Kit de Waal: My Name Is Leon

Her baby is big and wobbly and his name suits him. Bobby. Wobbly Bobby. His head is too big for his body and when Leon plays with him, he always gets some of Bobby’s dribble on his hand. Bobby’s Wobbly Dribble. Leon’s brother won’t be like Bobby and just suck on his plastic toys all day and get his bib soaking wet. He won’t topple over on the sofa under the weight of his big head and just stay there till someone moves him. Leon always sits Bobby up but then Bobby thinks it’s a game and keeps on doing it.

Bobby loves Leon. He can’t talk and, anyway, he always has a pacifier in his mouth but as soon as Leon walks in the door, Bobby wobbles across the carpet and holds Leon’s legs. Then he puts out his arms for Leon to pick him up. When Leon’s brother is older they’re going to play together, soldiers and Action Man. They’re going to both have machine guns and run all over the house shooting at targets. Bobby can watch.

Tina’s house always has a window open and smells of baby lotion. Tina looks a bit like a baby herself because she’s got a round face with puffy cheeks and round eyes that bulge. She makes her hair different colors all the time but she’s never happy with it and Carol keeps telling her to go blond.

Tina always says, “If I had your face, Carol, it wouldn’t matter so much,” and Leon thinks she’s right.

Tina has a leather sofa that is cold and slippery on Leon’s legs and a sheepskin rug in front of the gas fire and a massive TV. She doesn’t let Leon call her “Tina,” like he calls his mom “Carol.” He has to call her “Auntie Tina” and he has to call Carol “Mom” because she says children have to have respect. And she doesn’t let Leon eat in front of the TV. He has to sit at a wooden table in the kitchen where there isn’t much room because she has a big fridge-freezer with ice cream in it. Bobby sits in his high chair smiling at Leon and Tina puts two scoops in Leon’s bowl and one for Bobby. Leon’s brother will probably only get half a scoop because he’ll be the smallest.

Sometimes, Tina’s boyfriend comes, but when he sees Leon he always says, “Again?” and Tina says, “I know.”

The first day when Carol brings the baby home, Tina and Leon and Bobby are waiting by the door. Carol holds the basket carefully with both hands and walks in whispering, “He’s just gone to sleep.”

She puts the baby on the floor in the living room and Leon tiptoes over. The baby has grown and his face looks different. He’s wearing a new outfit in pale blue with a matching hat and he has a yellow fluffy blanket over his legs. Tina and Bobby go home and Carol and Leon sit on the carpet and watch the baby. They watch the baby turn his head and open his lips. They watch the baby move one of his miniature hands and when the baby yawns they both open their mouths and yawn with him.

Carol tilts her head.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” she says.

“Yes.”

Leon and Carol lean back against the sofa and hold hands.

“Aren’t we lucky?” she says.

All that day and the next day, the baby is like the television. Leon can’t stop watching him and all his baby movements. He hardly cries and when he does it sounds like a little kitten or a puppy. He watches Carol change the baby on a special plastic mat that’s got rocking horses on it. The baby has got a really small willy but big balls. Leon hopes the baby’s willy will catch up. Babies’ poo is a funny color — it’s not brown, it’s greeny yellow—and Carol has to wipe all the poo off with special new baby lotion. Carol and Leon bathe the baby together. Carol holds him in a few inches of water and Leon splashes his belly and his bum. The baby’s got a special white towel all to himself and when he’s wrapped in it, Leon thinks he looks like the Baby Jesus in his manger. Maybe that’s why his mom bought him Moses’s basket, because he’s come from God.

The baby blinks slowly and stares at Leon like he’s trying to work out who he is.

“I’m your brother,” says Leon. “Big brother.”

The baby doesn’t say anything back.

“Big. Brother,” says Leon. “My. Name. Is. Leon. I am eight and three-quarters. I am a boy.”

The baby stretches himself out to say he understands.

Leon tells everybody at school abouthis new brother. His teacher says he can tell the class, so Leon stands up after assembly.

“I’ve got a new baby brother. He’s really small and he sleeps nearly all the time. That’s normal because he’s concentrating on growing. My mom says all babies are different, some sleep and some cry. She said that when I was a baby I was as good as gold except when I was hungry. I’m the one in charge of my baby when Mom’s not there. When the baby was born he had a funny-shaped head but now his head has gone round again.”

Everyone claps and then Leon draws a picture and takes it home. His mom puts it on the fridge with a magnet next to a photograph that Tina took at the hospital.

After a few weeks, Carol says Leon can’t go to school because it’s too wet and rainy. That means Leon can play all day and put the television on and make toast if he’s hungry. Carol leaves him in charge when she goes to the phone booth and when she comes back she’s out of breath and asks him if the baby’s all right. Leon would never let anything happen to the baby, so she worries for nothing.

When Tina comes round she knocks on the door and then lets herself in with a key. She always, always says the same thing—“Cal? It’s me, Tina. Only Tina”—and when Leon was little he thought that “Only Tina” was her name. She brings loads and loads of clothes from Bobby and a bagful of toys. Some of the toys are quite good, even though they are for little kids, and Leon hides the best ones in his room.

Tina and his mom are in the kitchen.

“You still look tired, Cal. Is the baby keeping you up?”

Tina sounds like the nurse at the hospital, a little bit bossy. Carol starts crying. She’s always crying these days.

“It’s not like last time. I just feel sort of down, you know. I’m all right, it’s just things getting on top of me.”

Tina is saying “Ssshh” all the time and then he can hear her making a cup of tea. Sometimes when Tina comes to Leon’s house she does the washing up as well and makes him beans on toast.

“Get yourself to the doctor, Cal. Honest, you’ve got to.”

“I will, I will.”

“You’ve got Leon to think of as well as the baby.”

“Leon’s all right,” Carol says with a sniff. “He’s a good kid, just gets on with it. He loves the baby, he really does, but everything else goes over his head. All he thinks about is guns and cars.”

“You eating?”

“Byron came round every day when Leon was a baby. He used to do all the cooking. He was great with Leon as well. Gave me a bit of a break.”

Leon can hear Tina running the faucet and moving the dishes into the sink.

“If it was me, Cal, I’d see the doctor.”

“Then when he went inside and I got depressed, they wanted me to go to some bloody center twice a week. Me with a baby at home, feeling like shit. Feeling like this.”

“I’ll come with you if you like. Bobby’s in day care every morning now. We could go first thing.”

“Them pills gave me nightmares as well.”

“You need something, Cal.”

“I know.”

Later, when Leon’s in bed, Carol comes into his room.

“I’ve just got him off to sleep,” she says and sits down. “Did he wake you up?”

“I can’t sleep, Mom.”

“Try,” she says.

“I can’t. Can I have a story?”

Carol says nothing for a few moments and he thinks she might say no or that she’s too tired but she takes a deep breath and starts.