Introduction

264
Melanie Swiatloch
blood and excrement” (ibid. 125). Cate is also haunted by her father’s death in the
sense that her childhood remembrances of her uncle’s kitchen are overshadowed
by the images of her father lying dead on the floor where they had cracked nuts as
children. But the refurnished kitchen is no solution either as the refurnishing has
destroyed her childhood memories. “She had always thought of her childhood not
principally in terms of time, but as a place to which she could always return. Now
that was over” (ibid. 143). Instead the place has become “desecrated” to her (ibid.
143).
In Where They Were Missed the death of Daisy is represented in a reduced
amount of clearly given images. Nevertheless, the portrayal is not less cruel in the
impressions it evokes. By only hinting at the possible outcome of a car explosion
in front of the Pentlands’ house Caldwell at the same time manages to create a
concrete picture. The reader is almost forced to envision what has happened to
Daisy: “A car horn blasts suddenly and it goes on and on the noise of it tearing
through the air and on top of the car horn a shrieking noise a bang then: there is
nothing” (Caldwell 66). Saoirse and her mother run out of the house, Deirdre
calling: “Jesus Christ, Saoirse, where’s your sister?” (ibid. 66). The words “blast”,
“tearing”, “shrieking” and “nothing” induce violent images of Daisy being hit by
the exploding bomb and the remains of her motionless body. She is not dead
instantly but dies several days later in hospital. Again the reader learns about her
death only by the emotions of Daisy’s family. When Saoirse’s father Colin comes
to pick her up from a hospital room, where a nurse has been looking after her, the
reader knows the outcome from his only standing in the door and staring (ibid.
71).
Eureka Street, by contrast, generally uses quite ironical language to describe violent
acts, as for instance when Jake sits on the Peace Train to Belfast: “Here I was
riding a Peace Train from Belfast to Dublin to protest against the IRA planting
bombs on the Belfast to Dublin line. […] But we didn’t get to Dublin. There was
a bomb on the Belfast to Dublin line. Boom boom” (McLiam Wilson 187). Here,
too, a whole chapter deals with lost lives (chapter eleven). The method chosen
evokes huge sympathies in the reader. In this scene the ironic mode is not applied,
however, and it thus serves as an exception to the rest of the novel. Consequently,
the chapter gains a special importance. It begins with Rosemary Daye who is looking
forward to a date. More than four pages are used to introduce her to the
reader during her coffee break strolling through the city. The reader accompanies
her shopping at the Royal Avenue in Belfast’s city centre, follows her into her
favourite shop and learns about her peculiarities and how she met her latest
sweetheart (McLiam Wilson 218ff). But then the scenery suddenly changes.
Rosemary steps into a sandwich shop, flirts with a young man holding the door
open for her and “stops existing” (ibid. 222): An exploding bomb takes her life
and that of several other people who are also introduced only briefly. The descrip-