Thursday 7th December 2023
Chrissy
Chrissy clutches her phone and stares towards the tall metal gates. Where is he? What’s taking so long? The whole place feels deserted and it strikes her that she’s never been here in the morning before. The sky is winter-white above the coils of barbed wire and the car park is only half-full.
She thinks of all the times she has waited in cars for him in the past. Picking him up from football matches, friends’ houses, gigs in nearby towns. She used to crank her stereo up loud as she waited, Leo looking half-embarrassed and half-proud when he appeared. She was the only mum who listened to Nirvana live albums and Sabbath B-sides. The only one who owned a pub and sang guest vocals in her son’s band.
Now she sits in silence, her stomach in shreds, waiting for him to come out of prison.
He really should’ve appeared by now.
Flicking on the radio, she whizzes through the stations in search of something he’ll like. But all the songs seem fraught with pointed lyrics or painful memories, so she hits the ‘off’ button and the silence returns. Maybe it’s better, so they can talk on the way home. Leo has been subdued during her recent visits. She’d thought he’d be buoyed by the prospect of early parole, as it began to look more likely, but instead he seemed to withdraw, seemed to flinch at her tentative excitement. Now she realises: he must’ve been terrified – must be terrified. She flings open her car door, unable to sit any longer.
Her curls blow across her face as she paces towards the prison. She can hardly believe he’ll come walking out this time, that she’ll be able to take him home with her. The wrench of those fortnightly goodbyes. And the rush of guilt, always close behind, that Alice never got to say one to Robbie.
How will it be, though, once Leo is back with her in the village? Will they be ostracised even further? Will the whispers grow louder?
Will the notes continue to arrive?
Just shy of the gates, fresh panic stops her dead. She was so sure it was the right thing to do, bringing her boy home, refusing to be driven away. But now her heart pounds in every part of her … Is she making a terrible mistake?
‘Shit,’ she hisses, looking back at her phone as if it will tell her what to do.
All she has is a solitary email, but her head jerks back when she sees who it’s from.
Alice, who never speaks to her anymore. Alice, who blocked her number a week after Robbie’s death, when Chrissy said the stupid thing, the careless thing, and ruined their friendship forever.
Her stomach turns to liquid as she opens it and sees the words, ‘Dear Christina’. Only her husband ever called her that. And Alice knows this all too well.
Dear Christina,
I am writing to inform you that your son, Leo Dean, is strictly prohibited from entering Cromley’s pub [previously The Raven] once it has reopened.
Violence will not be tolerated under the new ownership. Strong action will be taken if he attempts to enter the premises.
Although we cannot impose any restrictions beyond this, we also ask, on behalf of the village, that you consider the effect of your continued residency here.
Sincerely, Alice Lowe and the Pub Committee
Chrissy exhales shakily, then reads it again, staggered by the formal wording, the sting of that final sentence.
It was manslaughter, she thinks, her eyes blurring with tears. Involuntary manslaughter. He pleaded guilty. Haven’t we been punished enough?
If a parole board can decide Leo is no threat to his community, why can’t people who’ve known him all his life try to do the same? People who saw the two boys grow up to be as inseparable as their mums. People who couldn’t be certain, when questioned, whether it was a push or a punch that caused poor Robbie to fall.
And Leo has no plans to go bursting back into the pub. He looked stunned when Chrissy finally told him, only a couple of visits ago, that it was going to reopen. He knew she’d had to put it on the market, of course, after hanging on to the shell of it for longer than she could afford. But she’d put off admitting that half the village had joined together to ‘reclaim’ the place.
‘About … twenty of them put money in, I think,’ she finally explained three weeks ago, squirming in her plastic chair. ‘With a smaller committee doing most of the actual decision-making. Fixing it up …’ she remembers pausing at the implication that it needed fixing, needed exorcising, ‘and … reopening it.’
Leo sat forward. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Mum?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Who owns it, now, exactly?’
‘Well …’ She muttered a few names, including Georgie,
the newcomer Leo has never even met; then she came, eventually, to the point: ‘It’s being led by … Alice.’
He stared at her across the table. They’d stopped mentioning Alice and Robbie’s names some time ago, without really acknowledging that they had. ‘Alice?’
