Mary's Prayer

by Martyn Waites

  Larkin managed a weak laugh. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s exactly that.’

  ‘Is this goin’ to be an epic?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, get another couple of beers out. Reckon it’ll be a long night.’

  12: Home Is A Long Way Away

  ‘This duck goes into a chemist, right? An’ he goes up to the bloke behind the counter, an’ he says, “You got any lip balm?” And the guy gives him some. Then the duck goes, “Er …”’ at this point Andy patted his pockets, ‘and says, “Look, I can’t find my wallet.’ Andy pointed to his face. ‘Could you just put it on my bill?”’

  Larkin smiled: Andy, meanwhile, was convulsed by a near-apoplectic fit of laughter.

  ‘D’you like it?’

  ‘Yeah! It’s a good one, that.’

  ‘Why aren’t you laughing, then?’

  ‘Because I don’t like people who laugh at their own jokes. Reminds me of Tony Blackburn.’

  There was a silence, then Andy guffawed. ‘You’re quite funny, you know that?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  Andy had kept up the barrage of jokes all the way from Newcastle. Larkin had told him everything the night before, and in doing so had gained an ally. Probably. With Andy you could never be sure.

  Larkin had had a bad night. He had dreamed of coffins and Lancias, of being carried up the aisle of the Cathedral in a coffin while Charlotte, Andy, The Prof and Mary said prayers over his body. He had woken up in a cold sweat at about five o’clock, and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep again.

  They went past Alledene New Town – another failed experiment in sixties anthropology – and turned off towards Grimley. A new bypass system made the place look even more neglected and unapproachable. They went down the slip road and into Grimley itself. As Larkin had suspected when he saw it from the train, it hadn’t altered much. A few new buildings here and there, old pubs newly painted, corner shops that had changed hands. Hardly anyone about. All it needed was for some tumbleweeds to blow across the street and it would resemble a ghost town in a Western. They drove on until they reached the Catholic church, where a gaggle of people were standing outside.

  ‘They’re starting early,’ said Andy.

  They pulled off the road and parked along a street of old stone cottages. They got out, Andy with his cameras over his shoulder, Larkin with his portable cassette recorder and notebook. They locked the car, headed down to the main street. The police were already erecting barricades and diversion signs beside the war memorial, as if they were preparing for a state visit.

  Larkin went over to a talk to one of the coppers. He took a bit of warming up but, after some skilful persuasion on Larkin’s part, he wouldn’t stop once he got going.

  First of all, to warm things up, Larkin elicited the policeman’s views on law and order, which were discussed in great and reactionary detail. Then, subtly, Larkin commented on the elaborateness of the funeral arrangements, asked if the poor old taxpayer was, as always, footing the bill. The policeman looked round to check if he could be overhead and then dropped his voice conspiratorially.

  ‘Well, it’s backhanders all round, isn’t it? That, and the funny handshakes, I suppose. I mean, how are we supposed to operate like this?’ He pointed to Larkin’s cassette. ‘Is that …’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re not being recorded,’ he lied.

  ‘We’ve been told to say nowt. But someone has to speak up.’

  Larkin smiled. ‘You’re a rarity, you know that?’

  The policeman became suspicious again. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘An honest policeman. Not a lot of them about.’

  ‘Oh, there are. There’s lots of our blokes hate this sort of thing. Treatin’ that cunt like a fuckin’ hero.’

  Larkin was about to leave him when he continued.

  ‘I mean, like, we caught this other un piss-easy – and now we have to make him out as the bad guy! Makes you laugh, dunnit? Or makes you sick.’

  Larkin thanked the policeman for his time, and left him alone with his unhappy lot.

  The funeral wasn’t for another couple of hours so they found their way to the nearest pub, an old, crumbling, Victorian edifice called Stephenson’s Rocket. By the look of the place Stephenson might have still been in there: a spit-and-sawdust pub, if they’d had any sawdust. Bare boards, bare walls, and a thick patina of greasy dust covering everything, including the manager. They ordered two pints, which came complete with filthy glasses. The barman was wearing a stained shirt and thick Dr Cyclops glasses which lent him the air of a child murderer. Perhaps he was. He seemed glad of the custom and tried to start a conversation. To avoid this they took their drinks, sat in a run-down booth and talked in quiet voices, in case the vibrations cracked the plaster.

