My Name Is Leon

by Kit de Waal

  “Alan’ll be here in a minute. I better get ready.”

  She puts her coat on, puts her handbag in the crook of her arm, and opens the front door. Leon stands next to her and she takes his hand in hers. She squeezes his fingers and he can feel her love traveling all the way down from her heart into his. It’s like special electricity, a secret. They watch for the sports car. His mother used to smell of shampoo and their old house. She used to smell like her bed and her sheets, she used to smell of different cigarettes. She used to smell of beans on toast and bath time. But all he can smell now is Maureen’s air freshener, stronger than the smell of his mom and where they used to live.

  Maureen comes and stands behind them. Leon can feel all the words she’s keeping inside that she wants to say and all the things she feels about his mom. She only lets a few of them come out.

  “You’ve got a lovely son in Leon, you know. He’s as good as gold and he misses you.”

  Carol looks up and down the street and fidgets with her handbag like she needs another cigarette. She keeps squeezing Leon’s hand but she looks the other way and he knows she’s trying to speak with her fingers, telling Maureen to shut up and telling Leon that she’s got good memories of when they were all together and that she still loves him and why did they have to take Jake away? Maureen speaks a bit louder.

  “My house is always open to you if you want to visit him.”

  Carol steps out onto the garden path.

  “Alan’s looking after me, Leon, you’re not to worry.”

  The sports car stops outside and, before she walks away, Carol puts their foreheads together and kisses him. Leon tears away, upstairs into his bedroom, takes the photograph of Jake quick as he can and runs after her.

  “Mom! Wait!”

  “You’re a little angel,” she says.

  She holds the photograph against her heart and walks slowly away. Leon stands on the street and watches her get into the car. She says something to the man and he laughs, then the sports car turns the corner and is gone. Leon stands on the concrete step in Maureen’s house at the curve of the avenue looking at the empty space where his mom was. He feels a dark star of pain in his throat and the last warmth of her touch on his fingers. When Leon goes inside, he turns the television on and sits on the sofa. Maureen tells him off for having the volume too loud.

  “You’re a good boy, Leon. A bloody good kid considering. You don’t deserve this. I know it’s not her fault, but Jesus Christ Almighty. It’s not a fair world, I can tell you. And that photo was for you, not her.”

  She tries to give him a hug but he’s very angry with Maureen for not liking his mother and not believing she’s really ill. Leon saw with his own eyes how she fell apart when she saw Jake. And he knows what his mother knows. That someone else is holding Jake and kissing him. Someone else is looking into the perfect blue of his perfect eyes. Someone else is smelling him and touching the soft skin on the back of his hand.

  Late that night, when Leon lies on his bed, he misses the photograph of Jake and he has to close his eyes to remember it. He holds on to Big Red Bear and thinks about all the things he didn’t say to his mom. How long will it be for her to get better? When is she coming back for him? What happened to the rest of his toys at the old house? Will she come back? Where is she? Where is Jake? What will he get for his birthday? What is wrong with her? Why doesn’t she come back?

  Then he says, under his breath, so Maureen won’t hear, all the bad words he has stored up all day since his mother came and took the photograph and drove away without him.

  15

  It’s the middle of the night when the ambulance comes. Maureen wakes him up, calling and calling and calling. Leon springs out of bed, turns the light on, and runs into her room. Her face is like cold porridge and her hair is wet, stuck to her head. She’s half sitting up and she has an old man’s voice.

  “Nine-nine-nine,” she says. “Nine-nine-nine now.”

  He stands by the front door like the operator tells him to and he’s glad, because he doesn’t want to see Maureen when she sounds like a dying man in the middle of the night. He wants to pee so badly his leg starts moving all on its own. The ambulance comes with the flashing lights and he lets them in, shows them the way to Maureen’s bedroom. While they go in, he runs to the bathroom and does the longest pee of his life. He waits downstairs in his pajamas and they tell him he’s a good boy and that he’s done a brave thing and Leon decides he might be an ambulance man when he grows up. They sit him in the back of the ambulance and put a mask on Maureen’s face. One of them speaks into a walkie-talkie; it crackles and hisses and Leon wishes he had one. Maureen holds her hand out for him but he’s scared to touch her in case she dies. This might be the time that there’s no one to look after him.

