Little and much had happened after Rachel returned from Waldo’s with the wren in the bottle. My investigation agency started to grow, though often it was work that I didn’t particularly enjoy like spying on cheating spouses or finding missing pets – Mrs Eynon Maesgwyn had phoned to say that her dog, a plump and happy corgi called Sam, hadn’t been seen for days. She was very upset so I had promised to give it priority.
Rachel was meeting almost daily with Rosalind. Their friendship had grown, and often they seemed like mother and daughter. Rosalind was very keen to learn more from Rachel about Jewish cooking, something which was neglected by her own mother in the effort to hide their Jewishness. Dylan’s letters and poems were assembled in a format that Rosalind liked, and a publisher was sought.
Dylan’s shed had not yet been found.
The police were still looking for the murderer of Ogmore Stillness. O’Malley, who had at last proposed to Ringle, had let it be known that the police wanted to interview Les Prop-Forward for a second time, but there was no-one at his house when they called. Hardly surprising, said O’Malley, since he was with the gardening club in Spain. Not that they would see many flowers there, only the roses behind the ears of the topless flamenco dancers in the night clubs. No, he wasn’t a suspect but one of the lads who hangs out on the square had indicated that Les knew more than he was saying.
The wren died after two days of shivering in the coop, as though it had too much air and space to live in.
Waldo came back to Meeting, as he said he would. His behaviour was normal and appropriate. I had had no need to call Cressida Lovewhich again. Rachel’s relationship with Waldo remained polite but guarded after the incident with the wren. Nevertheless, she and the other members of the Meeting were pleased with the progress he had been making. They genuinely believed they had rescued a soul, and perhaps given peace to someone who had experienced a lifetime of torment. I was sceptical about that. Whilst I no longer regarded Waldo as a threat to myself or Rachel, I thought he was using the Meeting to build a relationship with Rachel that was mostly fantasy. Between Meetings, he telephoned to talk about Quaker matters, and sometimes called to borrow a book or pamphlet, reminding me of an adolescent finding excuses to call upon his loved one. Rachel was able to accept that this was happening but felt it was worth enduring if it brought Waldo to the peace and security of Quaker worship.
The cat, however, was thrown among the Quaker pigeons. Waldo formally applied to become a member of the Society of Friends. Quakers form a very broad church. The majority of Friends are refugees from other religions, or travellers who have been on a variety of spiritual journeys but found no satisfactory destination. People become members because they subscribe to the Quaker’s opposition to violence and war. Would-be members are also attracted to the Quaker belief in a just and caring society. But what of Waldo?
Most people attend a Quaker Meeting for several years before applying for membership. Waldo’s application after less than a year was exceptionally early. On this score alone, it posed difficulties for Rachel and her colleagues. Then there were the questions about his past behaviour and mental state. These on their own would not necessarily be a bar to membership. On the contrary, here was a drowning soul who had been pulled on board a passing Quaker vessel and who was now declaring he wanted to join the crew. But a wish to join the crew was not on its own a good reason for granting membership. The person had to agree with the destination of the ship, and the values and way of life of the crew members. Being at Meeting was proving to be of great therapeutic value to Waldo, but this alone could not be the basis for allowing someone into membership.
I was at home writing a report for a neighbouring farmer who had hired me to find his missing muck spreader. Rachel had been out for a couple of hours at a special meeting called to discuss Waldo’s application. I heard the car drive up, followed by Rachel’s footsteps across the farm yard. Bedwen was already waiting to meet her. I opened the door, and the rain blew in, scaring the dog for a moment and lifting my papers from the table. She looked tired and strained, and I wasn’t surprised when she said that they’d decided Waldo’s application was premature. They would recommend he wait for at least another year.
Rachel poured herself some wine, and sat in the bath for an hour planning what to say to Waldo. He knew that they were meeting, and was expecting a phone call with the decision. I became more and more anxious thinking about Waldo’s reaction, and at one point I felt tempted to ring Cressida for some guidance. Rejection is depressing, and I was extremely worried about how it might affect Waldo.
