'Your coil's slipped out and become ineffective,' he explained to me. 'I'm afraid we're going to have to operate straightaway. It's extremely dangerous for you at the moment. You could drop down dead any minute.'
I would have been absolutely bricking it if Dad's cancer hadn't eclipsed everything else in my mind. I had been successfully operated on once before and knew that my condition was curable, even if there was a lot of risk involved. Dad, on the other hand, was going to have a major struggle on his hands. I just hoped to God that he was going to pull through.
The recoiling operation ended up doing nothing because the neck of my aneurysm was too wide for it to work. The doctor told me that this was the reason the last coil was unable to permanently stem the bleeding. I couldn't help but wonder why the Spaniards hadn't deduced this when I first went into hospital. I could well have died if I hadn't gone in for the check-up.
Fortunately, coiling isn't the only way to fix a brain haemorrhage. There is another method known as 'clipping', which involves removing part of the skull and closing up the aneurysm using a clip. This technique succeeded in patching up the leak but left me with a shaven head and twenty-five stitches. I looked like Frankenstein's monster when the surgeon was done with me.
I've got a tendency to run away when things go wrong and after being discharged from hospital, I made up my mind that I was going to Northern Ireland as soon as I had made a full recovery. I figured that there was little point in living in a sleepy village in the sticks if my existence was still going to be characterised by one horrendous, unexpected incident after another, so I made plans to fly across. Dad was still awaiting his chemo and I couldn't face seeing him get sick as a result of the treatment. The idea of somebody that I loved suffering so much discomfort made me want to get as far away as possible. Kelly was still living in London so Mum might have benefited from me being at home to comfort her, but I just couldn't bring myself to stay.
Jamie was over the moon that I was going to live with him.
'I share a house with my mum and dad but they'll love having you here,' he told me. 'Northern Ireland is a lot different to England so I'll send you some books to read to let you know the crack.'
The books that he sent me were all about Protestantism and 'the troubles' but to be honest I didn't really think much of it at the time. My mum's a Protestant and my dad's a Catholic so sectarianism had never been an issue in my family. I was brought up as a Protestant and still practiced the faith but could have easily been a Catholic if Dad had got his way.
Jamie sent me a lot of political literature as well, which was equally uninteresting. I couldn't have cared less if Ulster was part of Britain or Ireland; it made no difference whatsoever. In hindsight, the nature of the things that he was posting should have given me an indication of what type of place I was heading into, but I failed to see the signs until it was too late. I was in for a major eye-opener; I was about to enter a world where being in the wrong place at the wrong time could cost you your kneecaps.
Chapter 10
ANOTHER ESCAPE
On the day before my flight, I felt excited but at the same time slightly sad because I knew that Ulster would never be able to compare to Tenerife. I was going to be living in a little town called Randalstown, which has a similar-sized population to Wingrave. It wasn't a place that I would have ever chosen to visit if I hadn't met Jamie, but I was still determined to make the best of things and find out what it had to offer. At least I would get a change of scenery and be able to get away from everything that was going on back home.
My first impression of Randalstown was that it was your average quaint, little village. Appearances can be deceptive though because it was a hotbed of religious prejudice and the Catholic and Protestant populations hated each other with a passion. It was about three-quarter Catholic and a quarter Protestant, which meant that Jamie and I were surrounded by people who cursed the ground we walked upon.
As well as being segregated in terms of religion, Northern Ireland was also split in terms of the paramilitary groups that each area was associated with. There were five main terrorist organisations in the country: the IRA and the Real IRA, who were separatist Catholics; and the Ulster Volunteer Force, Ulster Freedom Fighters and Ulster Defence Association, who were all loyalist Protestants. The Protestant part of Randalstown was controlled by the UVF, who were a little more peaceful than the other loyalist groups. The UDA and the UFF seemed more like gangsters than paramilitaries. They were involved in selling drugs and stolen property and had been nicknamed the Wombles because they were said to be able to get hold of anything, just as the Wombles on kids' TV could get their hands on whatever they needed by making it out of rubbish. The main difference is that the cartoon characters would make things to help people out but the UDA seemed more interested in getting hold of bombs, machine guns and the like.
So where did I fit into all this craziness? Well the Catholics classed anybody who was English as being a loyalist so I was forced to associate only with Protestants, even though I was technically half Proddy and half Catholic. I would be lying if I said it wasn't a major culture shock. You don't expect such hatred to exist in a tiny place like Randalstown. I found it difficult to take in the fact that people could despise each other just because they chose to practice a slightly different form of Christianity. It all seemed very bizarre to me.
You would think the Protestant paramilitaries would have all got on with one another seeing as they were fighting for the same cause, but there were even divisions within each denomination. The UDA and the UVF had had several bloody feuds over the years and definitely weren't the best of mates. The best way of looking at each faction was as a gang rather than a terrorist group. The country was basically divided up among violent criminals.
