by Guy Lilburne
“FREEZE. ARMED POLICE” I barked like an Army Sgt. Major. It was the only thing that I could think to say at the time!
The man looked over his shoulder at me. I was only 20 foot away from him now. He stopped and put his arms out to the sides. The holdall in his right hand dropped to the floor. He raised his hands in the air above his head as he turned to face me. I dived into him, knocking him to the floor. It was a tackle very befitting to a Rugby field. I rolled him over and sat on his back keeping his face pressed into the mud.
“You’re fucking nicked” I screamed, desperately trying to remember any other lines I’d heard on TV detective shows when they arrest the bad guys.
“I just found this bag. I don’t even know what’s inside.”
I was sitting on his neck now. I grabbed the holdall and looked inside. There was £20,000 in cash and what looked like a sawn off shotgun wrapped in a carrier bag. I opened the carrier bag a little. The sawn off shotgun turned out to be a rolling pin, and luckily for me it wasn’t loaded.
Marco, still sitting in the car, had phoned 999 for more police and within minutes other officers arrived and took the prisoner back to the police station. Marco and I followed them to the police station to make statements. The whole police station was buzzing and, if I wasn’t in a hurry to get to Birmingham airport, I would have enjoyed staying and soaking up the praise and congratulations. As it was I just made a quick statement about the robbery and the citizen’s arrest and went on my way to meet my Irish princess. I was already late.
The robber turned out to be a soldier who was on leave and was only staying in the area for a week. He later pleaded guilty to the robbery in Crown Court, and blamed it on ‘Gulf War Syndrome’. The stress of being a soldier. He should try being an area manager of a chain of large superstores sometime! The Judge commended me and awarded me with £200 out of public funds, which I immediately asked to be given to the local hospice. Outside the court I was interviewed by some local newspapers and had my photograph in all the local papers and they called me a ‘Hero’!
Mary met me off a later flight at Dublin airport. I had already contacted her on the phone and explained why I was going to miss the earlier flight. She looked fantastic, even better than I had remembered her. We kissed and hugged. We were very happy to see each other. She told me that we were going to stay at her sister’s flat in Dublin, because her sister was away until Sunday. Then on Sunday we would stay at her dad’s farm in Ballygortha. I was looking forward to a great weekend.
We got to her sister’s flat and Mary started kissing me passionately. She sat on a dining room chair and undid the belt and the button on my jeans. She pulled down the zip and then she pulled down my jeans and boxer shorts a little way. She took hold of my cock and put it in her mouth, gently sucking and pulling on my foreskin back and forth until I was hard.
Then she just stopped and stood up.
“Now I don’t want any of your fancy licky, tickly stuff. Just fuck me” she smiled.
She turned around and bent over the dining room table, peeling her jeans and thong down to reveal her peachy bum.
I didn’t do any ‘fancy licky tickly stuff’.
I just pushed my cock into her and fucked the arse off her. It was probably the best sex that I ever had with Mary, although, at the time, I suspected that she might enjoy this more if I was bashing her over the head with a heavy pan or something. To me it felt fantastic. Some women have a pussy like a badly packed kebab, all lips and skin. Mary was perfect, tight and neat. And best of all I was behind her so she couldn’t hit me or claw me to death. I think that this was definitely my favourite position with Mary.
We had a fantastic weekend and some great nights out in Dublin. The Irish people are a lovely race of people with a unique sense of wit and charm that’s always a pleasure to behold. Their directness made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion.
The first night out in Dublin we ended up in a night club called ‘Break for the Border’. I went to the toilet and while I was standing having a piss amongst a row of men at the urinals, somebody’s mobile phone started ringing in one of the cubicles.
“Hello” said the man. “No, I can talk. I’m just having a shit…” It just sounded so funny and the whole row of men at the urinals started laughing.
“Oy! You lot” shouted the man from the cubical, “do you fecking mind. This is a private call!”
On the Saturday night we stayed in and got a bottle of wine and a Chinese takeaway. I didn’t realise at first, but the chicken was obviously off and within an hour I was in her sister’s bathroom, spraying the walls and floor with gallons of vomit and diarrhoea. The smell was awful and filled the whole apartment, but Mary was very understanding and took the piss remorselessly.
I met all her brothers and her sister and dad on the Sunday at the farm. Her mother had died the year before. Her sister ‘Diedra’ cooked the dinner and we all sat around a big table in the kitchen to eat. I got on well with all of them and there was a lot of laughter and good humour, especially with Diedra’s cooking. The dinner was in fact tremendous. When Diedra put the fresh fruit salad and cream on the table everyone helped themselves. One of her brothers, ‘David’, asked accusingly
“Diedra, have you put fecking sugar all over the fruit salad?”
“No. I have not” she replied indignantly.
“Well you should have. Its fecking bitter!”
