Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

“He used to sneeze five times,” says Leon, “or six. He used to get bubbles in his nose at bath time.”

“Did he? He had that cough that time and I had to take him to the doctor’s in that pouring rain. Remember?”

Leon opens his backpack and takes out Big Red Bear.

“Look,” he says.

“That’s lovely,” she says.

“It’s Jake’s. Maureen gave it to me.”

“Did she buy it?”

“I don’t know. Have you still got the photograph of Jake?”

Carol looks out of the window, left and right, like she’s looking for the man in the sports car.

“Hate these places,” she says. When she sighs, her whole body shakes and the squeezes of Leon’s hand get quick and sharp. She leans against the windowsill and starts knocking her head on the glass.

Leon doesn’t know if he can remember how to do Jake but he has to try and find Jake’s voice in his throat. He makes the wrong noise a couple of times but then it comes.

“Yeeeyyii, yeeeyyii, tatta, tatta.”

Carol looks at him.

“Yeeeyyii, yeeeyyii, tatta, tatta.”

Leon moves his hands like Jake moves his hands when he’s banging a toy in his high chair.

“Leon! Leon! Ta-ta, ta-ta.”

“Is that him?”

“That’s how he said it, Mom. Just like that.”

They hold each other and he can feel her chest heaving and her jolting sobs. Leon has to tell her.

“I could be him, Mom,” he says. “You could come back for me and, sometimes, I could be him.”

In Leon’s dream he’s standing in a cooking pot with white flames licking up the sides. He is slippery with oil and can’t get out. He’s an ogre’s dinner. Then he’s running in bare feet on scorched sand, acres and acres of it in every direction, but there are no hiding places and if he doesn’t keep running, a giant’s foot will come out of the sky to squish him flat. If only there was some water. He’s calling out but his throat is cracked and sore and every time he opens his mouth someone says no. So he says no back and they say no louder, so he says no and no and no and then Sylvia wakes him up.

It’s dark outside and all the lights are on.

“Come on, come on,” Sylvia says, making him sit up. “Drink this. That’s it. All down.”

She puts her hand on his forehead and his cheek.

“Burning up,” she says. “No wonder you’re making such a racket.”

He gulps the water down and throws the quilt off.

“I don’t feel well.”

“No, love,” she says. “Don’t look it neither. I’m going to get you some more water. You stay there.”

Leon’s back is sticking to the sheets. He tries to open the window but Sylvia catches him and tells him to get back into bed.

“I’ll do that,” she says and when she opens the window a beautiful, cold breeze comes into the room and makes him feel better.

“Now, drink this and take these two pills. Says you’ve got to be twelve on the packet but you’re about the size of a twelve-year-old. Can’t hurt.”

But the pills are lumps of chalk and it takes him forever to swallow them. His throat is raw and his head is hot.

“All right, love. Don’t cry,” Sylvia says and takes his hand. “I think you’ve got the flu, that’s all. Won’t kill you. I expect you’ve got a touch of the miserables as well. No wonder. Come on. Snuggle in now and I’ll help you cool off.”

She slides Leon’s comics off the bedside table and begins to fan him, little puffs of cold air all over his face and back. Sylvia isn’t as nice as Maureen but she is smarter.

“Can you tell me a story?” he asks.

She says nothing for a little while then she sighs.

“I could really do with a cigarette but that won’t help you sleep. All right then. Now let me think.”

She takes so long thinking that Leon thinks that maybe she can’t be a fan and tell stories at the same time and he would rather have the fan, so he says nothing.

Sylvia stops suddenly.

“Here’s one I remember,” she says and starts the fan again.

“Once upon a time there was a man who was peacefully driving down a windy road. Suddenly, a little bunny skipped across the road and the man couldn’t stop. He wasn’t going very fast but he hit the bunny head-on. Smack. The man stopped the car right away and he quickly jumped out of his car to check the scene. There, lying lifeless in the middle of the road, was the Easter bunny. The man cried out, ‘Oh no! I have committed a terrible crime! I have run over the Easter bunny!’ The man started sobbing quite hard. What was he going to do? How could he put it right? And then he heard another car coming. It was a woman in a red convertible.”

“What’s a convertible?” asks Leon.

The fan stops and Sylvia says, “A car with no roof. Do you want me to carry on?”

“Yes,” says Leon, “with the fan as well.”

“Anyway, the woman stopped and asked the man what the problem was. The man explained, ‘I have done something horrible. I have run over the Easter bunny. Now there will be no one to deliver eggs on Easter Sunday. All the children will be sad and it’s all my fault.’ ‘Don’t you worry,’ said the woman and she ran back to her car. A moment later, she came back carrying a spray bottle. She ran over to the bunny lying dead in the road and she sprayed it. The bunny immediately sprang up, ran into the woods, stopped, and waved back at the man and woman. Then it ran another ten feet, stopped, and waved. It then ran another ten feet, stopped, and waved again. It did this over and over and over again until the man and the woman could no longer see the bunny and it disappeared into the woods. When it had gone, the man shook his head, ‘Wow! What is the stuff in that bottle?’ The woman replied, ‘It’s hair restorer. It brings your hair back to life and adds a permanent wave.’ ”

It isn’t a story, it’s a trick.

“Get it?” asks Sylvia. “Hair meaning hare. Hair on your head and hare meaning rabbit. Do you get it?”

She has stopped being a fan now and Leon feels sleepy.

“Is that the end?” he asks.

“Well, no. The rabbit has gone off to have his adventures. Like you’ll have adventures in your life. We all have adventures, some are good and some are not so good. You’re in the not-so-good phase.”

“What else happens to him?”

“That’s enough for one night.”

Sylvia gets up and opens the window a bit wider. She turns the light off and closes the door.

“I’ll come back and check on you in a bit. Sleep time now.”

When Leon wakes up, the sunis shining outside. He’s still too hot but his head has stopped hurting. He gets up and goes to the living room.

Sylvia is watching the TV with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

“Here he is,” she says, smiling. “How’s the soldier?”

Leon goes into the kitchen, gets a drink of water, and sits next to Sylvia.

“I’m hot,” he says. “Do I have to go to school?”

“School? It’s one o’clock, boy. You’ve missed school for today. Here, take another couple of these.”

He swallows another two tablets, nestles down onto the sofa, and closes his eyes. He remembers what Maureen told him about not having bad dreams by thinking of nice things. He tries hard to think about Christmas and his birthday and the presents he might get. He thinks about the Incredible Hulk and he looks down at his chest. One day, if he gets really angry, his chest will grow enormous and he will burst out of his clothes and nobody will be able to stop him doing anything. He thinks about being strong and having powers like Superman or Batman and then he feels Sylvia covering him up with a blanket.

Once, when he was little, he was in the park with his mom and she covered him over with a blanket. He was lying on the grass. He remembers the smell of the earth and the feel of scratchy leaves on his legs. The sky was far away and everything was still and quiet. His mom was singing to him but it was more like a whisper and his dad was there as well. His dad was reading the newspaper and he was leaning against a tree. Leon had a blue and red ball and an Action Man and they left the Action Man at the park and his dad promised to get him a new one. And he did. But that was later. While they were at the park, under the tree, under the blanket, under the white sky, he fell asleep with his mom’s hand on his back, with her song in the air, and when he woke up, he was in his bed and it was nighttime. He wonders if there is another boy in that bed now. He thinks about that boy playing with his toys and using his things and he can feel the anger inside bubbling around and making his chest heave.