Friday 8th December 2023
Chrissy
Chrissy stirs as she spots the bleached-blonde hair and red furry jacket she’s been looking out for. She hates that she has had to return here, to the grey building and the cage-like gates, but the sight of Izzy lifts her.
She always used to admire how glamorously Izzy dressed to come here, as if her visits to her husband were fortnightly dates. She reminds Chrissy a little of her younger self, when her dress sense was more outlandish – though more punky than glam – and she used to dye her curls the same Debbie Harry shade. She was just a barmaid at the Raven, then, her life a blur of fun and friendship and saving up her tips for nights out with Alice. Ethan just a casual boyfriend, a teacher at the village school, older than her and not really suitable …
She shakes her head, banishing him. Now is not the time.
‘Izzy!’ she calls, as the other woman struts towards the visitors’ entrance in her platforms.
Izzy turns, and Chrissy is disproportionally moved to see her face light up in a wide, lipsticky smile.
‘Babe!’ Izzy throws her arms around her. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Your time in this shithole is done, my friend!’
Chrissy’s burst of joy is punctured. She pulls back from Izzy. ‘I don’t know where Leo is.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I came to collect him but he’d already gone. And I haven’t heard from him, I don’t know where he went—’
‘Oh, fuck …’ Izzy draws her into an even tighter hug, smelling of hairspray and fruity perfume.
Chrissy untangles herself, not wanting to put too much of a dent in Izzy’s visit. She knows what a nightmare it can be to book a slot, how quickly the time passes once you’re in there. ‘Listen, Iz, can you ask Cliff some questions for me? I know it’s your precious time with him, but—’
‘Course I fucking will!’ Izzy grips Chrissy’s hand and Chrissy is choked again to realise she made a friend here, a real friend, after losing so many.
‘Can you ask him whether Leo said anything? About having plans to go anywhere after he got out? Or if he seemed worried, or … anything at all …’
‘Course, course, babe. Cliff is bound to know. Those two got pretty close once they’d stopped arguing about snoring and farting!’
There’s a moment’s silence. Chrissy wonders if Izzy is having the same thought as her: that she’d kill to be complaining about her loved one’s snoring or farting these days. That every once-annoying habit now feels like a loss.
Izzy shakes herself. ‘Right, better get in there. I’ll find out, I swear.’
‘I’ll wait here for you,’ Chrissy says. ‘And thank you, Izzy. You’re the first person I’ve been able to turn to.’
‘Solidarity, babe,’ Izzy says, squeezing Chrissy’s shoulder and then sashaying away.
Chrissy returns to her car. Her stomach is churning but she still chews on some crisps that taste of nothing. The bag is empty before she’s even registered she’s swallowing them, and self-disgust claims her as quickly as normal.
That started during her marriage, too. The bingeing. Then went away when Ethan did, only to come back, more compulsive than ever, after Leo was sent down. What kind of mum devoured junk food while her son was eating prison slop? Put on weight while he talked about bread rolls so stale they were practically a weapon? She hides the packet in her glovebox, another shameful token, and checks her phone. Her sister has sent a string of messages asking if Leo’s home yet, but there’s nothing from anybody else, not even their mum. Chrissy buffers herself against the hurt. She’s learned that the people closest to you can surprise you – often in the worst ways – when something terrible happens, something messy and confusing.
You always did attract trouble, Christina.
She blinks hard and opens Facebook instead. The village has its own group and none of its tech-inept administrators ever thought to block her. Most of the posts are about school closure days or missing cats, but today there is something else.
Georgie, the newbie, has posted an invitation to a memorial for Robbie in the village church this weekend. Why now? And why this Georgie? Chrissy clicks on the link to the event page but she can’t access it. All she can see is the photo of Robbie at the top, and it brings another solid lump to her throat. The mess and resentment can’t detract from the sheer tragedy of his death. And she misses him. Misses his obsessions with video games and comics that Leo considered himself a bit too cool for. Misses all four of them spending time together as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Flicking back to the village page, she stalls over another recent post.
Is it true Leo isn’t back after all?
It’s by Ellen from the butcher’s, who is also on the new pub committee. Chrissy clenches her teeth at the sight of Leo’s name up there, tossed around by someone who once claimed to care about him, about her. How does she know he’s not returned?
She opens the comments on the post.
