My Name Is Leon

by Kit de Waal

  Sylvia walks back into the kitchen.

  “Right. Okay, let’s make a start.”

  Earring speaks too quickly, like he’s running out of time. He asks all the questions the Zebra asks but faster, writing and talking or putting ticks in boxes. It goes on for ages, then he sits back and takes a breath.

  “Are you happy here, Leon?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it like living with Sylvia?”

  Leon looks at the door to the kitchen. He sees Sylvia behind it with her cigarette.

  “Where’s Maureen? When am I going back home?”

  “By ‘home’ you mean back to Maureen’s?”

  “Who’s got all my other toys?”

  “Which toys?”

  “Me and Jake had lots of toys and we had to leave them all behind. I had lots of Action Men that my mom and dad bought me. I had seven. No, eight. And now I’ve only got one.”

  Earring is looking through his papers and doesn’t speak for a moment.

  “One-sixty-four B Benton Avenue South? You mean when you lived with your mom?”

  “Yes, and I took some of them to Tina’s, to Auntie Tina’s house. Jake took some of his as well but he left to go with the other people. Where is Jake? Where does he live?”

  “Let’s take this one question at a time, okay? Right, when you went into care, Leon, and when your mom left, I’m afraid she also left all her property in the maisonette. She no longer has a tenancy there. That means someone else lives there now and I don’t know what has happened to all her possessions. I’m sorry about that.”

  Leon says nothing.

  “Now, if there was stuff at Auntie Tina’s, that’s Tina, Tina—” he looks at his papers—“Tina Moore, then I could certainly try and follow that up for you and see if there’s anything she forgot to pass on to us. Let me just write this down so I don’t forget.”

  He writes slowly and then taps the paper with his pen.

  “What else? Yes, right, you asked about Jake. Do you understand about adoption, Leon?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is adoption?”

  “Am I getting adopted?”

  “Is that what you would like, Leon?”

  “No. I want Jake to come back.”

  “Adoption is where you get a new family, a new mom and/or a new dad. And you go and live with them. Adoption is forever, Leon. It means you don’t go back to your first family. You live with a new family all the time you’re growing up.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Jake is living with his new family.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “He lives far away, Leon. Well, not that far, but he has a whole new life.”

  “Why can’t I live with him?”

  Earring picks up his coffee cup and looks inside like he’s trying to decide whether to drink it or not. He puts it back on the table.

  “This must be very hard for you, Leon. Jake was adopted because he was a little baby that needed looking after. You both needed looking after, actually, but sometimes adoption is best for some children and fostering is best for other children.”

  “You said he would write to me.”

  “Me?”

  “The other one.”

  “The other social worker? Yes, well, he might. Is that something you would like, a letter from Jake?”

  “I’ve been waiting ages,” Leon says and he decides to go to the toilet in case he starts to cry but, as soon as he stands up, some tears spill out and Earring sees them.

  “Leon,” he says, “this is a very difficult thing to understand. You must miss him.”

  “He misses me!” Leon shouts. “He’s crying for me! I heard him!”

  “Is that what you’re worried about, Leon? You think Jake is unhappy?”

  “He needs me,” says Leon. “Only I can look after him.”

  Earring makes a little shaking movement with his head. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat.

  “It was a really, really hard decision to make to split you up from Jake, Leon. Really difficult, Leon. We tried to think of a way that we could keep you together and a lot of people sat around a table and after a long, long time, we couldn’t find a way that was fair to both of you. We want you and your brother to be happy and have the best chance in life and sometimes that means finding that happiness in different ways. Has anyone explained this to you before?”

  Leon says nothing.

  “Do you think you’d like to talk to someone about how you’re feeling, Leon?”

  Earring isn’t writing anymore but he’s making little dots on the paper with the end of his fountain pen. The end of the pen is like a little metal knife. It could be dangerous and it could kill someone. It could kill Earring if Leon picked it up and stabbed him through the soft bit of his eye. He would push the pen in and write on Earring’s brain: “I fucking hate you. Black Power. From Leon.”

  Earring’s mouth is moving and he’s blinking and, all the time, he’s trying to be Leon’s friend.

  “. . . arrange for you to see someone, special advisors trained to help children who have been through a difficult time. Would you like that?”

  “Jake will forget about me.”

  “Well . . .”

  “I won’t forget him but he might forget me.”

  “I think—”

  “You’re making him forget. You took him away so he could forget about me. You only care about him. You think you know what he wants but you don’t. Only I do.”

  “Leon—”

  “Only me. No one else. They don’t know how to look after him.”

  “I think you—”

  “He misses me.”

  “I’m sure he—”

  “He might be upset and you don’t care.”

  Earring puts his pen down and Leon knows every word that he’s going to say. He knows he will turn his head a bit to the right then the left, he will talk slowly using baby words because he thinks Leon is stupid, but whatever words social workers use they all mean the same thing.

  “It’s very difficult—” he starts.

