My Name Is Leon (19 page)

33

When he gets to the allotment, Leon rests his bike against Tufty's shed. Tufty is wearing a vest that looks like a net. It's tight on his chest and it makes his muscles stand out. He's wearing his denim shorts and flip-flops. Only girls wear flip-flops but Leon won't say anything. Leon walks over to his plot to check and see if his Scarlet Emperors have come up. He teases the soil away from the base of one of the bamboo canes and sees a little split in the seed and a sturdy, cream-white coil bent over, pushing its back out toward the sun. He covers it again quickly. Then he sees two green leaves on a white stalk sticking an inch out of the soil. He peers close. The two leaves are folded together, hugging each other like they're scared to come out. They are so fine and delicate, Leon wonders if they will survive. They shudder in his breath.

“You see anything?” shouts Tufty.

Leon nods.

“They're growing, Tufty! I can see them coming out!”

Tufty smiles his wide smile.

As Leon looks he sees lots of shoots and leaves coming up; every seed is going to grow tall and strong. He looks up to the top of the wigwam and imagines them snaking all the way up to the sky.

What else can he plant? Leon remembers all the seeds on Tufty's shelf.

“I wish I had some more seeds,” he says, “like the ones in your shed.”

Tufty laughs. “You want some?” he says. “It's a bit late for planting anything now but come, let's look.”

They bring Tufty's seed box out and sit on two fold-up chairs with a can of soda each. Tufty has ginger beer and Leon has Tango; the sharpness zings on his tongue and makes his teeth ache.

Tufty starts rifling through the seed box and picking out packets that he drops onto the ground.

“Carrots for seeing at night.”

Drop.

“Courgettes are soft to the bite.”

Drop.

“Peas so sweet on your tongue.”

Drop.

“And broccoli to keep you young.”

Drop.

“Come, Star. Look. Here's tomato. What can you say about tomato?”

“Tomato to make your sauce.”

“Good!” says Tufty and drops it on the ground and picks another packet.

“Now the hard bit. We got peppers next. What rhymes with sauce?”

Leon screws his eyes up.

“Peppers as big as a horse.”

Tufty throws his head back and shows all his teeth. When he laughs, his shoulders shake and he claps his hands.

“Yes, man! You got the gift.”

“Do you write poems about children, Tufty?”

“Sometimes, if the mood takes me.”

“Do you work in a school?”

“Me? Nah, man. Bike shop. I mend bikes for Mr. Johnson. Remember Mr. Johnson? He's got a little bike shop up at the Cross. I used to go up there after school and he gave me a job. Taught me everything. It's just me there now because Mr. Johnson is old, old, old. Older than my father.”

“Have you got children, Tufty?”

“Yes, yes.”

Tufty gathers up the seeds and puts them on Leon's lap.

“Plant them. It's not too late. Put a seed in a hole and just hope.”

Leon doesn't move.

“Where are they?”

“You got a lot of questions today, eh, Star? Well, they live with their mother. We don't see eye to eye so I don't get to see them too often. They don't live here. They live far away.”

“Are they babies? Are they boys?”

“Girls, seven and five. Two girls.”

“I've got a brother.”

But Tufty isn't listening. He's staring at the trees, at the sway and lean of the branches in the wind. Leon knows where he's gone. He's gone off to play with his little girls, to push their swings in the park or catch them at the bottom of the slide. He's smelling their hair and holding them. He's feeling their arms around his neck as he lifts them up. He lets Tufty think about his children for a while and then Leon picks up his seeds.

“I've got a brother, Tufty,” he says.

Tufty doesn't move. His eyes are open but he's still in the park or tucking his girls up in bed.

Leon takes his new seeds over to his plot and pushes them in, one hole each, two inches deep, long straight rows. Then the watering, back and forth with his plastic bottle. If he had a watering can, he would look like a proper gardener. Tufty is still on his chair when Leon finishes. He's reading something and when he sees Leon he folds the paper in half.

“Right. Sit down,” he says. “I made a new poem. ‘Ode to Castro.' Wrote it last night but not sure how it will come out. Sit down, tell me what you think. You listening?”

