Kit de Waal: My Name Is Leon

She pushes him in his neck-back and Leon walks off. He leans on a low wall at the river’s edge. Some of the gray-and-white seagulls bounce on the waves while others swoop up and away, losing themselves in camouflage against the low cloud. A scruffy barge, wide as a house, slugs through the water carrying hundreds of yellow containers stacked up like gigantic Legos. On another boat with lots of windows, people stand on the deck pointing at buildings and taking pictures, but compared to the battleship, everything else on the river looks like a toy. It has masts and flags, and huge guns, chimneys and chains, and two massive antennas sticking out of the smokestacks. Every sailor must have his own TV.

If he was a sailor, Leon would live on that battleship and sleep in a hammock suspended from the ceiling. He would have an anchor tattooed on his arm and wear a white vest tucked into his pants, and when the battleship went to war he would be in charge of loading the weapons. He saw it in a film. First of all the torpedo drops down from a rack, then you slide it along to the next person and he loads it into the firing cylinder. Then you have to trap it in so it doesn’t come backward and kill you and then you have to press a button and count down from five. But there are two of you to do this, because it’s important you don’t make a mistake. Leon sees himself, sweaty, covered in black oil in the belly of the boat. Then you open the loading cylinder again and repeat this until the enemy submarine is destroyed. You know it’s destroyed when the captain sees it on the radar or looks at it through the periscope. Leon closes one eye and brings the periscope down. He holds his fists either side of his head. He sees the grid of the sight and the blinking green smudge of light of the German U-boat. Then, pow , nothing. The green light disappears and up on the waterline metal debris bursts up into the air. Hoorah! In the engine room and in the torpedo room and in the control room and everywhere, all the sailors cheer and cheer and the other men slap Leon on the back because they are safe.

When he opens his eyes, Maureen’s standing next to him.

“Someone here to see you, love.”

She moves out of the way and Leon sees his mom sitting on a bench. He looks at Maureen and she licks her finger and wipes something off his face.

“She’s waiting for you. Go on.”

He runs. It takes him four seconds. He runs and stands in front of her.

“God,” she says, “look at you.”

Carol stubs her cigarette out and gets to her feet. “You’re taller than me.”

She measures them both, waving across the top of their heads.

“Like my dad. That’s where you get it from.”

She takes his hand and squeezes it but as soon as they sit down, she puts both hands flat on the bench next to her. She starts to stroke the wood with her yellow fingers, picking out splinters and smoothing them down again. Her arms are skinnier than before; so are her legs, her face, her ponytail. Wispy fronds of hair stand up all around her head like the seeds of a dandelion. And she has freckles, brown marks on her face he’s never seen before.

“Are you all right, Mom?” he asks.

“Me? Great. Yeah. Course I am. Anyway, it’s me that should be asking how you are.”

“We’re going on that battleship later.”

“Good,” she says. “How’s school?”

“It’s summer vacation.”

“Did you have a nice birthday?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. I remembered on the day, you know. Woke up and remembered straightaway. Told my friend, ‘It’s my son’s birthday today,’ and I got you something but I forgot to bring it. I’ll have to put it in the mail.”

Leon sees Maureen trying not to watch. Carol notices as well.

“Is she nice to you?”

“She went into the hospital but she’s better now. We have to live with Sylvia, that’s her sister, until she’s back to how she was. Or even better.”

“I never come here,” Carol says. “Rivers make me think about dying. It’s always cold if you live by the sea. Or by a river. Water makes you cold. Did you know that? A few degrees colder.”

While Carol is talking, Leon takes her hand again. Sometimes, squeezing fingers is easier than talking.

“Leon,” says his mom, “I want to tell you something.”

He squeezes her hand but she doesn’t squeeze back. Her voice becomes muffled and scratchy.

“I can’t look after you properly, you know that, don’t you?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I really don’t know, Leon. Please. I just can’t.”

Carol has gotten smaller since he last saw her. No one is looking after her and he wonders why she doesn’t come and live with him and Sylvia and Maureen. She could share his room and have loads of dinner and have some sleep and get better. Maureen could wash her clothes and show her how to look better. Maybe Sylvia would lend her some makeup. He knows he shouldn’t say it but it just comes out.

“Me? With her?” She jerks her head back and pokes herself in the chest. “Me? Live with her?”

“And me,” says Leon. “She wouldn’t mind.”

“Kids have foster parents, Leon, not adults. I don’t need a foster family. Is that what you think, that I need to go into care or go into a hospital, is that what you think, that I’m sick or something or incapable, is that what people say about me?”

Her head is shaking and wobbly and her shoulders are jerking up and down.

“I mean we can live together. That’s all. You and me.”

Maureen walks over.

“Everything all right? You all right, Carol?”

Carol tucks her hands under her legs and rocks forward and back three times.

“I’m great,” she says.

Maureen smiles and pats Carol on her back. Carol clears her throat.

“I was just telling him I can’t look after him. I told him what we agreed. You get it, don’t you, Leon? So, you’re not to go running away, all right? Cuz you can’t live with me but the lady says you can come and see me whenever you like. If you give me enough warning, I can meet you here another day. All right?”

Carol stands up and looks around quickly like she’s lost.

“I’ve got to get back,” she says.

She puts her hand out and Maureen shakes it.

“Thank you, Carol,” she says. “It means a lot. I’ll be in touch.”

Carol bends down and kisses Leon on the cheek. She smells of cigarettes and the house they used to live in where Leon had to leave some of his toys. He’s too old for them now but he still wants them, just to see if they are like he remembers.

He watches her walk away and he stays sitting down. He watches her pull her handbag onto her shoulder and he stays sitting down. All over the concrete walkway, there are white splotches of chewing gum stuck to the ground and Leon wonders if Maureen will let them have some on the way home, because she usually does when something important happens. He loses sight of his mother for a few seconds and he stays sitting down and then he runs and runs, grabs her from behind and holds onto her so she can’t turn around, can’t see him crying. She doesn’t speak but she stops dead. She seems to go from hard to soft without moving a muscle. And then Leon asks her, finally.

“Do you know where he is, Mom?”

“No, love. I don’t.”

“Do you still love him?”

She says nothing but he feels a little gasp of air leave her body. She peels his arms from her waist and turns around.

“And you,” she whispers. “I still love you.”

She smiles then like she used to and scrabbles her fingers on his chest. She kisses him and walks backward for a few yards. She gives a little curtsy like he’s a king and she’s a servant. She turns and is gone.