My Name Is Leon (7 page)

13

When Leon wakes the next morning the house is very quiet. Outside, there is a car running its motor in the avenue and far, far off, he can hear a train on a track. Leon's never been on a train but he knows they can take you all over the country faster than a car. He saw an ad about it. One day, he's going to get on a train and find his mom.

He can hear the trilling of a bird in the tree next door. There are birds that trill and birds that coo and sometimes Leon would make bird noises for Jake and Jake would pull Leon's lips like he was trying to grab the sound before it came out. Jake was always touching something—if it wasn't Leon himself it was his cars and his toys, and when Jake was going to sleep, he would hold on to Leon's fingers. Sometimes, thinking about Jake makes Leon feel sick.

Even before he opens his eyes, he can tell that Maureen is still asleep because his room is above the kitchen and the first thing she does in the morning is make a cup of coffee. She calls
it “witch's brew” and once she let Leon taste it and he agrees with her. She has to put three sugars in to make it taste nice.

But the reason Maureen is still in bed is that there is nothing to get up for. Jake used to wake them up every morning and, without Jake, Maureen has been staying in bed later and later. She says it's because of her chest but Leon knows what it really is. The empty sound in the house is louder than Jake crying for his bottle. It's louder than his laugh. Louder than his baby drums. And if Leon turns round and looks at Jake's cot in the corner of the room, he knows that he will get angry with Maureen, so he picks at a scratch in the wallpaper and puts the pieces in his mouth. They taste of fish sticks.

Leon goes downstairs and still Maureen is in her room. He makes some Weetabix and eats it in front of the TV with the sound down low. He has the room to himself and he can watch what he wants, he doesn't have to have the baby programs on and Jake isn't screaming or trying to pull his hair. He makes some more Weetabix and sprinkles it with masses of sugar. Then he eats three of Jake's special yogurts without bits in. Maureen comes down and tells him to clear up his mess but when he goes into the kitchen she grabs him and snuggles him until he wants to cry.

“Right, mister,” she says as she tidies up, “what's me and you doing on a miserable Saturday?”

Leon shrugs.

“We got that
Dumbo
video for later,” she says, “and I've got some shopping to do but that won't take long. Shame it's raining.”

Maureen stands in the doorway with her special pink hearts mug of coffee.

“Tell you what, we'll go for a little bus ride,” she says. “We'll go and see Sylvia. Haven't seen her for ages.”

Maureen's sister lives very far away and they have to take two buses. The first one stops on a busy road where there are lots of shops and too many people. Maureen holds his hand tight and
people will think that Maureen is his mom. She's fat and her hair is too orange and he doesn't want anyone to think that his mom isn't beautiful, so he tries to get his hand back and put it in his pocket.

Maureen keeps stopping to look in shopwindows and saying how expensive everything is. The only good shop has lots of toys in the window—
Clash of the Titans
figures with Charon and Calibos—but Maureen won't wait, because they have to find the second bus and that takes forever. They pass factories and shops and enormous houses that are broken down and boarded up. Eventually, they get off the bus and stand at the bottom of a steep hill. Maureen looks up to the very top, shakes her head, and takes a deep breath.

“Here goes,” she says.

She starts slowly, stopping every few steps and holding on to gates and grasping at hedges because she can't breathe. She tells Leon to carry her shopping bag and she shuffles along the pavement with one hand on her chest and the other swinging in the air. She has the same face as when she cries and Leon hopes she won't start until she gets where they're going. They take ages to get to the top and walk down the path to the bungalow.

Sylvia gasps when she opens the door.

“What on earth? Maureen! Get in here.”

She helps Maureen inside.

Maureen can't speak and tell anyone what's wrong, so Sylvia gets her a glass of water.

“What happened?” she says again, lodging a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and feeling Maureen's forehead. Leon has seen Sylvia once before, when she came for Christmas dinner. She smoked all the time and didn't say one word to Leon. She didn't even bring him or Jake a present. She doesn't look like Maureen. She's very skinny and she has dark purple hair that looks like it's leaked onto her skin. She has long nails that match her lipstick
and black tights with little holes all over them. She's wearing the same shoes that Carol wore once when she went out at Christmas with Tina. But if you added Tina's age and Carol's age together they still wouldn't be as old as Sylvia. She turns suddenly to Leon and points the cigarette at him.

“Did you see what happened?”

Leon shakes his head and sits next to Maureen, who pats him on his back.

“It's all right, Leon, love,” she whispers. “She's not blaming you.”

