The Blue Last (31 page)

GYP THE BUTCHER was scrolled in shiny black letters over the doorway of a half-timbered shop behind whose big glass window sat meat displays surrounded by parsley, looking more like precious stones than chops and rashers. He peered through the glass and saw the tall thin proprietor. Melrose could hear him talking. He stood by the door and lit up a cigarette.

“. . . mind you. Yes, I know it's your time to go home, but these here orders only just now come in and they're wanted tonight. Business ain't always at your convenience.”

“But it's my friend's birthday, Mr. Gyp, like I told you. If it wasn't for that, I'd be glad—”

“Oh, that's as may be, but I'm sure the Lodge don't mean to wait on any birthdays, so you best hop it . . .”

The voice trailed off, but not, Melrose imagined, from lack of malice. Melrose knew a tormentor when he heard one. Children were especially desirable as objects for such people because they were relatively helpless and (it was assumed) weak. But they weren't weak, at least not the ones who had been left to rely on themselves.

The voice droned on: “You best look elsewhere if you can't take the odd late hour. It ain't as though there's no one else'd like the job.”

All the while Gyp was delivering himself of his stored-up acrimony, the boy, who looked anything but stupid (which also went for the dog, Sparky), kept trying to wedge a word in, but found no chink in the wall of talk. The little dog, however, growled softly, its dog patience stretched to the limit.

Gyp recoiled and said, “We'll have none o' that dog o' yours, young Bernard. You control that animal or—”

“It's only Sparky! You know he never bit anybody—”

“Always a first time. That animal ought to be on a lead—”

“He never has and don't call him ‘that animal.' His name's Sparky, as you well know.”

Melrose liked the boy already. He wouldn't defend himself, but he leaped to the defense of his dog.

Gyp droned on. “Now, here's the chops for the Lodge. The beef silverside and rashers, they go to the Roots. Rashers is a bit fat, but if he complains you just tell him that's good bacon, that is.”

Melrose decided this was as good a time as any to go in, so he pitched his cap a little forward and stuck his fingers in the small pockets of his jeans and entered.

“Evenin',” he said, bringing two fingers to the bill of his cap in a deferential salute. “This the butcher wot supplies the Lodge up there?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “And you be Mr. Gyp?” Barely waiting for the butcher to accede to this, Melrose went on. “I just come from there and as I'm goin' back, I can take the parcel for you and save the lad a trip. Couldn't 'elp over'earin' what you said.”

Before Gyp could object (as he was certainly about to), Melrose hurried on. “ ‘Not a butcher in all London can touch 'im' is what that Mr. Barkins said. ‘Ain't one of 'em can do a crown roast' ”—Melrose's eyes flicked to the board where lay pork chops fanned out in perfect symmetry like a chorus line—“ ‘or cut chops the artful way does Mr. Gyp. Almost too pretty to eat, them chops. No, that Mr. Gyp's a marvel, and an upright, honest man with it. I've never 'ad a doubt Gyp gives honest weight. We're lucky to have our Mr. Gyp.' That last was said by cook and it's somethin' to get
her
praise.” Melrose halted, not for lack of other fanciful compliments, but because he felt like a vicar delivering a good-bye over the body of the lately dead. Gyp, he saw, had grown increasingly pleased as all of these compliments showered down on him. The boy and his dog stared at Melrose with eyes like full moons, disbelieving that anyone would find Gyp praiseworthy. Only an idiot (Melrose was sure Benny was thinking) could have listened to this lot spoken in as poor a North London accent as this toff was doing: a dropped
h,
an eclipsed
t
was about all Melrose could manage. (Just because he was undergardener didn't mean he could talk like one. Jury never seemed to learn that.)

Melrose leaned down to give Sparky a pat and the dog pumped his tail.

In a silky tone and a wipe of his hands on his blood-streaked apron, Gyp asked, “An' who might you be, sir?”

Melrose stuck out his hand to shake Gyp's (which he found cold as death) and said, “New gardener up to the Lodge. Ambrose Plant's the name. A pleasure to step into such a well-kept shop as this one.”

