The Blue Last (29 page)

Diane tapped her cigarette free of ash. “Sounds like Las Vegas. Now, tossing things like that name into conversation, well, it would stop everyone but the mayor of San Gimignano dead in his tracks.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning people don't give much of a damn what you say. It's the way you say it. Knowledge is presentation.”

Exactly. Melrose smiled.

Angus Murphy's voice drew him back from the Jack and Hammer, saying, “Ya do seem t' know y'r grasses, ah'll say that. Come wi' me.”

Melrose followed him to a bed of largish, flat-headed white perennials. “Achillea, this lot is. Hardy flower.” He looked even more narrowly at Melrose. “But you must know that, ah expect.”

He could not believe his luck! He was first out of the gate on this one. He knew only this species because he liked its common name. “This white one has always interested me:
ptarmica,
sneezewort, I believe it's called.”

“That's it, aye. Surprised you'd know that one—”

(So was Melrose.)

“—not got much to recommend it.”

“Now I'm rather partial to the
A. millefolium Heidi
(only because it was described as ‘fading beautifully'), but I don't seem to see any in your garden . . .”

Murphy grunted. “Can't get everything in, can ah? What'd ya do about fertilizing this lot?” They had moved to another bed of purple flowers Melrose couldn't identify for the life of him. “Ya can see they've got pretty straggly.”

Melrose sighed and shook his head. “Yes, it's quite sad when an entire bed falls into a state of desuetude.”

Murphy blinked. “State o' wha'?”

“Desuetude. But, look, you can't be everywhere, Mr. Murphy!” Melrose rang out cheerfully while flinging his arm out toward the sneezewort.

“Now, how d' ya spell that?”

“Spell what?”

“That word begins with ‘des.' ”

“Oh. ‘Desuetude'?”

Murphy was handing him a pencil stub and an empty seed packet. “Write it down there.”

Melrose managed to crowd the word onto the border. Then, for good measure, wrote
détente
on the other narrow border. The picture on the packet displayed a bright grouping of Michaelmas daisies. He handed the packet and pencil back with a smile. “You know, with Christmas coming in just a few days, I wonder you don't have some mistletoe about.”

Murphy was practicing
desuetude
and not attending. Finally, he put away the seed packet and led Melrose into the greenhouse. “Got a rose ah'm foolin' with ah want ya t' see.”

The world of roses had managed to bar its doors against Melrose. He had not attempted to learn the hundreds of different kinds; he felt it could take a lifetime for any serious researcher to master the subject. Roses. Between Alice Broadstairs and Lavinia Vine, he had heard all he ever wanted to, as they were always cross-breeding, inbreeding, mutating to come up with a new species and beat each other out of the first prize at the Sidbury Flower Show. Roses ignited them.

“This here 'un. What d'ya think o' this?”

The rose in question was an exquisite golden, peachy color. “Breathtaking,” said Melrose. It was, too. He just didn't know its name.

“Nearly took the blue ribbon at the Chelsea Flower Show, this did.”

“What I'd like to see is the rose that beat it.”

Murphy chortled. “Tha's a good'un. Now, what won, d' ya guess? Come on, now,” he added when he saw Melrose hesitate.

Melrose simpered a bit as he said, “Probably one of those revisionist roses that Gertrude Jekyll and that lot were always coming up with. The Sissinghurst syndrome. You remember that, don't you?”

It was clear Murphy not only didn't remember, far more important, he didn't know how to say it. His eyelids were stitched even closer as his fingers went to his pocket to draw out his stub of pencil and the seed packet. Thinking even harder, he drew out two. Melrose took them as Murphy said, “Both o' them words.”

“ ‘Revisionist'? ‘Syndrome'?”

Murphy flicked his finger at the packets, a nod that told Melrose to get on with it.

Then, being thoroughly satisfied that Melrose had the collective wisdom of ten gardeners, Murphy went in to his lunch, Melrose declining the invitation in favor of a walk around the garden where he might pick up clues from the furrowed rows and seed packets that would give him future ammunition if he was grilled again.

H
unkered down over a flowerbed, where a seed packet picturing a bouquet of bluebells was stuck to a marker, Melrose heard a voice:

“Those aren't bluebells in there.”

Quickly, he turned. It was the little girl who'd been sitting at the kitchen table. Here she was sitting on a board that had been squeezed between the sturdy branches of a beech tree. “No? This seed packet says bluebell.”

“I changed the seed packet with those ones.” She pointed toward another flowerbed.

“Why did you do that?”

Moving her doll (dressed in an impossibly long frock) to her other side, she said, “Because I'd rather have bluebells in there than the other stuff. Benny switched the packets for me.”

“Oh. I thought bluebells were wildflowers, anyway.”

She considered that. “Not around here, they aren't.”

This all seemed perfectly logical. “And who is this garden marauder, Benny?”

“My friend. He makes deliveries for Mr. Gyp, who's really nasty. I'm not eating meat anymore. Benny brings books, too, from the Moonraker, Mr. Tynedale likes me to read books to him. I mean I read
parts
of books. Little bits. Right now we're reading a book about a man named Gatsby. I really like the big eye. Do you want to sit down? I'll move Richard.”

Melrose had always considered he had a quick mind, but he was having trouble processing all of this information. Yet she appeared to think it was all in a day's talk. “Thank you, I think I probably need to sit down.” When he'd hoisted himself up beside her—there was just barely room if she held the doll on her lap—he decided to take her information from the top. “If you can read
The Great Gatsby,
you must be an excellent reader.”

