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.
‘I don’t care what you think,’ Leon said, knowing he cared desperately. ‘And why did you come? Why?’
‘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.
‘I 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.’
‘They carel his father echoed. ‘One day you’ll see that the people who care, the people who profess love for the masses, are the most heartless bastards in the world.’ Then his voice was almost begging. ‘Look – I was like you. Thought I knew it all. You’ve got so much time, Leon. You don’t realise how much time you have.’
Round and round. Never ending. It had been just like this in the last days of home, Leon thought. Bossing him around, dressing it up as reasoned debate. Until one of them – always Leon, now he thought about it – slammed away from the dinner table and went to his room. But he wasn’t living at home any more. His father did not understand. That was all over.
‘You just want me to be what I was, Dad – a good little student you can boast about to all your friends.’
His father shook his head, and Leon felt a flicker of fear – he looked like he was in some kind of pain. ‘No – I just want you to have a happy life. Dropping out – that’s not the way, that can never be the way.’
Happiness! Now Leon had heard everything.
‘Life’s not just about happiness, is it? I can’t go back to my old life, Dad. I can’t sit around with a bunch of privileged middle-class kids when there are people sleeping on the street, when there are racists beating up Pakistani shopkeepers, when they are marching through the streets making their Nazi salutes. I can’t pretend it’s not happening.’
‘Come home,’ his father said.
That’s what it came down to in the end. Never hearing a word he said. Wanting things to be the way they
