by Kit de Waal
Leon uses the towel again because it’s better for tears.
“And one day,” she says, “you will see your brother again. He will find you or you will find him and you can tell him all about what you’ve been doing, about your soccer and your toys and your shows. You can ask him all the questions about what he’s been doing because he’s not as grown up as you, so he’ll still be doing baby things, won’t he? You’ll be able to help him with his toys. It might not be for a long time, you might even be grown up and you won’t be playing with toys anymore. But you will see Jake again. He hasn’t gone forever.”
She goes into the kitchen and gets him another biscuit but this time it’s got chocolate on it and Leon realizes that he didn’t hear her taking the lid off the Golden Tin, so Maureen has a secret hiding place.
“I’ll keep saying it until you believe me, Leon. You will be all right and that, mister, is a promise. I know you miss him, pigeon, and that the future seems a long, long way away but I know what I’m talking about. Right, you can have one more sip of your juice then go and have another pee so you don’t wet the bed.”
On the way up the stairs, he thinks of a question but by the time he gets into bed he’s forgotten it again. It was something about how long away the future was but he can’t think of the exact words to say.
Maureen kisses him and just before she turns the light out he hears her talking to herself.
“I should have got him to brush his bloody teeth.”
12
“All right, Salma, love. Come in.”
Leon stands at the top of the stairs just out of sight. There’s a little gap in the banisters where if he keeps his head dead still he can see who comes to the door. If he’s in his room playing with his toys and he hears the bell, it’s easy to slide off the bed and tread carefully on tiptoe along the brown carpet to the very top of the stairs. He crouches down and if they’re not whispering, he can hear what they say. He’s heard Maureen swearing lots of times, like when she called Margaret Thatcher a bloody cow because of the miners. And once she said Margaret Thatcher could kiss her ass and Leon laughed and got caught eavesdropping. Maureen says that if he keeps listening to people’s private conversations his ears will shrivel into prunes and drop off. Leon always checks his ears at night just in case.
Maureen takes Salma straight into the kitchen. She’ll make coffee for Salma and then they’ll talk about him. He creeps down the stairs in his socks to the sitting room and sits quietly in front of the television. Salma’s bag is on the sofa. Salma always has a handbag and another leather bag that she keeps her files in. The files are sticking out and her handbag has the zipper open. He can hear her with her sad voice.
“His last report card was a bit of a concern, I agree.”
“Bit of a concern? He’s got no friends. Spends his break on his own. Doesn’t do his work. It’s not like he’s thick. He’s grieving, if you ask me.”
“I’m sure he’ll settle down, Maureen. It’s got to be a shock for him but we’re confident we’ve done the right thing. It’s not just about him. Separately, they’ve got a chance, but together . . .”
Maureen snorts. “Jake’s got a chance, you mean. You’ve split them up and in my books that’s a sin and I won’t change my mind on that.”
“What would you have done then, Maureen? Have neither of them adopted? Because that’s the choice.”
“I have no idea what I would do, Salma.” Maureen is washing the dishes and making them clank together in the sink. “That’s why I’m not a social worker. Anyway, how is he?”
Leon pulls the straps of Salma’s handbag until it’s right next to him. He eases his hand inside and feels for her purse. His eyes are on the door. His ears are in the kitchen.
“Good. New mom and dad are delighted, obviously. He’s settling in well. Well as can be expected. It’s early on but it looks like a good match.”
Leon unzips the purse and he pokes two fingers in. He feels the cold metal of a coin with sharp corners. Fifty pence. He plucks it out, puts it in his other hand, clenches his fist around it. Zips up the purse and feels the cold sweat drip down his back. He pushes the bag with his elbow until it’s back where she left it. He can hardly breathe.
Salma is still talking.
“Mom and dad have taken him to the park, introduced him to the family, taken lots of photographs. They make a lovely family, Maureen. They’ve got a big garden.”
“Big garden, eh?” says Maureen. “How lovely.” She bangs the saucepan into the sink. “And what about this letter he’s supposed to get? Hang on, let me just check on Leon, I want to talk to you about something, Salma.”
The kitchen door opens quickly but Leon is prepared. He’s standing by the television pressing the button to turn it on. He doesn’t turn round.
“All right, love?” says Maureen. She goes back into the kitchen and the door clicks shut.
Leon dashes upstairs faster than a cheetah. He slips the fifty pence under his mattress. He’ll move it later. He comes downstairs so quickly and so lightly that he’s out of breath again. But he lands in his seat and leans on a cushion in twenty seconds. He can’t hear anything from the kitchen but the droning of the two women. He shuffles over in his seat next to Salma’s leather bag so he can be nearer the door but it’s no good. Nothing. All Salma’s files are sticking out of her bag, brown folders with white paper inside. These are the files that the social workers hold whenever he asks about his mum. They look through their files and check dates and addresses but they never let him see for himself. And he’s a good reader. He flicks through the corners of the files. He sees his name and his birth date. He sees Jake’s name and birth date. He sees his mom’s name and her birth date. He squeezes his hand between the pages and pulls.
