Martha Grimes - The Blue Last

Of course he could, as she well knew. Yet she always acted as if Benny’s appearances here were a stroke of wonderful luck, something that happened erratically, even though he’d been coming for a year like clockwork. She liked to allude to his “larger” life, as if there were important things going on in it and the Moonraker was merely a blip on the screen.

“You just find a seat and I’ll be back in two shakes.”

“Okay,” he said. She’d be back in many more shakes than just two. He headed toward the shelf of books nearest the window, Sparky at his heels. He loved the room and the alcoves in which were floor lamps situated over easy chairs, in case a customer needed more light to have a quiet read. The chintz slipcovers were faded and threadbare, which made them all that much more comfortable and less apt to bother Miss Penforwarden, the bother of children’s sticky hands or dirty shoes. There was the children’s corner in the back that held a table and small chairs, stuffed animals, blocks, puzzles. Yet Benny had never seen a child back there; the few who came gravitated to the front room.

Miss Penforwarden had told Benny the room originally must have been a wine cellar for the house (now sectioned off into small flats). Benny said the only other purpose it could have served was as a dungeon. He liked this dungeon notion. He had never been to the Tower of London or any of the great houses and castles that might have harbored a dungeon, so dungeon life was fair game. What he really had to worry about more than being thrown in a dungeon was thinking up explanations of why he wasn’t in school. First, he considered illness, like a heart murmur he’d had since a baby, but then somebody had said working the way he did, wouldn’t that put more strain on a heart than just sitting in a schoolroom? Then he had said it was his asthma and had given a few voluntary wheezy coughs to demonstrate. But it was mostly Mr. Gyp who bothered him this way and he tried to ignore it.

Benny pulled down David Copperfield and looked for the place he’d marked with a toothpick. He didn’t think Miss Penforwarden would mind.

But his thoughts trailed across the page. He was thinking of that “larger” life Miss Penforwarden liked to refer to, the one he didn’t have. He wasn’t sure he even wanted one. For he liked routine, the sort of action that would go with a “smaller” life: the blue dawn over Waterloo Bridge, his morning tea and thick bread and making his deliveries. But a “larger” life was the kind of life he imagined for the inhabitants of Tynedale Lodge, though he couldn’t clothe it in any particular activity. Tennis, perhaps?

Dancing? Swordplay with masks on? A mysterious life. He was curious about it, but as he never went anywhere except for the garden and kitchen when he delivered things, he supposed he would never know. Certainly, it would include countless relations and friends. He hadn’t any relations and the nearest he had to friends were the people within his delivery route and his mates where he lived.

David Copperfield still open in his hands, he leaned his head against the other Dickens books and thought about his mum. She had liked her routines, too. Selfridges had been on Thursdays. Harrods, Monday; Harvey Nick’s, Tuesday. He had argued that people knew right away they were Irish, for that’s what so many of the Irishwomen did, keeping a baby with them or a child. And these people didn’t like the Irish. Begging mortified Benny. Whenever some passerby dropped coins in his upturned cap, Benny looked away. But at least his mother didn’t walk on the pavement holding his hand and stopping first one woman, then another. That’s what so many of them did. His mum would tell him, when he asked about their present awful state, that she was so sorry things had gone to the bad for them.

Da died, he would say, as if he were explaining things to her. But she didn’t seem to like to speak of his father because it pained her so much.

She’d talk about their old home in County Clare. Ah, beautiful it was! But never mind; we’ll get back there when things improve, so.

Benny looked down at the pages of David Copperfield. It was something about Steerforth. Benny thought about David’s mum, how pretty she was. And so had his own been. Prettier, he bet. Images of County Clare floated in his mind: the rough coast and the sea, the great smooth rocks worn down by the waves’ onslaught, and fierce weather, the kind that met Steerforth and David when they went to visit Peggotty.

Good books, his mum had said, will always keep you in good stead. Good books, Bernie, are important. Read as much as you can.

His name was really Bernard, but he had so much trouble getting his tongue around that r when he was tiny, it came out “Benny.” As names you start out with will stick, so had his.

“Here we are, dear,” said Miss Penforwarden, who had come with the tied-up parcel. There was also a small book, which she tied with string so Sparky could carry it. “It’s for young Gemma,” said Miss Penforwarden.

It wasn’t wrapped, so Benny could see the title: Name Your Cat. “She’s not even got a cat.”

Benny and Sparky left with the books.

Gemma was already at the back gate when Benny and Sparky got there, as usual holding the doll dressed in its “baptismal clothes”(Gemma called them), a bonnet and a biscuit-colored and dingy dress, its length covering the feet and trailing down. This doll remained nameless; she could not decide. Last time, she had been through the Q s and must now be up to the R s.

The gate creaked back and he entered the rear garden of the Lodge. The top of the gate was higher than Gemma’s head. She was nine and the butler, Barkins, was always telling her she was too old for dolls. Benny had said that’s ridiculous, you can never be too old for something you really liked.

Benny asked, “What’d you want this cat book for?” Sparky had dropped it at her feet and himself trotted off, over to the pond, which he seemed partial to. Probably to watch the big goldfish.

“I mean,” Benny continued, as she leafed through it, “the only cat around here is Snowball and she’s got a name. And she’s Mrs. Riordin’s cat, anyway.”

“It’s what she had at the Moonraker. It’s the only book on names. I’m into the R s. There’s Ruth, Renee, Rita, Renata-”

“Renata? That’s not a name.”

“It is, too. I saw it on a book cover. It’s the person who wrote the book. Then there’s Roberta, which I don’t like at all-”

“You don’t like any of them; you never do. Next comes the S s. You could name her Sparky.”

Gemma looked at him, shaking her head. “I’m not naming her after a dog. ”

Benny was practical; Gemma wasn’t; she seemed to live in Never-Never Land, or at least went straight there the minute she saw Benny. That was actually what she called the great gray pile of stone that was Tynedale Lodge: Neverland.

“Let’s go sit in the tree.”

They were still by the gate. Benny said, “Mr. Barkins doesn’t like me hanging around.”

Gemma sighed. She was always being put out by Benny. “Well, this doll-” she thrust the doll in its grimy, trailing dress toward him “-doesn’t like being unbaptized, but it is.”

Benny tried to make a connection between the two things but couldn’t. “Miss Penforwarden sent some more books.”

“I know. Let’s open them.”

“No.” He followed her to the beech tree, which was her favorite place to sit. It was enormous, sending out roots that themselves looked prehistoric. Gemma had wedged a board in between the trunk and a thick branch. It was roomy enough for both of them and near the ground. If they straddled the board, they could each lean against the trunk and the branch.