Having returned safely, from my erotic
adventures in a convent, young Master Charles was once again kidnapped by his
grandmother and was in for a long evening of cuddles, sweets and singing. I on the other hand was off down the street
again to meet up with the boys. I knew
some would be heading off to the golf club where they could swap wives and tell
each other how important they all were.
I was off for an evening with the good ol boys, they might be wife
swapping but only for something like a decent three litre ford mustang with a
custom paint job. It was great seeing
all the boys again as and I had expected they ripped the piss out of me,
claiming that I now sounded all English and ‘la tee da.’ It was standard procedure as was Peter taking
to the stage when the band had their break and blurting out a couple of numbers
on his guitar.
We were gathered in a clump at one end of the
bar when I noticed a fellow come in and order a drink. I felt a jolt of electricity run through my
body as this was the fellow who had cornered me one night on my way home from
completing a shift behind the bar in the Osbourne Hotel. The same hotel that Finbar and I had been lifted
by Special Branch, at Heathrow, and accused of burning down. This fellow had claimed that he was a member
of the IRA, had searched me and began to interrogate me, but as he kept his
hands on my body as he questioned me, I began to think that he was more of a pervert
than a provo, so managed to get away from him.
At the time it was difficult because you didn’t go around asking who was
in, or not in, the IRA. And to accuse a
gunman of being a pervert might not be the cleverest thing to do. But at the same time if he wasn’t in the IRA and
actually was a pervert he, as they say, would have been confronted with the
evidence of his activities. Most of the main players in the area were either on
the run or had been ‘scooped’ and were interned, so there wasn’t really anyone
I could turn to for positive support.
But now, all these years later, I found myself
in the same room as the fellow. I
pointed him out to Phelim and asked about him.
Phelim said that he was a single man, with three brothers, who pretty
much kept himself to himself, a famer type.
I asked if he was ‘one of the boys,’ a euphemism for belonging to the IRA. Phelim didn’t think so, which wasn’t good
enough. There was an outside chance that
this fellow might have been connected and it would be totally unaccepted for an
ex British forces chap to give an IRA man a bit of a hiding, no matter what the
reason. I waited for him to use the toilet so went in and stood beside
him. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t think
that I could for if there was any truth in the jokes that the boys had been
making about my accent there was a chance that I could have been mistaken for
an undercover Brit.
As I stood beside him I satisfied myself that
he would not have put up much resistance to the beating that he deserved. I had to leave it but hoped that fate would
bring us together again and that the next time would be more favourable for
me. At least I now had a name; I knew
that I would be speaking to Brendan before I left so with a bit of luck he
could sort the situation out for me. I tried
to forget about him but it annoyed me that I couldn’t touch him. Phelim asked me if I would like to go with
them all to Omeath the next day, on the rip, but I explained that I was off to
Glenarm the following day to visit my Aunt Nora. Now I was given a lecture on what roads to
take and what roads to avoid. If I was
stopped by any road blocks I was not to say that I was from Warrenpoint as the
RUC had a downer on anyone from Warrenpoint at that time.
I didn’t say anything about my dog tags on my
key ring, which normally got me past most military and RUC checkpoints. It had been a good night and when I left the pub
to go home I found myself in the middle of a seriously heavy downpour. I jammed my hands in my pockets and slowly wandered,
the long way home, around by the shore enjoying the heavenly soaking while watching
the sea tear itself apart. Next morning
my mother sat in the rear of the car with Charles and we set off. I didn’t need a map or directions as I had
travelled the road so many times as a youngster I knew it by heart. It was on the stretch of road between Belfast
and Larne that we were stopped. It was
an RUC patrol who had established a road block and were checking every car.
As the RUC man came to my widow I rolled it
down and was about to get my keys, so that I could flash my dog tags at him, when
he instructed me to keep my hands on the steering wheel where he could see them. He began to ask who I was and where I was going
and after the warning I had from the boys the night before, I tried to answer
in the most general terms that I could. “Where
are you going?” “Glenarm.” “Who are you going to see?” “Auntie Nora.”
That really pissed him off. “Nora
who?” he demanded. “Nora Morris.” “And where does she live?” The game continued and it wasn’t that I was
making him work for his answers, or was holding anything back, or was even
trying to be obstreperous, I was just trying to keep my answers within what the
boys had told me. “Where have you come
from?” “South Down,” I said, which was the truth, but
geographically wishy-washy. I thought I
might have got away with it until I heard him ask, “Whereabouts in South Down?” I was about to say, “Just outside Newry,”
when my mother, from the back seat blurted out, “We’re from Warrenpoint.”
The RUC reacted as I expected they would,
especially when faced with such a huge terrorist threat of a small hire car
containing an ex member of the British Forces, an eighty year old woman and an
eighteen month old child. They ordered
us out of the car and stripped it bare.
All because we were from Warrenpoint.
The RUC claimed that the nationalist population didn’t like them very
much, but they only had themselves to blame for that. My mother couldn’t understand why we were being
subjected to a thorough search but I knew exactly what they were up to, they
were sending a message to the Catholic community as they knew I would spread
the word when I got back. Shame they
were not wearing their bowler hats and orange sashes when on patrol, it would
have made their actions more understandable.
All in all it took about forty minutes for them
to take the car to pieces and then put it back together again, after which we
were allowed to continue on our journey.
They made no friends that day. It
was nice to get into the calmness of Glenarm, one of the most beautiful places
on the face of the earth. Nora and my
mother spoke about the incident and even Nora, who had served as a doctor in
the British army, was livid at the way we were treated. I took Charles all over the house and showed
him all the nooks and crannies, for wouldn’t the house be his one day. I didn’t want to leave Glenarm, not because I
feared I might run in to another RUC roadblock but because I loved the place so
much. It had everything a little boy,
and many grown up boys, wanted. It had a
forest, a river teeming with fish, a castle, a harbour and a beach. There was far too much to show Charles and he
was far too young to begin to appreciate Glenarm, at least he would have
something to look forward to, as long as everything continued following the
plan. And sure there would be no reason
they shouldn’t, was there?
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