Here we go again.' It was like an action replay of the airport in Gran Canaria only with a gun and a bomb instead of drugs. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If I wasn't in such a horrendous amount of trouble then it might have been funny. The fact that a single person could be in the wrong place at the wrong time so often was totally surreal.
'Cuff her up,' the sergeant ordered his lackey. 'We'll see what she has to say about this down at the station.'
As the handcuffs snapped shut round my wrists, I wondered how I was going to wriggle my way out of this one. I was completely innocent but had to admit that it looked very bad. Surely the coppers realised I was English, though. Most of the UDA are born and raised in Ulster so the Old Bill must have been aware of how unlikely it was that I was a terrorist. I was praying that they had connected the dots and figured out that someone had used me; otherwise I was going to be spending years of my life in a grim Irish slammer surrounded by Sectarian fruit loops.
The officers shoved me into the back of a van and drove me to the police station, where I was interrogated for a good half hour. By this stage I was shaking so much that it looked as if I had Parkinson's disease. My whole body was completely wracked with fear. Memories of Gran Canaria came
flooding back as the coppers bombarded me with question after question. The only slight plus point was that I could actually understand what they were saying this time, although I almost wished I couldn't.
'I'm going to ask you one more time,' the interrogator told me. 'What were you planning on doing with the weapons?'
'I didn't even know that they were there,' I sobbed. 'You have to believe me. I only found out that they were in my house when the police searched it. Somebody must have put them there.'
The coppers didn't look convinced. As far as they were concerned, I was just another guilty criminal putting on an act.
'We found a message on your mobile phone saying, "That was a great result tonight." What exactly did you mean by that? It sounds to me like you were referring to an attack.'
I was talking about the result of a Liverpool game. Were they going to read sinister hidden meanings into all of my private conversations? I couldn't believe that they were genuinely convinced that I was some kind of terrorist hit woman. Did they really think that I looked cold and emotionless enough to be a UDA assassin?
'I meant that Stevie Gerrard and the boys had won a match,' I sniffled. 'I'm really not the person that you think I am. I'm not the only one who's got a key to the house. I'm telling you I didn't have a clue.'
Passport To Hell: How I Survived Sadistic Prison Guards and Hardened Criminals in Spain's Toughest Prisons Page 12