June 1975
When it came to boys Cyril Dragon couldn’t rely on his own childhood memories. Never having been like other boys, he had avoided their company and even now remained slightly frightened of that alien species. Yet somehow this had never mattered with Leo. Of course Neela had always been there nudging and urging the boy: “Tell Cyril your joke,” “Show Cyril your drawing,” “Why don’t you ask Cyril?” All he’d had to do was to show a modicum of interest. Laugh at the jokes and ask a question here and there. Once upon a time Leo was the opposite of Reza: responsive pliable eager to please. The way he’d beam and arch towards the slightest attention like a plant seeking sunlight.
He’d given Leo an old Ladybird book once. Some silverfished thing he’d found in a second-hand bookshop and taken a fancy to for its illustrations. It was a book about constellations and each one was drawn in realistic detail in the night sky: the bear with its soft eyes and velvety fur; Pegasus soaring on his terrifying wings; gallant Perseus rushing to the rescue of beautiful Andromeda. Leo would’ve been four or five years old. His face had lit up like a whole galaxy when Cyril had put the book in his hands. “For me, for me!” He’d ran and shown his mother but he’d struggled to read it and Cyril had sat down and helped him with the words. Myth-o-logy. Zo-di-ac. He-mi-sphere. That was a hard one with the ph. Cyril felt Neela watching them from the kitchen doorway willing the boy to do better to prove himself, to surpass some imaginary average. The fierceness of her ambition puzzled and terrified him. What is it you want? he wanted to ask her. What is it you worry about? But these were not questions for him to ask her, so instead he tried to allay her anxieties with praise: “Well done, Leo! Clever boy! How quickly you learn!” At this Leo would flash his shyly proud smile. Lashes lowered. Tongue pushing at one corner of his mouth.
A few days later he’d seen Leo on the porch at night squinting at the sky. “Where got?” the boy had demanded. “Cannot find the horse with wings. Cannot find the hunter with the big shield.” Cyril had dropped to his knees and laughed and laughed and laughed with delight and to his own surprise a kind of pride. For he too had as a child expected to look up and see the real beasts and warriors and princesses in the sky in all their finely detailed glory. “I thought the same, Leo,” he’d kept saying, “I thought the same! At one time I was also looking for Cassiopeia’s long locks and the swan’s cruel eyes!”
But was it pride he felt or merely the satisfaction of seeing yourself reflected in another human being? Yes yes it could after all only be that. The oldest human need and nothing wrong with it. Cyril was laughing and Leo was laughing together they were laughing and their eyes were locked because Leo felt it too this oh you also. Simple as that. Of course Leo could not have put it into words but you could see that was all he was looking for. No grand theories necessary here. The point was that it had been so easy to connect. Just one battered Ladybird book. If only it could be as easy with Reza.