The Absence of the Swallows — A Tale of Enduring Guilt
A childhood regret that still eerily haunts me, and elicits wider reflections
The swallows returned to my village last week. They’re actually swifts, but I think of them as swallows. I would be content with just one word for both. Swifflow. Swoopwing. Summersign.
They are back from their wintering haunts to ward off the setting of the sun with the piercingly defiant shrieks of their evening hunting frenzy. Summoning the bats for a changing of the guard at dusk, to light the braziers of the balmy night.
This is their season, and I thank them for sharing it.
And yet it also brings with it a haunting hint of melancholy for me. An episode from my childhood that still harries the periphery of my consciousness after all these years.
The house where I grew up — where my mother still lives — stands in a village in northwest England. A little further north and less temperate than my adopted homeland of Spain, but after flying five thousand miles from South Africa, there’s little to choose between the two, I imagine.
And it was swallows, not swifts, that accompanied the summers of my youth. On opening the back door from the kitchen, you stepped into a paved yard, measuring four or…
