My Name Is Leon (11 page)

Leon doesn't want to tell him about Sylvia or Maureen, so he finishes the knife and gives it back.

“You've used too much oil, look,” says Mr. Devlin, wiping it off on his jacket. “On the other hand, you've been thorough and it hasn't leaked onto the blade itself. Use mineral oil for the blade. Or rapeseed oil.”

He stands up suddenly and goes inside his hut. He is gone for so long that Leon gets on his bike. He goes round in a few circles and when Mr. Devlin still doesn't come out, Leon pedals back home with his new things in his backpack.

19

It's a long walk from the parking lot to the hospital. The Zebra walks fast and Leon has to trot to keep up with her. They go up in the elevator and Leon presses the button. Lots of people get in and squash him at the back, then they all get out at the same place and do lots more walking until they find Maureen. She is sitting up in bed with a white tube in her nose.

“At last,” she says and she holds her arms open for Leon.

She smells different, she looks different, and she sounds different but when she snuggles him and rubs his back she is the same. Leon hugs her back and she laughs.

“Missed me, eh? Well, I've missed you as well. Can't wait to get home.”

The Zebra starts walking away.

“I'm going down to the café. I'll be back in about twenty minutes, all right, Leon? All right, Maureen?”

Maureen waves her off and then looks at Leon.

“She all right? Does she get along with Sylvia?”

“I don't know,” he says. “She got me a BMX.”

“Did she now?”

“Yeah, a real one. It's red. It goes really fast.”

“That's lovely, pigeon. And what about you? You getting along with Sylvia?”

Leon says nothing.

“She treating you all right?”

Her mouth is smiling but her eyes are sad.

Leon looks around the ward. There are lots of old ladies in nighties and dressing gowns. The room is too hot and smells of school dinners. All the visitors are looking at each other and chairs keep scraping across the floor. He can't see any nurses.

“The doctor said you're not dying,” he says, “so why can't you come home and then I can live with you again?”

“I might not be dying but I feel like it sometimes.”

Maureen lies back on her three pillows and closes her eyes but she keeps hold of Leon's hand.

“I'll be home soon. Don't you worry.”

“I can go out on my bike whenever I want. I go everywhere. I found the allotments.”

“Did you?”

Maureen's voice is far away.

“And there's lots of people up there that wave at me.”

“Is that so?”

“Jake hasn't written to me yet.”

“No, love.”

“I don't know where he lives.”

“No, love, nor me.”

“When I'm in bed at night, I can't sleep properly.”

“Really?”

“And I have to go to bed when it's still light.”

“Yes, I know.”

“The wind blows the curtains and it looks like someone's coming into my room.”

“Well, they're not.”

“My mom hasn't come back.”

“I know, love.”

The time goes slowly. Maureen's hand gets hot and sticky and he can hear the wind in her chest; it whistles like a recorder. A nurse walks up the middle of the ward and bends over him, whispering.

“Has your nana gone asleep, love?”

Leon looks at Maureen and realizes she is very, very old. She has lots of white in her hair now and soon she will look like the other old ladies and soon she will die.

“Is someone else here with you, love? Is your mom here?”

The nurse looks up and down the ward and takes his hand.

“Shall we go and find her? Or do you want to stay with your nana?”

The Zebra will come and take him back to Sylvia's. The Zebra will tell him not to worry. The Zebra will tell him he can't see Jake. That Carol isn't well. That's all anyone ever says to him.

20

There are lots of days when Leon goes out on his bike, even if it's only for ten minutes, and he always goes up to the allotments. Sometimes Tufty isn't there and sometimes Mr. Devlin isn't there but Mr. and Mrs. Atwal are nearly always there, digging and planting, and once Mr. Atwal gave Leon a curly stick of orange taffy, so sugary and sweet that it stuck Leon's teeth together and lasted for ages. Leon always waves just in case he has some more.

Today Tufty is there but he isn't alone. He's sitting on a fold-up chair with four of his friends, playing dominoes while an old man in a tweed coat watches.

The way Tufty slams the dominoes on the table it's like he's trying to break it in half. He nearly stands up off his chair and holds the domino high up in the air and when he mashes it down on the table, he says, “Yes!”

“What you got, Stump? Eh, what you got?” says Tufty.

“One,” says a short fat man with a woolly hat. “One.”

Then they all start talking and laughing and one of them pushes the dominoes into a heap. They talk loud, deep, all at the same time, in fast West Indian like his dad used to do except they are laughing all the time and making jokes.