  At the hospital, a woman police officer asks him all about Carol and Jake. He tries very hard not to cry. But when she gives him a little hug, it’s like spilling a glass of soda, everything comes out in a rush and he can’t stop the tears and the noise that comes out of his heart. The policewoman takes him into a room on his own and gives him a tissue. She tells him that Maureen isn’t going to die.

  “She’s not going to die, Leon, sweetheart, but she can’t talk, and right at this minute, you can’t see her. That doesn’t mean anything bad, you not seeing her. It means doctors and nurses are looking after her while I look after you.”

  “Yes,” says Leon.

  “And when she’s better, they’ll let you know because you’re the brave one who saved her life. Now isn’t that something to smile about, eh? You’ll be able to tell everyone at school all about it, won’t you? You’ll be a hero. You are a hero. A brave hero and a clever boy. There it is, a little smile. It’s the smallest smile I’ve ever seen. Is there another one in there? A bigger one? That’s it, that’s the one I was looking for.”

  Then everything gets a bit better because the policewoman takes him to the café and buys him a jelly doughnut and a hot chocolate. Someone else gives him a comic book and then he sits in the Panda car and presses the buttons that make the light come on. The policewoman shows him her walkie-talkie and lets him say, “Come in, come in,” but no one answers. She says she’s going to tell everyone at the police station how brave he’s been. The policewoman is a bit like the nurse at the hospital when Jake was born: when she says something you believe her. They sit in a waiting room with a black-and-white film on the TV. There are four gangsters in an old-fashioned car chasing a man who’s hanging off the back of a truck. The car is skidding all over the road and just when the gangsters are having a shoot-out, Sylvia bursts into the room. She crouches down by his chair and squeezes his arms.

  “You saved her life, love. Good boy, good boy. Thank you.”

  She kisses him and he can smell her cigarettes and her special old lady smell that’s worse than Maureen’s. The stink makes him want to push her away. But she holds his hand and shakes it.

  “You’re a proper little man, you are.”

  Later on, the emergency social worker comes and soon there’s a huddle of them standing together in the corner of the room. A doctor, the nice policewoman, the social worker, and Sylvia, all talking about him with their arms folded. One by one they look at him and shake their heads and even when he tries really hard he can only hear a few words.

  “. . . bronchial pneumonia with complications . . .”

  “. . . weeks rather than days . . .”

  “. . . appropriately accommodated . . . police checked . . .”

  And Sylvia keeps saying, “I could, I could. I’m only part-time at the supermarket. I could. He’s a good lad. He’s saved her bloody life, he has. She always said he was a good kid, Mo did. I’ll have him. Yes, I will. Bless him.”

  The social worker starts writing on some paper and says, “Short term, we’re talking short term.”

  They all come toward him at the same
time.

  The social worker kneels down until her face is a few inches from Leon’s. She has glasses that make her eyes look massive like she’s an alien.

  “Right,” she says, “you’re going back home to Maureen’s, to your own bed with Sylvia and she will look after you tonight. She’s been a registered carer before, so we’re quite happy she knows what to do. You like Sylvia, don’t you? Good, good. You’ve been very grown up, Leon, and everyone is really proud of you. Maureen will be in the hospital for a little while and tomorrow we will work out what will happen to you long term. Obviously we will try to keep you at home. I think you’ve had a pretty rough time lately and we don’t want to add to that, do we?”

  She looks around at the others and they all nod. Sylvia lights a cigarette.

  “So, we’re doing our best, we want you to know that, all right? Good boy.”

  16

  There are too many things that Leon doesn’t like and he’s made a list of them in his head.

  Sylvia.

