Title Page

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © Jenny McCartney 2019

Cover design by Jack Smyth

Cover Image © Alex Bowie/Getty Images

Jenny McCartney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

‘634–5789’ (recorded by Otis Redding), by Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd (1967).

W. H. Auden: ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’ (1938), in Collected Shorter Poems, 1927–1957 (Faber and Faber, London, 1966).

‘Walkin’ after Midnight’ (sung by Patsy Cline), by Alan Block and Don Hecht (1954).

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008295516

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008295523

Version: 2019-12-12

Dedication

For my parents

Epigraph

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

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Part Two

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

Part Three

24

25

26

27

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Part One

1

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.