Chapter 26

"Are yew goin' to put in for that appeal nah?" Asked Steve when she was allowed to visit me in the prison hospital. "Yew've gotta do it, or next time they could kill yer. I'd rahver yew left 'ere..." I saw her chest heave as she tried to control her emotions, "than risk putting yew frew it again."

I was soon returned to my cell - our cell. I forgave Steve for getting me into that mess without question or need for further explanation. I knew she loved me, that she would do what she could, within her abilities to protect me. When I felt well enough again, which took several months; she gently, at first, showed me her love in ways that helped me forget the horrors of prison, of what might come, of the next time Preston ordered a full cavity search.

As soon as I could, I wrote and spoke to Felicity, and waited. And waited. She'd done all he could for Sarah and I before I was goaled. Being gay too, she abhorred the fact that sexuality had been a major factor in the severity of my sentence. She had became an invaluable ally. She convinced a new and more sympathetic barrister, a woman this time, that I'd been convicted of terrorism on the basis of virtually non-existent circumstantial evidence, press hysteria and sexual prejudice. Some of the material had slipped beyond the Official Secrets Act, but she searched all the available statements and found not a thing. The most telling piece of evidence in my favour was from the first woman to be captured, Jane. She had sung like a canary, naming every single member of the Group, but I was not amongst them. Felicity managed to interview her in jail, and she confirmed that I was a complete stranger.

The charge of aiding and abetting a terrorist on the run, I had pled not guilty to solely because in my love and naivety I had refused to see Sarah as a terrorist, but a freedom fighter and lover. I was advised to leave that one well alone. This would only have given me a two-year sentence at most, anyway, and I had already served more than that. The aftermaths of the controversial trials of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six were still rumbling on. The courts were under a siege of appeals. I held up little hope for mine.

Felicity dug in tenaciously, and eventually, to my surprise, the wheels of justice ground in my direction, but before the appeal was heard and my sentence reduced, I served another eighteen months in Galloway prison, and took everything that they could fling at me. A couple more times Preston hauled me off for a 'search;' never as severe as to hospitalise me again, but without drugs to cushion the horror. I knew better than to try and fight her. The first time I was grabbed straight from the kitchens, so Steve couldn't interfere. The final time, while my Appeal was already under weight, was so obviously as a parting shot with no justification; I reported it to Felicity and the Governor.

Surviving Preston's first two rapes led to me becoming a minor legend, and she and her cronies appeared to pay me some respect. In the end I even got that job in the library. During the time before my appeal and parole, Steve and I took adult education classes, which for her meant learning to read and write properly, and as for me - I opted for psychology, to try and unravel the strange maze of my own mind, and law, continuing from where I had left off under Margaret's tutelage, this time with a genuine enthusiasm, as I hoped that when if and when I got out, I might try and rectify just a few of the injustices to women that I had seen and experienced first hand in prison.

Just days before I was released, there were changes in the prison management, and a new regime vowed to end the sickening culture of fear and rape upon which Preston had fed her authority. I smiled grimly to myself about that. I'd blown the whistle after all. As ever, I hoped for the best, but feared the worst.