Due to Carol’s itinerant lifestyle and mental health issues, it has been difficult to make a full and detailed assessment. Carol was given the opportunity to attend a weekly access visit to Leon and Jake to assess her commitment and capacity for caring for her children. She failed to attend these appointments without explanation. She has also failed to attend access visits arranged at the foster carer’s house on four separate occasions, again without explanation. Carol Rycroft did attend the Family Center without appointment, where she stayed for twenty minutes speaking to the Duty Social Worker about her new life and plans for the future, which did not appear to include caring for Leon and Jake.
The most recent psychiatric assessment of Carol Rycroft undertaken by Dr. Ann Mulroney (attached) concluded that Carol Rycroft has an emotionally unstable personality disorder which presents in maladaptive behavior that has formed the background to her mental health problems. She presents with a range of behaviors including anxiety, restlessness, stupor, and transient mood swings into hypomania. She reports previous episodes of mild to medium clinical depression following the birth of her first child, Leon, who has consequently spent several short periods in various foster care short-term placements. She also reports that her mother and maternal grandmother both had psychiatric disorders but this could not be verified. She is unwilling or unable to provide any details of either child’s biological father although limited information has been obtained from Tina Moore (see later).
Carol Rycroft’s current condition is complicated by her dependence on prescription drugs and alcohol use. Her personality disorder is also manifest in Carol’s high level of self-interest as opposed to the interests of her children. The Psychological Assessment concluded that Carol Rycroft is unlikely to be in a position to care for either child unless she is willing to undertake further psychological input for a period of no less than eighteen months.
He tucks the paper back where it was and opens the kitchen door.
“When am I going to see my mom?”
Salma puts her face up close to Leon and smiles.
“Remember we talked about this, Leon? Remember we said—”
“Well, it’s because—”
“I’m hungry,” he says.
Salma smiles again and rubs his shoulder like he’s fallen over.
“Course you are.”
Salma goes back to sipping her coffee while Maureen takes the lid off the biscuit tin.
“Tea’s in half an hour,” she says.
Leon nibbles the biscuit and stares at them.
“What?” says Maureen, folding her arms. “You been listening at doors again? You’ll hear something you won’t like one of these days.”
She touches his cheek.
“Not today, though. It’s all good today. Go on, off with you. Half an hour of TV and I’ll put the tea on. Sausage and mash. Now hop it.”
She closes the door after him and he sits down by the papers that say horrible things about his mom. He knocks Salma’s bag over with his elbow and when it falls on the floor everything spills out and he kicks it with his foot so that the papers get jumbled up. He stands over the mess and dribbles the soggy biscuit from his mouth onto the papers, a brown sticky mess with crumbs in it. Then he gathers them up and puts them back in Salma’s bag.
13
When Leon wakes the next morning the house is very quiet. Outside, there is a car running its motor in the avenue and far, far off, he can hear a train on a track. Leon’s never been on a train but he knows they can take you all over the country faster than a car. He saw an ad about it. One day, he’s going to get on a train and find his mom.
He can hear the trilling of a bird in the tree next door. There are birds that trill and birds that coo and sometimes Leon would make bird noises for Jake and Jake would pull Leon’s lips like he was trying to grab the sound before it came out. Jake was always touching something—if it wasn’t Leon himself it was his cars and his toys, and when Jake was going to sleep, he would hold on to Leon’s fingers. Sometimes, thinking about Jake makes Leon feel sick.
Even before he opens his eyes, he can tell that Maureen is still asleep because his room is above the kitchen and the first thing she does in the morning is make a cup of coffee. She calls it “witch’s brew” and once she let Leon taste it and he agrees with her. She has to put three sugars in to make it taste nice.
But the reason Maureen is still in bed is that there is nothing to get up for. Jake used to wake them up every morning and, without Jake, Maureen has been staying in bed later and later. She says it’s because of her chest but Leon knows what it really is. The empty sound in the house is louder than Jake crying for his bottle. It’s louder than his laugh. Louder than his baby drums. And if Leon turns round and looks at Jake’s cot in the corner of the room, he knows that he will get angry with Maureen, so he picks at a scratch in the wallpaper and puts the pieces in his mouth. They taste of fish sticks.
Leon goes downstairs and still Maureen is in her room. He makes some Weetabix and eats it in front of the TV with the sound down low. He has the room to himself and he can watch what he wants, he doesn’t have to have the baby programs on and Jake isn’t screaming or trying to pull his hair. He makes some more Weetabix and sprinkles it with masses of sugar. Then he eats three of Jake’s special yogurts without bits in. Maureen comes down and tells him to clear up his mess but when he goes into the kitchen she grabs him and snuggles him until he wants to cry.
“Right, mister,” she says as she tidies up, “what’s me and you doing on a miserable Saturday?”
Leon shrugs.
“We got that Dumbo video for later,” she says, “and I’ve got some shopping to do but that won’t take long. Shame it’s raining.”
Maureen stands in the doorway with her special pink hearts mug of coffee.
“Tell you what, we’ll go for a little bus ride,” she says. “We’ll go and see Sylvia. Haven’t seen her for ages.”