We ate dinner in silence. I cleared up the plates and Rachel went to the office to phone Waldo.
She was back within a couple of minutes. “How did he take it?” I asked.
“He said ‘Thank you for nothing.’”
“Is that all?”
“Then he started humming.”
“Humming what?”
“‘Abide with Me’.”
“Let me ring Cressida and see what she thinks.”
Two days later, Rachel received a letter from Waldo, apologising for his churlish behaviour. He had been surprised and upset at being rejected, but, of course, he accepted the decision and would certainly pay attention to the recommendations. And, indeed, that is what duly happened.
He became a diligent participant in the life and work of the Meeting and within six months he had signed up for a number of study groups on Quaker faith and practice. And then, out of the blue, came an invitation from Waldo, one that had been sent to all ten of the regulars in the Quaker Meeting. It came in a small lilac envelope. The paper inside was yellow, and bordered in black. The contents were unlike anything I’d seen before but Rachel said I didn’t know my Welsh folk customs well enough.
I, Waldo Hilton, am desired to act as messenger and bidder for a meeting of true minds on November 2nd next, the day of All Souls of all kinds, here in my house to have clean chairs to sit upon, some ale, turnips, leeks and not a little song. As is usual for us, meaning those who know verse from Laugharne and yet more from Talsarn, we will recite with knowingness the sad death of Dylan, Son of the Wave. A great many can help one, but one cannot help a great many, so bring food and wine that the least amongst us may dine.
The invitation caused great interest at the next Meeting, and Waldo, reported Rachel, was clearly moved by the joy with which people looked forward to the occasion. It wasn’t just a Quaker do, he mentioned, but he’d also invited one or two members of the writers’ workshop that he’d met at Rachel’s launch. The evening, he hinted, would lead to a better understanding of Dylan’s death. That single sentence made me anxious. I did not like the proximity of Halloween and a memorial party on All Soul’s Day when police were still looking for the killer of Ogmore Stillness. Fates were being tempted, I warned Rachel, but she took no notice.
We spent the afternoon of November 2nd cooking. Rachel made leek and asparagus quiche to take to the party, and I baked some rosemary bread. Evening came with a flurry of snow, as the wind swung round to the east. Wrap up warm, Waldo had advised, and that is what we did. We drove to the gate of Fern Hill and decided to walk up.
The track was lit by a line of hurricane lamps that Waldo had hung from the trees. Along the ground, Halloween pumpkins with candles inside hissed as the wind drove snowflakes through the eyes of the yellow faces. Half-way to the farm house, we saw a cluster of lamps, with a group of guests huddled beneath. They were gathered round a table, drinking mulled wine from a pan kept warm by a small gas stove. We helped ourselves and expressed amazement that Waldo had gone to so much trouble on our behalf.
We walked on, now a party of six. When we reached the farm, we found the house in complete darkness but a line of smiling pumpkins directed us to a stone barn at the far corner of the yard. I pushed open the door, stepped inside and paused for a moment, trying to take in what was before me. The group behind pushed past to find the warmth, but they, too, stopped and stared, gawping like children. My first impression was that we were layered between two miracles. The floor of the barn was strewn thickly with daffodils and above our heads, moving like mist through the golden rafters, were hundreds upon hundreds of butterflies. To have daffodils and butterflies in November was impossible but there they were!
I moved further into the barn, wincing as my feet crunched along the yellow carpet. The atmosphere and layout was a little like a church, and I wondered how the Quaker guests would react to it. Rachel seemed as entranced as I was. She took my hand and led me across to the wall where, in a church, the altar would have been. But here was no altar but a perllan, a large rectangular board attached to the wall like a painting. At the centre was a red circle, with a stuffed wren placed within it. Ribs of brightly polished wood ran from the circle to each of the four corners of the board, in each of which an apple had been fixed. I grimaced at the wren but Rachel gave me a dark look and said: “It’s traditional.”