Diedra flicked a spoonful of cream at David and we all fell about laughing. They were a lovely family and I liked them a lot. On the Sunday night Mary took me to the local pub in Ballygortha, ‘Paddy’s’. It was little more than a shack. One side was the bar and the other side was the shop. It was in the middle of nowhere, and stayed open until whatever time Paddy wanted to close. Outside the front of the pub the beer garden consisted of a couple of old wooden tables and a couple of well-worn leather seats that had been taken from the back of some old cars. Inside it was basic in the bar. An old pot- bellied stove provided the heat. The furniture was old and wooden and sparse. It included a plank of wood placed across two beer barrels, and the place had an unhealthy amount of flies.
I was absolutely enthralled with the local characters, who were all delightful and, along with Paddy and his wife, made the English visitor very welcome. Everyone was telling me that I should marry Mary. It seemed that the whole village thought that she was lovely. I asked Mary where the ‘gents’ was and she told me that I had to go out of the front of the pub and walk around the outside to the back.
“It’s an outside gents” she explained.
I followed my nose and found it. It was just four walls and a roof. You had to piss against the wall. It ran down a trough which was inlaid with a piece of plastic guttering that was cut in half. The trough went around the foot of the walls and then did a sharp right turn into the middle of the floor where it disappeared into a little hole in the middle of the floor. You actually had to step over all this to get to the wall in the first place. If there was no room at the wall men would just piss straight into the hole. There were no cubicles. When I got back to Mary I said,
“There was no toilet paper.”
“Oh! If you want a shit you have to get the key off Paddy and go over the road to his house.”
“I was only kidding” I laughed.
During a conversation with Paddy he told me that the toilets were going to be refurbished and it would all be completed by my next visit the following month. He was very proud of his pub.
I had a wonderful time with Mary and loved her even more by the time I returned to England.
On my first day back I took over another area with some problem stores that were under performing. This meant a change to my shift pattern and I wouldn’t get a long weekend each month, so I had to tag on two days of annual leave each time I went back to Ireland, which I did every thr
ee or four weeks until September. On my next visit I was looking forward to seeing Paddy’s refurbishment and, as soon as we walked into the pub, he told me that it had been done. He insisted that I go and inspect it. He followed me out.
The refurbishment consisted of four white urinal bowls that had been screwed into the wall above the open trough, not plumbed in at all, and there was still no lighting or cubicles.
“Very nice” I said.
“My cousin did it for me. I got it done cheap.”
“He’s done a great job. Is he a plumber by trade?”
“Oh no. He’s unemployed as a trade, but he can turn his hand to anything. Gifted he is. Go on and try it out. Tell me what you think.”
“No thanks, I’m OK just now.”
“C’mon will ya. Try it out now.”
I stepped over the trough and stood at one of the urinal bowls with Paddy at my shoulder. I was trying to make polite conversation and trying desperately hard to piss. It didn’t come easily, but Paddy was a patient man.
I pissed in the bowl. It trickled through the hole at the bottom and dripped into the open trough. Paddy and I watched it flow around the floor and disappear into the hole in the ground. Paddy looked at me for my considered opinion. I nodded approvingly.
“Modern technology, Paddy!”
“Ahh! Fecking brilliant.” He slapped me on the back.
On my trips to Ireland I got to know Mary really well. We talked a lot about politics and the troubles in The North. I even started to read various books to help me understand the issues better. I don’t think I ever did grasp an understanding of this complex issue.
It was clear that Mary would never leave Ireland and come and live with me in England. It was just as clear that I couldn’t leave England to go and live with her in Ireland.
Her IRA sympathies also became apparent. She seemed to know all the main players, who I had only ever heard or read about. I don’t think that she was a member of the IRA, but she would certainly have liked to be.
I had been stopped and checked at Birmingham airport on every single visit to Ireland. I had to give my details and the details of who I was going to visit, and where I was going to stay. In August, I was interviewed by the Special Branch at the airport about my visits. On two occasions in different pubs, in different parts of Ireland, people had come up to me when Mary had gone to the toilet and said,
“What the feck you doing with her? She’s IRA.”
The most dramatic event was in a pub in Athlone when we met Paul. He was the best friend of one of the lads who had driven into an IRA funeral and, in front of the TV cameras, had been taken from the vehicle at gunpoint, stripped and shot. I remembered the horrific TV pictures from the time.
He and Mary got into a blazing row in the middle of the pub. The voices were raised so loud everybody could hear. He was a Catholic from the North who had joined the British Navy, but was now a chip shop owner. His argument was that the men were not on a mission. His friend was finishing his tour of duty and was just showing the new man who was taking over around the area. It was just an accident that they came across the funeral. Mary’s argument was that they were both British soldiers and as such were legitimate targets. Paul said “What about your man here?” and nodded towards me. “When the IRA find out he’s here he’ll get a bullet in the head. How will you feel then?”
