The Late Hector Kipling (22 page)

‘Oh, that’s your father upstairs with his head in a bucket.’

My credit clicks to zero. ‘Mum, my money’s running out.’

‘Come home, Hector.’

‘I will, Mum, I’ve just got to sort a few things out. I need to sort out what’s going on with Eleni. Do a bit of paperwork, have a few meetings.’ I hear Dad again, upstairs on the bed, having eight hundred and forty quid ripped from the lining of his stomach. ‘I’ll call you later.’

‘Hector?’

‘Yes, Mum?’

‘I just wish—’

The line goes dead.

I step out of the phone box and look up to the sky. The blue is now powdered with clouds and the skin on my face thinks it might rain. I have a fiver in my pocket and I could get it changed in Tony’s Caff and call Mum back, but I don’t. I don’t. I walk up the Roman Road, clutching my eye, and think about heading home. But I’m not sure if I can face home. I’m not sure if I can cope with the look home’s gonna give me.

It seemed unreasonable to try and call Eleni from a phone box, and besides I should listen to her messages before I speak to her. I take my mobile from my pocket but it’s still dripping. No amount of button-pressing will get it to light. I throw it into a skip. There’s an old settee
in the skip. ‘He who looks for signs will find them everywhere.’ Book of whoever, chapter something, verse I dunno. I resolve to go home.

I’m approaching the corner of Box Street. In spite of the bath I feel filthier than ever. I’m hobbling down the street, a headache in each foot. I turn the corner and see the gables of my building. The gables see me. I stare at the floor. The floor stares back. I close my eyes. My eyes close me.

There’s someone sat on the step by the front door. From this distance it might be Lenny. It makes sense, and I think of what I can say to him when he asks what happened to his settee.

‘What can I say?’ I’ll say. I threw up on it.’

What can I say?

But as I draw closer I see that it’s not Lenny. The posture’s all wrong; the clothes, the sentiment, the shoes, the hair, the tears.

I think about turning round but feel too weary for such giddiness. In between realizing that it’s not Lenny and then realizing who it is, there are a good thirty seconds when I have no idea who it is. A stranger, a dosser, my father, a ghost.

I suppose my boots are the first thing he sees of me. He lifts up his head, all sticky and damp, and pulls a handkerchief from his pocket. He wipes his mouth, dabs his eyes and blows his nose. There are griffins on his tie and wolves on his cufflinks, he’s wearing brogues and red silk socks. Brylcreem. Rolex. All in all he’s turned up pretty sharp.

‘Hello, Hector,’ says Tall Lopsided.

‘Hello there,’ I say.

He pulls himself to his feet and he’s taller than I ever thought. Taller than Lenny.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry,’ and he lumbers towards me. I take a step back and then, in the next moment, partly to stop him falling over and partly to absorb the spectacular grief, I allow him into my arms. He tucks his head onto my chest. I push my hat back from my brow and
look at the sky, ‘I can’t take any more,’ I say, ‘I really can’t,’ I say to the sky.

‘Tough,’ says the sky.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m really so sorry,’ whimpers Tall Lopsided.

I ask him his name.

‘Freddie Monger.’

‘Freddie Monger?’

‘Yes.’ He’s convulsed with sobbing.

‘It’s all right,’ I say, ‘I swear it’s all right.’

‘I’m so, so, so, so sorry,’ says Freddie Monger. And you know what? I really think he means it.

He’s staring at the painting; two red lines, converging, like they’re supposed to. Freddie Monger must be in his early thirties and not a bad-looking fella by common standards. But in both his dress and his manner there is something peculiar, perhaps anachronistic. His jaw is triangular, bold and meticulously razored. The sort of man who shaves twice a day. The sort of man who sets aside the time. His movements are slow and he smells of expensive cologne. As he leans back in my big blue chair he brings his hand up to his skull. Those eyebrows might be plucked. That ring might be a ruby.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Thank you, that would be a tonic.’

‘A tonic?’

‘What?’

‘You want a tonic?’

‘No, no, I mean that a drink would be a tonic.’

Fuck, he’s posh. Even his cigarettes are taken from a silver case. His voice – now he’s stopped blubbing – is brittle and commanding.

‘Right, I see. A beer’s all right, then?’

