by Kit de Waal
Tufty nods. “Okay, good.”
“Has the risk of frost passed?”
“Well,” says Tufty, “never can be sure. But it’s the sixteenth of May. Sunny and warm. And in my little shed, they’ll be safe. Yep, today’s the day.”
He goes back inside his hut and when he comes out the cycling pants are gone. Tufty’s wearing baggy shorts, a sweater, and dusty beige boots with no laces. He puts a knitted hat over his bald head.
“Come in,” he says to Leon. “You’ll learn something.”
Leon steps through the door and into Tufty’s shed. The hut still has its special smell, like the gardens but stronger and sweet. Even with the folded chairs, there is lots of room inside. There is a little paraffin heater, a stool, a cooking pot, and some metal plates and mugs. If there was a bed this could be a halfway house as well. But there is dust and dirt on everything and piles of earth on the floor; tendrils of plants push in from the outside. Leon takes his backpack off and looks carefully at the pictures on the wall. They are all posters of black men: one in a suit and tie with a mustache, one who looks like a king, and another one with his fist in the air and a medal around his neck. Leon looks at them all one by one. They are all serious, not like Tufty with his wide smile and big teeth. The men look down at Leon and he imagines how they might talk and what they might say and if any of them would help him find his brother. He reaches out and touches the man with the medal. The poster crinkles and the man’s chest contracts like he’s breathing. Underneath the man in big writing it says “Black Power.” Leon makes a fist and holds it up.
Tufty turns round and sees him.
“Yeah,” he says, “he was a brave man. Now, watch.”
Tufty rips the top off the packet of Scarlet Emperor seeds.
“Hold out your hands.”
Tufty tips five seeds onto Leon’s palms.
“Press one seed into each compartment. Like this. See?”
Leon presses the smooth, brown seeds down into the soil.
“Make sure it’s covered over with the compost. You have to put them to bed so they can wake up. Keep them warm.”
Leon carries on until all the compartments have one seed but there are still some left in the packet. Tufty folds the top over and puts them on a shelf. There are lots of other packets of seeds on the shelf and Leon takes one down. It has no writing on it.
“What are these?”
“These?” says Tufty, looking inside. He takes one seed out and holds it up to the light. He squints and shakes his head.
“Call them ‘Take-A-Chance.’ ”
“Take-A-Chance,” says Leon.
“Yeah, you plant them and water them but you don’t know what you’re getting. You just hope for the best.”
Tufty puts the seed back in the packet and hands it to Leon.
“Keep them.”
“Thank you,” says Leon. He folds the top of the seed packet over like he saw Tufty do and puts it in his pocket.
“Look, now,” says Tufty. “You got your seeds but you got to look after them. They got their blanket, they got food in their belly, but what else do they need?”
“Something to drink,” says Leon.
“Right!” says Tufty, slapping him on the back. “Yeah, man. You got it. You do gardening at home?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re a natural then. Right, water is what we need. See that? Take it and fill it up from the soda bucket.”
Leon fills a miniature watering can and dribbles water onto the seeds, drop by drop.
“Not too much,” says Tufty. “Good, good.”
“How big will they grow?” asks Leon.
“Taller than me and you,” says Tufty as he walks outside. “Work to be done. Watch yourself, Star,” he says. “Close the door after you.”
Leon sees a ten-pence piece by the seed tray. It’s got dirt on it and probably no one even knows it’s a ten pence. He grabs the coin and takes his Take-A-Chance seeds out of his pocket. He puts them both in his pack and goes back outside.
He sees Tufty pick up the big garden fork and plunge it into the earth. Leon watches for a long time. Tufty sings to himself as he breaks the soil and turns it over, throwing stones over by the hedge. It’s easy for Tufty because he’s got big muscles. Leon feels the top of his arm and wonders when his muscles will grow. Then Leon gets on his bike and rides carefully along the little paths. The Indian lady waves at him and he waves back. He goes right to the end of the allotments where there’s a tall wire fence and then he cycles on a different path toward the gate. He stops when he sees Mr. Devlin, gets off his bike, and wheels it over. Mr. Devlin is holding the Kanetsune again and wearing his army jacket.