“Have you had a turn, Mo?” Sylvia asks.

“Got a tight chest, that's all. Got a sort of wheezing rattle or something every time I try and do anything.”

Maureen sips the water and makes an ugly face.

“Coffee, Sylvia, if you don't mind. Three sugars.”

“It'll be that sugar that's got you wheezing, if you ask me.”

Sylvia goes to the kitchen and Maureen winks at Leon.

“She's all right, is Sylvie. Once you've known her fifty years.”

Leon plays on the floor with his Action Man while the horse racing is on the TV. Maureen and Sylvia spend the day laughing and sometimes Maureen can't breathe because she thinks the joke is so funny.

“Remember Janet? Janet Blythe? Curvature of the spine with that funny nose?” says Sylvia.

“Yeah.”

“She's got married to Gordon.”

“Gordon Gordon? We talking about the same Gordon?”

“Yeah, Gordon. Goldfish Gordon with the lips.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. I can't believe it.”

“Imagine their kids.”

“They're too old for kids, Sylvia.”

“I know but imagine.”

Then Sylvia makes an ugly face, pulling her lips down and shoving her bottom teeth out, and Maureen has to lie on the sofa and keeps saying “Don't. Don't.”

Even though Leon takes his Action Man, it's very boring at Sylvia's house. All they do is talk about the olden days when they were young and about all Sylvia's boyfriends and different people they know and who is married and who is separated and who is playing around.

Sylvia takes a photo album out and tells Leon to sit between her and Maureen.

“Wait till you see our Mo in some of these,” she says.

The album is heavy on his legs and he has to put his feet up on tiptoe to stop it falling to the floor.

Sylvia turns the pages while Maureen wheezes next to him.

“There she is.”

Sylvia points to a black-and-white picture of two girls in tight polka-dot dresses and funny hair. He can't see their faces because it's all blurred.

“That's her. What do you think?”

Sylvia keeps nudging him but he doesn't know what to say because it doesn't look like Maureen. It just looks like an old film from the Second World War.

“Look at this one,” Sylvia says, turning another page, and Maureen gasps.

“God, I haven't seen that before. Where did you find that? Where was it taken? Southend?”

“Not Southend, Mo. That was when we went to the beach with Percy and Bob.”

“It's Southend, Sylv.”

Sylvia takes the photograph out and points at the back.

“What does that say? Morton's Holiday Park, Hastings, June 1949.”

“Bloody hell. I'm skinny there.”

“And look at me!” Sylvia is laughing. “I look like a bloody tart with my tits out like that.”

Maureen frowns at Sylvia and looks at Leon.

“She needs a swear box, doesn't she, Leon?”

But Sylvia is turning pages and paying no attention and this goes on for ages, taking the photographs out and reading the address on the back and talking about where they were taken and where they lived and who is thin and who is fat and who is still alive and who is dead and who was handsome and who's got no teeth now. It goes on and on until they tell Leon he can put the TV on and see if there's a soccer match to watch.

Then, when they think he isn't listening, they start whispering. Maureen talks about Carol and tells Sylvia all over again what she's already told her on the phone. She tells her about Jake leaving and how upset she was and how Leon was grinding his teeth and she tells Sylvia about Carol not coming for them and Sylvia smokes and nods and shakes her head, saying things like “You wouldn't believe it” or “Never” like she hasn't heard it before.

Leon asks if he can go to the toilet.

“It's down the hallway, love,” says Maureen. In Sylvia's bungalow there are no stairs, just a long corridor with bedrooms and a bathroom. Leon opens all the doors one by one. One bedroom is decorated in pale blue with a frilly bedspread and matching curtains like a princess lives there. Sylvia's too old to be a princess but it smells of her fusty, old perfume. The other bedrooms have single beds with pink carpet, then right by the bathroom there is a tall cupboard with sheets and pillowcases and towels and cardboard boxes. On the way back from the toilet he passes a door that leads to the garden. The key's in the lock, so he turns it and goes outside, walking slowly, looking right and left. Some people have dogs in their garden.

But there's no dog, just a square patch of grass and a green
plastic tub of yellow flowers. Sylvia's underwear is on the line and it's the same color as her bedspread.

Maureen and Sylvia are talking; they chirp like birds when they're together. He goes quietly up to the sitting-room window but he can't see anything through the net curtains.

“Social workers are a waste of space if you ask me, Mo.”

“Some of them.”

