The Late Hector Kipling (16 page)

‘Kirk, I’m sorry. All this has sent me on a bit of a funny one.’

‘Yeah,’ says Kirk.

‘I feel . . . I feel . . . well, I don’t know, Kirk, I don’t know what I feel, it’s . . . it’s . . .’

‘Hector,’ says Kirk, ‘are we just gonna talk about you?’

‘No!’ I squeak, appalled. ‘We’re not gonna talk about me at all. This is not about me. It’s about you. We’re gonna talk about you.’

‘Yeah?’ says Kirk and lights up the joint. ‘So what are we gonna say about me?’

‘Well . . .’ I say, and panic. The molecules overpower the civil servants and stamp on their specs. The little man – or woman – sat on top of my brain has fallen off and got themselves wedged somewhere in my neck. There’re also six and a half thousand old teeth bouncing around inside my skull, against the bone. ‘Well . . .’

‘Well what, Hector? Well what?’

The time has come.

‘Well, I don’t know, Kirk, what if you die? How does that make you feel?’

There, I said it. It’s about the only thing there is to say and I can’t believe it’s taken this long to squeeze it out. Kirk appreciates it. Kirk’s no fool. Kirk lies back on the bed and puts out the joint in what’s left of the piccalilli. There’s a small hiss and a plume of yellow smoke.

Silence.

Upstairs someone is learning the penny whistle.

Next door they’re watching a Tarzan movie, by the sound of things.

I can hear Bacon’s claws on the windowsill.

Silence.

‘It makes me feel useless,’ says Kirk, ‘it makes me feel that I’ve meant nothing at all.’

I nod. Silence. ‘But you’re not useless, Kirk.’ Silence. Bacon’s claws and the blink of the earwig.

‘It makes me wonder whether I was ever meant to mean anything.’

I nod. A slow nod. Hardly a nod at all. ‘I know, Kirk, I know. I can imagine.’

‘I fade off to sleep at night and imagine it may be for the last time. I think about whether that’s a sad thing or a matter of general indifference.’

‘It’s a sad thing, Kirk.’

‘I think about my paintings . . . and I feel like lugging them all down to the river and throwing them in. And then I think why bother?’

I raise my eyebrows, rather beautifully, I imagine.

‘Why dignify them with such ceremony?’ he says.

Kirk puts his hands over his eyes and embarks upon a sequence of tiny noises. I think he’s crying. He might not be crying, he might be laughing. I doubt it, given what’s just been said, but what the fuck do I know? Perhaps he’s just taking the piss. What should I say? Should I say nothing? If I say nothing then what should I not say? And if I say something?

‘Kirk,’ I say, ‘don’t you dare throw your paintings into the river.’

The next thing I know Kirk’s tossed a teaspoon at me and it hits me on the nose.

‘Kiiirrrk,’ I whine, ‘why d’you do that?’

He sits up and I can hardly see his eyes for water. Well, that settles it: he’s crying.

You know what? I’m sick of all this crying. Sick of everybody, every fucker, just fucking crying all the time. Whatever happened to repression? That’s what I’d like to know. Whatever happened to bottling it all up?

‘Hector!’ he shouts. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

I freeze. I’m not used to Kirk shouting at me, and I’m not used to Kirk asking me what’s the matter with me. It’s a hell of a question – a hell of an answer.

‘Nothing’s the matter with me, Kirk. What do you mean?’

‘Why have you come round here?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Yes!’

‘Yes, you don’t know?’

‘No!’

‘What, yes you do know?’

‘Yes!’

‘So what the fuck’s going on with you?’ shouts Kirk, and Bacon makes a swipe at the earwig. Gets it first time. Gone.

‘Eleni’s mother’s dead!’ I shout, and then clear my throat.

‘What?’ says Kirk.

‘Sofia, Eleni’s mother, she’s dead.’

‘She’s dead?’

I say the next bit much more quietly. Almost a whisper. ‘Well, she’s not dead, I mean . . . she’s not dead. I mean she’s dying. Really dying. May very well die. In fact she might as well be dead. She’s lost consciousness, is what I mean . . . and . . . may never regain it . . . so . . .’

Kirk looks at me for a long time, much longer than friends usually look at each other without saying anything. I know that he’s looking at me and therefore I don’t look at him. In the silence I work out what he’s going to say. He’s either going to say, ‘Hector, I’m so sorry, that’s tragic, come here, let me hug you.’ Or he’s going to say, ‘Hector, do you want Eleni’s mother to die?’

He’s still staring at me. I light a fag.

‘You’ve seen Lenny’s billboard, haven’t you?’

