The Blue Last

imagine her coloring, which Jury had no trouble doing. The baby would probably be beautiful also. Here, she was wrapped in a blanket. Then he looked at the one of the baby looking over Alexandra’s shoulder.

Jury studied the picture of Kitty Riordin holding her own baby, Erin, wearing a little cap also looking over her mother’s shoulder. How could what Mickey believed be possible? How could one child be substituted for another and no one know? If he himself had seen both children and then had been asked to identify one or the other-? He doubted if he could. But the mothers would know. That, of course, was Mickey’s point. If Kitty said the baby she had taken out in the stroller was Maisie Tynedale Herrick, who would contradict her? Who would want to? In Maisie’s case there was a grandfather, uncles, aunts-an entire roster of people who would want Maisie alive far more than they’d care if Erin was. It would take the most hardened cynic-this was war, after all-to pose such a devastating question to Kitty Riordin, a woman whose own child had very probably died inside the Blue Last, buried under the debris-no. Mickey was right to be suspicious; it could well have been, still could be, an imposture.

But the alternative was equally possible: Alexandra’s baby, Maisie, really was Maisie, and Mickey was wrong. Jury stood looking at the blank face of an office building before him, which served as a kind of screen on which he could project his thoughts.

London in the dreadful last months of 1940. He had heard people who’d been here then say that if you could hear that searing whistle, the bomb had already missed you and gone down somewhere else. In the spring of that year, people were calling it the phoney war. Men and women in their seventies now, talking about the blackouts, how you couldn’t go anywhere after dark because you couldn’t see. “Always stumbling over the goddamned sandbags, picking your way through the dark, in a block of terraced houses, going up a path and trying to open the wrong door.” One man said he almost welcomed a storm so people could navigate by lightning flashes. No light, no torches, no headlamps-the blackness was like a cave, “like wandering about in a bloody cave, it was.” Jury thought he heard his uncle’s voice saying this. It’s what he himself must have felt in the months after their own flat in the Fulham Road had taken a direct hit. Seeing his mum lying under a ton of rubble.

But had it happened? Had he been there? Was this the reason he hadn’t wanted to be forced back in time, was it that he had begun to question his own memory?

Despite his earlier thoughts about his cousin, he now had the urge to ring her in Newcastle, see what she remembered. Better yet, he would go there. Only, he warned himself, she would not treat memory kindly; she was likely to remember what would make him unhappy, what sad, and even embellish on the sadness of it.

For he knew, if he knew anything, it had been and would be sad.

Seven

Benny Keegan and his dog Sparky climbed the cement steps and crossed to the other side of the Embankment to get the bus to take them across Waterloo Bridge to the South Bank.

Benny made deliveries for several small merchants in Southwark. He knew he couldn’t compete with the swift, helmeted bicycle messengers, but then speed wasn’t everything (he’d told his prospective employers). “Sparky adds a bit of fun to your customers’ day.” Benny (and Sparky) had been hired by the five shops he’d solicited, three of them because Sparky did indeed put a bit of fun in the day. The other two, newsagent and butcher, had agreed to give him a try because Benny (and Sparky) worked cheap. That had been a year ago.

So there were Mr. Siptick, the newsagent; the butcher, Mr. Gyp; the two young men at Delphinium, the flower shop, who reminded Benny of flowers themselves, tall, thin, pastel-colored flowers; the greengrocer, Mr. Smith; and Miss Penforwarden, who owned the Moonraker Bookshop.

These five shops were all handily within a few blocks so that Benny could go from one to the other, making out a schedule for deliveries as he went. He would do this once in the morning and again in the afternoon, to see if any other deliveries had been added. He was very efficient and his way of handling his business worked quite smoothly.

He wouldn’t have exchanged his day of irregular work for a regular job for anything (not that he had the opportunity to, as he was only twelve).