The eyes she turned on him were killingly honest. “Parts, I said. Little bits.”

“Well, the little bit about the eye. I don't remember that.”

“It was on a sign of a doctor who makes eyeglasses. Mr. Tynedale says it's like the eye of God. But I don't think so.” She leaned backward into empty air, so that her black hair nearly touched the tree roots. She went on, from her almost-upside down position: “It's probably Cyclops.”

Melrose was even more surprised. “Are you referring to
The Odyssey
?”

“It's by Homer. I don't know his last name. It's a really good story.”

“It is indeed. Did you read it in translation or just stick to the original Greek?”

When she did not bother answering, Melrose said, “Mr. Tynedale must be an excellent man if he has you doing all this reading of books that even adults don't often tackle.”

“He is. He's very excellent. You can help baptize him.”

Melrose had a startled moment before he realized she was now speaking of her doll and not the excellent Mr. Tynedale. Then, of course, he still had to stumble over the “him.” “Him?” He regarded the doll. “I assumed your doll was a ‘her.' ”

“No, he's not. See?” She pulled back the long gown and pointed toward the torso, the joined legs and undisclosed sex. “It's smooth, see. Nothing's there.”

“You don't happen to know the Crippses, do you?”

“No.”

He was surprised at her rather sophisticated acceptance of this sexual ambiguity. “Well, but it could be a girl, couldn't it? On the evidence we've got?”

“It
could
be a girl, but I don't want him to be. His name's Richard.

When I thought he was a girl I was going to name her Rhonda. I was on the
R
s. I was waiting for Benny to come, but you'd do just as good.”

So attendance at the baptism was not an honor conferred but a need for assistance. “Were you going to do it now?”

“We might as well since we're not doing anything else.”

“Excuse me,
you
might not be, but I have that load of dirt—” he pointed to a wheelbarrow full and waiting “—to take around to the bedding area out front. I'm your new undergardener.”

She scratched her ear and looked at him, not entirely unlike the way Angus Murphy had looked at him. It was that sizing him up, waiting to catch him out look. He gave in. “Okay.”

“Come on!” She shoved herself off the board, and so did he, glad to leave it. Off she ran between the hedge and the sneezewort to the pond where Melrose and Angus Murphy had stood and considered grasses. She turned and ran backward with a shout to him to hurry.

Before the pond with its sinister goldfish, she jumped from one foot to another as if she had to pee. When he arrived by her side, she thrust the doll (in its too-much-handled frock) toward Melrose.

“Me? Just a moment, why are you giving this job to me?”

“You look more like a vicar than me and I don't want to get wet.”

“What are you talking about? Why should anyone get wet?” He held the doll away from him.

“Because you have to be in there to dunk him.” She nodded toward the pond.

“I'm not going in that water!” He did not add, with those goldfish!

“But someone has to!”

“All you need to do is dip your fingers in the pond and make a cross on his forehead. I've been to a lot of baptisms (he had been to none) and that's how it's done.”

“No it isn't. I mean, it isn't always. Benny told me, and so did the vicar, there were people who went into the water up to their chins. The vicar would shove their heads all the way in. I guess they had to hold their breath. Benny says it doesn't take unless you're all the way in.”

Melrose snorted. “Well, if this Benny is such an authority I'd think you'd rather wait for him. Besides he knows Richard—”
Richard?
“—a lot better than I do.”

He knew that hands-on-hips posture. Every child he'd ever had any dealings with resorted to it. Resolute. Determined. Implacable. A swell recommendation if you were running for a seat in Commons, but dire when it came to someone's being baptized.

“I've been mistaken for a lot of things in my life, but never for a vicar” was his weak rejoinder to the hands-on-hips.

“You're only wasting time arguing.”

Melrose raised the gown up and inspected the back. Its head and jointed limbs were hard plastic, its torso firmly stuffed and covered with a smooth, flesh-colored fabric, seamed down the back. A few threads were loosening, and a bit of stuffing was about to work its way out. Smugly, he said, “You know what will happen to this doll if you dunk him all the way into the pond?”

Her hands came away from her hips and she looked unsure. “Nothing will. He'll just be wet.”

“Not only wet but
waterlogged,
” he said, cunningly. “You see this little seam here? Water will get in and Richard will squish for the rest of his life.” He shook the doll. “Or maybe even come apart.”

Truly uncertain now, she shook her head. “No, he won't.”

Melrose gave a great sigh and a shrug and said, “Okay, if you're so sure—” He removed one shoe and started on the other preparatory (it looked like) to his dive into the pond.

“No, wait!” She grabbed the doll back and chewed her lip. “I'll have to think about it.”

“And I have to take that load of dirt to the bedding-out area.”

“I'll go with you.”

She seemed relieved not to have to debate the baptism any longer.

“All right.” Melrose could not recall if he had ever had a wheelbarrow in his hands. He took hold of the handles and shoved it along while she trod by his side, looking up into his face to see whatever it was she wanted to see. He didn't know. Trundling the barrow between the white columns and the line of cedars, he said, “What does he want all of this dirt for?”

“It's fertilizer, not dirt.”

Was he to be saddled with a child who would contest his every word? (Didn't they all?) “ ‘It's fertilizer, not dirt,' ” he mimed in a high, squeaky voice. “What's the difference, then?”

“It says on the bag: ‘fertilizer.' ”

“Well, you don't expect them to put ‘dirt' on it, do you?”