  Leon runs down the hallway and slams the bathroom door. He picks up the toilet seat and bangs it down. The noise makes him jump. He unravels all the toilet paper and shoves it down into the toilet bowl and then puts the towel in it and then Sylvia’s dressing gown from the back of the door. He tries to close the lid but the toilet is too full, so he just pulls and pulls the seat until his arms hurt and his fingers tingle and his face is all crooked and then finally it breaks and rips out of its socket. Leon catches himself in the mirror. He thought he would see the Incredible Hulk with green skin and a chest as wide as a double bed and a ripped shirt. But he looks just the same. He is nearly ten and he is black and Jake is one and he is white. That’s why Jake is adopted. That’s what Maureen said and she’s the only one who has never lied.

  Sylvia knocks on the door.

  “You all right, love?” she says.

  Leon sits on the edge of the bath. He’s wet himself.

  “Leon?”

  Sylvia opens the door. She doesn’t say anything. Leon can feel the pee itching his legs and he wants to take his jeans off but he can’t move. The pee is in his sneakers as well and in his socks. Sylvia closes the door and he hears her go down the hallway. He can hear her voice and Earring’s voice and it sounds like an argument.

  Leon takes everything off, even his underpants, and goes into his bedroom. He puts his tracksuit trousers on with his school shoes and he sits on the bed. Sylvia will tell him to leave. She always said she wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.

  He finds his backpack and he makes sure that everything is inside. He has all his important things and all the zippers are done up. He hears the front door close and he hears Sylvia coming back, so he goe
s to stand at the window so he doesn’t have to look at her.

  “Made a right mess of that bathroom, haven’t you?” she says. He can hear the cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

  “What were you thinking?”

  Outside in Sylvia’s garden there is a black and brown cat walking very slowly on the grass with his head down. He is going carefully like a soldier in the jungle. He’s trying to catch something but Leon can’t see what it is. It might be a mouse or a rat or a bird. Once, Leon’s mom bought him a kitten but it made him sneeze, so his mom gave it away and bought him a dog with a battery in it. Leon wanted a real dog but his mom said no. Then Leon remembers Samson and the way Leon’s dad said he would hold his paws and break his heart open. Leon starts to cry.

  Sylvia is still standing in the doorway. He can hear her breathing and smoking. He can hear her getting angry with him and telling him to leave. He drags his sleeve across his face, turns around and picks up his pack, and waits for her to say it.

  “Where you going?” she asks.

  Leon says nothing.

  “If you think this fool is putting them pissy clothes in the washer and tidying up, you’re mistaken. Put your bag down. Come on.”

  She puts her hand in his neck-back, just like Maureen does, and nudges him into the bathroom.

  “Jeans, sneakers, socks, pants, all of them in the bath. Come on. I’m standing right here and watching.”

  Leon does it.

  “Fish my best dressing gown out of the toilet and put that in the bath as well and try not to get any of that wet toilet paper on it. And don’t make such a bloody mess on the floor neither. Watch it. Careful.”

  Leon does it.

  “Now, run and get two shopping bags from under the sink. Quick. I’m counting to ten.”

  Leon runs and comes back in eight.

  “Now put your hands in there and get every single piece of toilet paper out and into one of the shopping bags. And when I say every single piece, what do I mean?”

  “All of it.”

  “You bet your sweet life.”

  She stands and watches him. It takes ages and she says nothing. When it’s all done, she takes the shopping bag and twists it around by the handles and knots it in the top, then she puts it in the other bag and does the same. The linoleum on the floor of the bathroom is all wet.

  “Right, pick up the clothes out of the bath and bring them into the kitchen and be quick. Don’t let them drip. Come on.”

  They run down the hall together, through the living room and into the kitchen. She drops the shopping bag into the trash bin and then opens the door to the washing machine.

  “All in,” she says, “the sneakers as well. All in.”

  Leon feeds everything into the washing machine and watches while Sylvia puts in the soap powder and turns it on.

  “Wash your hands.”

  Leon does it. She points at a chair. Leon sits down.

  “Ever hear the phrase ‘Don’t shit where you sit,’ Leon?”

  “No.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  Leon says nothing.

  “No? Well, I’ll tell you. It means don’t fuck up a good thing. It means that if you get bad news or someone gets on your nerves, you don’t make trouble or ruin things at home. Home is where you live, where you sleep, where you eat, where people look after you. Don’t shit on your own seat. You shit on someone else’s seat or find another way to sort things out.”

  Leon nods.

  “Now,” she says, lighting another cigarette, “I don’t know if you’ve any idea what I’m going on about, so I’ll say it nice and simple. We get along. I like you and you like me. Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And more important than anything is the fact that my sister, Maureen, who ain’t well, loves us both.”

  Sylvia smokes her cigarette for a bit.

  “So I’m going to look after you until she’s well again. That means I need a dressing gown. That also means I need a working toilet and I don’t need attitude.”

  Leon nods.

  “Now, if that mincing prick comes back here with any of his nonsense, I’ll sort him out. I don’t know what he said to upset you because I couldn’t hear properly from where I was standing but you leave him to me. He’s already had the rough edge of my tongue. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, I don’t like any of that nonsense in the bathroom. How much money have you got in your bag?”

