My Name Is Leon

by Kit de Waal

  “Right, me and Leon can start. Mr. Atwal is bringing the trestle tables in his van. I need the triangles from you and the flags on string.”

  Sylvia laughs.

  “Triangles? Bunting, you bloody fool, bunting. How many times?”

  “Ah, yes, bunting,” he says but Leon knows he’s teasing her.

  Maureen shuffles into the kitchen in her new purple slippers.

  “Well, they fit,” she says, smoothing her dressing gown over her belly. “Thank you, Leon. Though how you managed to get the money and go to my favorite shop and get the right size, I don’t know.”

  “I . . .”

  “He did some clearing for me,” says Mr. Devlin and winks. “Once we got the go-ahead from the committee, we had to get the place ready for the party so he helped me.”

  “Hmm,” says Maureen as she shoos him out of the way and puts the kettle on. “Didn’t realize that I was moving into a house of conspirators. Sylvia’s decided to stop buying cake, biscuits, chocolate, and anything that tastes nice, thank you, Sylvia,” she shouts. “Leon’s never in the house and couldn’t get the dirt from under his fingernails if he washed with carbolic soap, and as for you—”

  “What about him?” says Sylvia, coming in from the garden.

  “He’s got you like a sixteen-year-old, that’s what.”

  “Belt up, Mo. You’re jealous.”

  They elbow each other and start sniggering like little girls but the kitchen’s too small, so Leon goes and gets his backpack and puts it up by the front door. Then he goes into the lounge and presses the button on the television.

  “No you don’t, mister,” shouts Maureen. “Not today.”

  From then on it’s up to the allotment and job after job after job for Leon. No one seems to realize he can’t be in two places at the same time. Hold this, carry that, wait here, duck under there, balance this on that, fetch me this, hold that straight, little to the left, higher, where’s my this, have you got a that. It goes on all morning until the wedding itself. When everyone else disappears to watch it on television, Leon, Tufty, and Mr. Devlin decide to stay where they are. They sit on the folding chairs while Mr. Devlin’s barbecue heats up and Tufty takes some cans of Coke out of his tub.

  “May I ask if you remembered the right music, Mr. Burrows?” says Mr. Devlin. “Please have some regard for your neighbors. We don’t all like African music.”

  “Reggae, man. Roots, rockers, dub.”

  “Precisely. We don’t want that today. At least, the ladies won’t want it. I don’t mind.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Leon likes it when they pretend to argue like they used to. He gets up and pokes the charcoal with the metal tongs.

  “What do you think, Leon?”

  “It’s nearly ready.”

  “Good,” says Mr. Devlin, “and don’t forget to water your plants before the guests arrive. It’s going to be hot.”

  Leon finishes his drink, takes his backpack, and walks over to his plot. It’s taken weeks and weeks but finally some of his Scarlet Emperor beans are ready. They are so tall they hang in twisting plaits off the top of their wigwams, and tiny little bean pods are sprouting everywhere.

  Leon fetches his watering can and fills it up. He waters his Scarlet Emperor plants until he’s sure they have everything they need. He’s always been good at looking after things. When Maureen comes he’s going to pick all the best beans for her but he’ll let the tiny little ones stay out in the sun for a bit longer. Tufty told him that he had to leave some of the beans on the vine to grow long and fat, then at the end of the summer he has to pick them, hang them up to dry in his shed, and put them in a jar for next year. Mr. Devlin said that next spring he can have half a plot instead of a quarter.

  One of the young pods hangs low, right next to Leon’s face. He pulls it off gently and breaks it open. Inside are five tiny black seeds, smaller than his little fingernail. He picks one out and holds it up to the sun. It’s glistening and damp from its bean-pod bed and so light he can hardly feel it on his palm. It’s as black as the middle bit of Jake’s eyes, and just as sparkly. If Jake was here, Leon would let him hold the little seed for a moment but he would have to be careful in case he’s still putting everything in his mouth.

