Friday 25th August 2023
Leo
The credits rolled before Leo could answer Frank. They had something in common, he’d said? Or somewhere? The TV was abruptly turned off and the guards started urging them out of the room. ‘Cells! Time for lock-up!’
Leo dithered, unsure whether to separate himself from Frank or stick with him to find out what he’d meant.
‘You’re from Cromley way, right, Dean?’ Frank clapped a hand to his shoulder as they were jostled towards the landings.
Leo glanced at him. The hand was heavy, forcing him to walk with a stoop to one side. ‘I … yeah.’
‘Same neck of the woods,’ Frank said, pointing at his wide chest.
‘Oh?’ Somehow, sticking to minimal syllables felt safest. Leo had no idea how Frank knew about him. It wasn’t hard to find out about other inmates, he supposed, especially if you were someone like Frank.
‘I’m from further north, but still the Dales,’ Frank said. ‘Been to Cromley once or twice, back in the day. Funny little place.’
Leo raised his eyebrows. His feelings about Cromley were a mess these days, but in the past he’d never thought of it as anything but a normal village. As home.
Funny little place.
There was something compelling, though, about hearing it called that. As if Cromley might be the problem, not him, not what he did.
‘Yup,’ he said, regardless, and Frank laughed.
‘Don’t give much away, do you?’
‘Nope?’ Even Leo was half-grinning now, relaxing a fraction. Maybe Frank was just being friendly. Maybe he just wanted to talk about where he came from, after however long he’d been inside. He’d been transferred here from a cat-B prison about five years ago, Leo had been told. How long he’d been in the higher security place – or for what crime – nobody here quite seemed to know.
‘Who are your people there?’ Frank asked.
Leo tensed again. Places were one thing. Talking about people didn’t feel so safe. And who were his people, now, apart from his mum? He remembered glancing at the public gallery during his trial, seeing rows of familiar Cromley faces. Feeling the hatred coming off them, stronger and stronger, and from the witness stand too, as they brought their fragments of that night.
A push or a punch? I-I wouldn’t like to say …
He always had a temper, but something came over him that night, scared us all …
‘Not that I’d know them,’ Frank said, snapping him back. ‘But small world and all. You got family?’ His face was suddenly closer to Leo’s, like in the TV room, and Leo found himself subtly checking where the nearest guard was.
‘Jordan!’ bellowed Perez, gesturing for Frank to follow him to his cell.
Frank’s nostrils flared. For a moment Leo thought he was going to argue – there always seemed that possibility with him, always an undercurrent – but Frank just tipped an imaginary hat at Leo and strode away, overtaking the guard without acknowledgement.
Leo sped up along the other landing, relief mingling with his usual gloom at the prospect of the long, locked-up night ahead. He glanced back and met Frank’s eye, who was also looking at him over his shoulder.
‘Sleep tight, neighbour,’ Frank called, turning a few heads. ‘We’ll … talk some more, yeah?’
Leo flushed and dipped his chin, hurrying to catch up with Cliff in the ever-noisy flow. The back of his brain was ticking now. Rewinding to when he’d first got here, when Cliff had warned him about Frank as part of a general things-you-should-know chat. Don’t eat the cheese (‘I don’t know what it is but it isn’t cheese’) and don’t piss off Frank Jordan. Amid the sheer relief of realising his cellmate was a good guy, Leo had thought, fleetingly, that Frank looked a tiny bit familiar. That maybe he’d seen a broken nose like that somewhere before.