  Sylvia’s house.

  Having to move to Sylvia’s house even though they said he could stay at Maureen’s house but they lied. Sylvia only stayed one night in Maureen’s house; then she said she was sick of it and she was going back to her own house and he had to go with her.

  The sheets on his new bed in Sylvia’s house. They’re pink.

  The way Sylvia keeps going to visit Maureen in the daytime when he’s at his new school.

  His new school. Again.

  Sylvia calling Maureen “Mo” all the time or “our Mo” to leave Leon out.

  Nobody letting him talk about Jake. Maureen used to let him talk about Jake and she would join in.

  No one remembering that he’s got a brother.

  Two girls in his new school who made him swear and get into trouble.

  Sylvia’s cereal.

  The way on Saturdays Sylvia keeps telling him to go outside to play when all the best shows are on.

  Her smell.

  His mom not coming to get him.

  All the toys he couldn’t bring to Sylvia’s house because of the mess they make.

  No one talking about Jake’s first birthday because they’ve forgotten about him but Leon hasn’t.

  His new social worker, because they keep changing and this one has bad breath and she keeps saying, “I’m new.”

  Bedtime at Sylvia’s house because it’s too early and he can’t sleep when it’s light outside.

  Sylvia’s laugh when her show’s on.

  People pretending all the time.

  All the things he doesn’t like keep coming one after another and eventually the Zebra turns up again. She says what the other social workers have said before, that living with Sylvia is only temporary and that when Maureen comes out of the hospital he can go back to live with her. For ages, he didn’t take anything out of his backpack because he believed what they said but then it got to eight days and they said a bit longer and then a bit longer and then he had to go to a new school. So Leon came up with a good idea. If they could find his mom, then he could stay with her just until Maureen gets better. He could look after Carol because he’s done it before and it will be even easier because it will just be the two of them now that Jake has gone. But when he tells the Zebra his good idea she just says no.

  “We’ve talked about that already, Leon. Your mom moved to Bristol and she’s living in a halfway house. She needs a lot of support. She’s seeing doctors, taking some new medication, and talking to people about how she feels. She’s trying to get back on her feet but it takes time. They don’t allow children there and, anyway, Leon, we would have to make sure that your mom could look after you properly even if she wanted to.”

  Leon turns away while she is still speaking. The Zebra’s got a new hairstyle. Now there are two white stripes at the sides as well as the back. She thinks she looks great but she doesn’t. The Zebra’s black suit is too tight and her white shirt is trying to bust open. But out of all the social workers he’s ever had, she looks at him the most. And when he looks away, she stops speaking until he turns round.

  Leon picks a scab on his finger because he can tell that he’s going to cry. Or get angry. If he concentrates on something else, or makes a little pain on his finger, then it stops the tears. Or if it’s anger that’s coming, the best thing to do is pretend it’s not happening or have some candy or find something to play with. Sometimes, he takes ten pence from Sylvia’s purse.

  “Why?” asks Leon.

  “Why what?”

  “Why can’t I look after her? I did it before.”

  “Because that’s not being a child, Leon. You’re a young boy and your mom is an adult and she has to look after you. Not the other way around. When she can’t look after you, we make sure there is somebody else that can. And right now that person is Sylvia.”

  Sylvia stands in the doorway, listening and smoking and tutting. Sometimes Sylvia is like a robot. Her arm puts the cigarette in her mouth and then takes it out and holds it in the air. Then the arm does the same thing over and over until the cigarette is finished. When she’s not paying attention, the ash lands on her blouse and she doesn’t even notice.

  “Why can’t I see Maureen?”

  “I just said why. She’s still not well, Leon. And she’s got a virus. They turned me away when I went. No one’s allowed in.”

  “I’ve told him ten times,” Sylvia says, “and you’ve told him. It doesn’t seem to go in.”

  The Zebra strokes Leon’s arm.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it, Leon?” she says. “But you know what? Come with me. Come on.”