  Leon rolls the seed between his fingers and feels it yield under his skin. It’s strange to think that this little black bean will grow up to be a big plant and that plant will have its own seeds to make another plant and another seed and this will go on, over and over again, for years, and he remembers what Maureen said about Jake. He hasn’t left forever.

  He unzips his pack and tips everything out, his gardening tools and his packets of seeds. He scratches out a straight line with his trowel and makes ten little holes. He picks up the packet of Take-A-Chance and tips the seeds into his hand. They are small and brown with wrinkled skin and nobody knows what’s inside. He places them carefully in the soil and covers them over. He’ll water them and look after them and hope for the best. There are lots more seeds to plant but he’s got too much to do today, and anyway, he can hear Maureen calling. She’ll want him to do another job or carry something or fetch her a chair.

  “Leon!”

  He turns and runs.

  “Coming!”

  Acknowledgments

  I’ve had lots of help along the way. You know who you are, hand-holders, tear-wipers, cooks, listeners and laughers, critics, advisors, strategists, dressers, nip-and-tuckers, trainers, architects, sages, and optimists as well as the lovely, quiet people of constant faith, always in the background with affection, tea, and biscuits. Thanks to you all: Caroline Smith, Anna Lawrence, Steph Vidal-Hall, Elisabeth Charis, Rhoda Greaves, Bart Bennett, Justin David, Nina Black, Esther Moir, Lezanne Clannachan, Matt Hodgkinson, Renni Browne, Leslie Goldberg, Julia Bell, Annie Murray, James Hawes, and all the dedicated writers of Oxford Narrative Group; also Julia de Waal, Edmund de Waal, and Alex Myers.

  Thanks also to the scary talents at Leather Lane Writers for your support, your brains, and your dedication to the craft.

  I’m indebted to Venetia Butterfield and the Viking team and to Millicent Bennett at Simon & Schuster US for incisive editorial brilliance. Special thanks and appreciation to Jo Unwin, my wise and clever agent, for being there and taking me forward.

  Thanks to Marcus Gärtner at Rowohlt Verlag in Germany, Melissa van der Wagt at Uitgeverij Cargo in the Netherlands, and Deborah Druba at Editions Kero in France for all their energy and enthusiasm for Leon’s story right from the beginning.

  To my brothers, Conrad and Dean, and sisters, Kim, Tracey, and Karen—can’t put it into words but probably don’t have to. Always.

  Thank you to John for his love and support. And, finally, to my beautiful children, Bethany and Luke, admiration, boundless love, and my profound gratitude for inspiring me to tell Leon’s story.

  Simon & Schuster Reading Group Guide

  My Name Is Leon

  By Kit de Waal

  This reading group guide for My Name Is Leon includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Kit de Waal. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  Set during the race riots of the 1980s, My Name Is Leon tells the story of Leon, a half-black nine-year-old boy who struggles to make sense of his changing world. After his mother suffers a mental breakdown, Leon and his baby brother, Jake, are sent into foster care. Jake—who is white—is soon adopted, and Leon is left wondering why his home life has fallen apart. Meanwhile, at a local garden where Leon likes to ride his bike, racial tensions spark between a West Indian political activist and an aging member of Ireland’s IRA. When life at his new home becomes too much
for Leon to bear, he sets out to find Jake and his mother but comes face-to-face with the ugly realities of inequality and injustice instead. Amid the chaos, Leon and those around him learn that love and tolerance can often be found in the most unlikely places.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  “You’re nice and big for your age. A right little man” (1), the nurse tells Leon when he visits the hospital the day Jake is born. Discuss your first impression of Leon and Carol. Is the nurse right in her assessment that Leon is a “right little man”? Do you think his size changes expectations for his behavior, and does he meet these expectations? Is Carol’s initial behavior in the hospital indicative of what is to come? How so?

  2. On page 23 Leon notes, “things have started to get jangled up at home.” Discuss the ways in which Carol’s depression becomes increasingly apparent from Leon’s point of view. How does Leon attempt to cope with the changes?