  ‘So, how does it feel to be back?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  ‘Yeah. I see your point.’ Andy looked around. ‘Are all the pubs like this?’

  ‘No! Some of them are real shitholes.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘No, seriously there’s the scampi-in-a-basket kind, as well.’

  ‘Grimley doesn’t look big enough.’

  ‘Oh, just about.’

  Andy looked round. ‘I can’t see you growing up here.’

  ‘Everybody has to grow up somewhere.’

  ‘Yeah, suppose.’

  Larkin asked Andy where he was from. He reddened a shade.

  ‘Oh, Hampshire. My dad was a gentleman farmer.’ As he talked his accent cleared slightly. ‘Sent me off to boarding school, university and that – hated it, so I dropped out and got a job as a roadie with a heavy metal band. Took some photos of them, decided there was money to be made, and off I went.’

  ‘I figured that all this Sarf London wideboy bit was just smoke.’

  ‘You become the mask you choose to present,’ said Andy, no trace of an accent. ‘I mean, who’d have employed me if I’d told them that I was some rich farm boy?’

  ‘True.’

  Relaxing a little more, they downed the rest of their pints in unison.

  The funeral procession had reached and entered the church by the time Larkin and Andy decided to emerge from the pub. The streets were now like a scene from a fifties thriller; chock-a-block with onlookers, well-wishers and the usual funeral ghouls, there for the spectacle.

  Larkin and Andy made their way through the crowds up to the church. Lining the pavement in front of the stone wall of the church was what looked like a bouncers’ convention. They were dressed like movie gangsters; sober suits, sunglasses despite the non-existent sun, white shirts, black ties, chunky gold knuckle-duster rings. They were impassive, anonymous mannequins modelling the latest in designer mourner-wear. There was space around them; they exuded a palpable aura of menace.

  ‘Where they from, then?’ asked Andy.

  ‘London, I reckon,’ said Larkin.

  ‘All this fuss just to pay their last respects to their little soldier.’

  ‘And to show off a bit.’

  Andy snapped away; Larkin talked into his cassette. Other reporters, presumably from the local press, had been sent along to do the same. A plate-glass carriage hearse, drawn by two white horses and festooned with flowers, appeared from a side street by the Catholic Men’s Club, followed by two flat carts, both horse-drawn and piled high with flowers. Bringing up the rear were three black stretch limos. They drew up to the entrance of the church, where the porch doors opened and out stepped the funeral party.

  A man was led out first, supported by another suit.

  ‘That’ll be the father,’ said Andy, snapping away.

  The flow continued, with carefully orchestrated wailing from the women, and suitably downcast looks of regret from the men. Then the coffin emerged – all glass, revealing Edgell lying on satin cushions with orchids rimming his face. He was dressed in a dark grey lounge suit; his face looked at peace, probably more so than when he was alive.

  The movie gangsters, d
oubling as pallbearers, took the coffin and loaded it into the hearse. Then, with the streets cleared and the traffic halted, the horses moved off. They headed down the main street, past the war memorial, and turned right down Hawksley Lane.

  ‘Where they off to now?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Either the crem or the graveyard. Doesn’t make much difference, really.’

  ‘You reckon? They’ll have their work cut out getting all that glass to melt.’

  They followed the procession all the way to the crematorium. It was a long walk, down roads thronged with crowds; the whole town seemed to be there. Shops were closed, offices shut down; clearly an official day of mourning had been declared. A cacophony of cameras clicked away.

  ‘Look at all these people!’ Andy said, staring around him. ‘You’d think it was the Lord Mayor’s Show.’

  ‘It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in Grimley for years,’ said Larkin. ‘You don’t get many gangsters round here. It’s like the Krays all over again. But I reckon it’s fear as well. Shock. If a murder like that can happen here, they don’t know who’ll be next for the knife.’ He looked round at the streets, the bleak faces of the onlookers. ‘Just wait. Soon everyone’ll be saying what a tragedy it is. What a great bloke Edgell was. How kind he was to his granny. No one’ll dare come out and say he was a vicious, psychotic little thug who deserved everything he got.’