On each side of the perllan, Waldo had secured two flaming torches that gave the barn most of its shadowy light. Where the heat came from, I didn’t know, but it was warm enough to take off our coats.
We turned round and looked down the body of the barn. In front of us, a few feet forward of the perllan, a round pit had been dug in the earth floor, presumably to hold a fire, because the bottom was covered in shredded newspaper. On the other side of the fire pit stood a small oak table with a menorah burning brightly on it, and a plate of small cakes. “Pice rhanna,” whispered Rachel, “or soul cakes to you.” Beyond the table were two rows of nine chairs. Scattered amongst the chairs were little boxes, each covered with a blue and yellow cloth that bore the trademarks of O’Malley’s embroidery. On each box, there were more soul cakes, as well as a sheep’s skull with a lighted candle inside. Behind the chairs were two tables that were to hold the food and wine brought by the guests. Alongside was an old grandfather clock whose tick sounded like water dripping into a tin can.
It was now almost eight o’clock and there were eighteen guests present, an equal number of men and women. They were a mix of Quakers and poets but also a few local people, including O’Malley. Then Rosalind appeared, stepping quietly out of one of the unlit corners of the barn. She moved amongst the guests. Waldo, she said, was ready.
We sat down, both nervous and excited. Rosalind came to the front with a tambourine which she rattled and then flicked rhythmically with the backs of her fingers. Waldo came in through the door. He was wearing a white apron over his dark trousers, with a white ribbon tied to the buttonhole of his blue shirt. His black boots were tied with white laces. He had a bowler hat under his arm. He came forward to the small oak table, picked up a soul-cake and crumbled it gently between his fingers. “Share! Share!” he shouted, making us jump in our seats. “All Soul’s Day! A share to my father for playing with words, a share to my mother for not being frum, a share to the children who have never been.”
Then he paused and invited us to try the soul cakes. I thought they tasted awful, dry like sawdust, but I noticed some of the Quakers chewing away manfully as if they knew what was expected of a polite guest. I spat mine into my hand, and let it fall amongst the daffodils.
“On this day of souls, we stand half-way between Dylan’s birthday, October 27th, and the day of his death, November 9th. That is a significance that binds us here tonight.” We waited whilst he crumbled a soul-cake into the fire pit. “It’s no accident, of course, that 18 of you are gathered here.”
At this point, Waldo stopped, gave a nod of his head, presumably at Rosalind who was in the shadows somewhere, and a shaft of light came streaming across our heads, illuminating the wall in front of us, just to the right of the perllan. “This,” he said, “tells you everything.”
The image flickered rather eerily on the rough surface of the barn wall, but it was plain enough to see without straining. It was a simple matrix:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8A B C D E U O F
I K G M H V Z P
Q R L T N W
J Y S
I’d seen this kind of chart before. It was based on a Cabalist theory that a person’s name contained a code giving information about the person’s character and their destiny. They’d worked out a system for giving names a numerical value, and in so doing decoding the information that they believed was implicit in them. I’d once shared an office with a personnel manager who used this system when she was hiring staff and, amazingly, she was almost always right.
“We use the chart,” continued Waldo, “to determine a person’s name-number. Simply add the numbers for each letter of the person’s full name, then add the digits of the resulting number, and carry on doing this until the addition gives you a number below 10. In Dylan’s case, the numbers for his name, including Marlais, add up to 54, which in turn add up to 9, a name-number associated with achievement, inspiration and spirituality.
“Dylan’s life was largely determined by the number 9 and its various multiples, the most potent of which is 18, a number which adds up to 9 and is also a multiple of it.”
Waldo paused again as the guests began working it out for themselves, and after a few moments there was agreement that Dylan’s name-number was indeed 9. I calculated Waldo’s. It was 1, a name-number associated with aggression, action, purpose and cunning.