Tufty stands up and as he talks he takes a step to the left and then a step to the right, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

I don't want to be a warrior

I didn't come for war

I didn't come for argument

For policeman at my door.

I didn't come for least and last

For the isms and the hate

That you pile upon me day by day

Till you crush me with the weight.

It was you that took me off my land

Took my name, my ways, my tongue

Sold me cheap, from hand to hand to hand

Made slaves from all my young.

We are not a warrior

We are Africans by birth

We have truth and rights and God besides

We have dignity and worth.

We have lost the way we used to live

And the way that we behaved

We are the consequence of history

We are the warriors you made.

When he gets home, Leon tries
to remember the words of the “Ode to Castro” and tries to sound like Tufty, move like him, open his arms wide, bounce on his feet. He walks around his bedroom talking quietly so Sylvia can't hear.

“We have dignity and worth,” he says.

Sometimes, when Tufty is talking, Leon thinks about his dad. Tufty and Leon's dad don't look the same and they don't talk the same but Tufty tips his head to the side when he talks, he makes shapes in the air with his hands and that's like Leon's dad and that's what makes Leon remember the last time he saw him, before Jake was born.

It was Christmas Eve. Leon's dad came to the front door and Carol was wearing the zipper of her jeans down because of the new baby. Leon's dad looked her up and down and kissed his teeth, which meant he was annoyed and trying not to shout. He was carrying a black trash bag and Leon wondered if his present was inside it. Carol said he couldn't come in.

“You got your fancy man in there, eh, Carol?”

“Please, Byron,” she said, “I don't want to—”

“I hear he left you. That right? He's gone back to his woman.”

“I don't know. It's none of your business.”

“I hear you're running around the place trying to find him. Making a fool of yourself. You don't have no pride, Carol?”

“I'm not running around. Who told you that?”

They both noticed Leon at the same time, listening by the door. Carol told him to go back into the living room, so he did, but if she made his dad angry he might forget to leave the black bag.

Leon's dad was trying to talk quietly but he wasn't good at it.

“He's left you. You know it's true. You was just his fancy piece. That's what I hear. The man has a woman and child. He don't want you, Carol. But you know what? It's good because I don't want no white man coming in here and abusing my son.”

“What?” said Carol. “What are you trying to say? What are you talking about? He's never even seen Leon. And you can't talk. All the time you come around drunk. It's you that abuses him if it comes down to it.”

His dad did a fake laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, Carol, all right. I don't want no argument with you. I didn't come to upset you. I just come to say I got my date today. Crown Court next week. So if I don't come back, let me give you this for Leon. Just a few things. Let me see him before I go.”

“Leon!”

Carol moved aside so Leon could get past. His father grabbed him and crushed him to his chest. He smelled of bitter cigarettes and the dumpling shop and Special Brew. Leon and his dad have the same type of hair but Leon's dad has short locks that stick out all over the place, like a hedgehog. Leon's dad is dark chocolate brown but Leon is light brown, like toast, and looks like Carol. But right then his dad just looked tired and sad.

His dad let him go and handed him the bag. He knelt down and held both of Leon's hands.

“You can't open it till Christmas, right? Look, I put a knot in the top. You can't undo it. Christmas, Leon, and that's tomorrow morning, right?”

He looked at Leon for a very long time and kept trying to say something but nothing came out. Then he hugged Leon again and kissed him twice, his rough face scratching Leon's cheek.

“Now go,” he said at last. “Put it under the tree.”

Leon took the bag. It was heavy. There were at least two
presents inside, clunking together. Leon wanted to be happy but when he saw his dad walk away he wanted to run after him.

His dad had been to Crown Court before and he didn't come home for a long, long time. That time his mom kept crying for him and saying she missed him but this time she didn't care.

34

Sylvia is on the phone. She's talking and painting her toenails at the same time. It makes her voice sound different. Blue veins track all the way up her legs and disappear under her dressing gown. She should pull the dressing gown down but she doesn't notice things like that. She has a pair of glasses resting on the end of her nose, the phone squashed under her chin, a pot of nail varnish in one hand and the nail brush in another. So she hasn't got a free hand to pull her dressing gown down and cover her pale blue underwear.

