My Name Is Leon (3 page)

5

As soon as the summer holidays start, things get jangled up at home. Leon can go to bed whenever he wants and sometimes he can even go to sleep on the sofa because his mom doesn't notice. He can eat whatever he wants but if there's nothing in the fridge and nothing in the cupboard it doesn't really count. He has to look after Jake nearly every day and Carol keeps crying and going to the phone booth, leaving Leon in charge, and once when he picked Jake up, he wriggled so much that he fell on the carpet. He had stopped crying by the time Carol came back but it made Leon feel angry with her and he stole another twenty pence out of her purse. But he could have taken all the money because she doesn't know what's in there.

Early in the morning, just when it's getting light, Jake starts crying and Leon gets up with him. His diaper is always heavy and wet but as soon as Leon changes it, Jake starts smiling and laughing. Jake always wants the same thing for breakfast and now Leon has a good system. It took him a few weeks to get it just
right but now he could tell anyone what to do to look after a baby in the mornings.

Change the diaper (remember to use the white cream or by the second morning the baby's bum is sore). Feed the baby but be careful going downstairs because babies move around in your arms and sometimes they're heavy; if you haven't made the breakfast bottle quickly enough, the baby will start crying again. Put six scoops of baby milk powder in the bottle and fill it with warm water from the kettle. You better taste it to see if it's not too hot. Sometimes if the baby is really hungry, you have to mix in some extra powder and a spoon of sugar. The worst thing is when the baby is sick. That makes a lot of mess and it can take forever to tidy up.

Even Carol doesn't know about the best routine for Jake and sometimes she forgets about him when he's in the high chair and Leon has to take him out. She goes to bed all the time, so Leon has to do everything. When he goes into her room, she's always hidden under the blankets with her pills next to the bed, some in a white bottle and then pink ones that you have to press out of a silver card. He pressed one out once. It looked like a piece of candy but after he licked it he threw it down the toilet.

Then, other times, Carol goes out and leaves him to watch the TV. She puts Jake in the stroller and takes him out for hours and when she comes back she's tired and Jake is crying. She leaves the stroller in the hall and just goes upstairs, talking to herself. Leon has to unfasten Jake's straps and take his baby suit off and feed him and sometimes all the things he has to do make Leon so tired and angry.

It seems like Jake's been crying
for days. If he doesn't stop, Leon will have to go and get some money from Tina. If Tina isn't in then he will have to go to the lady next door who doesn't like
him. He's already looked in Carol's purse but there isn't enough to buy some food for Jake, some diapers for Jake, and some candy for himself. There's no money at all, just some receipts, an old photograph, and an earring. Leon's tipped the whole purse upside down. He's looked between the cushions in the sofa and in the drawers in the kitchen and in the pockets of Carol's coat and everywhere else he can think of.

Jake isn't even wearing a diaper anymore because it smelled terrible and all the new ones are gone. He had to sit Jake on a towel in his basket and put some toys in with him but he can get out now and roll all over the place and looking after Jake is getting much too hard. And they're both hungry all the time these days. Jake has been crying all morning and Carol won't do anything.

Every morning, it's Leon who has to go and get Jake and pick him up and move him around a bit until he stops crying. The way his mom is behaving, you would think she was deaf.

Leon has shaken her and he has begged her and he has pulled at her arms but nothing happens. Even though she's awake she won't talk or eat and she won't get up. That was yesterday and the day before yesterday, and now, today, Leon has got to do something. He goes upstairs again into her bedroom. Pink light sifts through the thin curtains and the air feels heavy and quiet, like someone's holding their breath. One of Carol's hands lies on the sheet. Leon touches it with the tip of one finger. She doesn't move but her papery lips pucker over and over, like she's a goldfish in a bowl.

“Mom?”

Carol turns her head to the wall.

“I'm hungry, Mom.”

He realizes that the whole room smells like Leon's diaper and that his mom has wet the bed again. He opens the window but only a little crack in case Carol gets cold.