As Tufty collects up the dominoes he notices Leon.

“Yo, Star!” shouts Tufty.

Leon gets off his bike and rests it against the hut. He goes up to Tufty, who puts his hand on Leon's shoulder.

“My friend this,” he says to the other men. “He comes up regular to help me. You call him Star. Now, this is Castro, Marvo, Waxy, Stump, and Mr. Johnson.”

The men nod in turn and get up, folding their chairs and handing them to Tufty. Mr. Johnson, who looks about a hundred years old, shakes Leon's hand.

“Pleased to meet you, young man.”

Mr. Johnson has snowy-white hair in a little Afro and he hands Tufty a bunch of keys.

“Well, Linwood, I'm going,” he says. “You're on your own tomorrow. Lock up good. This church meeting will last all day.”

Leon sees the tall man with the ginger hair shake his head. His green eyes are narrow and red and his hair sticks up in dreadlocks all over his head. When he talks, his small brown beard bobs up and down. He makes a long hissing noise, drawing the air through his teeth.

“You still turning the other cheek, eh, Johnson?”

Mr. Johnson folds up the collar of his coat like he's cold. “Listen, Castro, you don't have the monopoly on anger, on a sense of injustice.” He holds a finger in the air. “We have to organize. Black people won't get anywhere unless and until we form ourselves into a body which society recognizes, that can lobby the authorities and seek redress.”

All the time, Castro carries on shaking his head. Even Castro's skin is ginger, brown and milky like a cup of tea, and he has
freckles all over his face and down his neck. When he talks, his voice carries right across Tufty's plot. Mr. and Mrs. Atwal raise their heads.

“That's the old way, Johnson, when black people had to be grateful. Like when you and my father come to this country in your good suit and your pressed hair, doing as you're told, cleaning floors and driving buses.”

Castro pauses and looks at each man in turn.

“Them days is gone. We don't have to be holding out our hat for the white man's leavings. If we come together to form something, it's an army. Not a—what you call it—lobby group. You think white people going to listen to monkeys? Monkeys is what they call we.”

All the other men start talking at the same time while Tufty and Leon stand and listen. Tufty brings drinks and picks up the empty cans while his friends decide about their army. Leon can hear that the others don't like Castro's army idea but they don't like Mr. Johnson's lobby idea either. He helps Tufty tidy things up and, while they are still talking, Tufty takes a plastic soda bottle and fills it with water. He gives it to Leon and gets one for himself. Then he brings out the black plastic seed tray.

“Look,” he says, “look what's happened.”

The seeds have split and a strong curving tendril is shooting out like they are stretching out or waking up from a long sleep. Two little leaves, like closed wings, sit on the tip.

“These are babies,” says Tufty. “Fragile. Babies need looking after. Come.”

At the other end of Tufty's plot, there are tall wigwams made out of bamboo canes, two long rows. If you covered them over with leaves it would make a fantastic den or a hideout.

“You see here,” Tufty says. “We have to put these seeds in carefully. Make a hole at the bottom of the stick like so, pour water in the hole. Drop in the baby plant. See?”

Leon kneels down and gently tickles the soil in around the hole so the seedling looks like it's always been there.

“You got it, Star. You really got it. Now pour on a bit more water. Don't drown it.”

“Why have you put it by the bamboo sticks? Will they grow as well?”

“No, no,” says Tufty, “these plants need support. They need to hold on to something strong while they're growing. They curl round the bamboo and then, couple of months' time, we get some beans.” Tufty straightens up. “We got a lot to plant out. Look, I'll put them in the hole, you do the watering.”

So, Leon follows Tufty from plant to plant, watering all around the bottom of the bamboo canes. He goes back to the water barrel and does the same thing again until it's all done. When they walk back to the shed, Tufty's friends are still talking. Castro is standing up, waving his arms and pointing to the street.

“You don't see what the police is doing to black people? Stop and search? You don't listen to the news, Johnson?”

Leon feels sorry for Mr. Johnson because he keeps trying to talk but Castro is too loud. Mr. Johnson speaks softly but Leon knows he's angry.

“Don't bite the hand that feeds you, Castro,” he says. “Work with the hands God gave you.” He looks at Leon and slowly closes his eyes. “Nobody listens anymore.” Then Mr. Johnson puts his hands in his pockets and walks away.

Tufty holds his trowel in the air.

“Easy, easy. Keep it quiet, quiet. I'm already on a warning.”

No one says anything for a few minutes and then Tufty claps his hands.