“I can't stand them. Had my fill of that bunch when I worked in that home. Going out and looking after people is one thing. Having them in your own house is another, Mo. You've got social workers in and out with all them bloody visits, checking up on you, trying to catch you out. They come in for coffee and spend half the day talking about themselves. If I want friends, I'll make my own. And I don't know why you're still bothering at your age.”

“I'm good at it. Anyway, it's for the kids.”

“That one will get adopted, won't he, what's his name again?”

“Leon. Not a chance. That's what they say.”

“Well, all right, it's a shame for him, but you're still running yourself ragged, that's all I know.”

Leon drops down by the window ledge and goes back inside. He locks the door and puts the key in his pocket. When he goes back into Sylvia's living room, they both shut up.

“Washed your hands?” says Maureen.

Leon nods.

Maureen struggles up onto her feet.

Sylvia hugs her and grips her shoulders.

“Promise me, Mo. The doctor.”

“I will, Sylv.”

“I know what you're like.”

“No, I will, really. I haven't felt right for a few weeks.”

“Promise me.”

“Yes, I will. Tomorrow.”

“Sunday?”

“Monday then.”

“Swear it, because we've been here before and you forget all about it.”

“I swear, yes. Leon will remind me, won't you, love?”

Leon nods and Sylvia pokes him in the back.

“You make bloody sure. If you don't and anything happens to her, you'll be sorry.”

The next day, Maureen doesn't get
up and she lets Leon make her witch's brew and toast. He is careful with the brew because he has to boil the kettle and stand on a chair to make sure it all goes into the mug. Then he makes the toast and puts apricot jam and butter on it and then puts it all on a tray. He carries it all the way upstairs and into her room. Maureen eases herself up in bed and smooths the blankets on her lap. She takes the tray off Leon and shakes her head.

“You are a star, you are, Leon. My best and lovely boy. Can't believe you made this all by yourself. Nine years old and we've already got a chef in the house.”

She points everything out.

“Toast, jam, little plate, coffee in my special mug, and not a single drip on the tray. Good boy. You've got a job for life, you know that, don't you?”

Leon smiles and she takes his hand.

“It will be all right, love. You and me together. We'll be all right and you can stay with Auntie Maureen for the foreseeable as far as I'm concerned. You're not to worry.”

“You have to go to the doctor,” says Leon. “Tomorrow you have to go.”

“Yes, yes. See how I'm feeling in the morning.”

But Leon can hear the crackling sound that comes from her throat like a cough that won't come out. And her face is the same color as the sheets. He can tell when Maureen's trying to be happy and when she's worried and he knows now why Sylvia kept making her promise.

14

“Leon! Leon!”

Maureen has had her no-nonsense voice on all day. Even before Leon was properly awake she was using it, talking on the phone in her bedroom and saying bad things about his mother. Again. Leon heard her.

“She must have got a bloody surprise when she called Social Services. She had two when she took off. Now there's just the one and he's got quite a temper when he's roused. No wonder, life he's had. She's been sick apparently, so the social worker said. Sick, in and out of institutions. Yeah, yeah, somewhere up north, then Bristol and God knows where else. Well, I don't know, some sort of breakdown. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd have to be pretty sick to keep me from my kids, know what I mean?”

But Leon doesn't understand why Maureen should be talking about his mother all of a sudden. She's never even met her. Leon's
the only one who really knows what Carol's like and even he hasn't seen her for a long, long time.

“Leon! Come down here, I said!”

He's nearly as tall as Maureen and looking her straight in the eye.

“Come on. Someone's coming to see you today.”

“Who?”

Maureen prods him all the way to the kitchen and tells him to wash his hands while she watches.

“Properly, Leon. I'm standing right here.”

She folds her arms and, as she does, Leon sees the softness creep back into her face.

“Come on, love. Don't take all day. You're having a visitor. I wasn't sure whether or not she'd come, so I haven't said anything until now. We've been here before, haven't we? Her saying she's coming and then not coming, eh? But she's on her way apparently, so look sharp.”

Leon says nothing. Maureen often says nice things and nasty things both at the same time. She passes him the towel and while he dries his hands she puts her hand to his cheek.

“Your mom's been very ill, love. And it's been a long time, hasn't it? Nearly a year and that's forever at your age. So just take it slow with her, all right? She might be, well . . . different, you know? Not like you remember, all right?”

Leon feels sick but he can't tell Maureen because then she might say he can't see his mom.

“Want a Kit Kat?” she says.

He nods.

“Go for a pee first. You know what you're like if you get excited. Toilet first and then have a Kit Kat.”

