I moved like a double agent among the big concepts.

The word ‘enemy’ had the toothed efficiency of a mowing

machine. It was a mechanical and distant noise beyond that

opaque security, that autonomous ignorance.

‘When the Germans bombed Belfast it was the bitterest

Orange parts were hit the worst’.

I was on somebody’s shoulder, conveyed through the starlit

yard to see the sky glowing over Anahorish. Grown-ups lowered

their voices and resettled in the kitchen as if tired out after an

excursion.

Behind the blackout, Germany called to lamplit kitchens

through fretted baize, dry battery, wet battery, capillary wires,

domed valves that squeaked and burbled as the dial-hand absolved

Stuttgart and Leipzig.

‘He’s an artist, this Haw Haw. He can fairly leave it into

them’.

I lodged with ‘the enemies of Ulster’, the scullions outside the

walls. An adept at banter, I crossed the lines with carefully

enunciated passwords, manned every speech with checkpoints

and reported back to nobody.