Leon looks away but he carries on listening because she's talking to Maureen and it's all about how she's getting better.

Sylvia talks in a squeaky voice.

“So what did he say in the end?”

Leon can't hear Maureen so he has to imagine what she says.

“That I can come home, Sylvia.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Sylvia.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, Sylvia.”

Sylvia stops dead still.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes, Sylvia.”

“Tomorrow as in tomorrow?”

“Yes, Sylvia, tomorrow as in Monday.”

“Monday?”

“Morning, Sylvia.”

“Monday morning?”

“I'll get a taxi to your house, shall I, Sylvia?”

“Yes, that's it. Get a taxi here and I'll be waiting.”

Sylvia looks up at Leon and puts her thumb up.

“We'll both be waiting. He sends his love.”

“Send him my love back, Sylvia.”

“She sends you her love, Leon.”

“I haven't got a time yet. They don't tell you anything around here, Sylvia.”

“Don't worry about a time, I'll wait in all day if necessary. Like you say, they'll keep you in the dark till it suits them.”

“Got to go now, Sylvia.”

“Yes, yes. You get off. We'll be waiting.”

With only eight of her ten toenails painted, Sylvia stands up and does a silly hopping dance on the carpet, keeping her toes curled up. She looks like a mad person and Leon doesn't laugh even though Sylvia is happy. Leon's happy inside.

Then for the whole day it's jobs, jobs, jobs. There's nothing wrong with his room but he has to clean it. He has to wipe the windowsill with a clean cloth and put his toys in a neat row. He has to make his pillow puff up and put his shoes in pairs. Then he has to clean the bathroom mirror because Sylvia says he does it the best but that was a lie. He has to put bleach in the toilet and then some green stuff that's supposed to smell like pine trees but it just smells like school.

All the time, Sylvia is running backward and forward with eight pink toenails and two plain ones. She puts fat rollers in her hair and doesn't get dressed for hours.

“Spring cleaning,” she says, forcing her hands into some yellow rubber gloves. But she is wrong again. It's summertime.

They open every single window and door, sweep the two paths, the one that leads up the garden and the one at the front. Then Sylvia puts on her working jeans and fills a plastic bowl with hot soapy water. She gets a scrubbing brush from under the sink and carries it all out to the front garden.

She looks up and down the road.

“Beautiful day, isn't it?”

Leon nods.

“Now,” she says, dipping the brush in the bowl and squatting down by the front door. “This is a lost art. The ancient ritual of the scrubbing of the front doorstep.”

The brush makes a scratching noise on the concrete and the suds turn black. Sylvia is talking all the time and nodding her head like there's an invisible person agreeing with her.

“Yes,” she says, “every Friday morning before the weekend. Or was it a Saturday? Yes, Saturday. Crack of dawn you'd hear our old lady with that tin pail. Clunk, clunk, clunk from the back to the front. All weathers. Oh, if that wasn't a hint to get your ass up out of bed, I don't know what was. Yep, seven o'clock on a Saturday morning. Vowed I wouldn't turn out like her and here I am on my hands and bloody knees for our Mo who doesn't give a shit in the first place. You're nuts, that's what you are, Sylvia Thorne née Richards. Potty. The neighbors think you're mad. Mo thinks you're mad. You know it yourself. But that's who you are and there's no changing now. No, nor wouldn't want to. There's filth on this step and it's coming off.”

She's scrubbing so hard that she's swaying from side to side.

“Mo won't even notice, will she? No, she won't. But you'll
know, Sylvia. You'll know you scrubbed your front step like it was Leighton Buzzard 1952. There!”

She stops and wipes the back of her hand across her forehead and tests the rollers to make sure they haven't moved.

“Make us a cup of coffee, Leon, love. Don't just stand there and look at me like I'm a Martian. This is normal behavior where I come from.”

Leon makes her coffee in her favorite mug and puts two biscuits on a plate. He puts everything on a tray and then adds a teaspoon in case her biscuit collapses when she dips it in. He brings it out to the front and when Sylvia sees it she gives him a kind smile and stands up, arching her back forward and then backward.

“What would I do without you, eh?” she says. “You're lovely, you are.”