They wait together by the window. It's the sort of day where it never gets properly bright. It's not raining but the pavement
is wet and looks like dirty metal in the misty light. Maureen is wheezing behind him, holding the net curtain out of the way.

“These need a good soak in the bath,” she says. “We'll take them all down tomorrow. Wipe these sills as well. Want to earn some pocket money, Leon?”

Maureen always talks when he's trying to concentrate. Suddenly a sports car pulls into the road, slows down, and stops right outside Maureen's house.

“This is it,” she says and she lets the curtain drop.

Leon shirks Maureen's hand from his shoulder. Inside the sports car are Carol and a man. The man is white, so he knows his dad hasn't come but it doesn't look like Jake's dad, either. Leon and Maureen both go and sit on the sofa. They're not speaking. Leon is waiting for the bell to ring and Maureen is waiting to tell him to answer the door. It takes ages. Why won't she come inside? Why hasn't she come for him? Maybe she will drive away and Leon will never see her again. Lots and lots of words, most of them bad, come into his mouth and Leon has to swallow them down as usual. She's not coming in and, anyway, he hates her. Leon gets up and starts towards the back door.

“Wait!” Maureen whispers.

He hears a car door slam, then another. He rushes to the front door and opens it and she's there, honestly, really, truly there, walking down the garden path toward him. The man's with her, a few steps behind, walking with his hands in his pockets. Carol is smiling but she's crying as well and Leon wants to run to her to make her better but before he can move she seems to crumple down on to her knees and the man catches her under her arms and helps her up.

“Thank you. I'm all right. I'm all right. I want to go on my own.”

She puts her arms out and Leon walks slowly in case he
makes her collapse again. She wipes her sleeve across her face before she kisses him. She's trying to say something but nothing comes out. Leon is glad she's crying because now Maureen will know that she cares.

“Come in, love!” shouts Maureen from the doorway. “Come in and bring your friend.”

The man shakes his head and starts walking back to his car.

“Be back in a bit, Carol, love. You all right?”

Carol waves him away and they all go inside and sit on the sofa. Carol kisses Leon again, much too hard, and Leon decides not to say anything just in case it comes out wrong or he starts to cry as well.

“How's my little boy?” Carol says but she isn't looking at him. She's trying to find her cigarettes. She always does this and Leon has to take the bag and look for her. He tries to take the bag off her but she snatches it away and he sees Maureen frown. He knows that later Maureen will be on the phone to her sister saying bad things about Carol, about her crying and smoking and coming with a man. So he sits close to his mom because he belongs to her and she belongs to him.

“I've got something in here for you,” Carol says. “I've bought this for you.”

It's a pencil-and-pen set in a wooden box. It looks like it belongs to a teacher or a professor.

“I didn't get a chance to wrap it, Leon, love. Do you like it?” Carol has her cigarette poised at her lips, her hand frozen like she can't continue until he says yes.

“Yes.”

“Good.” She squeezes the lighter and then blows the smoke out really hard.

When Carol starts speaking, Leon can see how she's changed. Her teeth and her fingers are yellowy brown like mustard and her
cheeks go in like a skeleton. And she smells different. She keeps putting the cigarette in her mouth and leaving it a long, long time and then when she talks all the ash drops off the end and wisps of smoke curl around her words.

“You all right?” she asks and she nods to tell him what the answer should be.

Maureen brings in two cups of coffee.

“There you go, two sugars.”

Carol takes the cup and Leon sees it shake in her hand.

“Can't control things these days,” she says, trying to laugh. “Not as bad as I was though. Not by a long shot. I never knew nothing about nothing,” she says. “I was so ill I couldn't tell you my own name.”

Maureen shakes her head.

“They said I had that postpartum depression when I had my baby. My mom was the same when she had me and they hospitalized her. They gave you electric-shock treatment in them days.”

Leon watches her trying to hold the cup with two hands and smoke her cigarette at the same time.

“Then I lost touch with Tony, that's Jake's dad. I thought he was the one, I really did. And, anyway, I just went to pieces. No one's fault. Took me months to get better. I was in the hospital for a bit and then they gave me a room in the Maybird Center.”

“Maybird Center?” asks Maureen.

“There's two on-site social workers round the clock. It was so noisy I felt like I was going round the bend, so I moved out. Thought it was best for everyone if I stayed clear, you know, get myself straight, and I'm getting there. I am. But when I got in touch with the Social they said they'd given my baby away. Broke my heart.”

They are all quiet.