Leon stares at it.
“Kanetsune,” says Mr. Devlin. “Remember? Japanese.”
Leon reaches for it but the man moves it out of the way.
“Too sharp. Dangerous for children.”
On a deck chair outside the door of his hut, there is an old wooden box with a lid. It is open and inside there are packets of seeds squashed up.
“Are you planting Scarlet Emperor?” asks Leon. “Sowing time is April or May.”
The man looks at Leon and then at the seed box.
“I am. But not today.”
“You have to transplant outdoors when the frosts have gone,” says Leon. “That’s in the summertime.”
“Not quite that late, young man. Nearly.”
Leon can see another small knife with a short blade on the chair next to the seeds.
“Is that Japanese as well?” he says.
“That is a pruning knife. Needs oiling.”
Leon shrugs. “I know how to oil a bike, my dad showed me.”
Mr. Devlin walks to the chair, puts the seeds and the small knife on the ground, and sits down. He puts the big knife on his lap and picks up a bottle of linseed oil. Leon puts his bike on the grass and walks over.
“Move that bicycle out of the way. It’s a hazard.”
Leon picks up the bike and rests it carefully against the brick wall of the hut. He stands by Mr. Devlin and watches.
“Linseed oil,” he says, “is for the handle here.”
He shows Leon the handle. It’s smooth, black wood with a blue line running through it and a silky blue tassel on the end.
“Oil the handle. Never the blade.”
“Is it sharp?”
“Pick that dandelion and pass it to me.”
Leon picks the yellow-headed flower and gives it to the man. Up close, Mr. Devlin has hair in his ears and nose. He has dirt deep in the lines on his face and crusty, dry lips that make Leon thirsty.
“The Kanetsune is the name for a group of knives. They have steel blades. Sharp as a witch’s tongue. Stroke the blade with the stem of the dandelion. Softly, now. Gently, like so.”
He holds Leon’s hand and draws the stem of the flower all along the edge of the blade but before it gets to the end, the stem splits open; half of it falls on the grass. Mr. Devlin takes a little breath in.
“Beautiful,” he says quietly. “Imagine the damage it does.”
Leon pulls his hand away. Loads of knives can cut dandelions. The little knife is on the grass and Leon picks it up and hands it to Mr. Devlin.
“You’re a very determined boy, aren’t you? What are you, twelve? Eleven? Sit down and take a piece of that cloth now.”
Leon looks around.
“The T-shirt,” says Mr. Devlin, “that there.”
He points at a pile of cloth and Leon picks it up.
“No,” he says with a sigh. “A piece of it, a piece.”
He grabs it off Leon and with a swish of the big knife he separates a sleeve from the pile. Leon stares at the man.
“Wow!” he says.
“Yes, wow, as you say.”
Leon uses the linseed to oil the handle of the pruning knife. It’s very sharp and Mr. Devlin keeps reminding him, saying “careful” and “slowly.”
“Do you have a name?” says Mr. Devlin after a while.
“Leon Rycroft. And I’ve got a brother. I know your name. You’re called Mr. Devlin.”
“Just Devlin. I used to be Señor Victor. Can you say Senhor Victor?”
“Senhor Victor.”
Mr. Devlin stares at Leon and then whispers, “Or Papa.”
“Papa.”
“Ah,” says Mr. Devlin.
Leon shows him the handle of the knife.
“Now wipe it over with a clean cloth.”
Leon rubs it all over with the T-shirt while Mr. Devlin watches. “That’s it,” he says.
“Are you from America?” Leon asks.
“I’ve been called some bad things in my time. That’s one of the worst. I am an Irishman, child. Dungannon is where I was born but I haven’t seen it for many a year.”