  3. Consider the ways in which notions of right and wrong are examined in the novel. Do the adults appear to have a better grasp than Leon of right and wrong in their dealings with Leon and Jake? Consider Carol, Tina, Maureen, Sylvia, Mr. Devlin, and Tufty in your response.

  4. Do you think Carol is a character foil for Maureen? Compare and contrast Leon’s two mothers. Do Maureen’s virtues seem more apparent in light of Carol’s shortcomings? How so?

  5. Revisit the scene beginning on page 58, when Maureen comforts Leon after a bad dream. “You will be all right, Leon. You will be all right” (61) Maureen assures him, insisting that one day he will be reunited with his baby brother. Does this scene act as a hinge for Maureen and Leon’s relationship? Do you think this could be the moment Maureen begins to consider herself as more than a temporary foster mother to Leon? And does Leon begin to trust Maureen after this?

  6. Why do you think Leon enjoys visiting the Rookery Road Allotments? Do the “tidy rows of flowers and vegetables” (98) provide order for a boy whose life is messy and out of his control? Might the fragile plants described as “babies . . . babies [who] need looking after” (120) act as a metaphor for Jake and everything Leon is missing at home?

  7. Do you agree that love is a possible theme of My Name Is Leon? Is love both the undoing of and salvation for these characters? Consider Carol, Leon, Maureen, Mr. Devlin, and Tufty in your response.

  8. Part of what makes My Name Is Leon so memorable is the child narrator. Leon, like all children, both misunderstands situations and simultaneously seems to grasp the complexities of life better than the adults. For example, on page 116 Leon visits Maureen in the hospital and notices that “her mouth is smiling but her eyes are sad.” Discuss other moments in the novel when Leon seems wise beyond his years. Why do you think children notice what adults do not?

  9. “I could be him, Mom. . . .You could come back for me and sometimes, I could be him” (146), Leon cries to Carol. For their broken family, shared memories are the only thing that still unites Sandra, Leon, and Jake. What role do you think memory plays in the novel as a whole? Is it memory that sustains Leon through his heartache?

  10. Sylvia, though less motherly than Maureen, at times offers Leon what he most needs: laughter. Point out a few examples in the novel where Sylvia helps Leon find the humor in the absurd. Why do you think laughter is a good medicine for pain?

  11. Why do you think Leon steals? What significance do the money and items he takes have for him? Do you think the stolen items give Leon a sense of control or order? Consider Leon’s breakdown in the shed with Tufty and Mr. Devlin in your response, paying particular attention to the moment when Leon says, “Everyone steals things from me” (252).

  12. Race plays an important role in My Name Is Leon. Would you characterize some of the characters in the novel as racist? Why or why not? Discuss the ways in which race directly impacts events in the novel, specifically for Leon, Jake, Carol, Mr. Devlin, and Tufty.

  13. What significance does the title have for the story? Why do you think the author emphasizes Leon’s name? Are our names what are central to our identity?

  14. Revisit the moment when Leon last meets Carol, beginning on page 305. In light of the ending, do you understand this scene as a final goodbye between mother and son? Do you think it is pivotal that Carol tells Leon “I still love you” (279)?

  15. How does the final image of Leon rolling a seed between his fingers resonate with you? Leon muses that his seed “will grow up to be a big plant and that plant will have its own seeds to make another plant” (288). What is Leon saying, really? Do you think this image indicates that his life will turn out to be okay?

  A Conversation with Kit de Waal

  1. My Name Is Leon is your first novel. Can you describe the experience of writing this for us? What inspired you to tell Leon’s story?

  Leon was actually a character I wrote in another book. He was a minor character and an adult but he kept appearing on the page and seemed to have a story to tell. I used to think about him all the time. I realized early on what drove him, and thought about his childhood life, and I originally wrote a short story based on his experience. It’s part of the chapter where he loses his brother. However, it wasn’t a successful short story, because it was too big for the container. It had to be written, but to be honest, I was a bit afraid of it; didn’t think I had the talent or the nerve. It’s one of the stories I felt a huge responsibility to get right because of the subject matter and the people involved.

