Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

“This is a story my dad used to tell me.”

“Is it scary?”

“Scary?” Carol shakes her head and smiles. “No, listen. Once upon a time there was a mother with two boys, one was a baby. The oldest boy was very noisy. He had a very loud voice and he used to shout and bang his drum and kick the door and sing at the top of his voice and the mother used to tell him off. ‘Ssssh,’ she would say, ‘you’ll wake the baby.’ And the boy’s teacher would say, ‘Ssssh, we can’t do our lessons.’ And the minister at church would say, ‘Ssssh. We’re in a holy place.’ And the boy felt lonely like nobody loved him. He decided to run away. But when he got to the edge of the village, he saw a big bad wolf coming to eat everyone up. He was too far away to run back and warn everyone, so he opened his mouth as wide as he could and he roared, ‘THERE’S A WOLF COMING!’ And he saved the whole village and his mother and his brother, and nobody ever told him to be quiet again.”

“Is that the end?”

“Yes. They all lived happily ever after. Sleep time now. Snuggle in. School tomorrow, sweetheart,” she says and strokes his forehead.

“Am I sick? I might be sick,” he says.

“No, you’re not sick. Definitely school tomorrow.”

Carol says this every night but it’s been five days since Leon went to school.

“If you don’t go to school you won’t learn anything, Leon. If you don’t learn anything you can’t get a good job and a nice house and lots of toys. You like toys, don’t you? I saw you! I saw those toys you took up to your room! Eh? Eh?”

Carol starts scrabbling her fingers on his chest, making him laugh.

“And anyway, you get bored at home and drive me nuts.”

“I can help with the baby,” Leon says.

“Jake. His name is Jake.”

“You said—”

“It’s his dad’s middle name. Well, I changed Jack to Jake because I like it better. Do you, Leon?”

She kisses him before she turns off the light but Leon doesn’t kiss her back. She promised he could call the baby Bo from The Dukes of Hazzard. Bo’s got a red car and blond hair. His real name is Beauregard Duke and he’s the best one in the whole show. Jake-regard sounds stupid. Leon doesn’t know anyone at school called Jake and no one on TV called Jake. There is a shop on the other side of the highway called “Jake’s Bakes” where they sell pies and fries and when the baby goes to school he’s going to get teased about it. Leon wonders if he can get his mom to change her mind. Jake is the worst name he’s ever heard.

Leon has begun to notice the things that make his mom cry: when Jake makes a lot of noise; when she hasn’t got any money; when she comes back from the phone booth; when Leon asks too many questions; and when she’s staring at Jake.

It’s the third night that Leon and Jake are both sleeping at Tina’s. It keeps happening all the time. Carol takes them up to Tina’s and then she leaves them there for a few days. Last week it was two nights and before that it was three nights and sometimes it feels like they’re never going home. Jake’s basket goes next to Leon’s den bed. Leon watches Jake for a few minutes because he makes special whistling noises when he breathes out and he makes his little hands into fists like Muhammad Ali. Jake opens his eyes and doesn’t even cry. His eyes have become bright, zingy blue but the middle is still perfectly black, like a drop of ink in the sea. Leon and Jake like to just look at each other for a while and then Leon sings a baby song or whispers something.

“Are you all right, Jake? Sleepy time, sleepy time. Close your eyes. You’re all right, Jakey. It’s all right. Sleepy time, Jakey.”

It’s peaceful and cozy in the bedroom with Jake and Wobbly Bobby and the heavy weight of the coats. He watches the smear of light on the wall, listens to the babies breathing, hears the sizzling tires on the wet road outside.

The next day Carol comes to collect them from Tina’s. She sounds excited and happy and stays for ages in Tina’s kitchen, so Leon creeps into the hall.

“I found him. Yeah, I went to his mate’s house and I just kept knocking. I knew someone was in and I shouted through the letter box that I just wanted to give him a message. I kept on knocking and then he answered the door. Tony did. Just like that. I was really surprised. So was he. I told you he wasn’t avoiding me. He just didn’t realize I was due. I mean, I told him but he forgot. He said he was working away. And anyway, he’s not very good with dates.”

Tina isn’t asking questions like she usually does. So Carol just carries on.

“He said he couldn’t talk for long because he had to get home. He’s still living with that cow but I don’t know why he’s still with her. Neither does he. I told him he could move in with us. I know he wants to see Jake but he’s got to be careful cuz if she finds out she’ll stop him seeing his little girl and he dotes on her. She’s done it before, she just uses his daughter to keep him. I’d never do that.”

Tina offers Carol a biscuit. Tina’s biscuit tin is always crammed full. Sometimes if there are lots of broken ones, she lets Leon pick them all out and eat them.

“No, thanks. Anyway, he said he’s moving out. She doesn’t know and he’s not letting on until he’s got everything in place. At his age, he wants to settle down for good.”

“His age?”

“He’s thirty-nine. You’d never know it, though. He’s not old or anything.”

“He’s nearly forty.”

“Thirty-nine. Honest, he doesn’t look it. He looks our age.”

“Twenty-five?”

“Well, you know, early thirties, but anyway, yeah, he said it hasn’t been right for years between them. You know me, Tina. I never meant to hurt anyone but he wasn’t happy even before he met me. If he was, he wouldn’t have given me a second look, would he? He told me once he’s got family in Bristol and Wolverhampton, so he’s not sure where he’s going but when he gets there, it’s gonna be just me and him.”

“And the kids,” says Tina.

“Yeah, of course. That’s what he means. Me, him, and the kids.”

“What about his daughter?”

“She’ll come as well.”

“Right,” says Tina after a while. “And he told you that?”

“We only had a few minutes but yeah.”

Leon goes back into the living room to check on Jake in his basket. He’s nearly four months old and he’s getting too big for his basket. He keeps hitting himself on the side and trying to get out and then he gets angry and makes noises like a cat. Leon got told off for trying to help him stand up, so Leon just watches now and tells Jake about different things he thinks he should know, like who is the best soccer player. But he doesn’t feel like telling Jake about living with a girl and a cow in Bristol because Jake would probably start to cry.

Leon eats his toast sitting on the carpet by the patio doors. It’s supposed to be summertime but the sky is the same color as the garden slabs — dull and gray — like the road to school, the cut-through to the precinct, or the dirty lane between the tower blocks and maisonettes.

There’s a bundle of wood in one corner of the yard like someone was once going to repair the fence but forgot. Instead, the people in the maisonette next door have mended the hole with barbed wire because of their dog and the argument they had with Leon’s dad when he used to live with them. Leon’s dad stood in the garden, pointed his finger, and said (and Leon can remember it word for word), “If that fucking beast gets into this yard and bites my kid, I’ll rip its fucking heart out, all right, Phil?”