  They walked on a little further, along a street where rows of terraced houses snaked off on either side, dark-bricked and anonymous. Larkin pulled at Andy’s sleeve as they passed the top of one street, indistinguishable from the others.

  ‘You see down there, third on the left?’

  Andy looked: third on the left or twenty-third on the left, he couldn’t tell them apart. ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the house I grew up in,’ said Larkin.

  ‘Yeah? Happy memories?’

  Larkin looked. The house now had a new front door, a mock-Georgian job, to give the house a little originality. Unfortunately it had been cloned up and down the street.

  He shrugged. ‘The usual.’ A swirling mixture of emotions were fighting for dominance. He couldn’t decide how he felt, but he knew, as he looked at the house, that Grimley wasn’t his home any more. Not now. He put it out of his mind; he had a job to do.

  They moved on. With sudden clarity, last night’s dream came back to Larkin and he realised what it meant. The coffin they were following, like the one in the dream, was symbolic; he was burying his old innocent self, his past. Grimley, his childhood refuge, was in reality as corrupt and violent as anywhere else. He had no one to turn to but himself.

  They eventually reached the gates of the crematorium, to find their way barred by a Missing Link. Andy took a couple of token shots, but couldn’t really get close enough to make them worthwhile.

  ‘Hey, you wanna go round the side, see if we can get in that way?’

  ‘You think there’s any point?’ asked Larkin.

  ‘If I can get a picture, yeah.’

  ‘With this lot on guard?’

  Andy looked around. The suits were standing motionless, dormant Rottweilers, waiting for the Pavlovian command. ‘Yeah … maybe you’re right.’

  They walked back the way they had come, the crowds now dwindling. The British Legion had a sign up: OPEN ALL DAY TO GENUINE FRIENDS OF WAYNE EDGELL. MEN ONLY.

  ‘Where do the women go then?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Same place they’ve always gone round here. Back home.’

  They decided to push their luck.

  The decor was just as Larkin remembered it: early Gothic crossed with MFI. They went up to the bar and got their drinks.

  ‘Are you friends?’ said the barman.

  ‘Known each other for years.’ replied Larkin.

  The barman smiled politely. ‘Of Wayne’s.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I was at school with him.’

  ‘OK – what would you like?’

  They ordered. All drinks on the house.

  They had just got seated when the Missing Link’s twin brother, Piltdown Man to the other one’s Bromsgrove, came up to them and did a bit of towering.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ he said, going slowly, as if speech were a novelty, ‘are you mourners? Genuine friends of Wayne?’

  ‘Yeah we are, actually,’ said Larkin.

  ‘It’s just that you look like gentleman of the press to me.’ His brow was creased with the effort of completing a whole sentence; he was really pushing the boat out.

  ‘That too,’ said Larkin, thinking that if he swung at him, the brain-to-muscle ratio on the Missing Link was in inverse proportion to his steroid-boosted size. ‘I went to school with Wayne, I grew up here. I just wanted to pay my last respects.’

  The Link mulled this one over. ‘You may finish your drinks, and then leave.’

  ‘We may, may we? That’s most magnanimous of you.’

  The Link leaned in close to Larkin, his breath as fetid as a garlic-eating pit bull terrier’s. When he spoke it was in a growling whisper. ‘Listen – just drink up and leave, and I won’t break your fuckin’ arms. Right?’

  ‘Oh, but the atmosphere is so convivial!’

  ‘Right. That’s it, you smart-arsed cunt.’

  And with that the Link took a swing at Larkin. He was surprisingly quick, but Larkin was quicker. Both he and Andy jumped out of the way, sending chairs, table and drinks flying. The Link turned round, sighted Larkin by the bar. He made a lunge for him but Larkin anticipated it and swerved out of the way at the last minute, leaving the Link winded on the edge of the bar. Larkin grabbed a soda syphon from between the peanuts and squirted him full in the face. This stopped him in his tracks. Larkin took the opportunity to swing the syphon at his head; it connected, but he didn’t go down. Larkin persisted, swung it again. And again. The Link was beginning to crumple when Andy rushed forward with a pool cue and walloped him in the balls. The steroids couldn’t have shrivelled them completely because, once the signal got through to his brain, he doubled over.