“Dylan was born on one of the most powerful 9-days of the month – 27. It both adds up to, and is divisible by, 9.
“Dylan’s first poem was published on the 18th of May, his first collection contained 18 poems and was published on the 18th of December. His first nation-wide radio appearance was on the 18th of October, and his television debut on April 9th. Incidentally, that first poem was ‘And death shall have no dominion’, a line taken from Romans 6:9. It has 3 stanzas each of 9 lines. This was the first and only time Dylan would use that arrangement.
“We would expect certain compounds of 9 to have a special significance. For example, its square root, 3. Dylan and Caitlin had 3 children, he had 3 important lovers in his life, there were 3 collections of poetry, excluding The Map of Love which was a hybrid, 3 completed trips to America, and 3 houses at Laugharne.”
“And don’t forget the 3 kisses for his mother the last time he left for America,” shouted O’Malley, much to everyone’s surprise, but Waldo seemed pleased that we were getting into the swing of it.
“Let’s consider September, the 9th month of the year, and made up of 9 letters. No other month does that, so September has a special status in the occult. It’s certainly a creative month for Dylan – his second and third poems to be published came out in September, as did his second collection, Twenty-Five Poems. It was in September that Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog was published in America, and in September that Dylan started work for Strand Films.”
This was the first time that Waldo had explicitly mentioned the occult. I had wondered about it when I first saw the sheep’s skulls with the candles inside. It didn’t make me nervous, just more alert to what Waldo was saying and what was going on around me. The Quakers didn’t seem fazed by it so perhaps I was being a little over-sensitive. On the other hand, I didn’t think the Quakers would remain so laid back if Waldo edged over into other aspects of the occult. A ritual slaughter, for example.
“With 9 as your name-number, September will bring change, disturbance and upheaval. And that’s exactly what happened to Dylan. He made almost all of his major house moves in September. Perhaps the most significant of these was to Majoda, an address made up of the names of 3 children. Dylan moved there in the 9th month of 1944, a year that adds up to 18, is divisible exactly by nine, and the result, 216, adds up to 9. There could be no more powerful combination of numbers. Precisely 6 months later, on the 6th day of the 3rd month, William Killick fired his machine gun through the kitchen window of Majoda. When your name-number’s 9, there can be no more ominous portent than its inversion, the number 6.”
I could sense that rest of the guests were as intrigued as I was by this series of coincidences, though I am sure that Waldo would not have used that word to describe them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rosalind move again into the shadows at the rear of the barn. I heard a quiet click as if something were being opened, and then an explosion of noise behind us. People jumped in their seats in surprise, and gasped with delight as white doves flew across the barn and circled in the beams above Waldo’s head. I knew without counting that there were 18 of them.
“Let’s look at Dylan’s death,” continued Waldo, “The most significant fact is that Dylan left Laugharne for America on October 9th. You will, by now, appreciate the importance of the number. He stayed for over a week in London, and arrived in New York on the 19th. He spent a few pleasant days socialising and recovering from the plane journey. Then things began to go badly wrong:
“October 22nd: exactly 9 days to Halloween, and exactly 9 days since Dylan finished the script of Under Milk Wood. He meets Liz Reitell, his American organiser, producer, secretary and lover. They have dinner at Herdts. This was the last proper meal that Dylan was to eat. They leave the restaurant separately. Where did Dylan go to? With whom did he spend the night? Nobody’s yet been able to tell us, though it’s the most critical night of Dylan’s life, and death.
“October 23rd: Dylan’s world begins to fall apart. He starts drinking heavily and taking drugs. What on earth happened the night before?
“October 24th: Dr Milton Feltenstein is called and, without doing blood or urine tests, gives Dylan an injection of cortisone and a prescription for benzedrine. Heap bad medicine for a diabetic.
“October 27th: Dylan’s birthday, a day of depression and tears, his 39th year to hell.