If Leon can go to Tina and get some money then nobody needs to know that Carol is ill again. Leon can make her better if someone will give him some money. The last time things were like this he had to go and live with a lady and her husband and their cat and they kept taking him to church and making him sit still and it was horrible, so he will look after Carol and Jake, he will make her some tea and toast, and help her sit up and take her pills, and he will put a clean sheet on her bed and he will pretend. Jake starts crying downstairs, so Leon goes down and gives him a kiss.

“You stay here and play with your toys. Stop crying, Jake.”

He leaves the door on the latch and goes upstairs to the next floor. He rings Tina's bell.

“All right, love?” she says.

“My mom said have you got any money?”

Tina looks along the landing and then over the railings.

“Where is she, Leon?”

“She's asleep but she wants me to go to the shop.”

“Have you been to school today?”

“No, school ended last week. She said have you got a pound?”

Tina keeps looking at him and then she goes into her flat. She comes back with Wobbly Bobby and her handbag and closes the door.

“I'll pop down and see her.”

Leon follows her and hopes his mom is awake and dressed and hopes that Jake has stopped crying. But when Tina walks through the door and he hears the sound she makes, he knows she will find everything out.

She walks into the kitchen and shakes her head.

“Christ,” she says.

She walks into the sitting room and puts her hand to her mouth. She looks at how untidy Leon has been and how he has sat in front of the TV and eaten his cereal by putting his hand
in the box. How he hasn't put Jake's diapers in the trash. How he should have opened the window like Tina does in her house and made everywhere smell of baby lotion. Leon sees what Tina sees. Why didn't he tidy up before he asked her for any money? Tina goes back into the hall.

“Carol? Carol?” she calls. She puts Bobby down in Jake's playpen and then runs up the stairs. Leon follows.

“Bloody hell!”

Tina starts shaking Carol and pulling her arm.

“Cal! Cal!”

She looks at Leon.

“Has she taken something? How long has she been like this? Cal?”

Suddenly Carol starts moaning.

“Leave me alone! Leave me alone!”

Tina starts making little slaps on Carol's face but she won't fight back or even open her eyes. Leon knows because he's been trying for days. Tina takes Leon's hand and backs out of the room. All the time, she's shaking her head and saying “Christ” or “God.”

They go down the stairs together. Tina picks Jake out of his basket and wraps a towel round him. She picks Bobby up as well. She's carrying two babies and she's out of breath.

“Get my bag, Leon. Come with me.”

They go to the phone booth at the end of the block and she makes Leon hold Jake while he stands outside. The door won't shut properly, so he hears everything.

“Ambulance, I think,” she says. Then she waits for a minute and says his mom's address. Then she says they will need to get Social Services as well.

She puts the phone down and then says a number to herself over and over while she's dialing.

“Social Services?” she says.

Tina tries to squeeze the door shut but it won't close.

“There's two children that's been there for a couple of days at least. Yes. Yes. No, it's been going on a while. Yes. An ambulance is coming. Yes. On the next floor up, 164E, upstairs. I don't know, nine, and four or five months, something like that. Carol Rycroft. Yes. Leon and Jake. Jake's the baby. I don't know. No. Terrible. I don't know.”

She listens for ages and then she says, “I'll take them to my house but they can't stay. No, sorry. Can't you send someone around? When? Christ. All right, just one night, then. I haven't got a phone. No. Yeah, 164E first floor, yeah. I'll be there.”

When she comes out she's breathing like she's been running.

“Can you carry him, Leon?” she asks. “If we walk slow?”

Bobby is crying and Jake keeps wriggling but Leon keeps up with Tina, who doesn't walk slowly after all. When they get back to Tina's she puts Jake straight in the bath with Bobby and dresses him in Bobby's clothes. He's still crying but then she gives him a bottle and halfway through he falls asleep.

Tina keeps saying she's sorry and she has no choice. An ambulance lady comes to the door and Tina lets her in.

“We've got someone downstairs with Mom. You've got the children here with you?”