Mr. Devlin stops suddenly and turns his head like he hears something. Leon stops as well. Mr. Devlin mutters, “Twenty years precisely.”
Leon wipes the knife along his leg.
“Don’t do that,” says Mr. Devlin. “You’ll pierce your jeans and your mother will be after me.”
Leon doesn’t want to tell him about Sylvia or Maureen, so he finishes the knife and gives it back.
“You’ve used too much oil, look,” says Mr. Devlin, wiping it off on his jacket. “On the other hand, you’ve been thorough and it hasn’t leaked onto the blade itself. Use mineral oil for the blade. Or rapeseed oil.”
He stands up suddenly and goes inside his hut. He is gone for so long that Leon gets on his bike. He goes round in a few circles and when Mr. Devlin still doesn’t come out, Leon pedals back home with his new things in his backpack.
19
It’s a long walk from the parking lot to the hospital. The Zebra walks fast and Leon has to trot to keep up with her. They go up in the elevator and Leon presses the button. Lots of people get in and squash him at the back, then they all get out at the same place and do lots more walking until they find Maureen. She is sitting up in bed with a white tube in her nose.
“At last,” she says and she holds her arms open for Leon.
She smells different, she looks different, and she sounds different but when she snuggles him and rubs his back she is the same. Leon hugs her back and she laughs.
“Missed me, eh? Well, I’ve missed you as well. Can’t wait to get home.”
The Zebra starts walking away.
“I’m going down to the café. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes, all right, Leon? All right, Maureen?”
Maureen waves her off and then looks at Leon.
“She all right? Does she get along with Sylvia?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “She got me a BMX.”
“Did she now?”
“Yeah, a real one. It’s red. It goes really fast.”
“That’s lovely, pigeon. And what about you? You getting along with Sylvia?”
Leon says nothing.
“She treating you all right?”
Her mouth is smiling but her eyes are sad.
Leon looks around the ward. There are lots of old ladies in nighties and dressing gowns. The room is too hot and smells of school dinners. All the visitors are looking at each other and chairs keep scraping across the floor. He can’t see any nurses.
“The doctor said you’re not dying,” he says, “so why can’t you come home and then I can live with you again?”
“I might not be dying but I feel like it sometimes.”
Maureen lies back on her three pillows and closes her eyes but she keeps hold of Leon’s hand.
“I’ll be home soon. Don’t you worry.”
“I can go out on my bike whenever I want. I go everywhere. I found the allotments.”
“Did you?”
Maureen’s voice is far away.
“And there’s lots of people up there that wave at me.”
“Is that so?”
“Jake hasn’t written to me yet.”
“No, love.”
“I don’t know where he lives.”
“No, love, nor me.”
“When I’m in bed at night, I can’t sleep properly.”
“Really?”
“And I have to go to bed when it’s still light.”
“Yes, I know.”
“The wind blows the curtains and it looks like someone’s coming into my room.”
“Well, they’re not.”
“My mom hasn’t come back.”
“I know, love.”
The time goes slowly. Maureen’s hand gets hot and sticky and he can hear the wind in her chest; it whistles like a recorder. A nurse walks up the middle of the ward and bends over him, whispering.
“Has your nana gone asleep, love?”
Leon looks at Maureen and realizes she is very, very old. She has lots of white in her hair now and soon she will look like the other old ladies and soon she will die.
“Is someone else here with you, love? Is your mom here?”
The nurse looks up and down the ward and takes his hand.
“Shall we go and find her? Or do you want to stay with your nana?”
The Zebra will come and take him back to Sylvia’s. The Zebra will tell him not to worry. The Zebra will tell him he can’t see Jake. That Carol isn’t well. That’s all anyone ever says to him.
20
There are lots of days when Leon goes out on his bike, even if it’s only for ten minutes, and he always goes up to the allotments. Sometimes Tufty isn’t there and sometimes Mr. Devlin isn’t there but Mr. and Mrs. Atwal are nearly always there, digging and planting, and once Mr. Atwal gave Leon a curly stick of orange taffy, so sugary and sweet that it stuck Leon’s teeth together and lasted for ages. Leon always waves just in case he has some more.