  Leon says nothing.

  “I’m taking two pounds off you for a new toilet seat. I’ll take fifty pence a week out of your pocket money till it’s paid off.”

  She puts the kettle on and makes a cup of coffee. She gives Leon a drink of juice and a packet of chips.

  “In a minute, you’re coming to the bathroom with me, we’re mopping the floor with bleach and then you’re getting in the bath. Bet your legs are itching.”

  Leon nods. She smiles.

  “Serves you right,” she says. Then she stops still and looks off into the distance. “I wet the bed till I was nine, and I shared with our Maureen. She stood up for me, she did. Said it was her so I didn’t get into trouble.”

  Sylvia stirs the spoon in her mug.

  “Hope she gets better.”

  29

  Something is wrong. For days and days Sylvia is on the phone and when Leon comes in the room she says goodbye or tells him to go outside or she starts to whisper. She hasn’t forgotten about the toilet paper and her best dressing gown. She hasn’t forgiven him for shitting where he sits.

  Leon measures himself using the window ledge in his bedroom. When he was nine the window ledge was the same height as his elbow but tomorrow, when he’s ten, people will notice how he’s grown. Leon breathes in deeply and sees his chest grow. He feels his arms and shoulders for muscles. He needs to get strong if he’s going to carry a heavy weight.

  He cycles up to the allotment straight after school. It’s a sunny day and there are lots of people doing something to their little gardens. Mr. Devlin calls him over.

  “Off the bike, boy.”

  Leon gets off and rests the bike on the ground.

  “Have you seen your handiwork?”

  “No.”

  “Come and look.”

  They walk to the wigwam of canes and each little plant has begun to twist around the cane. Some of them are loose and tall and some of them are stubby and strong.

  “Will they get to the top?”

  “And beyond. Eight feet or more. So you see, there’s no harm done if you delay planting. And planting in situ has many advantages. The seedlings aren’t disturbed. You put the seed where the seed grows, where it belongs, and then you don’t move it. Best results? Do what I do.”

  He pours a gentle trickle of water on each seedling.

  “Of course, if you have a proper greenhouse, like Mr. and Mrs. Atwal over there, you can get a jump on this method. Start them off in a seed tray or a three-inch pot. Replant them after a few weeks. They’ll come up all right, I suppose. Yes, yes, and the ever-­present Mr. Burrows likes to tell us all about his achievements, but I’ll tell you this, there is a rightness about planting seeds the way people have planted seeds for generations.”

  Leon looks at Mr. Devlin’s neat rows of runner beans.

  “Not quite broadcasting but fairly close. There was a field outside the schoolhouse, just under an acre. Very quiet, on the outskirts.”

  “Why do they call them Scarlet Emperor?”

  “Phaseolus coccineus. South American in origin. There are many varieties, in fact. When they get more mature, you will see the most beautiful red flowers, scarlet flowers. And another thing.” Mr. Devlin squats down and touches the delicate new leaves of the plant with his dirty fingers. He looks happy. “The Scarlet Emperor is a whole plant. That means you can eat the
flowers, you can eat the beans, and you can even eat the root. This sort of plant can keep you alive for many weeks if necessary, if that’s all you had. There is a type of protein in the bean, even the bean pod itself is nutritious, the flowers are both attractive and flavorful, and there are tribes in Mexico who boil and eat the root. And then, of course, if you’re away from home, you can dry the beans and cook them. Never eat them raw. Never. Magnificent.”

  Mr. Devlin’s eyes are twinkling and bright. He stares at the wigwam and then looks at Leon.

  “How old are you?” he says.

  “I’m ten tomorrow. It’s my birthday.”

  “Ten years old. Summer baby,” says Mr. Devlin. “A ten-year-old boy. You’re well grown for ten. Well developed.”

  “I’m going to have big muscles. I’m going to carry bricks in my backpack until my muscles are strong. I saw it on a TV show.”

  “Bricks?” says Mr. Devlin. He puts his hand around Leon’s upper arm and squeezes. “I have something better than bricks. Come with me.”

  He takes Leon into his shed.

  “Let me see,” he says and begins moving things on the shelves and behind the chair. He keeps dropping things onto the armchair: a pair of brown leather shoes that are all moldy and creased, some china plates with chips on them, a tiny kettle, and a rolled-up checkered blanket. These are all things that Leon would like to touch but then he drops the gun on the blanket and Leon gasps. It doesn’t go off but Mr. Devlin wasn’t very careful with it. Then he throws more things on it, some magazines and a clock and some plastic rope.

  “Yes, good. That’s the thing. Look here.”

  Mr. Devlin is holding some weights like bodybuilders use; they’re made of black iron. He holds one out for Leon but when Leon takes it, it drops out of his hand. It doesn’t look heavy but it is.

  “Steady now,” says Mr. Devlin.

  He crouches down, picks up the weight, and closes Leon’s hand around it. He shows him how to bring it up and down, watching him closely, breathing in and out, smelling of oil and dinners and old people.

  “Do you feel it?” he says.

  Leon nods.

  “Where do you feel it?”