I didn’t expect him to say that.

‘What?’ I say.

‘You’ve seen Lenny’s billboard, his water ad.’

I stand up. ‘Oh, it’s for water, is it?’

Kirk leans back. ‘What did you think it was for?’

‘I don’t know’ I hold up my hands. ‘Tampons?’

Kirk shrugs and starts to finger his temple.

‘So where did you see it?’ I ask.

‘I haven’t seen it, Lenny told me about it.’

I can’t believe it. I cannot fucking believe it. ‘He told you about it? When?’

‘The other night. The night he stayed the night.’

‘And why hasn’t he told me?’

‘I don’t know, Hec.’

‘And has he told you what he’s doing for the Prize?’

‘Yes.’

I turn on the spot and try to pace the room. I don’t get very far. ‘So what is it?

‘Well, it’s the coffin–pram thing –
Domesticated Goose Chase
– and the limo filled with blood and the sausage sentry box.’

‘I know all that. I know he’s showing all that, but he’s doing something new. Has he told you about this new thing, is what I’m asking? This settee thing, is what I’m asking.’

‘Yes, he’s told me about that as well.’

‘And why hasn’t he told me?’

Silence.

I lie down on my back, wrists towards Jupiter.

‘He says he doesn’t want to.’

I sit up. Fuck Jupiter. ‘Oh, does he? He doesn’t want to? Why doesn’t he want to?’

Kirk sits up and lights a cigarette. I pull my coat over with my foot, reach into the pocket, pull out the bottle and take a swig of the whiskey.

‘Hector, please don’t drink any more.’

‘Why doesn’t he want to tell me?’

‘Hector, you’re going to pass out. Put the bottle away.’

‘Why doesn’t he want to tell me?’ I screw the top back onto the bottle.

‘Cos he says that if he tells you, you’ll start interfering.’

‘Interfering?’

‘That you’ll start making suggestions.’

‘Suggestions?’ I unscrew the cap.

‘And then you’ll start claiming that it was your idea all along.’

‘What?’ I take another swig.

‘He just wants to do it alone so that you can’t accuse him of anything.’

‘Is this what he said?’

‘More or less. Hector, put the bottle away.’

My mobile rings. It’s Bianca.

‘Hector, you missed your appointment.’

I nearly crush the hand-piece in my fist. ‘Shit! Is it Monday?’

‘What?’ says Kirk.

‘Nothing,’ I say.

‘It’s every Monday, Hector,’ says Bianca.

‘But is it Monday now?’

‘Yes, Hector.’ She sounds a little bit cross and a little bit gentle. A little bit tired and a little bit intrigued.

‘And what time is it.’

‘It’s six o’clock. Your appointment was at five twenty.’

‘Then I’ve still got ten minutes.’

‘But where are you?’

‘On the phone. We’ll do it on the phone.’

I ask Kirk if I can use the toilet and even though I don’t need to go I pull down my trousers and sit on the toilet. It feels good talking to Bianca like this, with my trousers pulled down – sitting on the toilet.

I’m driving up to Lenny’s place.

No one thought it was a good idea. Kirk tried to hide my car keys and Bianca begged me to just go to bed and see her first thing in the morning. Bianca thought that my main objection to Lenny’s billboard was a question of scale. She compared Rosa Flood to a landmine and Eleni’s mother to heartburn. I asked her what she meant by this and she said that sadness is sometimes little more than trapped wind and had I made a serious attempt to burp myself? (I don’t think Bianca’s very good. I’m paying her fifty pounds a session to flounder. I’m paying her a quid a minute just to switch off the lights and do all her stabbing in the dark.)

I turn onto Delancey and get onto Parkway.

I think about calling him before I get there and take out my phone. Tiny winking envelope. I press all the buttons I’ve learned to press and pick up the message. It’s from Eleni.

‘Hector? Hector? I don’t know why I call your name, I know you can’t hear me. But it is nice to call your name anyway. It’s Eleni. Why haven’t you called me? It’s Monday, about half-past six your time – maybe you’re coming back from Bianca. I left a message last night, but here they tell me that no one has called for me. My mother is very sick, Hector. I think I must stay. I will stay. My father is poorly, as you would say. Poorly with worry. I know that you can’t come out yet. I know that you have your show tomorrow. I am ringing to say good luck with the show tomorrow. I hope that you are not cross with me. I am not cross with you, by the way. Please call me, please. I love you. I’ll try to call you at the flat. I love you . . . bye . . . bye . . .’

And the line goes dead.

So dead.

My skull fills up like an old porcelain cistern.

I love Eleni. I love Eleni Marianos.

