The Cold, Cold Ground

getting bricked in the Catholic estates. They kept pumping in foam and it began to fill the street, taking to the air in huge tufts, blowing this way and that.
    We were in the snow again.
    Mrs Clawson was wailing now, standing there, half tore, in her dressing gown with no knickers.
    The kids were playing in the artificial snow and the firemen were flirting with the single women and some of the lonely married women whose husbands were over the water.
    I yawned and checked my watch.
    3.20. Time to head back. I began to walk in that direction.
    Someone grabbed my shirt from behind.
    I turned. Big guy, 6’9” with a gut, a Zapata moustache, a white wifebeater T-shirt and blue jeans. He was fifty or thereabouts and on his head was what could only be a wig although you’d have had a tough job getting up there to check it out.
    “Where’s your fancy car now, fenian?” he said.
    I ignored him and kept on walking.
    He pushed me and I stumbled but recovered my balance in time to see a haymaker coming at me.
    Mrs Bridewell and Mrs Campbell both screamed.
    “Look out, Mr Duffy!” Mrs Campbell yelled, her hand at her throat.
    Several people turned to look. The haymaker made its painfully slow arc across the air between us. It missed me by nine inches without me having to do anything.
    “What’s your problem, pal?” I asked.
    “What about those people at the Peacock Room, you fucking fenian bastard, what chance did you give them, ya taig piece of shit!” the big ganch said and swung another punch which also missed.
    Neither talking nor fighting were his strong points.
    “Go home, mate,” I told him.
    “I’m not your mate. Your fenian pals killed those people for nothing! I hope you all go on hunger strike. I hope you all starve to death! We should have starved you out in the bloody famine!”
    Whoever he was, he was cross and the worse for drink and there was no point arguing or getting into a fight with a drunk.
    He reached into his pocket and started fumbling with something.
    “Oh my God, he’s got a knife! Oh, Mr Duffy, watch him!” Mrs Campbell called out.
    It was a standard flick knife with a button on the handle but he was so pissed he was having difficulty getting the blade to deploy. “If you’ll allow me,” I said, snatching the knife out of his hands and pushing the button.
    “See?” I said as I put the blade in and gave him the knife back. That, I realized later, was my mistake. I had humiliated him.
    He was a friend visiting Bobby Cameron and Bobby now felt it was his duty to intervene.
    Bobby lived six doors down from me on the same terrace. We’d never spoken, but of course I knew who he was. Medium height, plump, ginger bap, twenty-eight. His wife cut your hair for two pounds in her back kitchen. He was on long-term unemployment benefit but he was also a divisional officer of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, a faction of the UDA, and one of the nastier Protestant terrorist groups; he was a man who, in theory, could have you killed at the drop of a hat, but in practice wouldn’t because killing a cop – even a Catholic cop – would mean a feud with every other loyalist faction in Carrick. A feud would be bad news in strategic terms but, of course, few of the loyalists ever thought strategically. (The IRA had a graffito somewhere in Belfast that I always got a kick out of: “The IRA think, while the UDA drink.”)
    “I’m gonna kill him!” the big guy said to Bobby, still fumbling with the flick knife.
    Bobby looked at me. His brow was furrowed and there was that dark light in his eyes that seemed to shine in the eyes of everybody in Belfast who has killed a man or men.
    A crowd began to gather.
    “You should take your mate home,” I said quietly to Bobby.
    “Are you telling me to take him home?” Bobby said.
    Half the street was watching now, including the bloody firemen who wouldn’t do a damn thing to help.
    “No, Bobby, I’m asking you to take him home,” I said.
    Bobby glared at me for a full ten seconds and then seemed to make up his mind. “Show’s over, everyone!” he said and the crowd began to disperse.
    He took his mate by the arm, pocketed the penknife and led him away. Bobby turned back to look at me, then he grinned and wagged his finger as if to say, you’re the Old Bill, but just remember whose street this is.
    I went back inside feeling dissatisfied and peeved.
    The rain came on. I sat in the cold living room getting steamed until I finally grabbed a coat and