Kit de Waal: My Name Is Leon

The dog is called Samson and it has no fur on its chest because of a fight. Instead, it has a bald circle of pink skin and Leon imagines its little dog heart beating underneath and his dad’s hands grabbing Samson’s front paws and tearing them apart until the dog howls.

Leon knows the sound of a howling dog and when he sees Samson in next-door’s garden, he stands and they look at each other through the rusty barbed-wire hole.

But today Samson isn’t in his yard and Leon sits with his old Action Man and his new Action Man on the back step. Carol bought the new Action Man for Leon’s birthday at the beginning of July and Tina bought the Action Man outfit. His dad sent him a card with some money in it, so Leon bought a better outfit with jackboots and a gun. When it’s Christmas Leon wants two more Action Men with army uniforms. That will make four altogether and if he keeps going he will have a whole Action Man army.

Leon hears the doorbell and a man’s voice. He picks up his new Action Man and they both crawl on their elbows, along the carpet, behind the sofa, and look through the gap in the door. A man is in the doorway letting cold air rush in. He’s chunky and tall, wearing a long, black leather coat with a suit on underneath like he’s the bad guy from James Bond. And from the way he has his hands in his pockets, he might also have a gun.

If he has got a gun and he tries to shoot, Leon will kick the door off the hinges and attack him before he can pull the trigger. Leon knows the moves people make before they shoot, like in westerns when they put their hands out to the side. Or, if Tina is in, Leon could rush past the man and ask her to come and help. Or call the police. Leon wishes he didn’t always need the toilet when he gets excited or frightened. He bunches his trousers at the front and squeezes his crotch into the carpet to stop the pee coming out. The man speaks slowly with his head to one side like his mom is a baby or she’s a bit slow.

“Don’t make this into something it ain’t, Carol.”

Carol’s crying and saying “Tony” all the time but the man isn’t listening.

“I’m married. Good as. I didn’t want another kid and I don’t want another girlfriend. I don’t want someone calling the house all the time and I don’t want someone visiting my friends and making a fuss.”

Carol’s making gulping noises.

“Didn’t I say that already?” the man says, still with his head to one side and still with his hand on the invisible gun.

“Don’t pass messages to all my friends, either. It’s pissing me off. Just leave it, Carol.”

Carol starts speaking a few times but she can’t get her breath, so her words come out lumpy and wrong.

“You haven’t even laid eyes on him yet, Tony. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to think when you can’t even be bothered to buy him a rattle?”

“Come off it, love. You saying this is about money?”

Carol’s head shakes from side to side.

“No,” he continues, “this is about the crap you’ve been telling yourself to cover a couple of months screwing in the back of my car, isn’t it?”

Carol says nothing.

“I don’t know what it is about you, Carol. Even with snot on your face you’re a beautiful chick but you’ve got a brain like a rusty motor.”

The man takes one of his hands out of his pocket and taps the side of his head.

“Yeah, rusty. As in not working. No inspection sticker. Breaking down. Not getting you from A to B. Worse than that, it’s making A. Terrible. Fucking. Racket.”

Leon and Carol both hear it at the same time. They hear the man’s voice go from soft to hard. Leon can tell Carol hears it because she jerks her head like he’s slapped her. Leon stands up and holds his Action Man in both hands.

“Listen, I’m not a bastard. All right? But start behaving yourself, for fuck’s sake. No more of these bloody phone calls. Here.”

The man puts his hand inside his jacket pocket.

“Take this for the kid and get on with your life. Get yourself a nice boy that sells vacuums or used tires. Someone that finishes work at five thirty and takes you to bingo. All right? It’s not me, love. It’s just not me.”

He tries to give something to Carol but instead she runs into the living room, straight past Leon, picks Jake out of his basket, and dashes back to the front door.

“He’s yours, Tony, and you don’t even care. Can’t you even come in, for pity’s sake? Spend some time with him.”

The man takes a step to the side and, as he does, he sees Leon. He winks and makes two of his fingers into the barrel of a gun that he points at Action Man and goes, “Poof.” Leon smiles. Then the man puts his head to the side again.

“Stop it, Carol,” he says. “There’s nothing more to be said.”

He takes a step back and closes the door. Carol turns around and screams at Leon.

“What are you doing listening? If you hadn’t been sneaking around he would have come in and spent two minutes with his only son. Why are you so fucking nosy, Leon? Eh? You’re always creeping around, listening to things. Go to bed and stay there!”

Leon tiptoes upstairs into the bathroom and tries to be quiet by peeing on the side of the bowl. He doesn’t flush and he doesn’t wash his hands. He tries to count all the triangles on the wallpaper in his room but there are too many. He divides them up into dark blue and light blue triangles and makes a pattern in the shape of a tank by squeezing his eyes together and looking through his eyelashes. Carol used to say sorry when she shouted at him but she forgets all the time these days, so tomorrow he will take twenty pence out of her purse. Twenty pence will buy him a Twix on his way back from school and he will throw the paper on the ground because he doesn’t care.

Leon feels bad about smiling at the man who made Carol cry but if he comes back maybe they can both have pretend guns and shoot each other. Then again, he hopes that Jake won’t grow up to be like his dad and say dangerous things in a quiet voice. Leon only smiled because it was polite. If the man comes back, Leon won’t smile a second time. He will be on his guard and he’ll protect Carol and Jake and then he won’t get shouted at.

The next day his mom getsup early in the morning and says everything is going to be different. She says she’s really sorry and she’s going to try harder, so she makes a massive breakfast with pancakes and syrup like she saw in a recipe book. It doesn’t taste nice and she starts crying when Leon doesn’t eat it all. She mashes one up with some milk for Jake but as soon as she puts it in his mouth he’s sick all over his top. She makes Leon promise to go to school so he can be smart and not have a life like she has.

“I want better for my boys,” she says when Leon’s hugging her on the settee. “I want you both to have lovely lives and lots of beautiful things. I want you to live in a nice house with a proper garden and want you to always love each other. I don’t want any arguments. I’m so tired of arguments. And I want you to get out of this shithole. Get right out of it, far as you can. Don’t look back. So you have to learn things and get an education. Don’t be like me or your dad. You’re so clever, Leon. Promise me something, sweetheart?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Look after him and look after yourself. Get something more out of life.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“Both of you. Do it for both of you.”

She squeezes Leon so tight he has to push her away a little bit because he can’t breathe.

“I’m going up now, love. Look after Jake for me.”

Some days Leon doesn’t go to school at all, just stays at home with Jake while their mom sleeps. But when he does go, Leon has to wake his mom up before he leaves to remind her about Jake. Sometimes she tells him to go away and he spends the whole day thinking about Jake’s dinner or Jake’s naptime. But other times, like when he’s playing soccer or something, he forgets all about what’s happening at home. Like when there was a new boy at school and the teacher told Leon to look after him at lunchtime. The new boy was much smaller than Leon and he looked scared. Leon told him where everything was and then they had to line up for their lunch. The new boy was called Adam and he had long hair. He said his dad was a teacher at another school. He said he had a dog.