ABSTRACT
Time moves on, my mother dies. I go home to reflect on all the changes. I could see that my mother was very proud of me. She’d kept everything, all my papers and letters, even the envelopes with University of Cambridge stamped on them, she had salvaged them all from the old house before it was flattened in the slum clearance that eventually found its way to that part of North Belfast. I reflect on the conflict that had gone on for so long. My father’s best friend, my Uncle Terence, was a Catholic. I’m there as he lies dying, and someone in passing asks if I’m his son. And I’m a little Prod from that Protestant enclave at the turn-of-the-road. It’s heartbreaking but I have to keep it to myself. Like so much else.
