The Blue Last

butchers.”

Snowball, Katherine Riordin’s cat, had come along to annoy Sparky. Snowball hissed.

“Gyp doesn’t like Sparky. I can tell that.”

Gem shook out her black hair so that it caught a flash of sunlight. “I’m not going to eat meat anymore.” She said this as if Benny hadn’t said it first. “A policeman was here yesterday.”

“He’s the same one that came to the bookshop.”

“He didn’t have a uniform on. It was probably his day off.”

“He’s a detective. They don’t wear uniforms.”

“Well, he didn’t have a gun either.”

“They don’t carry guns.” Benny wasn’t sure this was true, but he said it as if he were. He took this line with most things he said for uncertainty never got you anywhere.

Gem was removing the doll’s bonnet and studying its head. “But if there’s a fight, they could get killed if they don’t have guns.”

“Police think carrying a gun only makes things worse, it makes the criminals more likely to shoot.” That, he thought, was a really good idea. Maybe he’d read it somewhere.

“If he doesn’t have a gun, how can he fight back if someone tries to shoot me again?”

Benny looked up through the breeze-shivered leaves of this big tree and thought further: this detective from New Scotland Yard hadn’t simply dismissed the danger Gem was in. Benny frowned, concentrating on that. But Gemma-why Gemma? Why would someone want to get rid of her? Was it because old Mr. Tynedale liked her so much? Someone was afraid he would give away most of his money to Gemma?

“Are you thinking?” Gemma climbed down. “I’m going in to get some holy water and a towel. I’ll be right back.”

Benny grunted, only half hearing. Sparky followed Gem. He seemed to want to protect her.

Could Gemma know something she didn’t know was important, and someone had to make sure she never realized it and told? Or maybe she owned something important… Benny sat up straight, recalling a film he had seen (and he hadn’t seen many) and looked at the unnamed doll. His eyes widened; maybe the doll wasn’t hollow inside. Maybe someone had opened it up to stash jewels or drugs or something and then sewn it up again. Its torso was of firmly stuffed material, even though its head and limbs were hard plastic. He took the doll up, bareheaded without its bonnet, and prodded and prodded; he put it against his ear and shook it.

“What are you doing to Richard? Put him down!” Gem dropped the towel she was carrying and climbed up to the seat and took the doll.

Benny stared from her to the doll. “Richard? Richard?”

“I ran across it when I was doing the Rs.” She leaned the doll against her shoulder and patted his back because it had been manhandled so outrageously.

Benny leaned toward her. “The Rs were things like Ruth, Rachel, Rebecca. Richard is a boy’s name!”

“I know. It is a boy. I’d never name a girl Richard. We were all wrong, you see.” Gem was not about to take the wrongness on her own shoulders.

“She can’t be a boy. Not after all this time!” Benny sloughed himself off the tree and paced around. Sparky woofed. It was too infuriating! What a thing for her to pull! He said, “Look how she’s dressed, how she’s been dressed all this time, in that long female dress!”

Reasonably, Gemma said, “It’s christening clothes. It can be either one. Look-” she raised the doll’s dress, pointed to the placidly empty space between its legs. “See? Nothing.”

Benny blushed furiously. Oh, she looked so smug.

Twenty-two

Waterloo Bridge rose out of the fog lying across the Thames, a sleeker, more stream-lined and diminished version of what it had been during the war. Benny had never seen the old Waterloo Bridge, but Mags had shown him pictures of it in old magazines. Still, it was quite a sight, rising with the lights of the South Bank behind it, and overhead, crowds of stars and an iridescent moon. He stood looking at the starry bridge until Sparky nudged his shoe, nudging him out of his daydreams so as to set about distributing what was in the packet from Mr. Gyp.

That was the way Benny saw Waterloo Bridge, when, after dark, he came back to his makeshift life on the Embankment. It was always dark now in December when he finished work. Often he stayed to help at the Moonraker, for Miss Penforwarden was often behindhand with her work: things like sending out notices of new books she’d acquired to customers on her mailing list. There were a lot of books to be posted to people on that list, names kept on cards in one of those round Rolodex files.

It surprised Benny how much work she had to do, and how uncomplaining she was about it. Aside from dithery looks here and there for something she’d set down and Now where is it? Pencil, Miss Penforwarden? Behind your ear. Glasses? In your hair. This amused her more than anything else, and Benny thought that this was because she didn’t get angry with herself, didn’t put herself down like most people (including Benny) were inclined to do. Benny resolved to be like that himself, as he considered it a real virtue.

Miss Penforwarden wanted to pay Benny for the extra time he put in, but Benny absolutely refused, for he was happy to do it. So in place of pay, she invited him and Sparky to have supper with her on those evenings. He gladly accepted. Dinner with Miss Penforwarden came a couple of nights a week and had got to be a regular event.

Miss Penforwarden talked a lot about the past, about her husband, dead now; about her son, dead, too; about her lovely dog Raven, also dead. Benny felt awful about Miss Penforwarden’s misfortunes; it seemed more than one person should be asked to bear. But her life was not presented as a tale of woe, and was all the more woeful for not being. It was matter-of-fact, even humorous; it was the way his own mother had been, keeping always at the forefront what was essential. As literally with her last breath she warned Benny about the National Handbag and managed a laugh.

Benny thought Sparky and he were very lucky; still, he reminded himself they gave as good as they got. As far as Benny knew, they were the only ones here camping under the bridge who actually worked for a living. Not that some of the others wouldn’t, given half a chance, but a lot of them used drugs and drank themselves to sleep, where he could understand they’d sooner be than awake. Wakefulness for them provided no ease.

The ones who were clear enough in the head, begged. Benny did not look down on this because his own mother had been forced to beg. Before, they had had a nice life, for Benny recalled a solid house with lots of rooms where he had lived with his mother. She had cooked for this wealthy family. Only, one day saw them not so wealthy; the man of the house had gone bankrupt and staff had been let go. It’s through no fault of your own, Mary; we’ve just got to tighten up. Bankrupt. A funny word to him as a little boy. Had the bank erupted? He pictured pound notes flying up and outward, falling again like volcanic ash.

Sparky always got first pick from the package and always chose the beef bone, but still he whiffed them all: chops, bones. He took his bone and trotted off to wherever he gnawed it or buried it, saving it, maybe, for a rainy day.

Here under the bridge was the place to be on rainy days, all right. For the most part they were not friendly people, and Benny could hardly blame them. Twice Benny was robbed before he decided to bank his earnings. He had set up a savings account at NatWest and he now had quite a bit of money in it. He would never have been accepted under the bridge, never, if he hadn’t stopped here with his mother for the last few months of her life, so they had got used to Benny. When his mother died, several of them had been very kind and offered him food and gin. Mags, wrapped in bunched and knotted shawls, had held him and rocked him, saying, “Poor lad, poor lad.” It had been and would always be as far as Benny was concerned the worst day of his life.

And, of course, he was also liked for the occasional packets from the butcher. They could cook the chops over a small fire. The bones did well in a watery soup. There was never enough to go around, of course, but still, it helped.

He had a pallet to sleep on. He had got blankets from the Lodge when he found Mrs. MacLeish was going to