The old man. Fuck it. Leon swallowed hard. When would it ever end? That fear of facing his father? That terror of seeing the disappointment in his eyes?
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53
He was by the sash window, his hands behind his back like the Duke of Edinburgh about to inspect the guard, staring down at the street. He was a tall, good-looking man seven days from his fifty-third birthday, calm and regal in his crisp Humphrey Bogart raincoat. He was standing. There was nowhere to sit down. There was nothing in the room but a pile of rucksacks and a few sleeping bags, one of which contained two sleeping teenage girls, curled up like kittens. 'What are you doing here, Dad?' The old man turned to him.
'Hello, Leon,' he said, as if he could hardly believe their luck at bumping into each other. T could ask you the same question, couldn't I?' The old man seemed perfectly relaxed. Leon had to hand it to him - how many of the boys he went to school with had fathers who could walk into a squat and not bat an eyelid? Leon remembered what his father had said to him when he was a boy, and delirious with excitement because his daddy had taken him to his newspaper office as a special treat during the long summer holiday. A journalist has to be at home everywhere, Leon. Remember that. The old man smiled, and placed a hand on Leon's shoulder, patting it twice, and then let it fall away when his son did not respond. 'Good to see you. Are you keeping well?' He looked up at Leon's hat but said nothing. Leon's parents had always been very understanding about the vagaries of fashion. Inmriatingly tolerant, in fact. None of his haircuts - the botched Ziggy Stardust, the failed Rod Stewart - had ever troubled them. That's their problem exactly, Leon thought. They can understand a bit of youthful rebellion. But they can't stomach the real thing. Leon grimaced. 'You really should have rung. This is not a good time. I'm going out - my friends will be waiting - at the Western World.' His father frowned, lifting a hand to Leon's bruised cheekbone, but not quite touching it. 'What on earth happened to your poor face?'
Leon wanted to say - oh, please don't fuss, I've had twenty years of it. But he couldn't resist - he wanted his father to know. He wanted his father to be proud of him. And when the fuck would that ever end? 'I was down there on Saturday. You know - Lewisham.' Leon relished the frightened look in the old man's face. 'The riot? What - they beat you?' Leon laughed at that. 'I just got clipped. A cop's knee.' His father was wide-eyed. Everything amazed him. 'His knee?'
Leon sighed with irritation. How could anyone know so little? 'He was on a horse, Dad. He was a cop on a horse'. Leon waited. He wanted some acknowledgement from his father. A bit of credit, that wouldn't have gone amiss. Some small nod of recognition that Leon had done a good thing by going to Lewisham and standing up to the racists. But the old man just exhaled with frustration.
'Why do you want to get mixed up in all that? A bunch of bower boys waving the flag, and another bunch of bower boys throwing bricks at them. What does that solve?'
Leon's face reddened with anger. 'You should understand. You of all people. They're Fascists, Dad. They have to be stopped. Isn't that what you did in the war?'
The old man raised his eyebrows. He almost smiled, and Leon blushed. He wished he could stop doing that.
'Is that what you think it was like at Monte Cassino? A punch-up on Lewisham High Street? What a lot you have to learn, my boy.'
This is why I left home, Leon thought, his eyes pricking with tears. The constant belittling. The just-not-fucking-getting-it. The never being good enough. The being told that I know nothing.
T don't care what you think,' Leon said, knowing he cared desperately. 'And why did you come? Why?'
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'Your mother asked me to,' said the old man, and Leon felt that twinge of hurt. So it wasn't his dad that was worried about him. It was her. His mother. 'Your mother doesn't get it. All your advantages and you end up living with a bunch of dossers.'
'Listen to you,' Leon said, mocking him now. 'The great enlightened liberal - sneering at the homeless.' 'I'm not sneering. I'm just - I'm just happy to see you.' 'Can you keep your voice down, please?' Leon said, indicating the sleeping girls, trying to show the old man that he was on his territory now. 'They've been up all night.'
His father peered at the girls as if noticing them for the first time.
'Who are they?' he said, keeping his voice down. There was a natural curiosity about him, and Leon thought perhaps that was why he was such a good journalist.
'Someone found them sleeping in the photo booth at Euston. They've come down from Glasgow.'
He wanted his dad to understand. He wanted him to see that these were Leon's battles - fighting racism, finding a roof for the homeless, confronting injustice - and they were just as important as the battles that his father had fought. But the old man just shook his head sadly, as if it was insane for children to be sleeping in photo booths, and it infuriated Leon. 'Dad, do you know what happens to most of the homeless kids who sleep in railway stations? They end up selling their bodies within a week.' 'They might be homeless, but you're not, are you, Leon?' He looked from the sleeping girls to his son. 'You're just playing at it.' Leon was having trouble controlling his heart, his breathing, his temper. He was at that point in a young man's life when every word from his father's mouth enraged him.
'I'm playing at nothing,' Leon said. 'They can't leave good housing empty. We're not going to stand for it any more. The homeless are fighting back.' 'But you choose to be homeless, Leon. Where's the sense in that? You give up your home for a slum. You give up your education for some music paper.'
Here we go, Leon thought. As if writing think pieces about the cod war is morally superior. As if sitting on your fanny and getting a degree somehow validates your existence.
'I've got a friend called Terry. His parents think he's done very well for himself by getting a job on a music paper.'
'I am sure Terry didn't have your advantages. I'm sure Terry wasn't at the London School of Economics until he dropped out in his first year. How can you throw all that away? Your grandfather was a taxi driver from Hackney. Do you know what he would have given for the chances you've had?'
The taxi driver from Hackney, Leon thought. It always came back to my father's father. The old man didn't know how fucking lucky he was - all he had to compete with was a taxi driver from Hackney who never quite lost his Polish accent. And what did Leon have to compete with? Leon had to compete with him.
One of the girls in the sleeping bag stirred, opened her eyes and went back to sleep. 'You shouldn't have come here, Dad,' Leon said.
T came because your mother's frantic,' the old man said, and Leon flinched at the feeling in his voice. 'She's worried sick. Where's your compassion for her, Leon?' His father looked around wildly. 'You think whoever owns this place is going to let this last for ever? One night soon someone is going to kick you out - and kick you bloody hard, my son.' Leon narrowed his eyes. 'We'll be ready for them.'
His father threw his hands in the air. Leon had seen that exasperated gesture so many times. It said the things I have to put up with!
'Oh, grow up, Leon. You think these people are going to change the world? Take a good whiff. They have trouble changing their socks.'
'They're committed to something bigger than themselves. They care.'