Mary's Prayer Read Free Page B

Larkin’s
     recognition of the woman.
    Charlotte the bridge fighter.
    Before he had time to reintroduce himself, a quick glance to his right clocked the fist of her heftily built companion as
     it powered towards Larkin’s jaw.

4: Ghosts
    The bell rang. And suddenly Larkin was in the ring, fighting. Just as abruptly the fighting stopped, but the bell kept on
     ringing; he opened his eyes. He’d expected to be laid out on the canvas, but he wasn’t, he was in a bed. A strange one. He
     jumped up, immediately regretted it, and flopped back down. Whoever he’d been fighting had won.
    The bell kept ringing. With shaking, fumbling fingers, he traced the noise to the bedside phone and picked it up.
    ‘Hello?’ Blearily.
    ‘Mr Larkin?’ A girl’s voice, squeakily cheerful.
    Larkin grunted.
    ‘Call for you! Putting you throu-ough,’ she sang.
    The line was connected. Then a ghost’s voice: ‘You made an exhibition of yourself last night, didn’t you?’
    Charlotte.
    ‘Great. Just what I need. I feel like shit and now you phone up to make it even worse.’
    ‘Don’t swear, Stephen. And if that’s how you feel I’ll go.’
    ‘No you won’t. You’re too nosy.’
    ‘Oh, am I now?’
    And Larkin was left holding a dead phone.
    ‘Boring conversation anyway,’ he said to the empty room, just to have the last word. Cutting him off like that – Birch the
     bitch hadn’t changed.
    He lay back down on the bed and tried to fill in the gaps in his memory of the previous night. After a few seconds his booze-soaked
     synapses started to make connections – and with a groan he remembered the events that had left him feeling like Mike Tyson’s
     punchbag.
    ‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ Larkin shouted from the bottom step of the courthouse, where he had found himself after
     clumsily twisting from the path of the blow hurled by Charlotte’s beau. The man, who was built like a rugby-playing brick
     shithouse, made a second lunge towards him.
    ‘Charles, stop it!’ said Charlotte forcefully, placing a restraining hand on the Shithouse. He stopped dead and turned to
     her.
    ‘Do you know him?’ It was issued as a challenge.
    ‘Yes. He’s an old … friend of mine.’
    Charles snorted and resumed his menacing surge towards Larkin.
    ‘And I want to talk to him.’ She placed herself directly in Charles’s path and stared deep into his eyes. Charles relented,
     but unwillingly, like a scrap-crazed pit bull terrier denied the kill.
    ‘Ungawa! Down, Lobo!’ Larkin said faintly, clinging to the guide rail, but his feeble humour went unappreciated. He tried
     to help himself up but the sudden exertion on top of the alcohol made his head and stomach spin. With a final withering look
     at Charles, Charlotte walked down the steps and pulled Larkin to his feet.
    ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
    ‘Think so,’ said Larkin grumpily. ‘What’s his fuckin’ problem?’
    ‘I expect he thought you were going to mug us.’
    Larkin grunted, then made his eyes focus on Charlotte. She was older, of course, but in a pleasant, wholesome way; not battle
     scarred and haggard like himself, on whom the intervening years had taken a visible toll. Her blonde hair was now worn in
     a sensible bob; a discreet collection of lines around the corners of her eyes wasthe only tangible sign of any kind of maturation. She gave Larkin the same kind of scrutiny; Lord only knew what she made
     of him.
    ‘You’re looking well,’ she said, without much conviction.
    ‘I look like shite – but thanks anyway.’
    They both grinned; Charles shuffled uncomfortably behind them.
    ‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.
    ‘And other cliches,’ said Larkin.
    Silence. Charles took that as his cue to intervene.
    ‘Come on – we’re going.’
    Larkin rounded on him, trying to sound calm. ‘Hey, mate, no need for that. We’re just talking. We haven’t seen each other
     in a while.’
    ‘And you won’t be seeing each other any more.