“October 31st. Halloween. Dylan is seen drinking lager, beer, whisky and taking benzedrine. He does more of the same on November 1st and wakes up on the 2nd. with a massive hangover, unable to get out of bed.
“November 3rd: Presidential Election Day. Eisenhower or Stevenson? A new American future? Dylan stays sober all day, and signs a contract with Felix Gerstman for a $1,000 a week for lecture tours. He goes back to his hotel to bed. He breaks down, he weeps and talks in a maudlin way about Caitlin. At two in the morning, he jumps out of bed demanding a drink. He’s back at 3-30, boasting he’s drunk 18 whiskies, American size. Impossible, but he’s been on the benzedrine again, still no food since October 22nd, and he’s a diabetic, remember, a diabetic.
“November 4th: Dylan wakes up and says he’s suffocating. Feltenstein is called. He gives Dylan the first of 3 injections of morphine and cortisone, fatal to anyone with diabetes, and Dylan goes into an irreversible coma. He’s taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital. It’s a Catholic hospital. It’s a charity hospital. No health service in America, remember. And the country’s pre-occupied with the casualties from Korea.”
Waldo stopped and the barn was totally silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock. He bent forward, opened a little drawer in the table and took out a knife. The blade caught the flames of the torches, sending splinters of yellow light across the faces of the guests. Rosalind came forward with a basket of fruit. Waldo picked out an apple and a lemon. He sliced each into 9 segments and threw them into the fire pit. He turned to address us once more: “Let’s go back a bit, to that night of October 22nd. Who did Dylan spend the night with? Who and what started the terminal slide?”
Waldo paused and handed out a sheet of paper to each of the guests. It was a photocopy of the inside cover of a book. The inscription read: “To Al, with best wishes, Dylan Thomas. October 22nd 1953.” Underneath were a couple of signatures and the stamp of a Miami law firm.
“We can be sure of one thing,” continued Waldo. “Wherever Dylan went that night he would have taken a taxi but how to find the driver? I have a small trust fund in New York. I have drawn upon it over the years to employ a detective agency to find him.”
The guests looked astonished that this strange man from a little farm in Ciliau Aeron had access to money in America. I relished the irony that Waldo had used Eliot’s money to untangle a mystery about Dylan.
“After more than ten years of searching, we tracked him down to a retirement complex in Florida. His name is Alayne Withers. You each have a photocopy of the autograph that he obtained from Dylan. It has been authenticated by a leading firm of Miami lawyers. We have a sworn statement from Mr Withers that he was the driver who picked up Dylan at Herdt’s restaurant, and that he took him to Merle Kalvick’s apartment.
“Dylan spent the night with her. He told her he planned to stay in America, and suggested that they might try to make a life together. His relationship with Caitlin was already dead, and, indeed, a letter was on its way from her to confirm this, but he was never to read it. His security in America was guaranteed by the contract with Gerstman. Merle agreed and after she had fallen asleep, Dylan wrote his final letter to Rosalind, telling her what he planned, and enclosing what would be the very last poem he was to write. He stayed up to watch the sun rising over the city, and called up the janitor to take the letter away for posting.
“When Merle sat down for breakfast, she told Dylan she had changed her mind. She had already made one bad marriage, divorcing within a year, and was not prepared yet to take on another serious relationship. Dylan was distraught. He left her apartment to keep an appointment with Liz Reitell at a seafood restaurant. He was distressed and angry, as well he might be, and refused to eat any food. It was at that point, after his rejection by Merle and knowing it was all over with Caitlin, that his mind and body began to collapse.
“On October 25, the relationship with Reitell also broke up. Thus Dylan was left alone, without any of the women he loved and so much depended upon. He was on his own in New York, thousands of miles from his beloved Laugharne. His props were gone, except the booze and the benzedrine. The rest you know.