I first became aware of the level of support that the UVF had in the local area when I went for a drink at the pub near Jamie's house shortly after I arrived. People were chatting about what good work the group was doing and seemed to regard them as being heroes rather than terrorists. The fact that the drinkers were openly praising violent paramilitaries should have put me off staying, but I figured that nobody was giving me any hassle so it was nothing to do with me. The Protestants liked the English because they saw Northern Ireland as being part of the UK. It was the Catholics that I had to worry about, as I soon learnt when I tried to go in one of their boozers.
I rubbished the idea of only socialising in the areas that Jamie picked out for me and thought that surely nobody would be nasty enough to hate me just because I was born in a different country. I had been warned to avoid the Catholic districts like the plague but couldn't see the harm in trying out a pub on the edge of one, just to see how the drinkers would react to me. It looked to be a bit of a rough old place, but then again most pubs I'd seen so far in Northern Ireland were, so I thought nothing of it.
The second I opened my mouth to order a drink, everybody stopped what they were doing.
'Get out,' the barman told me. 'We don't want any trouble in here.'
'What are you kicking me out for?' I asked him. 'I haven't done anything.'
'Because you're English,' he told me. 'I'd keep well away from here if I were you.'
He didn't sound annoyed; he sounded as if he was getting rid of me for my own safety. I was still pissed off though because I didn't like the idea of people telling me where I could or couldn't drink.
'Fine I'll go,' I frowned. 'I know when I'm not wanted.'
The Catholics couldn't have cared less what I was like as a person; as far as they were concerned all Englishmen were their enemies and there were no exceptions. It was a reminder that I was living in a place where identity meant everything. Jamie had walked into a Celtic bar in Tenerife in a full Rangers kit and nobody had said a word to him. Had he done the same in Randalstown, he probably would have ended up getting a bullet in his head. If you didn't follow the same set of beliefs as somebody else in Northern Ireland then they viewed you as being against
what they stood for. It was certainly going to be interesting living in this crazy mixed-up country.
Jamie was just as sectarian as the rest of his townsfolk. He would point out that he was a British citizen at every available opportunity and even painted the curb outside his house red, white and blue. I couldn't understand why he was so obsessed with being British. As long as I was treated equally to the rest of the population, I couldn't have cared less which nation's government laid claim to the land I lived in.
Although I wasn't too keen on the country's politics, there were still enough things about Northern Ireland that I liked to encourage me to stay there. The Protestants were all very friendly people and treated me as if I was one of their own. I soon got to know all of Jamie's friends and adjusted to life in Ulster fairly quickly. The problem was that the main pastime was drinking. It was the worst place on earth for a recovering alcoholic to move to because alcohol was treated as a religion by the locals rather than just something to drink. I got the impression that pubs were like Irishmen's temples and they worshipped at them morning, noon and night.
Jamie drank even more than I did and became aggressive when he had had a few. Every time we went out boozing together we ended up having a massive row, which put a strain on the relationship. He would argue at the drop of a hat and get very physical, shoving me around the place and grabbing hold of me so hard that it hurt. If I hadn't had so much on my mind I would have probably seen the signs and got out fairly early on, but as it was, I was so preoccupied by my dad's illness that I didn't even notice the direction things were heading in. I often sat alone in my room, worrying about how Dad was holding up. I was so anxious that I couldn't even bring myself to ring Mum up to ask how he was doing. One of the few times that I did phone her, she told me that Dad wanted me to stay in Northern Ireland so that I didn't get upset by how much he was suffering. Mum agreed that this would be a good idea. In my heart of hearts I knew that running away wasn't going to solve anything but I lacked the strength to face up to reality.
Meanwhile, Jamie's temper tantrums went from bad to worse. He would get in uncontrollable fits of rage, where he threw his things around the room and shouted at the top of his voice. One of the places where his anger manifested itself was at the football. He was a massive Rangers fan and used the Rangers/Celtic rivalry as a way of expressing his hatred of Catholics. I foolishly agreed to go to one of the games and couldn't believe the levels of animosity. The Rangers fans were shouting sectarian abuse for the entire ninety minutes. I left the city straight after the game because it felt as if there was going to be a full-on war between the fans. They say that we have problems with the football in England, but it's nothing compared to what I saw there.
Despite being so heavily into loyalist politics, Jamie still celebrated St Patrick's Day, which I could never understand. If he was so obsessed with Ulster being part of the UK, why did he want to commemorate a day in honour of the patron saint of Ireland? It seemed to me as if he just wanted an excuse to go out and get trolleyed. It would have been better for me if he had refused to acknowledge the occasion altogether, because it was on this day that he decided to propose to me.
Most people are over the moon to get engaged but I can't say I was too excited about the prospect of marrying someone whose anger was so out of control. The only reason I said 'yes' was because I knew that our relationship would be over if I said 'no' and didn't fancy heading home to England yet. The thought of making such a powerful commitment to somebody who was as volatile as Jamie made me feel sick, but still beat returning to Wingrave and seeing Dad get more and more poorly.