“They took my baby,” she says and starts to cry again so that her coffee shakes in the cup. “My baby.”

Maureen puts her hand on Carol's and squeezes.

“Leon took it very badly too, Carol,” says Maureen.

Leon wants to tell Maureen to mind her own business. She should leave him and his mom to be alone. Carol sniffs.

“I don't know what to do. It's one step forward and then I can't cope.”

Maureen takes the cup out of Carol's hand and gives her a tissue to wipe her tears. Leon gets a biscuit.

“Leon's missed you, love. Haven't you, Leon?” Maureen says with a fake voice.

Leon says nothing.

“He's hoping you can get back on your feet. He's doing well at school but we've had one or two setbacks with meeting his targets, nothing serious but it's been hard on him. Hasn't it, Leon?”

“No.”

Maureen shakes her head.

“Are you moving back here now then, Carol? Now you're a bit better?”

His mom isn't listening. She is staring at the dead eye of the television. She looks like she's reading the paper, because her lips are moving. Maureen and Leon look at each other because neither of them knows what to say. Eventually Carol finds her words.

“It was the best day of my life when I found Alan. That's who brought me. He's dead good to me. Runs his own business. Pool hall.” She pats Leon twice on his jeans.

“Wants us all to go out to the seaside. We can go in his sports car. You love cars, don't you? He said he's going to take you on the bumper cars. Would you like that?”

Leon doesn't say anything. He doesn't want to share his mom
all the time. He doesn't want to share his mom with Maureen. He doesn't want to share his mom with Alan.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I'm trying, that's the point. I'm aware of my issues and behaviors.”

She speaks like she's just learned some new words.

“I'm addressing things. Trying. I've got to take it slow. I can only come when Alan can bring me in his car cuz I'm not very good on the bus. Makes me ill.”

Leon sees Maureen raise an eyebrow and fold her arms.

“Makes us all ill, love,” she says. “Anyway, would you like to see Leon's bedroom? He's been collecting soccer cards.”

She motions to Leon to stand up.

“You lead the way for your mom, Leon.”

Leon helps Carol up and takes her to his bedroom. It's funny having her in his room. She doesn't know where to sit.

“It's nice,” she says. She looks at his posters on the wall and then she looks out of the window.

“I wonder what time it is,” she says.

She looks at the soccer cards he's been collecting and sticking on his chart. She keeps saying “that's nice” and “lovely” and she's pleased it's so neat and tidy.

“You like everything in its proper place. You used to be good at organizing and making things nice. I do remember, you know, Leon. I remember you taking care of me.”

She bends her head to his and their foreheads touch. She puts her hands on his cheeks and moves them slowly around his neck, drawing him in, but then suddenly she draws back and takes a deep breath.

“Is it warm in here or is it me?” she says.

She opens his wardrobe and stares at his clothes like she's counting them. She fiddles with the knob on the door and then notices the certificate he got from school for never missing a day
for a whole term and she says she can't believe how big his feet have become.

“They're enormous, Leon. You're going to be tall like my dad. He was six feet four and—”

She catches sight of the picture of Jake on the white carpet and crumples down on his bedroom floor.

“Mom, Mom!” Leon shouts but she is rocking to and fro with her hand outstretched toward the photo. Leon runs downstairs to tell Maureen to come and help him get her up. They sit her on the bed and she starts crying again, saying, “Oooh, oh.”

Maureen has a different voice when she tells her to calm down.

“You're frightening him, Carol. Pull yourself together.”

Carol goes to light a cigarette.

“I don't allow smoking upstairs, neither.”

Maureen helps Carol up and takes her arm.

“Come on, up you come. We'll go down together. Me and Leon will help you.”

They sit her on the sofa.

“Can I have that photo of my baby?” she says. “It's his birthday next week. And I haven't got a photograph of him. No one's even given me a photograph.”

Maureen makes a funny face like she's trying to find the right words to explain.

“Er, no, Carol. No, you cannot. That picture was taken by me for Leon. Paid for by me. He hasn't got much else, has he? He's not at home with you where he should be and he hasn't got his brother, which he's finding bloody hard if you don't mind me saying.”

Maureen folds her arms like she's finished but she hasn't.

“And you say you're not well. That's also hard for a little nine-year-old. I know because he lives with me and I see it.”

Carol stands up suddenly.

“He's falling behind at school. Hasn't made any friends, have you, Leon? And he's starting to get light-fingered. I'd be worried if he was mine.”

Carol draws the net curtain back and peers through the glass.

“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.