“Dylan died in his 39th year – his name-number and its square root – on the 9th day of the month in a year, 1953, which adds up to 18, and divides exactly by 9. He died exactly 18 days after meeting Merle in her apartment.”
I must admit that I was impressed. I had always been extremely sceptical about the occult and cabalism, as I was about astrology and all the New Age variants that had sprung up in recent times, most of whose practitioners seemed to live in west Wales, self-seeking English refugees from the rough and tumble of urban life. But here was a totally convincing demonstration of the power of a name-number in someone’s life. I knew enough about Dylan Thomas to know that Waldo’s dates and calculations were correct.
Waldo went back behind the table and stood with his head bowed as if he were praying, and perhaps he was. The barn sat in a very Quakerly silence for almost ten minutes. It was broken, not by Waldo, but by the grandfather clock which started, for the first time that night, to sound the hour. It was nine o’clock. As the last chime reverberated through the barn, Waldo took out a sheet of paper from the pocket of his apron. “This,” he said, unfolding it gently, “is Dylan’s last poem, written in Merle’s apartment.”
I felt Rachel go tense with interest and expectation. It had not been amongst the poems Rosalind had asked her to edit. I knew she would be anxious to acquire it for the publication. “I would be grateful,” said Waldo, “if Martin would read it for us.”
He took me completely by surprise, not least because I thought that Rachel would have been a much better choice, and I could see from her face that she thought so, too. I went up to the table and took the typewritten poem from Waldo. I read it through silently a couple of times, and then started:
Held holy and scuffed between lamb and raven
In the hour’s grain, the self priesting synod hangs
Solemn with the scope of still quiescent leaven
And now it grows, grinding the wheel of fire
That mills the circle, heart’s icon ungraven;
Vibration of the Pentecostal lyre
Sings between ribs of silence, tongues
The quiver of blood in the tautened lungs.
They ride the updraught like a spark to heaven
Risen in the furnacing haven of their desire.
And I am left dumb and grounded, wrung
In the diminuendo of a bat-voiced choir.
I gave the poem back to Waldo, and returned to my seat. Some of the guests had started to talk amongst themselves but Waldo interrupted and raised his hands for silence. “Would the men please empty their pockets of money, take off your watches and remove any other metal you may have about you.”
We all did this without question, whilst the women looked on in amazement at the bits and pieces that were turned out of our pockets. There were several Swiss Army knives, which were obviously de rigueur for Quaker men of a certain age. O’Malley had not one, but two, corkscrews in his coat.
“I’d like you to go to the woods – there are torches and wellingtons at the back – and collect twigs from nine different kinds of tree.”
I led the way out, because I knew how to find the coppice at the side of the farm yard. Thankfully, the snow had long stopped and little of it was left on the ground. The wind was still from the east, but the farm buildings gave us some protection. We muddled around in the coppice until we were satisfied that we had enough twigs, though it was hard to tell in the dark. When we returned, the women were drinking mulled wine and eating cake. Rosalind took the twigs from us and separated them into various piles. When she’d finished, Waldo came across and set them crosswise into the pit.
He lit the fire and we stood around as fascinated as if these were the very first flames we’d ever seen. The wet bark of the wood hissed and spluttered as the fire took hold, and the smoke curled up into the roof of the barn, driving down the few remaining butterflies.
“In the old days,” said Waldo, “they tried to cure sick cattle by throwing a new-born calf into a bonfire.” He paused to pick up the poem from the table. He looked directly and intently at Rachel, and I felt that something awful was about to happen. I had a feeling that a little bit of the old Waldo was in the barn. “I wonder,” he asked, kneeling down by the fire, and putting on a few more twigs. “I wonder if we could purge the power of Dylan’s name-number by throwing this last child of his into the flames?”
