Marching orders

My boyfriend is an Orangeman. At least he was when I met him almost exactly six years ago. He hasn't taken an active interest in the Orange for years but without him ever asking, his Dad still pays his dues at their lodge because this family tradition is a hard habit to break.

If you pay your fees to a gym you are still a member even if you don't attend that gym any more. But then if you are living with a Catholic woman and don't attend meetings and haven't marched for ages your status is more ambiguous. It's a kind of Orange Limbo, I suppose.

In the beginning, his Orange membership was a novelty. My Orange boyfriend. "No way!" said one of my brothers when he heard. "I know!" I laughed. And then it was just a part of who he was. The way I used to be in the Girl Guides.

When we first met in Portadown, love blossoming over a still-blazing car, I wondered what his family would make of me. Whatever they thought in the beginning, they kept to themselves. In my head and heart I was no longer a Catholic but I could protest as much as I liked; I was still a Catholic to them. It never mattered, though. Pretty soon I became part of the family.

I hated Portadown when I met him. All that bitterness and sectarianism, all unavoidable, especially if you were a journalist from the South looking for a quote. I've a soft spot for the place now, even if I can't stand that, at this time of year, it is plastered with mostly illegal flags and painted kerbs. I've cheered on the rugby team. Grabbed some bargains in the charity shops. Discovered the joys of Mackle's ice-cream. Sat in the hut on Drumcree Hill where his father and others still keep vigil every night.

The day after I met my boyfriend we went to the annual Black Preceptory march to Scarva where I ate ham sandwiches in a tent. Kind old men in bowler hats, white gloves and sashes enquired about my accent and said they were delighted to meet me. I watched the re-enactment of King Billy's battle with King James and got a sense of the spectacle appreciated by some tourists.

I learned the difference between a collarette, which my boyfriend's lodge wore, and the sash worn by other lodges. I attended a bonfire or two, but didn't like the atmosphere as the Buckfast flowed and an effigy of Lundy was burned. I read Ruth Dudley Edwards's engrossing book The Faithful Tribe and discovered that those joining the Order had to promise never to marry a Roman Catholic. When people ask when are we getting married I can joke that this teenage promise is the cause of the delay.

I've been thinking about all this because of the recent announcement that the British government has plans to fund the Orange Order in Belfast to the tune of £104,000 and to transform the parade into a major, inclusive, family-friendly tourism event. I know some people will hate this idea. But I welcome this plan in the same way I was pleased when Belfast City Council funded the St Patrick's Day parade for the first time this year. The funding is a bid to smooth the harder edges of Orangeism, especially in Belfast. The hope is that it will allow for an Orangefest which, if it succeeds, will bring back the tourists and relieve the air of menace that, if you are from the wrong community, hangs over the city-centre at this time of year.

While my perception of the Orange Order had been mostly shaped by images of David Trimble prancing triumphantly down the Garvaghy Road with Ian Paisley, or petrol bombs being thrown across army lines on Drumcree Hill, my boyfriend's associations are different.

When he was a boy he got to hold the strings of the banners, and every Twelfth was almost better than Christmas. Then he was a teenager, a member of the Orange at last, getting dressed and then marching, and it was back to your lodge where everyone had time for each other and the older men sang songs, all kinds of songs, in the Orange Hall. The sense of community was powerful. He was a part of something wonderful and it wasn't about wanting to put down his Catholic neighbours or to be triumphalist or to dominate. He was just marching along the road, keeping his Protestant faith, following his father home.

It's Drumcree Sunday tomorrow, and the Twelfth of July is just around the corner. Father and son no longer talk of these things but, curious, my boyfriend makes the difficult phone-call to ask his Dad what people might think if he wanted to march again. "Nobody would say boo to you," says his father.

He puts the phone down and in the silence that follows I imagine his collarette folded neatly somewhere in the family home, waiting to be reclaimed.