Today Tufty is there but he isn’t alone. He’s sitting on a fold-up chair with four of his friends, playing dominoes while an old man in a tweed coat watches.
The way Tufty slams the dominoes on the table it’s like he’s trying to break it in half. He nearly stands up off his chair and holds the domino high up in the air and when he mashes it down on the table, he says, “Yes!”
“What you got, Stump? Eh, what you got?” says Tufty.
“One,” says a short fat man with a woolly hat. “One.”
Then they all start talking and laughing and one of them pushes the dominoes into a heap. They talk loud, deep, all at the same time, in fast West Indian like his dad used to do except they are laughing all the time and making jokes.
As Tufty collects up the dominoes he notices Leon.
“Yo, Star!” shouts Tufty.
Leon gets off his bike and rests it against the hut. He goes up to Tufty, who puts his hand on Leon’s shoulder.
“My friend this,” he says to the other men. “He comes up regular to help me. You call him Star. Now, this is Castro, Marvo, Waxy, Stump, and Mr. Johnson.”
The men nod in turn and get up, folding their chairs and handing them to Tufty. Mr. Johnson, who looks about a hundred years old, shakes Leon’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, young man.”
Mr. Johnson has snowy-white hair in a little Afro and he hands Tufty a bunch of keys.
“Well, Linwood, I’m going,” he says. “You’re on your own tomorrow. Lock up good. This church meeting will last all day.”
Leon sees the tall man with the ginger hair shake his head. His green eyes are narrow and red and his hair sticks up in dreadlocks all over his head. When he talks, his small brown beard bobs up and down. He makes a long hissing noise, drawing the air through his teeth.
“You still
turning the other cheek, eh, Johnson?”
Mr. Johnson folds up the collar of his coat like he’s cold. “Listen, Castro, you don’t have the monopoly on anger, on a sense of injustice.” He holds a finger in the air. “We have to organize. Black people won’t get anywhere unless and until we form ourselves into a body which society recognizes, that can lobby the authorities and seek redress.”
All the time, Castro carries on shaking his head. Even Castro’s skin is ginger, brown and milky like a cup of tea, and he has freckles all over his face and down his neck. When he talks, his voice carries right across Tufty’s plot. Mr. and Mrs. Atwal raise their heads.
“That’s the old way, Johnson, when black people had to be grateful. Like when you and my father come to this country in your good suit and your pressed hair, doing as you’re told, cleaning floors and driving buses.”
Castro pauses and looks at each man in turn.
“Them days is gone. We don’t have to be holding out our hat for the white man’s leavings. If we come together to form something, it’s an army. Not a—what you call it—lobby group. You think white people going to listen to monkeys? Monkeys is what they call we.”
All the other men start talking at the same time while Tufty and Leon stand and listen. Tufty brings drinks and picks up the empty cans while his friends decide about their army. Leon can hear that the others don’t like Castro’s army idea but they don’t like Mr. Johnson’s lobby idea either. He helps Tufty tidy things up and, while they are still talking, Tufty takes a plastic soda bottle and fills it with water. He gives it to Leon and gets one for himself. Then he brings out the black plastic seed tray.
“Look,” he says, “look what’s happened.”
The seeds have split and a strong curving tendril is shooting out like they are stretching out or waking up from a long sleep. Two little leaves, like closed wings, sit on the tip.
“These are babies,” says Tufty. “Fragile. Babies need looking after. Come.”
At the other end of Tufty’s plot, there are tall wigwams made out of bamboo canes, two long rows. If you covered them over with leaves it would make a fantastic den or a hideout.
“You see here,” Tufty says. “We have to put these seeds in carefully. Make a hole at the bottom of the stick like so, pour water in the hole. Drop in the baby plant. See?”