Footsteps pull her back to the present. She looks up keenly, shoving the phone and its shitty email into her pocket. But it’s an older man with a straggly silver beard, walking with a slight limp. Chrissy looks back at the prison. What if there’s been a problem? A complication … a delay to Leo’s release? She knows it happens, but it never occurred to her, foolishly, that it might happen to them. Maybe she should go in and check. Leo asked her to wait here, though, said he wanted her to see him walk out.
That’s it, she can’t stand it anymore. She tosses back her hair and strides towards the prison entrance. Reaching the external reception booth, she peers through the holes in the glass screen, at the uninterested man poring over crosswords that she has never, in two years, seen him finish.
‘My son – my son’s being released today,’ she says. ‘It should’ve happened already. Do you know if there’s been a … a problem?’
He shunts the crossword aside. ‘Name?’
‘My son’s?’ she says, then feels stupid. She tries to speak clearly as she tells him Leo’s name, but her tongue sticks and she fluffs her lines.
The man types something into his computer, narrows his eyes, then turns his back to pick up a phone. After a minute or so he swings around to face her, putting down the phone in the same motion.
‘My colleagues inside the building are checking.’
He returns to his crossword and Chrissy is left standing there, craving a cigarette, churning her keys in her pocket. There are some visitors arriving, now. A woman with three children in tow and a baby bawling in her arms. Must be a special visit, extended family time; she remembers hearing about those. She has a precarious sense of wading against the current even though she’s standing still. Preparing to leave with her loved one – please don’t tell me otherwise – instead of going inside for regulated hugs and muted conversation. The longer she waits, though, the more her thoughts spiral. What if Leo’s ill? What if he did something stupid, got in trouble just before his release? What if they’re having second thoughts about him living in the village, even after all those discussions?
The phone in the booth rings. The guard picks it up without glancing at her, and she presses her face to the holes in the screen. He is nodding, frowning, not giving much away. She hears him mumble something like, thought so, before he drops the receiver and looks up.
‘Leo Dean was released an hour ago.’
Chrissy stares at him. ‘What?’
‘All paperwork was completed. He was free to go. And …’ he gestures towards the main gates ‘… he went.’
‘But …’ She feels her whole face start to twitch. ‘How did he … did anyone collect him?’
He shrugs. ‘Sorry. Not our job to check that. Once the paperwork’s—’
‘I was almost here! Why didn’t he wait? Where did he go?’
Something changes in the man’s expression. ‘Hopefully to the agreed address, or to his probation officer,’ he says, peering over his glasses. ‘As per the terms of his release.’
Chrissy’s stomach lurches. She steps back, clamping her mouth shut.
The guard continues to frown at her. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Ms Dean. He’s gone. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll report to his PO asap.’
‘Yes …’ Chrissy backs off, fumbling for her phone. ‘He will, of course he will.’
Alice’s email is still on the screen, an extra taunt. Chrissy closes it and brings up Leo’s number, walking briskly away from the guard. She hasn’t dialled her son’s mobile in two years. Their last message exchange is too painful to dwell on and she stabs at the call icon. It goes straight to voicemail, as if his phone is still locked in a box, and she realises, with a mental slap, that of course it wouldn’t be charged.
Even so, she pleads with his voicemail. ‘Where are you, Leo? Are you okay? I’m here at the prison. I don’t know what’s happened. We agreed you’d wait if you got out early. And we’ve … I’ve …’ Her voice catches, and she can’t even finish her sentence: I’ve been waiting for so long.
Hanging up, she looks desperately around. Could he have made his own way back to the village, or to his PO? But there aren’t any buses; a taxi would cost too much. And why would he, when she’d promised she would meet him, cook him anything he wanted for dinner?
She drums out a text: Leo, please let me know you’re okay xx
No blue ticks appear. It doesn’t even flag up as delivered. As she turns on the spot, still hoping to glimpse him, one of the arriving visitors catches her gaze. Another woman with a brood of children, her weary eyes flicking to Chrissy’s band T-shirt – Leo’s in fact – beneath her battered leather jacket. Chrissy turns away, no longer feeling in a superior position. That woman knows where her loved one is, at least. For the first time in twenty-two months, Chrissy has no idea.