Maureen’s sister lives very far away and they have to take two buses. The first one stops on a busy road where there are lots of shops and too many people. Maureen holds his hand tight and people will think that Maureen is his mom. She’s fat and her hair is too orange and he doesn’t want anyone to think that his mom isn’t beautiful, so he tries to get his hand back and put it in his pocket.
Maureen keeps stopping to look in shopwindows and saying how expensive everything is. The only good shop has lots of toys in the window—Clash of the Titans figures with Charon and Calibos—but Maureen won’t wait, because they have to find the second bus and that takes forever. They pass factories and shops and enormous houses that are broken down and boarded up. Eventually, they get off the bus and stand at the bottom of a steep hill. Maureen looks up to the very top, shakes her head, and takes a deep breath.
“Here goes,” she says.
She starts slowly, stopping every few steps and holding on to gates and grasping at hedges because she can’t breathe. She tells Leon to carry her shopping bag and she shuffles along the pavement with one hand on her chest and the other swinging in the air. She has the same face as when she cries and Leon hopes she won’t start until she gets where they’re going. They take ages to get to the top and walk down the path to the bungalow.
Sylvia gasps when she opens the door.
“What on earth? Maureen! Get in here.”
She helps Maureen inside.
Maureen can’t speak and tell anyone what’s wrong, so Sylvia gets her a glass of water.
“What happened?” she says again, lodging a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and feeling Maureen’s forehead. Leon has seen Sylvia once before, when she came for Christmas dinner. She smoked all the time and didn’t say one word to Leon. She didn’t even bring him or Jake a present. She doesn’t look like Maureen. She’s very skinny and she has dark purple hair that looks like it’s leaked onto her skin. She has long nails that match her lipstick and black tights with little holes all over them. She’s wearing the same shoes that Carol wore once when she went out at Christmas with Tina. But if you added Tina’s age and Carol’s age together they still wouldn’t be as old as Sylvia. She turns suddenly to Leon and points the cigarette at him.
“Did you see what happened?”
Leon shakes his head and sits next to Maureen, who pats him on his back.
“It’s all right, Leon, love,” she whispers. “She’s not blaming you.”
“Have you had a turn, Mo?” Sylvia asks.
“Got a tight chest, that’s all. Got a sort of wheezing rattle or something every time I try and do anything.”
Maureen sips the water and makes an ugly face.
“Coffee, Sylvia, if you don’t mind. Three sugars.”
“It’ll be that sugar that’s got you wheezing, if you ask me.”
Sylvia goes to the kitchen and Maureen winks at Leon.
“She’s all right, is Sylvie. Once you’ve known her fifty years.”
Leon plays on the floor with his Action Man while the horse racing is on the TV. Maureen and Sylvia spend the day laughing and sometimes Maureen can’t breathe because she thinks the joke is so funny.
“Remember Janet? Janet Blythe? Curvature of the spine with that funny nose?” says Sylvia.
“Yeah.”
“She’s got married to Gordon.”
“Gordon Gordon? We talking about the same Gordon?”
“Yeah, Gordon. Goldfish Gordon with the lips.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. I can’t believe it.”
“Imagine their kids.”
“They’re too old for kids, Sylvia.”
“I know but imagine.”
Then Sylvia makes an ugly face, pulling her lips down and shoving her bottom teeth out, and Maureen has to lie on the sofa and keeps saying “Don’t. Don’t.”
Even though Leon takes his Action Man, it’s very boring at Sylvia’s house. All they do is talk about
the olden days when they were young and about all Sylvia’s boyfriends and different people they know and who is married and who is separated and who is playing around.
Sylvia takes a photo album out and tells Leon to sit between her and Maureen.
“Wait till you see our Mo in some of these,” she says.
The album is heavy on his legs and he has to put his feet up on tiptoe to stop it falling to the floor.
Sylvia turns the pages while Maureen wheezes next to him.
“There she is.”
Sylvia points to a black-and-white picture of two girls in tight polka-dot dresses and funny hair. He can’t see their faces because it’s all blurred.
“That’s her. What do you think?”
Sylvia keeps nudging him but he doesn’t know what to say because it doesn’t look like Maureen. It just looks like an old film from the Second World War.
“Look at this one,” Sylvia says, turning another page, and Maureen gasps.
“God, I haven’t seen that before. Where did you find that? Where was it taken? Southend?”
“Not Southend, Mo. That was when we went to the beach with Percy and Bob.”
“It’s Southend, Sylv.”
Sylvia takes the photograph out and points at the back.
“What does that say? Morton’s Holiday Park, Hastings, June 1949.”
“Bloody hell. I’m skinny there.”
“And look at me!” Sylvia is laughing. “I look like a bloody tart with my tits out like that.”
Maureen frowns at Sylvia and looks at Leon.
“She needs a swear box, doesn’t she, Leon?”
But Sylvia is turning pages and paying no attention and this goes on for ages, taking the photographs out and reading the address on the back and talking about where they were taken and where they lived and who is thin and who is fat and who is still alive and who is dead and who was handsome and who’s got no teeth now. It goes on and on until they tell Leon he can put the TV on and see if there’s a soccer match to watch.