Wednesday 20th September 2023
Leo
‘Leo?’ Cliff looked up from his book as Leo wandered, dazed, into their cell. ‘Leo, man, you okay?’
He didn’t know. He really didn’t. He sank onto the bottom bunk and closed his eyes. Behind his lids he saw Cromley as if from above, as if he were a bird soaring over it, looking for somewhere to land. A raven, maybe: the raven from the pub sign that he’d dreamed about constantly when he’d first got here. He hovered at the windows of his old flat, saw his dad sitting in his green armchair – always exclusively his – and his mum in the bedroom keeping out of his way. Downstairs, there was Robbie, with a beer mat pinched between his finger and thumb, and a strange, dark look in his eyes.
‘Where you been?’ Cliff asked. ‘What’s going on?’
A guard rapped his knuckles against their open cell door. ‘Time to go! Nicholls – you’ve got education! Dean – you’re on gardening!’
Leo opened his eyes. Cliff was gazing at him curiously. But he couldn’t say the words yet. He was starting to wonder if he’d imagined the entire meeting he’d just had.
It was free-flow out of the wing for work and training, and Leo walked beside Cliff in silence, other inmates bumping his shoulder as they strode past talking in loud voices about nothing much. There was never anything new to say, not really, yet everybody talked and talked and it echoed all around.
‘Bloody hell,’ Cliff said as they stepped outside into searing heat. It was always impossible to gauge the weather from inside, but the sun was beating down, bouncing off all the concrete, and the inmates who were being stopped for random searches were complaining about standing in it for too long.
‘Don’t envy you being in the garden today,’ Cliff added, but Leo was glad he’d be planting and watering, not sitting in a class trying to act as if his head was in it.
As they passed the first lot of workshop blocks, he spotted Frank Jordan. He was with his usual crowd but he turned to nod at Leo, made a gesture that seemed to mean, fuck it’s hot. Leo flapped his collar and puffed out his cheeks in agreement. He and Frank had spoken a few times since that first day in the TV room. Frank was friendly now that they’d made a connection, surprisingly funny, occasionally even fatherly. But also, still, profoundly intimidating. He’d stepped in, once, when someone had accused Leo of cutting in front of him in the lunch queue. All it had taken was one look from Frank to make the other guy back down, and Leo had felt a new sense of power, of protection, as everybody in the servery had seemed to take note.
He walked on with Cliff, but Frank appeared at his side. The three of them seemed to take up too much room, like a wide load blocking a motorway. Frank looked pointedly at Cliff, and Cliff glanced at Leo, who gave a tiny shrug. A few more awkward seconds and Cliff took the hint, turning off towards his classroom with a probing backward glance.
‘How are you, Cromley?’ Frank asked.
He’d taken to calling him that. Leo wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Only his mum ever said the name of the village to him, these days, and not often. He’d started dreaming of the place again, since Frank had brought it up: not specifically the Raven anymore, but the hunkering hills and the surrounding woods and the lanes that curved off into darkness. Last night it had been the viaduct, north of the village, where he and Robbie used to throw stones when they were young and get stoned when they were older. The dream came back to him and he felt the lurch of peering right over the edge.
‘I’m … okay,’ he told Frank.
‘Saw you meeting with your POM earlier,’ Frank said.
How did he know and see everything? Leo thought of the letter his prison offender manager had pushed across the desk towards him – Leo Ethan Dean in bold; his mum’s address; one of those scribbly signatures that didn’t resemble letters or words. His POM watching expectantly for his reaction, for the right reaction.
It had happened. He hadn’t imagined it.
‘All okay?’ Frank asked, with an edge to his voice.
Leo nodded. Frank was a fast walker, faster than Cliff, and he felt a little breathless. Maybe that was part of Frank’s technique. Leo’s blood was pumping and it was waking up his thoughts and he wanted to talk, now, wanted to tell someone.
‘I think I’m …’ The words still caught. ‘I think I’m getting out.’
Frank stopped walking. ‘For real?’
Leo stopped, too, and looked at his shoes, the sun fierce on the crown of his head. ‘For real.’
There was a loaded pause. Anxiety swilled in Leo’s gut. What if Frank resented him for this? The pause stretched on as beads of sweat crept down the sides of his face. Then Frank broke into a grin and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.
‘Cromley, that’s fucking great!’
Leo felt the first small rush of happiness. I’m getting out. Getting my life back.
But what kind of life?
‘You know your conditions yet?’ Frank asked, letting him go. ‘You going home? Back to village life?’ He did a piss-taking little dance as he said the words ‘village life’, but the glint in his eyes was still friendly.
‘I … I don’t know.’ The cloud of doubt encroached further. ‘The board said I can. But … people despise me there.’ It was the first time he’d admitted this out loud. It prodded at the dark, ugly spaces inside him.
People despise me there.
He used to call Alice ‘auntie’, yet at his trial she’d looked at him as if she wished he was dead. Whereas Peter couldn’t look at him at all. Peter whom he used to go to for help and advice instead of his own father.
And now his mum was being victimised, ostracised, by people who could’ve chosen to support her. She never talked about it outright, but he read between the lines of the things she said at visiting, and it made him furious. Made him want to go back there and face the haters and pretend he had no shame.
Sometimes he fantasised about going even further than that, and goosebumps would crawl across his skin. They all thought the worst of him, so why not give them the worst?
Other times, he had so much shame he could barely lift his head from his rock-hard prison pillow.
As if reading his mind, Frank grabbed hold of Leo’s chin and nudged it upwards. ‘You gonna let that stop you?’ he said. ‘You gonna be pushed around by some small-minded country cunts?’
Leo blinked in shock. ‘I …’
‘Listen.’ Frank took him by the shoulders, checking left and right for watching guards. ‘I don’t know what you did and I’m not gonna ask. I’ve done some bad shit myself. But I had my reasons, and I bet you did too. Once you’ve done your time, that’s it. Don’t let anyone keep on punishing you.’
Leo squirmed in his grip, closing his eyes. But they will keep on punishing me, and I’ll be doing it, too.
‘You get what I’m saying?’ Frank said, his fingers digging in.
Leo opened his eyes. Frank’s expression was intense, as if he really wanted Leo to take his words on board. And Leo nodded, because he was still scared of Frank, even though he was starting to like him, and because he wanted to please him, somehow, wanted to be able to say fuck you to the world like Frank could.
Frank let go and clapped him on the back, his expression all the way back to warm in an instant.
‘Congrats, man,’ he said, sounding almost emotional. ‘You’re young, you’ve got your life ahead of you. Don’t let anyone fuck with that, okay? Don’t let some shitty village act like it’s better than you.’
Leo adjusted his clothes, panting slightly. He looked up at the barbed wire fence rising behind the library, and the distant shape of the hills beyond, which had started to feel like a painting during his time here, a film set. Now, though, those hills seemed to shimmer with something more real. He tried to hold on to the sense of power that Frank’s giant presence seemed to bring. Maybe he was right. Maybe the only way to go back was fighting.