I talked about my latest mystery novel and the Sean Duffy series itself which takes place in Belfast in the 1980’s. After the talk came the Q&A portion and as is also pretty usual for me about a third of the audience was made up of Irish diaspora.
I thanked her profusely and said it was really too kind and when the event was over I took the bus back to St Kilda. I put the potato bread in the fridge and went to bed.
Next morning I got up early and demanded of my clan: “So who wants a real breakfast, today?”
Three sceptical pairs of eyes looked up from their electronic devices.
“What do you mean a real breakfast?” my eldest daughter asked.
“An Ulster fry.”
“What’s an Ulster fry?”
“Fried: potato bread, soda bread, sausage, bacon, egg and black pudding. We don’t have the soda bread, but a nice lady at my book event last night baked me some potato bread and we’ve got everything else so we can have a real Ulster fry!” I announced with enthusiasm.
“Sounds a bit much for breakfast,” my wife said.
“I’ll pass,” my eldest daughter said.
“No thank you, daddy,” my youngest daughter said.
“Don’t worry I won’t fry it in lard. I’ll use butter, maybe a little olive oil,” I said, but I could see I wasn’t going to convince them with this healthy options spiel.
I sat down, grumbling. “All right, fine, I’ll wait until you lot have gone and I’ll make it just for me.”
Half an hour later I had the house to myself. And yes I know it's not heart healthy food: I myself wrote the joke about Belfast in the 70s looking like Logan's Run because all men over the 30 had had an Ulster fry induced heart attack. But its delicious and as a once in a while treat its fine. So, I melted a little butter and olive oil in a pan and fried up the sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding and potato bread.
I slid the assemblage onto a plate and poured myself a big mug of strong sweet coffee. This really was the breakfast of champions. I’d had it every morning of my life from about 1979 – 1986 in Carrickfergus where all that fat and sugar and caffeine served as a barrier against the cold wet Irish winters and the even colder wetter Irish summers.
With food like this you could build a house or terraform Mars or write a novel or discover an unknown continent.
I sat down in front of the plate and unscrewed the top of the bottle of HP sauce and took in the aroma for a second. I stabbed my fork into the first bit of potato bread and I raised the bread to my mouth and then, suddenly, I stopped.
When you’re a writer writing about 1980’s Northern Ireland you can occasionally venture into some scary waters. I’ve said things in my books that have upset people. Sometimes quite prominent people. Sometimes quite prominent people who used to be (and possibly still are) in charge of large terrorist organisations. I’ve also said a few negative things about British Intelligence, the RUC’s Special Branch and the SAS. And they and their friends have said things back to me. I’ve had my share of troll attacks on twitter and also those organised troll attacks on amazon where they give your books 1 star reviews. It's not nice but it goes with the territory.
I’ve also had a few slightly more disturbing incidents at book readings here and there. I’ve been heckled by Irish nationalists in Boston and Denver and I had one unpleasant encounter with an Ulster Loyalist who accused me of using him as a model for a fictional character in one of my books (in all fairness he was right about that but I didn’t admit it at the time). At another reading an unhinged fellow said he "had a knife" and I am friends with one prominent writer who was punched in the face by a “fan” at Bouchercon. To this day, of course, Salman Rushdie and his translators must travel with a police escort. Voice in my head: look at you comparing yourself to Salman Rushdie indeed! You'd be lucky to get a fatwa. Fat arse more like.
But still, was it possible that through the vector of this sweet old lady and her potato bread my online enemies were about to get their revenge? I mean who was this woman? I didn’t know her from Adam. The only thing I did know was that she had a heavy Belfast accent. She could be the great aunt of ******* ********* or ***** ********** or even ****** (Mad Dog) ******.
I looked at the potato bread. It seemed innocent enough but it would wouldn’t it? As a mystery novelist I knew that there were half a dozen poisons that were odourless and tasteless but which could kill you in minutes once ingested. You could make several of them from ingredients that could be bought at your nearest pharmacy. And it wouldn’t even have to be murder they were after. A strong odourless laxative would teach me a lesson too.
I put the fork down on the plate.
Wasn’t this all just a bit ridiculous though? I remember listening to the BBC’s Test Match Special on Radio 4 in the 1980s. Members of the public were always sending in home made seed cakes and Dundee cakes and buns and those cricket commentators had no problem eating said cakes on the air and commenting on their moistness or zestiness or their other qualities. Shouldn’t I just have a little faith?
No, I decided, I shouldn’t. The provenance of the potato bread was questionable and therefore the whole meal might be contaminated with, say, ricin.
I tipped the entire breakfast into the bin. What a crying shame, I thought. The chances of it actually being poisoned were probably about 10,000 to one. And anyway if it really had been poisoned it might have been worth eating it just for the metaphor. What a poetic way for an Irish mystery novelist to die - poisoned potato bread, Jesus, the copy just writes itself. New York Times - front page, above the fold...But no. My family probably would be upset. And the cat definitely would be put out - for at least half a day. When I picked up the kids from school they asked me how the Ulster fry went. “Delicious,” I said. “You really missed out. Breakfast of champions.”
