Free The Dylan Thomas Murders by David N. Thomas Page A

he expected to be taken aback. And he was. The letter was six-pages long, closely typed. He skipped through it and dropped the pages on the table. ‘Sweet Lucretia,’ he whispered, ‘the fowl hears the falcon’s bells.’
    â€œWe sat in silence whilst he read through the letter again, this time carefully. He poured another beer, picked up the letter, sniffed at it, held it up to the light, rustled it against his good ear and said: ‘I’m not a Welsh pervert after all.’
    â€œWhen I came down from putting Waldo to bed, Dylan handed me the cheque and said ‘Buy a farm for him.’ And that’s what I did, I bought Fern Hill. I think Dylan wanted Waldo to be a real boy, climbing trees, chasing squirrels, that sort of thing.
    â€œDylan was quiet for most of the evening but more like himself when it was time to go to bed. He clowned around a bit, affecting an even sharper cut-glass accent than he already had: ‘Dylan Thomas Esquire, the only son and heir of Lord Howard de Walden,’ he said, lifting up his night-shirt, ‘at your service ma’am.’
    â€œI’d say he was bewildered more than shocked but it didn’t last. That’s the thing about Dylan, the outer world didn’t touch him for long and he was soon his old self. In fact, I saw him scribbling some verses, the first for more than two years. ‘Some lines for my new pater, and his birds’, he said. That was the start of ‘Over Sir John’s hill’ but he soon lost interest. The next year he wrote ‘Me and My Bike’.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    Rosalind gave me a withering look. “It’s an operetta,” she said, and I felt the cold wind of exasperation on my face. “Don’t you see?”
    I nodded.
    â€œLike father, like sunbeam. The fuse was blue not green, and Dylan flowered thereafter.”
    â€œDid he tell Caitlin?”
    â€œYes, but she didn’t believe him. She thought it was one of his stories again, and he couldn’t show her the letter without explaining where the money had gone. Anyway, she loathed de Walden, something one of his ancestors had done in Ireland.”
    â€œDid he say anything to DJ and his mam?”
    â€œOf course not. What was the point?”
    â€œDid it change his relationship with DJ?”
    â€œThey became much closer. Not so much father and son but good friends. They did more together, doing the crossword... the attachment grew but I had the feeling that Dylan felt freer, not of DJ and the family, but free of his Welsh baggage, if you like.”
    â€œBut he settled in Laugharne.”
    â€œThat was part of it. Once he felt free of being Welsh, he felt comfortable about settling in Wales, and not being brought down by the bits he despised. The letter helped him understand why he felt such an outsider in Wales, he stopped feeling guilty about it. It also made him more detached, turned him into an observer, and that really helped Under Milk Wood to develop, and the later poetry, too.”
    I wanted to move on. “Can we talk about Dylan’s mother?”
    â€œHe spoke little about Florence.” Rosalind paused as though she were making a judgement about the wisdom of what she was about to say. “Children usually have a very narrow view of their parents, so when a surprise comes along it affects the way they see the world generally, not just the parent. And I think that’s what happened to Dylan. The Cut-Glass letter put Florence in a whole new light, and that made Dylan see his Welsh world differently. The Welsh weren’t perverts anymore but eccentrics, full of colour and light, a rich people behind the grey conformities, individualists and nonconformists in the real sense. That’s why there are so many wonderful characters in Milk Wood . I don’t think Dylan would have divined them without the impact of de Walden’s revelations about Florence. And Caitlin’s