“You all going to Rialto Dance on Saturday? They give me a spot, so listen, let me try out my new poem.”

They all shuffle round in their seats until they're facing him. He plucks a yellow flower from the ground and holds it up. He
picks off one petal and then another and as he speaks he does all the actions, making everybody laugh.

“I call this ‘Conspiracy.' ”

She love me.

She love me not.

She love me.

She love me not.

So me take up me records and me good Dutch pot.

I step out quick before she changes her mind

And I walk with a swagger, never looking behind.

My mother say nothing when I go back home

But she work me hard, bend my fingers to the bone.

“Get up, Tufty, and wash the floor.

Open the window.

Close the door.

Carry my bag from the shop to the house.

Lay a fire for morning.

Lay a trap for the mouse.

Chop wood, wash dishes,

Peel yam, catch fishes.”

And when I am sleeping she come in my room,

And wake me up to give me the broom.

Weeks I don't sit, months I don't rest,

I dream of my girl, my angel, my best,

So I crawl back begging to the girl I did leave,

“Save me from Mommy!”

I cry and I plead.

She loves me, yes, and I know for a fact

That she plan with my mother to get me back.

All his friends are laughing except Castro. Tufty waves his hand. “Wait, I got one more verse.”

“Fucking girls! That's all you got on your mind, Tufty?”

Tufty smiles and holds his arms out. “Come on, Castro, man, chill out.”

Leon watches Castro walk away, swinging his arms, kicking a stone all along the path.

21

Leon hates his new school. Because Leon missed a lot of school when he lived with Carol, the teachers keep saying he has to catch up but Leon is good at reading and writing and sums, and anyway, all the lessons are boring. The new school by Sylvia's house is even worse than the other ones and so is his teacher. He doesn't care about the Victorians and writing stories, he doesn't like it when they have to draw pictures about planets and stars, and he doesn't like school trips when they won't let you go to the toilet. And there are two boys in his class who have the same birthday and they both went to see the Jackson Five and they keep talking about it. At lunchtime, sometimes Leon plays soccer and sometimes he sits with Martin from the year below. Martin hasn't got any other friends and he lives with a foster carer too. Sometimes Martin gets into trouble for fighting. He always wins.

Sylvia had to come to his new school on Friday to see the headmistress and his new teacher. Leon couldn't listen at the door, because the school secretary was watching him. He had to sit still
with nothing to do while the three voices in the next room talked about him. He knew what they were saying but he still wanted to hear. Eventually, the door opened and he went inside. Teachers are like social workers, with lots of different pretend voices and smiles. The head teacher coughed and picked up a piece of paper.

“First of all, Leon, we want you to know that Woodlands Junior School is an inclusive school. We want all our pupils to succeed.”

She waited for him to say yes.

“This is great work, Leon.”

She held up a picture he had drawn in art. It was a picture of Jake when he was grown up, looking like Bo Duke from
The Dukes of Hazzard.
He had yellow hair and he was standing by a red car and he had a gun.

“We can all see how hard you've worked on this picture. So we can see that when you want to, you can put a lot of effort into your schoolwork. This picture proves it. But, Leon, you have to work hard in all your lessons. Don't you?”

“Yes.”

“We've spoken about this before but, this time, I want you to make a special effort, a really, really big effort, to pay attention in class. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And no swearing.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Miss,” said the head teacher. “Yes, Miss, or Yes, Mrs. Smith, or Yes, Mrs. Percival.”

“Yes, Mrs. Percival.”

“And no interrupting to go to the toilet all the time. You go once at the beginning of the morning and then again at break time. Yes?”

“But what if I want to go in the middle of the lesson?”

Sylvia shook her head. “Just hold it, Leon, like everyone else
does. Put a knot in it till break time. That's what the teacher is saying. Or go before the lesson starts.”

“Yes, Miss Sylvia,” said Leon. He saw both the teachers look at each other when Sylvia started talking. They don't like her either.

Then his teacher started talking about effort and behavior with a voice she kept specially for when parents and other teachers were around. All the time he was watching her twisting her wedding ring around and around on her finger because they both knew that Leon wasn't going to get any stars on his chart.

On the way home, Sylvia looked in the window of a television shop. She said that one of the televisions had a remote control so you could turn the television off while you were still sitting down. Like magic. If Leon had a remote control he would lie in bed and turn Sylvia off,
click
, and the teachers off,
click
, and the social workers off,
click, click, click
. Then he would crush the remote control with a big hammer so they could never come on again.