  2. Describe the research that went into the making of this novel. Was it a lot or a little? Did you need to research the race riot scene in particular?

  There was virtually no research involved. I used to write training manuals for foster carers and social workers (in another life); I sit on an adoption panel (a local government board that makes decisions about which children should be adopted and who should adopt them); I was a magistrate (lay judge) for many years; and I have two adopted children. My mother was a also foster carer. As for the riots, in 1981 I was living about a quarter of a mile away from some of the worst riots in the UK. So I think that a lot of the detail came from my personal experience.

  3. Leon is a very convincing child narrator. What was the most challenging aspect of writing from a young boy’s point of view? Why did you decide to tell Leon’s story from his point of view?

  The most challenging aspect was thinking all the time about what is important to a child versus what we as adults notice. For example, sometimes I would literally get out of my chair, squat down, and look at the world from four feet high. What is different? What do I notice about people from that height? Then I tuned into my memories of being with my parents and their friends. Oh the boredom! The conversations that seemed to have no point about people I didn’t know, about subjects I couldn’t care less about, and all the time having to be quiet or having the door shut as soon as things got interesting. I tried to translate that into Leon’s life, and work out what he would be thinking given his circumstances and preoccupations. I also wrote with a picture of Leon (a picture of a child from the Internet) pinned on my screen so I didn’t forget whose story it really was. Lastly, I tried to not use any words that Leon wouldn’t understand or get the gist of. I tried to simplify the language of the book as much as possible. Apart from the psychologist’s report that he sees in the social worker’s bag, the language is made up of words in Leon’s knowledge if not his repertoire. As for telling the story from his point of view, no one else could know what he felt—no one else could tell his story but himself.

  4. As the daughter of a mixed-race couple and the mother of two Native American children, do you feel particularly called to write about race and racial tensions? How do you manage to navigate the complexities of race in your work?

  My children are actually not related by blood. My daughter is Lakota/black/white and my son is Caribbean/white. My husband is Austrian/Dutch/English and I am Caribbean/Irish. I wish I could answer the question about navigating the complexities of race but it’s so second nature—first n
ature—that I hardly realize I’m doing it. In 1960, when I was born, there were virtually no mixed marriages. My siblings and I were “both” and “neither.” We were not part of either immigrant community (Irish or black), or English quite obviously, yet we were part of all of those communities and saw them from the inside and the outside. This belonging and not-belonging actually gives you the ability to articulate, I feel, what it is to be black or white or Irish or neither, because you have an objective eye—when you want it. And, of course, you feel deeply when any of those communities are maligned or suffer racism and exclusion. It is indeed a complex issue and one that’s not become any simpler with time.

  5. Did you draw from your real-life experiences to write about the foster care system?

  Yes, my mother was a foster carer and a childminder. She’s not exactly Maureen and not at all like Sylvia! She did, however, fill our house with children and playmates. There were already five of us and there were at least five other children around throughout my childhood. Our house was a mess of toys and diapers and bottles and sterilizers and bikes and hanging laundry and biscuits and tears and laughter. It wasn’t idyllic, as we were pretty poor and always hungry, but there was something delightful about the ever-changing playmates and chaos.

  6. Do you agree that ultimately My Name Is Leon is a novel about love? Why or why not? If not, what would you name as the major theme(s) of the novel?

  It most definitely is a love story—several love stories. It’s about the love of a mother for her children, the love of two sisters, the love of a stranger for a child, and ultimately the love of one brother for another. It’s also about loss and acceptance. There are many losses in the book: Leon’s parents’ loss; Tufty and Mr. Devlin have both lost children; Maureen and Sylvia have both lost men; Leon’s grandmother loses her son, her life, and her grandson; and, of course, Leon loses his brother, his father, his mother, his belongings, his identity, his school, his bedroom, his toys, his grandmother, his sense of self-determination, his agency.