Kit de Waal - My Name Is Leon

“I’ve been waiting ages,” Leon says and he decides to go to the toilet in case he starts to cry but, as soon as he stands up, some tears spill out and Earring sees them.

“Leon,” he says, “this is a very difficult thing to understand. You must miss him.”

“He misses me!” Leon shouts. “He’s crying for me! I heard him!”

“Is that what you’re worried about, Leon? You think Jake is unhappy?”

“He needs me,” says Leon. “Only I can look after him.”

Earring makes a little shaking movement with his head. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down in his throat.

“It was a really, really hard decision to make to split you up from Jake, Leon. Really difficult, Leon. We tried to think of a way that we could keep you together and a lot of people sat around a table and after a long, long time, we couldn’t find a way that was fair to both of you. We want you and your brother to be happy and have the best chance in life and sometimes that means finding that happiness in different ways. Has anyone explained this to you before?”

Leon says nothing.

“Do you think you’d like to talk to someone about how you’re feeling, Leon?”

Earring isn’t writing anymore but he’s making little dots on the paper with the end of his fountain pen. The end of the pen is like a little metal knife. It could be dangerous and it could kill someone. It could kill Earring if Leon picked it up and stabbed him through the soft bit of his eye. He would push the pen in and write on Earring’s brain: “I fucking hate you. Black Power. From Leon.”

Earring’s mouth is moving and he’s blinking and, all the time, he’s trying to be Leon’s friend.

“… arrange for you to see someone, special advisors trained to help children who have been through a difficult time. Would you like that?”

“Jake will forget about me.”

“Well…”

“I won’t forget him but he might forget me.”

“I think—”

“You’re making him forget. You took him away so he could forget about me. You only care about him. You think you know what he wants but you don’t. Only I do.”

“Leon—”

“Only me. No one else. They don’t know how to look after him.”

“I think you—”

“He misses me.”

“I’m sure he—”

“He might be upset and you don’t care.”

Earring puts his pen down and Leon knows every word that he’s going to say. He knows he will turn his head a bit to the right then the left, he will talk slowly using baby words because he thinks Leon is stupid, but whatever words social workers use they all mean the same thing.

“It’s very difficult—” he starts.

Leon runs down the hallway and slams the bathroom door. He picks up the toilet seat and bangs it down. The noise makes him jump. He unravels all the toilet paper and shoves it down into the toilet bowl and then puts the towel in it and then Sylvia’s dressing gown from the back of the door. He tries to close the lid but the toilet is too full, so he just pulls and pulls the seat until his arms hurt and his fingers tingle and his face is all crooked and then finally it breaks and rips out of its socket. Leon catches himself in the mirror. He thought he would see the Incredible Hulk with green skin and a chest as wide as a double bed and a ripped shirt. But he looks just the same. He is nearly ten and he is black and Jake is one and he is white. That’s why Jake is adopted. That’s what Maureen said and she’s the only one who has never lied.

Sylvia knocks on the door.

“You all right, love?” she says.

Leon sits on the edge of the bath. He’s wet himself.

“Leon?”

Sylvia opens the door. She doesn’t say anything. Leon can feel the pee itching his legs and he wants to take his jeans off but he can’t move. The pee is in his sneakers as well and in his socks. Sylvia closes the door and he hears her go down the hallway. He can hear her voice and Earring’s voice and it sounds like an argument.

Leon takes everything off, even his underpants, and goes into his bedroom. He puts his tracksuit trousers on with his school shoes and he sits on the bed. Sylvia will tell him to leave. She always said she wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.

He finds his backpack and he makes sure that everything is inside. He has all his important things and all the zippers are done up. He hears the front door close and he hears Sylvia coming back, so he goes to stand at the window so he doesn’t have to look at her.

“Made a right mess of that bathroom, haven’t you?” she says. He can hear the cigarette in the corner of her mouth.

“What were you thinking?”

Outside in Sylvia’s garden there is a black and brown cat walking very slowly on the grass with his head down. He is going carefully like a soldier in the jungle. He’s trying to catch something but Leon can’t see what it is. It might be a mouse or a rat or a bird. Once, Leon’s mom bought him a kitten but it made him sneeze, so his mom gave it away and bought him a dog with a battery in it. Leon wanted a real dog but his mom said no. Then Leon remembers Samson and the way Leon’s dad said he would hold his paws and break his heart open. Leon starts to cry.

Sylvia is still standing in the doorway. He can hear her breathing and smoking. He can hear her getting angry with him and telling him to leave. He drags his sleeve across his face, turns around and picks up his pack, and waits for her to say it.

“Where you going?” she asks.

Leon says nothing.

“If you think this fool is putting them pissy clothes in the washer and tidying up, you’re mistaken. Put your bag down. Come on.”

She puts her hand in his neck-back, just like Maureen does, and nudges him into the bathroom.

“Jeans, sneakers, socks, pants, all of them in the bath. Come on. I’m standing right here and watching.”

Leon does it.

“Fish my best dressing gown out of the toilet and put that in the bath as well and try not to get any of that wet toilet paper on it. And don’t make such a bloody mess on the floor neither. Watch it. Careful.”

Leon does it.

“Now, run and get two shopping bags from under the sink. Quick. I’m counting to ten.”

Leon runs and comes back in eight.

“Now put your hands in there and get every single piece of toilet paper out and into one of the shopping bags. And when I say every single piece, what do I mean?”

“All of it.”

“You bet your sweet life.”

She stands and watches him. It takes ages and she says nothing. When it’s all done, she takes the shopping bag and twists it around by the handles and knots it in the top, then she puts it in the other bag and does the same. The linoleum on the floor of the bathroom is all wet.

“Right, pick up the clothes out of the bath and bring them into the kitchen and be quick. Don’t let them drip. Come on.”

They run down the hall together, through the living room and into the kitchen. She drops the shopping bag into the trash bin and then opens the door to the washing machine.

“All in,” she says, “the sneakers as well. All in.”

Leon feeds everything into the washing machine and watches while Sylvia puts in the soap powder and turns it on.

“Wash your hands.”

Leon does it. She points at a chair. Leon sits down.

“Ever hear the phrase ‘Don’t shit where you sit,’ Leon?”

“No.”

“What do you think it means?”

Leon says nothing.

“No? Well, I’ll tell you. It means don’t fuck up a good thing. It means that if you get bad news or someone gets on your nerves, you don’t make trouble or ruin things at home. Home is where you live, where you sleep, where you eat, where people look after you. Don’t shit on your own seat. You shit on someone else’s seat or find another way to sort things out.”