‘Thank you.’ He lights his cigarette with a slim jewelled Cartier lighter.

‘Glass?’

‘Please.’

I catch sight of myself scampering across the room with a ridiculous gait. I feel like I’ve invited David Niven round for cocktails.

‘This is a spectacular space,’ he says, blowing out his smoke in a long well-bred plume. ‘What’s the history? Some kind of warehouse?’

‘Yes, yes’ – I’ve gone a bit posh – ‘well, it was a furniture depot. Then it was broken up into flats. This floor used to be three separate flats.’

‘I see. And you and your girlfriend knocked them through.’

I hand him his glass and take a seat on the settee. ‘How do you know about my girlfriend?’

He takes a long swig of his beer, balloons his cheeks, breathes and then gets back to his fag. Somehow he makes the whole thing look like he’s just partaken of an oyster. ‘I saw you with her. Remember?’

‘Right,’ I say. I take a fag from my crumpled box, light it with a match and slug on my can. ‘That’s right. I saw you that day in the church.’

‘What were you doing in a church?’

What is this? Why am I sat here, in my own home, being interrogated by a stranger? He was the one who threw horse shit all over my painting. Shouldn’t I be interrogating him? Shouldn’t I be on the phone to Scotland Yard? And why am I saying Scotland Yard and not just the cops? There’s something about this bloke. He’s made me come over all Graham Greene.

‘What was I doing in a church?’

‘Yes.’

‘Eleni’s Catholic. Eleni, that’s my girlfriend. Her mother was dying.’

And is she still dying?’

I glance over at the red eye of the answer machine winking away in its dark corner. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, and we both get on with our smoking. His fingernails are as crisp as seashells.

I ponder the pros and cons of asking him what he was doing in the church, but somehow feel that this is not the way forward. Is there a way forward?

‘So,’ I say, at last, ‘I expect you feel like talking.’

‘Actually, Hector, it’s the last thing I feel like doing, but I suppose I must.’

‘Well . . .’ I say and shrug.

‘I know, I know.’

‘I mean, otherwise, I’m not sure what we’re both doing here.’

‘I know, I know,’ and he grips the bridge of his nose; not like it delivers any comfort, but like he’s read too much Proust – which, judging by his posture, he probably has.

‘So why did you do it?’

Silence.

He’s breathing down his nose, eyes closed. I get the feeling that he’s about to either answer, or vomit.

‘Actually, we’ve met before,’ he says at last.

‘I know,’ I say, sitting forward with my can, ‘in the toilets at the Tate.’

‘I mean before that,’ he says, ‘years ago.’

‘Have we?’

‘Oh yes. Quite a number of years ago.’

‘How many years ago?’ I don’t like this.

‘Quite a number.’

I feel cold all of a sudden. He’s obviously about to tell me something momentous. Of course he might just be nuts and about to tell me something utterly banal, but there’s something about his eyes, something about the way he moves his fingers.

‘Quite a number,’ he says again and I take another swig of my can.

‘What number’s that, then?’

‘Oh, quite a number, quite a number.’

I’ve met some peculiar people in my time but this guy’s making a surprise new entry in the top three. Why does my stomach feel like it’s full of ash and jam? What’s he gonna tell me? That he’s my brother? That he fucked my mother? That he’s death himself, in a Mayfair blazer, and that that Volvo last night really did slam a lid on it all? Then what of Rosa? Is this what is known, in certain circles, as purgatory?

‘Where did we meet?’

‘We met here.’

‘Here?’

‘On the stairs. You were struggling up the stairs with your shopping. You had a bag of oranges. The bag split.’

‘Did it?’

‘It did. A dozen oranges rolled down the stairwell. I helped you pick them up.’

‘Right.’ I have no memory of any of this.

‘Remember?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

And we both get back to our smoking and drinking. Monger pours out the rest of his beer into the glass and gets to work on it. He slips off one well-polished brogue, kicking at the heel with the toe of the other.

‘So,’ I say, ‘what has all that got to do with anything? Why have you been following me?’

‘Do you think I’ve been following you?’

I think about this. ‘Well . . . yes . . . in a way . . . you have, haven’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ he says, and stares at the black spot on the ceiling. ‘What’s that?’ he says.

‘It’s a black spot,’ I say and stare at it too.

