Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

“A queen, you mean,” says Sylvia and they all say, “Yes, a queen,” and it goes quiet in the room until Sylvia stands up.

“We’ve got a lot to do. Next meeting at…”

“Mine,” says Sue and they all get up with their handbags and magazines and bits of pastry and cake. Sylvia’s list is still on the sofa. Leon can see it from where he sits in the kitchen. Her pen is falling between the cushions on the sofa and he hopes the ink will leak out and leave a stain. There is a jumbled-up mess at the front door as they all start to leave at the same time. Leon slips off his chair, skirts the sofa, picks up the paper, tucks it in his pocket, and tries to slip past. But they see him. Some pat his head or cheek and say “Bless him” or “Little love.”

He goes to his room and sits on the bed. He reads Sylvia’s list. Food, names, food, names, food, names. He folds the paper in half and in half until it’s a heavy little square that will fit in his pencil case.

Because there’s no school, Sylvia lets him stay up to watch the ten o’clock news. It’s always boring and Leon doesn’t really listen but at least he’s not in bed. When Lady Diana comes on, Sylvia always turns up the volume.

“Look at that dress,” she says. “Red. It’s a brave blonde that wears red.”

Suddenly, she jerks forward and covers her mouth.

“Oh my God! Carpenter Road!”

She runs to the window and pulls the curtains apart. She opens the door and looks up and down the road. Leon follows her. There are other people on the street with their arms folded, clustering together in little knots, walking up and down. An ambulance rushes past and then a fire engine, then a police car. Then another police car but this one stops and people walk over to it.

Leon stands on Sylvia’s doorstep. There is the smell of a bonfire in the air and a hushed, exciting feeling. He knows where Sylvia’s purse is. He backs away from the door and opens her bag. Her purse has a clasp at the top that he eases apart. There is a ten-pound note and some coins. He is quiet and silent and looks at the note and thinks what it would be like to have it. He would get on a train and find his mom. He would make a taxi take him there. And then they would both go and get Jake. He would buy some more cream soda for Tufty. He takes it out and feels it, soft and crinkly in his hands. He could fold it up with Sylvia’s list and put it in his pencil case or inside his pillowcase. He stares at the ten-pound note then puts it back. He takes a twenty-pence piece and two tens. He leaves lots of other coins in the purse so she won’t notice. He doesn’t want them to jingle together in his pocket, so he clutches them in his hand, tight. He goes back to the door just as Sylvia is coming back in.

“Carpenter Road,” she says. “They’re running around breaking windows and robbing on Carpenter Road. Carpenter Road. Would you believe it? There’s police down there by the dozen. There’s two shops on fire. It’s like Beirut, by all accounts.”

She sits on the settee and lights a cigarette.

“Too bloody close for comfort.”

Leon says nothing and she turns to look at him.

“It’s all right, love. Don’t worry. Come here.”

She holds both of his fists in her hands. Leon feels the coins digging into his palm.

“You pay no attention. There’s nothing happening on this street. We’re safe here. Now you go along to bed.”

Leon pulls his hands away quickly and goes to his room. He tucks the coins in his school shoes and puts them under the bed. He smells the tang of metal on his hands.

Leon’s got a new Batman T-shirt and new white sneakers with black laces. If he wears them to the allotment they might get dirty but if he doesn’t wear them no one will see them. Sylvia wants him to wear shorts because it’s June but the only ones that he likes are the denim ones that Tufty has.

“Can I cut these up?” he says, showing her his jeans.

Sylvia squints her eyes.

“What?”

“I’ve seen other boys with cut-up shorts. Can I do it?”

Sylvia holds the jeans against him.

“Bit too tall for them anyway, aren’t you? Hang on.”

She takes the scissors from the kitchen drawer and cuts the legs off. She folds the ends over and makes them look neat but Leon will unroll them as soon as he gets outside.

“That suit you?” she says, holding them up.

He dashes to his room and puts them on. Now that he’s got his Batman T-shirt, his white sneakers, and his Tufty shorts, he looks really old, maybe even fifteen.

“Ooh, get you,” says Sylvia and watches him open the back door and get on his bike.

“What’s their names then, these friends of yours?”

“Who?” says Leon.

“These kids from the park. Why don’t you get them to call for you?”

Leon shrugs and squeezes the brakes.

“I could bring you a picnic if you like.”

Leon opens the gate to the entry.

“Bet you’d rather have your nails dipped in acid,” she says as he pushes off. “Don’t be late!”

He can hear that she’s smiling.

Leon has forty pence in his pocket and stops at the paper shop. It’s not like the paper shop where Maureen used to live, because that only sold papers and sweets and cigarettes. It’s a paper shop with toilet rolls and tins of custard and soap powder and cabbages out on the pavement and if Sylvia runs out of anything she sends Leon to get it from the paper shop.

Sometimes it’s an old Pakistani man who serves and sometimes it’s a young one. The young one never looks up from the newspaper but the old man sometimes follows Leon around and asks him what he’s looking for.

“Can I have a Curly Wurly, please?” he asks because all the chocolate and sweets are kept high up near the till.

The old man puts out his hand for the money.

“And some Toffos,” says Leon.

“Twenty pence,” says the man.

Leon doesn’t like it when he has to pay first but he gives the man the money and the man gives him his sweets. Then he carries on looking at Leon like he hasn’t paid.

“Did you see my window?” asks the man.

“No,” says Leon. Then he notices that there is a big piece of cardboard in the bottom half of the glass door.

“You didn’t see what happened? People running around smashing up shops and throwing stones. Why are you doing this?”

“I didn’t,” says Leon and he pushes his bike out of the shop. Leon only throws stones over by the fence at the allotment when he’s helping Tufty dig his garden, so the Pakistani man is wrong.

It is just possible to eat the Curly Wurly and ride his bike at the same time. Curly Wurlys are very chewy and last ages but they also melt if you hold them too hard or if you put them in your pocket, so you have to eat them quickly.

He gets off his bike at the gate and wheels it past Mr. Devlin. Mr. Devlin’s made a wigwam with bamboo canes just like Tufty’s and he’s standing next to it with a packet of seeds in his hand. He is swaying from side to side and when he sees Leon he calls him over.

“Come on, come on. Come here! Let me show you something, young man.”

Leon smells sour whiskey on Mr. Devlin’s breath.

Mr. Devlin takes a handful of seeds and lets them drop through his fingers around the base of each bamboo cane, four or five brown seeds in a little heap.

“Push them in, push them in. Don’t just watch them.”

Leon pokes them in with his fingers, each one in its own hole. He squats on the soil so he doesn’t get his new shorts dirty and crabs his way round the wigwams, following Mr. Devlin, who’s not walking straight and talking all the time.

“In São Paulo you have a longer season. That’s the difference. No frosts. Cool nights. Wet. Ha! Soaked to the skin. Stupid boy. No, not stupid. Don’t say that.”