Even though her face is very old, Sylvia has young eyes and sometimes he can see that she used to be pretty. When the TV was black and white, she says, that's when she was pretty, when everything cost a shilling and she used to go dancing at the Locarno. Sylvia is prettier than Maureen but Maureen is nicer and Maureen is coming back. That means that Leon will go back to his second bedroom. His first bedroom was when he used to live with Carol and Jake. His second bedroom was at Maureen's house where he and Jake used to sleep. He remembers the wallpaper and the lampshade and the way the light came through a gap in the curtains. His mom came to that room and saw the photo of Jake and fell down. His third bedroom is next to Sylvia's. It won't take him long to pack his things.

Sylvia gets in the shower and when she comes out she has her hair in a different style.

“What do you think?” she says.

“It's higher.”

“Higher and?”

“Bigger,” says Leon.

“Bigger and higher,” she says.

Leon nods.

“And is that good in your world, Leon?”

She sounds angry so Leon says nothing.

“You've got a babysitter tonight. I'm going out.”

Crazy Rose comes to look after him.

“Hello, Pete,” she says.

“Leon, Rose. His name is Leon. Leon. He's ready for bed, so just send him off when you're ready. He's as good as gold. Won't make a fuss.”

“Like your hair, Sylv!” says Crazy Rose and she walks all the way around Sylvia so she can see it from every angle.

“Did you do it yourself?”

“Me and the rollers and a can of Silvikrin Extra Hold.”

“It's worked anyhow, hasn't it?”

“Do you think?” says Sylvia, pushing it up at the back. “It's not too high?”

“Goes with that dress and them shoes.”

“Ten ninety-nine from British Home Stores,” says Sylvia, putting one foot forward like a ballet dancer. “The dress was on sale and I took it in. Always had a tiny waist.”

“Well, have a good time, Sylvie, love. We'll be all right together, won't we, Pete?”

“Leon,” says Sylvia.

Crazy Rose puts the TV on and they watch a film about a shark and then she falls asleep, so Leon changes the channel. He is still awake when Sylvia comes back.

“Rose? Rose?”

Sylvia has to shake her loads of times to get her to wake up.

“Oooh,” she says, “was I asleep? How long have I been asleep? Where's Pete?”

Sylvia cocks her thumb and tells Leon to go to bed.

“Come on, Rose. I've saved my taxi for you. It's outside.”

Leon stays on the sofa. He's taken seventy pence out of Crazy Rose's purse and he's already put it in his backpack. He also took her nail file with its purple plastic cover. He saw a film once where someone used a nail file to escape from prison. They put it in the lock and then the door opened.

When Crazy Rose has gone, Sylvia starts taking grips and pins out of her high hairstyle and it all comes down, wild and fluffy. She has black makeup under her eyes.

“Bastard didn't turn up, if you want to know, Pete,” she says.

Leon gets up.

“We're going to move to the seaside, that's what we're going to do. Me and Mo. Hastings. Or Rye. I'm going to make her do it. Give this all up and retire to the sea. A little cottage next to a pub.”

She's swaying a bit from side to side as she lights her cigarette.

“Fuck this shit,” she says, waving her arms around. She flops down on to the sofa and a single belch pops out.

“Begging your pardon. Make us another one of your marvellous coffees, Pete.”

She begins to giggle.

“Pete! Pete! Crazy fucking Rose.”

Leon makes her a cup of coffee and puts extra sugar in it because Sylvia looks sad. He takes it in on a tray with the biscuits and a spoon.

He puts it carefully on the floor and sits next to Sylvia on the sofa. She doesn't say thank you and so he doesn't say anything, either. The room is so quiet he can hear the traffic on the road outside, just a few cars and a siren far away.

Then Sylvia begins to cry. She puts one hand over her eyes and the other hand, with the cigarette, starts shaking. Leon takes the cigarette and puts it in the ashtray, then he sits back down.
Sylvia's crying gets worse and her hair starts bobbing up and down. He holds her hand because that's what she did when he started crying when he was sick.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I'm sorry.”

Then Leon puts his arm round her shoulder.

“Don't cry,” he says. “Maureen is coming home tomorrow.”