  ‘Is he dead?’ asked Andy.

  ‘Was he ever alive?’ retorted Larkin. He bent down to check his pulse. ‘Sadly, he’ll live.’ He stood up again. ‘Well, we’d better be on our way.’

  The barman was gaping at them; Larkin turned to him. ‘You saw what happened. My friend and I were enjoying a nice drink, paying our quiet respects to my old schoolmate, when this brute set upon us. Self-defence. Tell the big boys that when they arrive.’ The barman looked terrified; Larkin bent in close. ‘Just because there’s more of them than there are of us, doesn’t make them right. Remember that.’ He started to walk out. ‘And you serve a crap pint as well. No wonder it’s free.’

  And that was it, straight back to Newcastle. Laughing all the way with the kind of hysterical laughter that bravado and fear creates. Larkin was driving; The Clash blared out.

  ‘Fuckin’ ’ell, what a laugh! I don’t think I’ve ever had an assignment like this one.’ And Andy collapsed into giggles.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Larkin truthfully.

  Andy dug into his case, on the back seat, and pulled out a hip flask. He unscrewed the top, took a long swig, and handed it to Larkin. ‘Happy homecoming!’

  ‘Cheers!’ Larkin took the flask and tipped it into his mouth. They kept it up all the way back to the hotel.

  There was no message from Charlotte. Andy went to send his film by express post; Larkin wrote his articles on his laptop. There were two; one for the tabloid he worked for, one to sell, freelance, to the Sunday supplements. He’d been working on that one already, an ironic, elegaic account of his homecoming and the funeral. A real load of crap, in other words. It took him about an hour and a half then he faxed them. Finally he gave his editor a reluctant duty call.

  He told her he’d be staying in Newcastle for a few days because he thought he’d found a good story. Lindsay accused him of seeing another woman; Larkin didn’t confirm or deny it.

  There wa
s a muffled noise at the other end, then Lindsay was back on the phone. ‘We’ve got your fax. Well done. You can still write when you want to.’ There was a pause; Larkin heard her light a Silk Cut. ‘Well, hurry home soon, darling. I’m missing your dick.’ And with that she rang off.

  Larkin stood there holding the dead phone, wondering why he’d bothered. And where the fuck was home, anyway?

  * * *

  The same tired old shit, thought Larkin, as he watched Prince gyrating on MTV. He switched the set off, bored. For something to do, he had another flick through his pile of background information on Edgell and Fenwick; nothing grabbed him. He looked at the photo of Mary again. Behind her there was a whole load of people; he tried to make some of them out, but it was impossible – they were out of focus. There was one man closer to Mary’s table who did look familiar, though. He went scurrying through his pile of paper and came up with a matching face. Sir James Lascelles. He was pictured in the cutting presenting a cheque to a local hospital’s renal unit, surrounded by nurses, looking as if the health of his serfs depended on their squire’s benevolence. Larkin checked the photo. There he was at the party, doing a Gatsby, looking on while his guests availed themselves of his generous hospitality. Perhaps it was time he paid a visit to kindly old Sir James. The newspaper article named his company as Golden Crest. He got the number and address – Crest Towers – from Directory Enquiries and made the call.

  He had no luck until he mentioned the law firm that Charlotte worked for; immediately he was connected to Sir James’s private secretary. He was going to blag it, pretend to be from Hello magazine, but he sensed he wouldn’t get far. Instead he said, ‘I’m a friend of Charlotte Birch’s.’

  He was put on hold. After what seemed like an eternity, made even longer by having to listen to ‘Greensleeves’ played on a stylophone (ha, thought Larkin, money can’t buy you taste), the secretary came back on the line. ‘Sir James will see you at four thirty. Today.’

  Larkin sat back, stunned. He hadn’t thought it was going to work. It was three thirty already. He grabbed his jacket and made for the door. This was either the best move he’d ever made – or the worst.