I pull up and park outside Lenny’s house. Perhaps Brenda’s back and she’s holding his head down in the dishwater. Perhaps he’s masturbating over a photo of Walt Disney. Perhaps Rosa Flood’s crayoning pentagrams onto the gusset of her knickers and quoting Aleister Crowley with a mouthful of newborn locusts. Who knows what the hell’s going on in there. Perhaps I should call him – let him know I’m here. No. Fuck calling him. Why let him know I’m here? I’ll just walk up to his shiny green door and ring the fucking bell. Then he’ll know I’m here.

I walk up to his shiny green door and ring the fucking bell. His camera clicks on and Lenny says, ‘Yes?’

I say, ‘What do you mean, “Yes?”, you can see who it is, it’s me.’

The lock clicks and the door gives way.

As I climb the stairs I can hear Schubert’s Symphony Number Five blasting out from Lenny’s Bang and fucking Olufsen. I pull out the
bottle and take a swig. I hear Lenny shout, ‘I’m on the top floor,’ as though that’s some kind of achievement.

At the top of the first landing there’s an enormous framed photograph of Lenny with David Hockney. They’re both stood somewhere in the Hollywood hills with a couple of silly dachshunds and two takeaway tortillas.

‘Right at the top. All the way to the top, man,’ shouts Lenny.
‘I’m coming,’ I shout, struggling for breath.

The house smells of jasmine and ratatouille. I can see one of Brenda’s big bowls on the kitchen table and one of her vases filled with hyacinths.

I light a fag. ‘I’m coming, Len,’ I shout.

On the second landing there’s a Lennon lithograph of Yoko snuggling into a cosy white bag. The Schubert’s making it all sound as though life’s just fine. Like life’s all about eating Brie-and-cornichon baguettes on Hampstead Heath and feeling a bit sad cos you’ve noticed a crisp bag blowing across the lily pond.

Lenny’s alone in the top room. He’s sat at his desk surrounded by something like thirty or forty tealights. He’s drawing a line with a ruler. There’s a Fiona Rae on one wall and on another there’s a photo of Lenny, Marc Quinn and Gavin Turk with their arms wrapped around Gary Kemp. Lenny swivels round in his seat. ‘Mr Kipling,’ he says, in that stupid way he’s been saying for seventeen years, like he can’t get over that I’ve got the same name as someone who makes cheap little cakes.

‘Mr Snook,’ I say and plonk myself down in his armchair. I sit very still. Looking around. There’s a huge white settee in the room.

Lenny moved down to London in 1981 to attend the Chelsea School of Art. From there he moved on to Goldsmiths. I also moved down to London in 1981.I spent three years at Camberwell School of Art. From there I moved to the Slade. We had every reason to go our separate ways. But we didn’t. We didn’t go our separate ways. We saw each other three
or four times a week and eventually shared a flat together. The flat was khaki and unseasonably damp and smelled of baked tomatoes. We shared it with a percussionist called Randolph Rosenberg who has since lost a leg and taken up a career in coin magic.

‘Kirk called,’ says Lenny, ‘and said you were on your way’ He’s got a pencil in his hand; he puts it in and out of his mouth like it’s a cigar.

‘Right,’ I say, glancing at the white settee.

‘Says you’ve had a few.’

‘Oh yes,’ I nod, ‘oh yes,’ and I nod again, and the room turns into some kind of giant tombola drum. ‘Oh yes, I’ve had a few.’

‘Hector,’ says Lenny. He stands up. ‘Hector, is something the matter?’

Brilliant, Lenny. What a fucking genius you are. What a monster of intuition you fucking are. What a master of signals.

‘Something the matter?’

‘What’s the matter, Hec?’

I sit up in the chair. I look at the big white settee with a white wooden window frame fitted into the backrest so that you can see straight through. The window has magenta curtains. There’s a space between the front and the back and a medium-sized cactus sitting on a ledge.

‘Nice settee,’ I say.

Lenny looks over at it, like he’s seeing it for the first time. Behind him, on the wall, are several drawings of settees, windows, cactuses.

‘Is that it?’ I say.

‘Is that what?’ says Lenny.

‘The piece,’ I say, ‘the big holy secret.’

Lenny puts down his pencil and picks up the ruler. ‘Not all of it, no.’

‘What’s the cactus about?’

He’s chewing on the ruler with his sharp white teeth. ‘I’m not gonna use the cactus, I’m taking the cactus out.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I would.’

Lenny stands up and starts to pace. He picks up my pack of cigarettes and takes one – stealing my cancer. ‘Help yourself,’ I say. He does. ‘Can I sit on it?’