Rain was falling as gently as mercy, and a woman, walking with long swift strides, went by me. Her opened umbrella brushed my cheek and she half-turned with a muttered word. It was Livia Vaynol, her quick walk making me think that she was fleeing, as she had fled that day when for the first time she saw Oliver leave for France. Recognition struck instantly between us, but she did not stop. A strong shudder seemed to shake her as she strode ahead of me through the mist. Her hair, I saw, was grey; her hat, her raincoat, were old and shabby.
I knew that she had been saying good-bye, and wondered at her faithfulness.
But this is not the place where I shall say good-bye. I shall go back to London and rest awhile, for I am very tired. Then some day I shall take a train from Paddington. At Fishguard I shall go aboard the little liner that takes you to Cork. I have never been there, but I am told that, having travelled all night, you wake in a wide harbour with a loveliness to make you wonder.
I shall do that, and I shall go ashore and go to Ballybar and find there the grave where Rory lies. Because in my heart you, too, Oliver, will always be lying there. It was not you who went that day with a handkerchief on his face, and struck, and stole, and ran. That was the simulacrum that remained after you had died at Ballybar. You died when you killed your friend. There was nothing for you of good or evil after that. So I shall say good-bye to you by Rory’s grave.
Perhaps Dermot will come with me. We shall say good-bye to you together—to you and to Rory—and remember the night before either of you was born when in pride and blindness we told the years what they should do with our sons.
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About Howard Spring
HOWARD SPRING (1889–1965) was born in Cardiff. He began his writing career as a journalist, working for the Manchester Guardian and the Evening Standard before becoming a full-time writer of novels. His first major success came with My Son, My Son (1937), originally titled O Absalom!, which was adapted into a successful film in 1940. He is best remembered today for his novel Fame is the Spur, a fictional account of a working-class Labour leader’s rise to power.
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Unknown artist, Casual Canoe, c. 1920s. Photograph.
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The Apollo list reflects in various ways the extremity of our time, and the ways in which novelists responded to the vertiginous changes that the world went through as the great empires declined, relations between men and women were transformed and formerly subject peoples found their voice.
Selected by the distinguished critic, poet and editor Michael Schmidt, in conjunction with Neil Belton, editorial director at Head of Zeus, Apollo makes great forgotten works of fiction available to a new generation of readers. Apollo will challenge the established canon and surprise and move readers with its choice of books.
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Apollo Librarian | Michael Schmidt || Series Editor | Neil Belton
Text Design | Lindsay Nash || Artwork | Jessie Price
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First published as O Absalom! in 1938 by William Collins Sons & Co Ltd.
This paperback edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Apollo, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Michael Spring, 1938
Introduction © Michael Schmidt, 2016
The moral right of Howard Spring to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (PB) 9781784970772
ISBN (E) 9781784970765
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My Son, My Son Page 58