Kit de Waal: My Name Is Leon

“What sort of dog?” said Leon. “Is it an Alsatian or a Dobermann?”

“It’s a poodle,” he said. “It’s my mom’s. She calls it Candy.”

“Oh,” said Leon. “A poodle.”

“Yeah, but I’ve trained it to bite people.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I could bring it into school and get it to bite everyone in the class.”

“Could you?”

“Yeah. If I wanted.”

They spent the whole afternoon telling each other about training dogs and how sharp dog’s teeth were and which dog was the best. Poodles didn’t come into the equation.

On the way home, Leon began to think about asking Carol for a dog that he could train. He could train it to bite Jake’s dad. He could train it to bite the old lady on the next floor who kept looking at him and shaking her head. He could train it to bite Tina’s boyfriend and the mailman. Then when Jake got older they could get famous for training dogs. The best dog trainers in the world.

As soon as the summer holidays start, things get jangled up at home. Leon can go to bed whenever he wants and sometimes he can even go to sleep on the sofa because his mom doesn’t notice. He can eat whatever he wants but if there’s nothing in the fridge and nothing in the cupboard it doesn’t really count. He has to look after Jake nearly every day and Carol keeps crying and going to the phone booth, leaving Leon in charge, and once when he picked Jake up, he wriggled so much that he fell on the carpet. He had stopped crying by the time Carol came back but it made Leon feel angry with her and he stole another twenty pence out of her purse. But he could have taken all the money because she doesn’t know what’s in there.

Early in the morning, just when it’s getting light, Jake starts crying and Leon gets up with him. His diaper is always heavy and wet but as soon as Leon changes it, Jake starts smiling and laughing. Jake always wants the same thing for breakfast and now Leon has a good system. It took him a few weeks to get it just right but now he could tell anyone what to do to look after a baby in the mornings.

Change the diaper (remember to use the white cream or by the second morning the baby’s bum is sore). Feed the baby but be careful going downstairs because babies move around in your arms and sometimes they’re heavy; if you haven’t made the breakfast bottle quickly enough, the baby will start crying again. Put six scoops of baby milk powder in the bottle and fill it with warm water from the kettle. You better taste it to see if it’s not too hot. Sometimes if the baby is really hungry, you have to mix in some extra powder and a spoon of sugar. The worst thing is when the baby is sick. That makes a lot of mess and it can take forever to tidy up.

Even Carol doesn’t know about the best routine for Jake and sometimes she forgets about him when he’s in the high chair and Leon has to take him out. She goes to bed all the time, so Leon has to do everything. When he goes into her room, she’s always hidden under the blankets with her pills next to the bed, some in a white bottle and then pink ones that you have to press out of a silver card. He pressed one out once. It looked like a piece of candy but after he licked it he threw it down the toilet.

Then, other times, Carol goes out and leaves him to watch the TV. She puts Jake in the stroller and takes him out for hours and when she comes back she’s tired and Jake is crying. She leaves the stroller in the hall and just goes upstairs, talking to herself. Leon has to unfasten Jake’s straps and take his baby suit off and feed him and sometimes all the things he has to do make Leon so tired and angry.

It seems like Jake’s been cryingfor days. If he doesn’t stop, Leon will have to go and get some money from Tina. If Tina isn’t in then he will have to go to the lady next door who doesn’t like him. He’s already looked in Carol’s purse but there isn’t enough to buy some food for Jake, some diapers for Jake, and some candy for himself. There’s no money at all, just some receipts, an old photograph, and an earring. Leon’s tipped the whole purse upside down. He’s looked between the cushions in the sofa and in the drawers in the kitchen and in the pockets of Carol’s coat and everywhere else he can think of.

Jake isn’t even wearing a diaper anymore because it smelled terrible and all the new ones are gone. He had to sit Jake on a towel in his basket and put some toys in with him but he can get out now and roll all over the place and looking after Jake is getting much too hard. And they’re both hungry all the time these days. Jake has been crying all morning and Carol won’t do anything.

Every morning, it’s Leon who has to go and get Jake and pick him up and move him around a bit until he stops crying. The way his mom is behaving, you would think she was deaf.

Leon has shaken her and he has begged her and he has pulled at her arms but nothing happens. Even though she’s awake she won’t talk or eat and she won’t get up. That was yesterday and the day before yesterday, and now, today, Leon has got to do something. He goes upstairs again into her bedroom. Pink light sifts through the thin curtains and the air feels heavy and quiet, like someone’s holding their breath. One of Carol’s hands lies on the sheet. Leon touches it with the tip of one finger. She doesn’t move but her papery lips pucker over and over, like she’s a goldfish in a bowl.

“Mom?”

Carol turns her head to the wall.

“I’m hungry, Mom.”

He realizes that the whole room smells like Leon’s diaper and that his mom has wet the bed again. He opens the window but only a little crack in case Carol gets cold.

If Leon can go to Tina and get some money then nobody needs to know that Carol is ill again. Leon can make her better if someone will give him some money. The last time things were like this he had to go and live with a lady and her husband and their cat and they kept taking him to church and making him sit still and it was horrible, so he will look after Carol and Jake, he will make her some tea and toast, and help her sit up and take her pills, and he will put a clean sheet on her bed and he will pretend. Jake starts crying downstairs, so Leon goes down and gives him a kiss.

“You stay here and play with your toys. Stop crying, Jake.”

He leaves the door on the latch and goes upstairs to the next floor. He rings Tina’s bell.

“All right, love?” she says.

“My mom said have you got any money?”

Tina looks along the landing and then over the railings.

“Where is she, Leon?”

“She’s asleep but she wants me to go to the shop.”

“Have you been to school today?”

“No, school ended last week. She said have you got a pound?”

Tina keeps looking at him and then she goes into her flat. She comes back with Wobbly Bobby and her handbag and closes the door.

“I’ll pop down and see her.”

Leon follows her and hopes his mom is awake and dressed and hopes that Jake has stopped crying. But when Tina walks through the door and he hears the sound she makes, he knows she will find everything out.

She walks into the kitchen and shakes her head.

“Christ,” she says.

She walks into the sitting room and puts her hand to her mouth. She looks at how untidy Leon has been and how he has sat in front of the TV and eaten his cereal by putting his hand in the box. How he hasn’t put Jake’s diapers in the trash. How he should have opened the window like Tina does in her house and made everywhere smell of baby lotion. Leon sees what Tina sees. Why didn’t he tidy up before he asked her for any money? Tina goes back into the hall.

“Carol? Carol?” she calls. She puts Bobby down in Jake’s playpen and then runs up the stairs. Leon follows.