During the time between deliveries, and there was always some time, he could stop and have a rest and a look around the shops he served. His favorite was the Moonraker. Waiting for Miss Penforwarden to make up her delivery orders, he could take down a book and read. Sparky would sit and not bother anything, not even the Moonraker’s cat, who tried everything in its power to get Sparky to chase it. Sparky didn’t. Benny did not know where Sparky had learned such discipline, unless he’d been part of a circus or magic act before Benny had found him that day, nosing through a dustbin. All Benny had ever taught Sparky was how to carry things in his mouth. Newspapers and magazines were easy. But Sparky could even be trusted by the Delphinium owners to carry flowers. To the cone of vibrantly pink paper wrapped around the flowers, they would attach a string handle by which Sparky could carry the bouquet remarkably ably. Sparky loved flowers. Whenever they stopped at Delphinium, Sparky would make a circuit of the wide, cool room, stopping to sniff each kind of flower, bunched in its tall metal holder. The bluebells were his favorite, even though they made him sneeze sometimes. The Delphinium owners would often give Benny, at the end of the day, whatever flowers they thought wouldn’t sit well overnight. They said for him to take them to his mum. Benny said he would and thanked them and went off.

He only wished he didn’t have to make up so many stories about his mum and her daily dealings. How she was really an actress, but had to do waitress work to make money until she got her big break. The trouble with making up a story was that you had to remember to stick with it and flesh it out with all kinds of detail, such as where his mum waited on tables. Lyon’s Corner House, oh that closed, did it? Well, I meant when it was still open. Right now she waits tables in the food hall at Harrods; no, I know they don’t have tables, just counter work, I mean. It was such a strain.

When there was time in the Moonraker, Benny would sit on the library ladder and read David Copperfield, his favorite book. It was because David was worse off than Benny that he liked it. Benny felt lucky there was no Mr. Murdstone in his own life to make him miserable. Of course, the other side of that was there was no Peggotty to help Benny over a misery, so maybe life evened itself out pretty much, the same terms for him and for David.

But it still made him sit there thinking, his chin in his cupped hand, elbow on knee, for long periods. Was it better to have no enemies, even if it meant no friends, or have both? This was not an easy question. Anyway, he really couldn’t say he had no friends for there were the people he lived with, and the people he delivered to, who were very friendly toward Benny and Sparky. As for his employers, it was only Mr. Siptick and Mr. Gyp who could stand in for Mr. Murdstone. Mr. Siptick was forever going on about the things he did wrong and Mr. Gyp was always asking pointed questions about Benny’s mum (his dad being dead, which was true) and ending up with asking “You sure you got a mum, Benny Keegan?” -he’d ask with his wheezing kind of laughter- “or should I go call the Social?”

This froze Benny’s insides, not only for himself, but also for Sparky. And Sparky even took a couple of steps backward when Mr. Gyp mentioned the Social. But for all the icy fear that replaced the blood running through his veins, Benny was canny enough to keep his expression noncommittal when he answered, “Well, you could do, but when they came to the house to take me away, Mum, she’d be pretty mad and I wouldn’t work here no more. Anymore,” he’d corrected himself. A lot of reading in the Moonraker had vastly improved his speech. The thing was, Mr. Siptick and Mr. Gyp, neither of them wanted to lose Benny, for Benny worked for much less-and did a better job-than anyone else they could have found.

This morning Mr. Siptick, wearing his same old green jacket with his name, SIPTICK, on the pocket, rolled up a copy of Gardener’s World and handed it to Benny. “Just you mind that mutt don’t slobber all over it.” Mr. Siptick said this every day.

“His name’s Sparky and did anyone ever complain about slobbering?”

Benny also answered this way every day. Sparky could carry two papers at once, since Benny put them in a thin, brown bag to make it easier for him to keep them together.

Mr. Siptick waved a dismissive hand and settled down on his stool to count his money out for the day. “Well, go on, go on!”

“You forgot the Toblerone for old Mrs Ely.”