Mary replied “They already know he’s here. He’s not worth a bullet and, anyway, he’s got sympathy for the cause.”
I gulped down my drink. I was shocked. Her words were ringing around inside my head. Did Mary really think that I was an IRA sympathiser? She had declared it to the whole pub. Who else was in this pub and what were they thinking about me? Was I now a legitimate target for either side? I didn’t think I was on one side or the other. I was just in love with a beautiful Irish girl. I thought that my loyalties would always be with England, although I did feel sorry for the people involved in the trouble in Northern Ireland; republican or loyalist.
“Fucking hell” I said. “What a mess!”
I did go back to Ireland the next month in September, to attend Mary’s cousin’s wedding, but things felt very different between us. I think that we both knew it was over. I enjoyed the wedding, but things felt strained and distant between us. When Mary took me back to the airport she kissed me and said.
“You won’t be coming back will you?”
I shook my head slowly and said,
“No sweetheart. I think our holiday romance is over!”
I was sad about leaving Mary, and shed a few tears later that night, but I wasn’t broken hearted. I had already realised that she wasn’t going to be the one after all, but I will always remember her with great affection and fondness. She was truly beautiful and I’m glad that I met her.
Chapter Six: If every man is an Island, then I want to be Ibiza.
It was April 1998 and the custody battle for the children was nearing the end. I didn’t know it at the time, but by the end of May I would have full custody. However, in the April the arguments were still raging. My ex-wife was using all sorts of outrageous delaying tactics. She had legal aid and had a barrister for the divorce and a barrister for the custody battle. Each time we got in court we would have half a day legal arguments and always at the request of one of my ex-wife’s barristers. The judge would then adjourn it again because of a continuing stream of lies that her side came up with. I didn’t expect anything else from my ex-wife, but you would think that professional legal people would know better. Actually, perhaps not!
It was obvious that they were hoping that I would run out of money or run out of heart and hope. I had certainly run out of money a long time ago, because it had cost me £1,000 every time we went to court for half a day. I couldn’t get legal aid and so had to pay for it all myself. The best I could afford was a pretty crappy solicitor. He was out of his depth and I’m sure that during his legal arguments with the barristers they must have felt as if they had just been savaged by a soggy lettuce! I won’t go into how unfair the court system is, or how much it is loaded on the side of the female. I think it’s just that they don’t ever expect the male to want, or to get, custody of the children. They are not geared up for that.
I had run up some serious debt, but the children needed me and I needed them. In spite of all the lies, it was obvious in the April to all concerned, that it was only a matter of time before I got custody of the kids. My ex-wife was delaying it as much as possible, because she was getting a lot of money from me because of them. And these proceedings and countless delays had taken their toll on me and the kids. The kids had even suggested that the three of us just run away. They had less faith in the courts than I did. I saw a deal in the window of a local travel agent. It was for one adult and two children for two weeks in Ibiza during the Easter holiday. I went in and booked it there and then on my credit card. My flexible friend was also feeling the strain, but I’d pay him back one day. A few days later, on Easter Monday, the children and I were at Manchester airport waiting to fly out to Ibiza. We were all very excited and the sheer joy and happiness on the kids’ faces made everything else pale into insignificance. We forgot about everything else. It really was a happy time.
We didn’t know where exactly we would be staying in Ibiza, and at that time of the year you couldn’t guarantee the weather, but none of that mattered. As the coach drove around Ibiza dropping people off I realised I was in some kind of ‘holiday accommodation Russian roulette’. My heart sank on a few occasions. Some people were dropped off at apartments above shops in side streets in the middle of nowhere. Others were dropped off at various hotels, some better than others, but nothing great. Some people were dropped off at dilapidated apartments, but at least they were sited around a pool. I don’t think the kids shared my fears. They just kept saying “Dad I hope we get somewhere with a pool.”
/> We were the last ones on the coach, and it seemed to be heading back to the airport when it stopped outside a lovely looking hotel called the ‘Mar Y Playa II’ on the sea front in Figuretus. On the opposite side of the road was a cycle shop and above that I noted that there were some windows. ‘No balcony, but at least we would have a view of a nice hotel’ I thought to myself. The kids had clocked the cycle shop as well. They just smiled and shrugged their shoulders.
“We can always swim in the sea” said Samson. I hugged him. What wonderful kids I had. We got off the coach and I got the cases and we trudged off across the road. The shop seemed to be closed and I was scanning the building for another door. The holiday rep came round from the other side of the coach and shouted “Excuse me!”
We turned around and she burst out laughing. Maybe she laughed a little longer than she should have done. The kids and I just stood there being laughed at and we didn’t know why.
“I’m sorry” she said, when she controlled her giggles. “Where are you going? You’re over here in the hotel.”
Samson and Delia both cheered and started jumping up and down on the spot like excited children do at times like this. I wanted to jump up and down on the spot, but adults aren’t allowed to do that sort of thing.
