The Death of the Fronsac_A Novel

by Neal Ascherson

  Malcolm and I took over. He didn’t seem to own any possessions; at Union Street he lived like a backpacker. I found the memoir in the bookshelf in the kitchen, a row of spiral-back jotters.

  I took a look. Maria, there’s a lot of pretty shocking stuff, personal, as well as a record of wartime. Stuff I knew about, but don’t ever want to go back to. Is there some form I could fill in saying it’s not to be read for fifty years?

  In the last pages, he seems not sure whether he wants buried or cremated. But he does mention a gold earring which was to go with him, and I found that. Anyway, we had him cremated and then Malcolm made a sort of sea-coffin out of an old metal biscuit-box. We wrapped the casket of ashes in chain to weight it, put it in the box and nailed the lid shut with copper nails.

  The School’s research vessel was setting off for Tarbert that week. So we travelled with it, and Malcolm put the box over the side into the deep water off Ardlamont Point, the open sea where the basking sharks used to gather. A few silver bubbles came up from under the lid as the box sank and was gone.

  The earring was in my pocket. I held it tight for a moment. This tiny gold circle had journeyed from Poland to Kazakhstan to Persia to Palestine, then to Scotland and the battlefields of Normandy and after that Holland and Germany. Then Scotland again, then Poland again. And now to this final place which is no land but, to my mind, the source of all lands and all life.

  Then I threw the earring into the sea. End of a story, but I will let you read it for yourself.

  Yours affectionately, dear Maria, from your scholarly comrade,

  JACKIE

  We hope you enjoyed this book!

  For more information, click the following links

  About Neal Ascherson

  More from Apollo

  About Apollo

  About Neal Ascherson

  NEAL ASCHERSON is a journalist and historian. He reported from Asia, Africa and Central Europe for The Observer. He contributes regularly to the The New York Review of Books and the LRB. His books include Black Sea, Stone Voices, Games with Shadows and The Polish August.

  More from Apollo

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  APOLLO LIBRARY

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Find out more

  Visit Apollo now

  About Apollo

  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.

  Get in touch: apollo@headofzeus.com

  Visit Apollo now

  Find us on Twitter

  Find us on BookGrail

  First published in the UK in 2017 by Apollo, an imprint of Head of Zeus, Ltd.

  Copyright © Neal Ascherson 2017

  The moral right of Neal Ascherson 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.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  9 7 5 3 1 2 4 6 8

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

  ISBN (HB): 9781786694379

  ISBN (E): 9781786694362

  Jacket design: Estuary English

  Jacket images: Polish immigrants dancing at the Polish Ex-Servicemen’s Club in Glasgow, Scotland, March 1955. © Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

  Apollo

  c/o Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.apollo-classics.com | www.headofzeus.com