I thought for a moment that Rachel was going to leap on him, and snatch the piece of paper from his hand. Her face was taut with anger and she stood poised like someone at the end of a diving board. But, thankfully, Waldo stood up and broke into laughter. “What a ridiculous idea,” he said. “What a waste of a fine poem.” He looked again at Rachel. “Take it. I want you to study it. I want to know if you’d like it for the publication. I’m sure you will, I’m certain that something can be arranged.”
Rachel took the poem. She glanced at me, and there was no need for words. We both knew that Waldo was suggesting some sort of deal or trade-off.
“And now for some food,” said Waldo. “A traditional supper for this time of year, the stwmp naw rhyw, the mash with nine ingredients, specially prepared by O’Malley.” Waldo clapped his hands, and Rosalind came out of the shadows again, carrying a glass tureen. She put it on the table, went to the back of the barn, and returned with nine bowls. “The first round is just for the ladies,” said Waldo, and I saw Rachel and one or two of the other women exchange disapproving glances at his choice of word. “All good stuff. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, peas, parsnips, leeks, pepper, salt, and especially for Martin, spicy sausage, sliced-up thinly, which I had specially sent from Italy.”
Rosalind began ladling the mash into the bowls, and when she’d finished Waldo said: “And now for the surprise ingredient.” He searched in the pocket of his shirt and brought out a gold ring. “It was customary to place a wedding ring in the stwmp naw rhyw. The girl who picked it up with her spoon would be the first to be married in the coming new year.” He dropped the ring into one of the bowls, asked Rosalind to close her eyes, and then shuffled the bowls around until it was impossible to tell where the ring had been put. Then Rosalind gave each woman a bowl of the mash.
I have to say that both Rachel and I knew that she would end up with the ring. And so it proved, but I don’t know how Waldo managed it. It was so predictable that when Rachel scooped out the ring on her third spoonful we burst into giggles. The rest of the guests clapped and whooped and made ribald comments. We both, of course, understood the significance and seriousness of what had happened. Rachel lifted the ring from the spoon and diligently wiped off the mash with a tissue, while she thought out what to do. There was now a certain tension in the barn, albeit light-hearted. Waldo stood pensively waiting for her response. I perfectly understood Rachel’s dilemma. In our own private battle with Waldo, she had to reject the ring without rejecting him.
Even I was surprised by what Rachel did next. She went across to one of the Quakers and asked for his Swiss Army knife. The guests, of course, thought that this was a hoot. She returned to the table, picked out a stick of hazel, and stripped the bark right off. She handed the stick to Waldo. “My ffon wen,” she said, smiling at him as if she felt some affection, which she probably did in her funny, Quaker, all soul-saving way.
He took the stick and started chuckling and then laughing, until the whole party was falling about, though they didn’t understand why. “Just my luck,” he said, “to choose a married woman.”
Rachel stepped forward and kissed him on his cheek, which I thought was going too far, and wondered what Cressida Lovewhich would make of it. Then music came falling like dew from the beams overhead, and the atmosphere changed once more as people moved to the tables at the back to find the food and wine. I took Rachel aside and asked: “What’s a ffon wen?”
“The white stick, sent by women in the old days to certain men.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“Get lost. Get stuffed. I’m not interested.”
“And Dylan’s poem?”
“A piece of deception, and I’m going to tell Waldo so.”
She didn’t have long to wait. Waldo was moving through the guests with every intention of ending up with Rachel. She was waiting for him, again calm and radiating warmth, what the Quakers call ‘unconditional acceptance’.
“And what do you think of the poem?” he asked.
“The trouble is,” she replied, “it’s not by Dylan, and even if it were I doubt if it’s good enough to be published.”
I thought that was going too far, since the poem was clearly very good.
“I think it needs a little polishing. Why don’t you come to the poetry workshop on Tuesday night?” she suggested, believing she was handing Waldo off, but at the same time keeping communication open.
As we drove home, I said: “I still think it’s a fine poem.”
“I know. And if he behaves himself, I’ll make sure he gets it published somewhere or other.”
“He looked very upset.”