I certainly haven’t seen him, Rowena says. Have they moved away after all?
Maybe they kept him in prison, says Janice, another of Chrissy’s former regulars, and Chrissy can almost hear her glee. She always seemed to disapprove of Leo – his cheeky swearing onstage, his occasional flares of temper – and acted as if she’d been somehow vindicated after what happened. I’m glad Ethan didn’t have to see him finally lose it, Chrissy once overheard her saying as she walked past her chip shop. She’d wanted to scream at all the misapprehensions in that sentence, all the things stopping her from being able to correct them. The people who understood the least always seemed to talk the loudest.
Now Chrissy resists a fierce urge to reply, to tell them all: he’s a person. My son. And he’s missing … Instead, she takes note of whose voices are absent from the discussion. Georgie. Peter. Alice. Conspicuous in their silence.
But now here’s Izzy, emerging from the prison gates with her bright hair and long legs, and Chrissy jumps out of the car and jogs towards her.
‘Iz,’ she says, then catches herself before she can dive straight to her own agenda: ‘How’s Cliff?’
Izzy finds a plucky smile. ‘He’s okay.’
‘Did he …?’
Izzy gestures to a nearby bench and they walk over and sit down. Chrissy perches right on the edge, legs jiggling, like Leo’s always did when he was small, unable to sit still.
‘Leo didn’t mention anything about planning to take off anywhere,’ Izzy says. ‘He just said you were picking him up, taking him home.’
Chrissy’s eyes sting again. ‘That was all I wanted.’
‘I know. I’m so sorry, babe.’
‘Did Cliff say anything else?’
‘He said … that towards the end of his sentence, Leo seemed …’
‘Seemed what?’
‘Off. Not quite right. Cliff wasn’t sure but—’
‘I’d noticed that, too.’ Chrissy wishes she could stop interrupting. ‘I thought he was thinking about the future, wondering what it would be like.’
Izzy nods. ‘It probably was that. Cliff didn’t push him on it, apparently. But he said he definitely wasn’t himself. Not sleeping, barely eating, sitting on his own at meals and association.’
‘Really?’ Chrissy’s mind tracks back, trying to remember if she’d sensed it was that bad. She recalls faint alarm bells, nothing more, and feels like the worst mother in the world.
‘And there was one other thing …’
Chrissy sits forward.
‘Nothing bad, exactly.’ Izzy pats Chrissy’s hand with her long-nailed fingers. ‘Just that … you remember there was one week you couldn’t make visiting, maybe a couple of months ago?’
‘I had to work,’ Chrissy says breathlessly. She’s been doing agency work since selling the pub, short stints in hospitality, whatever comes along. That one had been a well-paid, week-long job in a hotel and she hadn’t felt able to turn it down.
Was this all her fault, for prioritising a job over her son?
‘Cliff says Leo had a different visitor that week instead.’
‘My sister, maybe? She goes sometimes, especially when I can’t.’
‘No.’ Izzy shakes her head. ‘Cliff knows who she is. This was someone Cliff hadn’t seen before.’
Chrissy holds her stomach, her mind racing.
‘A woman,’ Izzy continues. ‘Apparently, the guys all teased Leo afterwards but he wouldn’t let on who it was. An older woman, kind of a fox by the sounds of it. But I’d take that with a pinch of salt; you know how long it’s been since some of them—’
‘What did she look like?’ Chrissy interrupts again, possibilities swarming her brain.
‘Tall,’ Izzy says. ‘Slim. Brown hair.’ She shrugs. ‘D’you know who it might’ve been?’
Chrissy’s thoughts have tripped on the word ‘tall’. The word she’s heard used as a shorthand description for Alice many times over the years. Is your tall friend single by any chance? Are you still friendly with that tall girl from the village?
The rest of Izzy’s description sinks in more slowly, and with it comes an image of Alice sitting opposite Leo in the visitation room, other inmates turning their heads to get an eyeful. For some reason she is wearing the green velvet dress from the night of Robbie’s death, her hair pinned up the same way, her lipstick dark and slightly smeared. She leans towards Leo, her hand sliding across the table …
Chrissy blinks and the scene dissolves. Izzy is watching her curiously, but she can’t voice all the things that are tumbling through her mind. Why would Alice visit Leo in prison a few weeks before his release? And why would Leo not even mention it?