Gyp clearly thought in Melrose he'd found a mate and would probably be wanting to nip along to the Scurvy Ferret for a pint. “Well, ain't it nice to have a new face to look at, and one that doesn't mind working outside his set hours. I was just trying to advise young Bernard here on the importance of bein' flexible.”

“Ah, you're right there, Mr. Gyp, indeed you are.”

Benny squinted up at Melrose in utter disbelief. Even Sparky managed a disbelieving cock of the head. Here was a boy and his dog story worth hearing.

“And o'course,” continued Melrose, “I'd be 'appy to deliver that other l'il package too on my way.”

“Now, that's most kind of you, Mr. Plant, on'y the Elys, they're a bit peculiar about strangers comin' to their door—”

Benny objected: “No, they're not—”

Gyp stamped on whatever Benny was going to say. “The old lady, she's the suspicious type.”

Benny looked from the one to the other of these men as if they were both mad. Had they been dogs, Sparky would have done the same.

“Ely? Did you say Ely, Mr. Gyp? Could that be . . . what was his name . . . ?”

“Brian Ely. Lives with his old mum over in Mickelwhite Street.”

Melrose clapped his head. “Brian, of course! And the old lady! Well, ain't that a turnup for the books! It's been ten years since Brian and yours truly lifted a pint at the Scurvy Ferret.” Since Melrose knew the only reason Gyp didn't want him making the Ely delivery was to force Benny here to do it and thus delay the boy's departure, he said, “This lad can show me the way.”

Gyp thoroughly approved this scheme and stood washing his hands and grinning a sort of death's head grin.

But poor Benny, who'd seen deliverance only a moment ago, now saw his hopes dashed once again, or at least partly dashed. Melrose collected the packets and with false bonhomie told Gyp that he'd see him again soon. Then man and boy and dog departed.

Outside, Melrose gave Benny's shoulder a little shake. “Look, I'm not really who that Gyp thinks I am.”

“Yeah? You're not who I think you are, neither.”

“Oh? Oh? And who do
you
think I am?”

“You ain't someone what lives within the sound of Bow Bells, if you take my meaning. More some toff puttin' on an accent. It's really bad, I guess you know.”

“This is the thanks I get for helping you with deliveries?”

“No, mister. That's really swell of you. Only now, I'll still never get to my friend's birthday in time with the cake.” He held up the white box he'd been hanging on to.

Melrose looked up and down the dark street for a cab. He saw two, but they already carried passengers. “All we need do is take a cab, first to the Lodge and then the Elys.”

As if cabs were as far beyond his reach as stars, Benny halted beside Melrose. “A taxicab?”

“Of course. Here comes one now.”

“That's a mini-cab, that is.”

Melrose sighed as he sliced his arm up and down. “So it's a mini-cab. So the driver talks to us in Portuguese. It has wheels, so hop it.”

The white car lurched to a stop and the driver stuck his head out and called something incomprehensible. Melrose and Benny ducked into the back and Benny gave the address. The car lurched off as it had lurched in.

The driver pulled to a stop at the Lodge, where Benny directed him.

He then disappeared through a garden gate while Sparky waited in the car, anxiously flapping his tail. The boy was back inside of two minutes. He told the driver the Elys' address and after much incomprehensible talk from the driver, the cab swerved around and shot down the road.

The Elys' house was in a stingy little street behind one of many churches attributed to Wren. Here Benny told the driver to keep the engine running, he'd be back in a tic, as if the cab were a getaway car. In syllables that still baffled Melrose, the driver went on about something—the gold standard? The Palestinian crisis? Standing on hind legs, paws against the window, Sparky watched Benny go.

Mr. Ely, if that's who it was, appeared in silhouette against the backdrop of a lighted hallway and, after a moment of hello and good-bye, closed the door. Benny rushed back, clambered in and told the driver to go to Waterloo Bridge, the other side, the Embankment side.

“And then where?” asked Melrose.

“Nowhere. I'll just get out there.” Benny held the cake on his lap and watched the night slip by.

Melrose frowned. “But your birthday party—?”

“It's around there.”