“They are both all right,” she says, pointing to Jake, who is fast asleep, and then to Leon, who is next to her.

“He's nine and Jake is about four months old. I've fed the baby and I was just about to feed Leon. I think he's hungry, aren't you, love?”

Leon wipes his face.

“And a bit worried about your mom, eh?” says the ambulance lady. She squats down in front of Leon and squeezes his arm, then his other arm.

“You've been hungry for a little while, I bet.”

Leon shakes his head. “No, I'm full.”

When they start whispering about his mom, he wants to tell
them that she's kind and nice but they're not listening. The ambulance lady goes over to Jake and when she sees he's asleep she says she's going back downstairs.

After she leaves, Tina makes him beans on toast and he gets into the bath. He puts one of Tina's T-shirts on and he has some potato chips in front of the television.
The Dukes of Hazzard
is on but halfway through Jake starts crying again and Tina puts him on Leon's lap so he can give him a bottle.

“You're a good kid, Leon,” she says. “You don't deserve this.”

“Where's my mom?” he asks.

“She's been taken to the hospital, love. You could see she wasn't well. You should have come and told me. She was like this last week, wasn't she? I could see it in her face when she walked past me. How long's it been going on?”

Leon doesn't know.

“She's really bad this time, love. Worse than I've ever seen. I don't know what will happen.”

But Leon does.

The social workers don't come until the next evening. There are two of them; one has black hair with white underneath like a zebra. They all stay in the kitchen for ages talking about his mom. He can hear Tina telling them everything.

“. . . weeks and weeks, since before the baby was born if I think about it now. She was depressed the first time with Leon but I never knew her then. I think he's been in care a couple of times. She seemed all right before the baby but she's just, you know, not right. I mean, some of the things she does . . . and she dumps the kids at the drop of a hat. With me mostly. And she kept leaving Leon to look after the baby, you know, five minutes here and five minutes there. And he's been missing school.”

No one says anything and then Tina starts all over again, saying the same things, saying bad things about Carol and pretending that Leon wasn't looking after Jake properly.

“She's just got worse without me paying attention,” says Tina. “We had a bit of a row a few weeks back cuz she keeps borrowing money. She never pays it back, either. And I've had those two kids more times than I can count. They're lovely kids, but still. And I just said, you know, enough's enough. She had a right go at me. So I just backed off and I haven't kept a close eye. I used to but I've got my own family to think about. It all got out of hand when the baby's dad finished with her. Tony, I think he's called. Don't know his second name. She took it bad. I mean really bad.”

“What about Leon's father? Is he around?”

“Him? Byron? Not him, he's taken off. Carol said he was supposed to go to court and he couldn't face it. But even when he was around he wasn't much use. He'd come and go as he pleased. He'd be with her for a couple of weeks and then he'd be off. Then he was inside for a bit and as soon as he was out they were arguing all the time. And drinking. Both of them drank. And anyway, when she got pregnant by Tony it all just came to a head.”

Leon sees that Tina has left her handbag on the sofa. He leaves the door open but gets her purse and takes out fifty pence. He puts it in his trousers and puts everything back where it was. He tiptoes back to the door of the kitchen.

“Like I said, I've really tried. I've had them both here on and off for months and, you know, much as I want to help, it's just got to stop. I mean, she's had a breakdown, hasn't she?”

Leon opens the door wide. They all look at him. Social workers have two pretend faces, Pretend Happy and Pretend Sad. They're not supposed to get angry, so they make angry into sad. This time, they're pretending to care about him and Jake and his mom.

“I want to get my things,” he says.

They all look at each other.

The Zebra takes him down to his flat. Tina has given her the key. She looks around the kitchen and opens the fridge. She opens
the back door and sees all the diapers that Leon has thrown outside. She walks slowly upstairs and helps him pack some clothes for Jake and some clothes for himself but he can only take one bag of toys.

“Whatever you can take in that backpack is okay,” she says. “We can come back for the rest another day.”