The Ghost Fields (Ruth Galloway) - Plot & Excerpts
Although his mother, Maureen, is a proud Irishwoman, this is the first time that he has visited the land of his ancestors. Patrick lived in Belfast, which Maureen would have considered suspicious for a start, but Nelson is surprised to find himself in a vibrant and attractive city; his taxi takes him past a mix of old and new buildings, a bustling waterfront and enough shopping centres to satisfy even Michelle. The taxi driver keeps up an apparently endless flow of talk, informing Nelson, in a pleasantly dry brogue, that the Titanic was built in Belfast (not a good omen) and that there’s a Bronze Age henge called The Giant’s Ring just outside the city. This connection to North Norfolk makes Nelson feel nervous, as does the driver’s road sense, which is even worse than his. The taxi drops Nelson at Belfast School of Art, where Patrick was a teacher. It’s a glassy modern campus in the middle of the oldest part of town. He has to concede that his image of Belfast, constructed almost entirely from his memories of the Troubles in the seventies and eighties, is nothing like the reality.
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