Jamie didn't seem particularly excited either. I think he popped the question because his family had been putting pressure on him to tie the knot. His mum and dad were all for it and set about building a house for us to live in at the bottom of their garden, which I thought was bizarre. Why any newly married couple would want to shack up with one another in their parents' backyard is totally beyond me. The Northern Irish did a lot of things that weren't the norm in England, but this definitely wasn't one of them. It was just as peculiar a thing to do over there as it would have been to do in England. The whole family seemed absolutely bonkers.
The only thing that Jamie and I had in common was our love of drink. I soon reached the stage where my hands would shake if I was unable to get any booze, which made me realise that I was once again in the grip of a serious addiction. This time though, I was drinking to forget. Every time I rang home, Mum would tell me how poorly my dad was and I would be desperate to cleanse the thought of his discomfort from my brain. Sometimes I drank so much that I blacked out and came round hours later. It was very disorientating. I found myself having to quiz my friends after I had regained consciousness to find out what had gone on earlier in the night. The dangerous thing about Northern Ireland was that there was nobody there to tell me to slow down. It was the norm to overdo it, which meant that no one ever put the brakes on my excessive boozing.
My drinking hit the roof when Dad started his chemo. He found it impossible to keep his food down and felt permanently exhausted, which had me beside myself with worry. The only thing that I could do to avoid going under, was constantly reassure myself that the therapy would eventually cure him. If it got rid of the cancer then his pain and suffering would all be worthwhile.
The staff at the hospital kept feeding us false hope. They let us think that Dad still had a fighting chance right up until I got the call to say the tumour was inoperable.
'It's spread to his liver,' the doctor told me. 'I'm really sorry, there's nothing more that we can do for him.'
So this was it then; Dad was going to die. I have since learnt that only a small percentage of people ever recover from oesophageal cancer. By the time it's diagnosed, it has usually spread too far to be effectively treated. Why did they constantly tell me that he was likely to pull through? They should have said, 'Your dad is probably not going to survive no matter how much chemo he has. You might as well say your goodbyes to him now.' At least then it wouldn't have come as such an awful shock to me when I got the news.
Jamie's mum and dad were standing behind me when the call came through. They were quick to throw their two pence in, which really got my back up.
'You should go home and be with him right away,' his mum advised me. 'There's no sense staying here. You need to be with your family.'
'I'm not going anywhere,' I told her. 'I'll cope with this in my own way, thank you very much.'
The thought of seeing Dad on his last legs sent shivers down my spine. I wasn't ready to face him so soon after hearing the bad news so I decided that I was going to stay in Ireland until I had managed to get my head round what I had just heard. Jamie's family would no doubt go on at me ad infinitum but at the end of the day, he was my father not theirs so it was up to me how I handled his illness. I know they probably had my welfare at heart but I was irritable, angry and just wanted to be left alone.
You would have thought that Jamie would have been especially nice to me after hearing that my Dad was going to die, but he was just as hot-headed and argumentative as ever. The more I got to know him, the more mixed up he seemed to be. When I looked him in the eyes, I saw such an intense hatred that I felt scared to be in the same room as him. He was definitely not someone that you could ever describe as being sympathetic. Maybe the fact that I chose to stay with him was a reflection of my self-destructive tendencies. I could have walked away at any time but didn't, which meant I was as much to blame for the dysfunctional state of our relationship as he was.
The other thing that bothered me about my loving fiancé was his tendency to randomly go missing. Sometimes he would disappear for days on end and I would be left alone with his family. At first I assumed that it was something to do with his job but then one day I was in the house on my own when I received a phone call from a girl who claimed that she was pregnant with his baby. I felt angry that he had lied to me but can't say that I was particularly sad bec
ause I had known that the relationship was doomed from the start. I think the only reason I didn't end things earlier was because being engaged to a Northern Irish lad gave me an excuse to stay in Randalstown and avoid facing up to Dad's cancer.
The minute Jamie arrived back home I unleashed a torrent of abuse in his direction and let him know exactly what I thought of him.
'I knew that there was something going on,' I shouted. 'I trusted you and you betrayed me. Why didn't you just tell me if you weren't happy? You didn't have to go and get somebody up the duff.'
Jamie gave as good as he got and called me every name under the sun. Looking back, I strongly suspect he engineered the situation so that he could cause an argument and use it as an excuse to get rid of me. There was usually at least one member of his family in the house at any given time, so why had I been left alone when the girl who was carrying his child had his landline number? It seemed as if he wanted me to find out about his cheating ways and finally end our turbulent relationship.
A couple of days later, Jamie ordered me to pack my bags and leave.
'You're not welcome here,' he told me. 'You need to book yourself a flight home. You can stay at Nanna's house until you get a ticket sorted out, but after that you're off.'
Passport To Hell: How I Survived Sadistic Prison Guards and Hardened Criminals in Spain's Toughest Prisons Page 11
