Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

“We’ll say goodbye to Jake and then you and me can have a good old cry if we want.”

She’s very hot. Leon tries to sit up. He wants to ask her a question and it’s the same question that he’s tried to ask Salma three or four times but he knows that when he’s asked the question and he gets the answer then everything is going to be worse. And until he asks this question everything will stay the same. But now, because the people are coming for Jake, Leon knows he’s running out of time. He manages to pull back so he can see Maureen’s face. It’s all pink and blotchy and her chest is going up and down. She’s started crying without him.

“Am I going with him?”

Maureen doesn’t say anything right away but she swallows something down. Then when she does start talking she sounds funny and her bottom lip is wet and loose.

“No, pigeon. No. You’re staying with your Auntie Maureen.”

Almost as soon as she says that the bell rings and Maureen gets up. She puts her hand on Leon’s shoulder and squeezes it hard.

Salma and two other people come in. They keep smiling at him and they are all talking at the same time, trying to see who can say the nicest things to him, and considering Jake is asleep upstairs they are all being much too loud. First of all, Maureen brings down the small blue-checked suitcase and gives it to the lady, who gives it to the man, who says he’ll put it straight in the car. Then Maureen goes back upstairs and gets Jake, who’s just waking up. If you let Jake sleep and sleep and sleep without being disturbed he wakes up in a great mood. He starts smiling before he even opens his eyes and the blue middle bit is all sparkly and bright and the black middle bit is dark and shiny. He starts waving and shouting and even when he had his rash he would be laughing about nothing at all. When Leon sees Jake he goes straight over to him and Jake leans out of Maureen’s arms and pulls Leon’s hair.

“Careful, Jake!” the lady says.

“He doesn’t hurt,” says Leon. “He always does it. He wants to play with me.”

The lady doesn’t look at Leon, she only looks at Jake, and her blue eyes are sparkly and bright as well because she’s trying not to cry like Maureen.

Leon uncurls his brother’s fist and kisses it. Jake’s trying to get out of Maureen’s arms and Leon knows that he’s seen his yellow truck on the carpet. Suddenly, Leon’s pants are too tight and he wants to pee and his legs feel bendy and he’s very angry with Maureen. He picks up the yellow truck and gives it to Jake and tries to stand still. Something inside is telling him to run away or to hit the lady but Leon stands still. Everything goes quiet. Maureen hands Jake to the lady and Salma strokes Maureen on the back. The man keeps saying thank you and touching Jake on the top of his head. No one notices when Leon goes into the kitchen. No one notices when he takes the Golden Tin into the garden, throws the plain biscuits over the fence, and stuffs seven chocolate digestives into his pocket. When he goes back inside Salma and Maureen are standing at the door waving.

“Come and wave, love,” says Maureen but Leon walks right past her and up the stairs and into his room. He takes the biscuits out of his pocket and slams them on his chest of drawers. He wants to eat them, all of them, one after another or even together all at the same time, but he doesn’t seem to have any room in his throat or his chest or in his belly.

Leon begins to hum. He clamps his mouth shut but lets the noise squeeze out of his nostrils and between his lips. He hums the music to The Dukes of Hazzard and, while he does it, he pulls all the blankets off his bed. He hums the music to Jake’s baby program and kicks the wardrobe door open and throws all his clothes onto the floor. The lady who took him is in for a surprise if she lets that pacifier drop out. Leon knows all the words to that baby program, so instead of humming he begins to sing. He sings as loud as he can. He shoves and shoves his mattress until it slides off the bed and onto the floor and sings until his throat feels gravelly and sore. He rips his clothes out of his bureau and flings them across the room, singing and singing. He piles a blanket over his head and sits on the mess he’s made and he sings until he lets out every word and all the space comes back into his chest and his belly, until he isn’t angry with Maureen, so that when she opens his door he doesn’t want to hit her.

She doesn’t say anything for a few moments and then she steps over his mattress and closes the curtains.

“Coming down for your tea, love?”

He knows she sees the biscuits that have fallen on the floor. If she tells him off he’ll have to be angry with her again. But she picks her way through the mess, gathers them up, and puts them on his bedside cabinet next to a photo he’s only just noticed. It’s of him and Jake on a cream shag carpet before Jake had his rash. And Maureen has put Jake’s Big Red Bear next to the picture frame.

“You need something to remember your brother by. Jake won’t need Big Red Bear where he’s going. He’ll have lots more.”

Maureen picks up Big Red Bear with its pale blue satin ribbon and tries to snuggle it next to Leon.

She pretends that Big Red Bear can speak and moves it from side to side.

“Time for tea,” says Maureen, trying not to move her lips.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Nor me,” she replies.

Then Maureen kisses him on top of his head, which she has only done once before, when he had a nightmare about drowning. She touches him lightly on his neck-back.

“Come on,” she says in her own voice. “We’ll skip our tea today. Skip tea and go straight to ice cream. We’ll tidy this up later.”

Leon shuffles off the bed and follows Maureen downstairs.

At first Leon thinks he’s in a dream about fighting a dragon. But then Maureen is shaking him and he can’t seem to open his eyes.

“Leon! Leon!”

Somehow he is sitting next to her on the bed, and when he opens his eyes he can see from her face that something’s wrong.

“You’re grinding your teeth again, Leon! It’s four o’clock in the bloody morning. Wake up!”

One side of his face hurts and it feels like he hasn’t been asleep all night. He was fighting an evil monster that was picking up people with his claws and eating them. Blood dripped from the monster’s lips and some of it splashed on Leon and then the monster saw him and started chasing him. Leon ran and ran and then when he couldn’t run any more, he turned round and just when he was about to stab the monster and win, Maureen woke him up.

“Honestly, Leon. I wish you could hear yourself. I’ve never heard nothing like it. Goes right through me. Leon! Don’t go back to sleep! Leon!”

First of all she makes him take a pee even though he doesn’t want to. She stands at the door and the bathroom floor is cold on his bare feet. She tells him to sit down to pee because he’s too tired to stand, so it’s really hard to concentrate on making the pee come out but she won’t let him get off the toilet until he has done it. Halfway through he nearly falls off, so he has to hold on to the sink with one hand. Then the stairs feel wobbly under his legs and he’s grateful when Maureen says he can sit on the kitchen chair and have a biscuit.

“Now where’s this all come from, eh?” she says, filling her spotty mug with boiling water. “As if I didn’t know.”

Leon tries to rest his head on the table but she’s having none of it. She makes him sit up straight like he’s in school and drink his juice. He tries to eat his biscuit but it feels too heavy and it drops on to his lap and onto the floor. Leon is so tired and so angry with Maureen.