With Sparky up on the seat beside him now, Melrose pondered. It was pretty clear Benny didn't wish to discuss the matter and Melrose would never force it. “How long have you been working for this Gyp person?”

“Over a year. But it ain't—it's not—just him. I make deliveries for Delphinium and Mr. Siptick, too. He's the newsagent. And the Moonraker. Miss Penforwarden is really nice.” He started humming.

“How about school, though?” Melrose then congratulated himself for asking the most detestable question man ever put to child:
How about school?

But Benny didn't mind. “Oh, my mum takes care of that. I mean, she teaches me at home. See, I'm chesty—” Here he released several labored coughs for Melrose's edification. It was the first time Melrose had heard the boy cough. Apparently feeling called upon to demonstrate his reason for skipping school, Benny kept hacking away.

“Okay, you can stop that now. It's none of my business, anyway.”

“You're the first person ever said that.”

Crossing Waterloo Bridge, Melrose looked up and down the river, to Blackfriars, to London Bridge, to Tower Bridge, to this whole panoply of bridges lighted all along their length. He thought the scene was gorgeous. He supposed this was how a New Yorker must feel crossing over a bridge to Manhattan. He remembered seeing the backdrop of Manhattan when he'd been watching a news presentation. The skyscrapers' tops had been lit with colored lights, pink and yellow and green, surreal colors that seemed to float behind the news presenter.

When the mini-cab stopped and set Benny down near the Embankment, Melrose felt a pang. He told the boy to wait a minute as he wrote down Boring's number on the back of one of his old calling cards.

“Just ring me if you need another ride. Or anything.”

“This here says you're an earl.” Speculatively, Benny looked from the card to Melrose.

“Not I. A friend of mine.” Melrose carried the card for emergencies.

Benny nodded and put it in his pocket and did not move. He was waiting for the car to leave, Melrose guessed, so as not to give away his own movement.

Melrose told the driver, “Mayfair. Boring's.”

J
ury was in the St. James pub leaning against a post when Liza walked in. She was carrying an Oxford Street shopping bag that bristled with ribbon-wrapped boxes. She was wearing an unfashionable black coat and a scarf over her hair, but she still turned heads. Up and down the bar, men swiveled around to get another look. Liza would be married again within a year, he bet, four kids or not. Probably she would have to remarry, no matter how much she still loved Mickey. On her own, merely providing for four kids would be a huge problem; keeping them happy and out of harm's way with no one to help would be even worse.

“Hello, Richard.” She kissed his cheek; he could have done with more.

“Hello. Let's go upstairs. There's nowhere to sit down here. Better yet, you go upstairs while I get you a drink. Lager? Gin and tonic?”

“What I'd really like is a brandy. I'm beat.”

“It's yours.”

Jury collected the drinks at the bar and made his way upstairs. At the top of the staircase, looking over at her, he thought how much she reminded him of a small girl inside a coat too big for her. She had deposited the shopping bag on one of the chairs. He set down their drinks, a double brandy for her, a pint for himself.

“Thanks. And thanks for asking me here. It was really nice of you.”

He smiled. “Hardly a sacrifice on my part. All I had to do was cross the street.” He gestured behind him in the direction of New Scotland Yard.

“You know what I mean. You see, there are very few people I can talk to—or Mickey himself when it comes to that—because very few know about his cancer. He must really need your help for him to tell you about it.”

“I suppose so. I'm helping as much as I can, Liza.”

“I know.” She had not removed the coat. It was as if every transaction now were so fleeting, it would be useless to settle in to any encounter. She put her hand on the shopping bag. “Buying presents. It's difficult trying to celebrate. It's damned difficult looking at all those carefree faces.”

“But they're not, not really. Look at the suicide rate around Christmas.”

“Then why do we waste all of this energy pretending it's such a happy time?”

“Is it wasted? I guess I'm of the old ‘assume-a-virtue-if-you-have-it-not' school.”

She smiled. “Who said that? Shakespeare?”

“Hamlet, I imagine.”

“Why not? He said everything else.” She laughed and sipped her brandy. “I feel better. I expect this is what I needed.”