  She gets up and opens the front door. Leon follows. She goes to the trunk of her car and lifts the lid. She leans in and pulls out a bike.

  “Who do you think this is for?”

  It isn’t new but it is definitely a BMX. Leon stands out of the way while she puts it on the pavement. He looks at the Zebra because he isn’t sure if it’s true. That she really means it.

  “Go on then,” she says. “You can ride a bike, can’t you?”

  He jumps on and turns around and around in a circle.

  “See!” he shouted. “My dad showed me.”

  “Lovely! You be careful now!”

  But Leon doesn’t want to be careful. He wants to ride as fast as a car. Faster than a car. Fast as a rocket. He pedals downhill, away from Sylvia’s house, and the bike gets faster and faster. The wind’s in his eyes, in his hair, ripping through his T-shirt like cold fingers on his skin and he keeps going, sailing right to the bottom of the road, feeling his legs pumping hard, hurting, a nice pain in his belly; all the bad things and halfway houses are behind him and can’t catch up. He swoops in a tight curve at the end of the road and then bombs back, uphill, faster than all the cars stuck in the traffic, passing houses that blur into one another, plunging his feet down and rising up again, down and up, down and up, to the very top of the hill, straight past Sylvia’s bungalow this time, straight past the Zebra on the sidewalk, all the way to the traffic lights and then he stops to get his breath.

  Everything feels loose inside him, he’s longer and stronger, and even though he’s panting, he’s full of air, dizzy and light. He smiles as he sees a black man on a racing bike, pumping hard just like Leon, slinking in between the cars and buses. His back is bent low, curved, no shirt on. He has a shiny bald head and wide yellow sunglasses. He looks like a wasp. His bike is red like ­Leon’s but it’s faster, with narrow wheels, slick as a bullet. The man angles his bike so his knees are almost skimming the road, then just as he’s about to topple over, he turns the corner in one sweet and beautiful movement. Gone.

  Leon pedals slowly back to Sylvia’s. The Zebra is standing outside with her hands in her pockets. She’s the best social worker in the world.

  “There you go,” she says. “You were made for t
hat bike, Leon.”

  She opens the door to her car.

  “I’ll come back next week and, if she’s a bit better, we’ll see about a visit to Maureen. I’ll take you myself.”

  17

  After school, the next day, Leon asks Sylvia if he can go outside with his new bike. She’s got the curtains drawn because it’s sunny outside and she’s watching her shows where people have to answer hard questions. She thinks she knows the answers when she doesn’t. The man with the wig on the TV asks the questions and Sylvia says the answer right at the same time as the contestant, like she’s clever. She didn’t even know who won the soccer game. Eventually, Sylvia tells him to be careful of traffic and not to stay out too long.

  Leon bikes up to the traffic lights. He parks at an angle to the corner, sits back on the seat, and folds his arms. People in their cars look at him; kids in the backseat can see his bike, his new BMX. He gets off, squats down, checks the tires, gets back on, twists the wheels, and watches people watching him. He looks big for his age, twelve or thirteen, and now, with his new bike, he could even be fourteen. As he sits he tries to remember the way Wasp Man went.

  He crosses the road and turns the corner into a long busy street. He pedals on the pavement between stacks of vegetables outside the Pakistani shops. There are loads more black people than where Sylvia lives and lots of shops sell funny-looking vegetables in dark purple and pale green, things he’s never seen in blood red and milky white, everything piled up on milk crates, spilling out onto the ground. He pedals over a squashed black banana and his front tire skids and slips. Clusters of old Indian men in turbans sit on little stools outside their shops, their long white beards dancing in the wind. Two black men sit on a square of grass with a chessboard between them, talking over loud music from a record shop. Black women in bright African headdresses walk slowly, holding the hands of their children, their big silver earrings swinging as they go. Some of the black men have locks standing up or hanging down their backs like furry black rope. Because the road is so narrow all the traffic goes slow and people in the cars shout at each other when they can’t move forward. No one notices Leon.