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For my parents
One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain has Corridors—surpassing
Material Place—
Emily Dickinson
Contents
Belfast, 1995
I grew up in a rainy city, walled in by dark hills, where people were divided by size. We came in one of two sizes: big or wee, with no real words for those who fitted somewhere in between.
Mostly the reason for a fella’s nickname – Big Paul, say, or Wee Sammy – was staring you in the face, or the chest. But sometimes strangers were puzzled when they heard some great lump, with arms on him like two concrete bollards, being spoken of as Wee Jimmy.
The explanation was simple: he was obviously the son of a Big Jimmy, and had contracted the term ‘wee’ early, from the pressing need to distinguish the child from the father. Although he had long burst out of his wee name it clung to him as he surged through life, a stubborn barnacle on the side of the Titanic.
I was once Wee Jacky. But when Big Jacky, my father, collapsed on the street one day, his hand flapping towards the astonishing pain in his heart, the need for my title ebbed away on the pavement. I became just Jacky, because I was now the only Jacky.
Then there was my friend Titch. His name belonged to the third and rarest category: he was so enormous, but so unthreatening, that his bulk could safely be referred to in ironic terms. So he was dubbed Titch, a miniature word synonymous with a small perspective on life.
The clash between Titch’s name and his appearance made strangers laugh. From the moment of introduction, he was a walking contradiction, an ambulatory joke. But he turned out to be no joke for me. That big soft eejit, and what he stumbled into, was the trigger for the whole nasty business that swallowed me up like a wet bog.
I grew up in Belfast: my beloved city, baptised in tea and drizzle, sprinkled with vinegar-sodden chips and cigarette butts. You turned off the Lisburn Road, with its smattering of boutiques and cosy coffee shops, and just kept walking over the metal footbridge until at last you made it to our battered grid of streets with its two-up, two-down terraced houses crammed together in different shades of brick, paint or pebbledash. Every so often