‘I see.’ He looks around the room as though he’s measuring it for a carpet. ‘So,’ he says, ‘a furniture depot. I must say, it’s perfect for you.’

‘Look, Mr Monger . . .’ I stand up.

‘Freddie.’

‘Freddie. Look, Freddie . . .’ I find myself pacing the room. ‘Look, Freddie, I’m getting a bit creeped out now. I invited you in cos I felt that we both understood that you had some explaining to do. But so far . . .’ and I pause here and stride back to the table for my beer, ‘so far . . . you haven’t explained anything.’

‘I suppose not,’ says Freddie and assesses his chin. Perhaps it’s time for another shave. I finish my beer and conclude with a long and ill-bred belch.

‘So?’ I say.

‘So what?’

‘So what’s the story, Freddie, man?’

‘Well. . .’ says Freddie.

I put up my hand. ‘Hold it right there. I’m getting another beer, you want one?’

He looks into his glass and then raises his head. He smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile. ‘That would be most agreeable.’

I stride off to the kitchen and open up the fridge. There are only two beers left and I get that end-of-the-party feeling. Something inside me tells me that I’m gonna need more than one more beer. I open up the freezer. There’s some vodka in there.

‘Here you go,’ I say, snapping the ring pull and filling his glass.

‘Capital,’ he says.

‘So, Freddie,’ I light yet another fag, ‘what’s the story?’

‘Ask me what I was doing on these stairs all those years ago.’

‘Well, Freddie,’ I say, raising my can, ‘what were you doing on these stairs all those years ago?’ My tone is cartoon and flippant, as though his answer holds no interest at all.

‘I was visiting my father,’ says Freddie.

‘Were you?’ I quip and take another swig. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up. I know – somehow I know – that he has the upper hand.

‘I was visiting my father,’ and he stares up at the ceiling.

‘OK . . .’ I say, still not getting it.

‘Oh yes. You see, I’ve been in this room before.’

I follow his gaze up to the black spot.

Two men, two total strangers, staring at a black spot on a white ceiling.

Silence.

He lets out a little chuckle. Or is it a shiver? No, I think I can say it’s a chuckle.

What the fuck.

‘Oh my God!’ I say.

‘With me now?’ says Freddie.

‘Oh my God!’ I say again.

‘With me now?’

‘Godfrey Bolton was your father?’

‘I’ve been in this room before.’

‘Christ!’

‘Yes, it’s not the first time that I’ve been in this room.’

Still staring at the spot, I begin to shake. The big black spot will swallow us whole. The wailing spot. Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just me being dramatic. It wouldn’t be the first time.

‘Godfrey Bolton was your father?’ I say again. A silence follows and I consider repeating the sentence a third time whilst my brain collates the minutiae of the implications.

‘Exactly.’

‘So that’s why you threw horse shit all over him.’

‘Exactly,’ says Freddie, and straightens his tie, as though he’s just captured my remaining rook.

I think about all this. The next question, the obvious one, is mine: ‘Why did you throw horse shit all over my painting of your father?’

‘Your painting of my
dead
father.’

‘Well . . .’

Freddie Monger sits up in my nice blue chair and crosses his legs. I take a good long swig. Christ, I wish life was easier than this. I wish that life did not resemble some shifty and faithless old friend as much as it does.

‘Your question is why did I throw horse shit all over your painting of my father’s suicide?’

I wish he hadn’t put it quite like that, but I really can’t argue with the detail and so answer: ‘Er . . . yeah, I suppose that’s my question.’

He crushes his cigarette into the ashtray, dusts his knees and fiddles with his cufflinks, the way posh people always do when they’re about to embark upon a story.

‘Well, it goes like this,’ begins Freddie, obviously acquainted with the formalities of the preliminaries. His tone is measured. He holds his cigarette between the fleshy uppers of his fingers with his thumb pressed against the filter. Now and then he lends it a light tap into the ashtray, one long finger teasing the burning tip like he’s playing a new musical instrument.

‘I was raised by my father, my mother having died in the agony of my delivery, though it had never been his desire to raise me, neither with nor without her. He had feared me from the very beginning. From the very conception. He feared that I would scatter their love, that I would cleave them apart like a small axe. And then at last, or rather at the first, I did. So you see to him I represented nothing more, or is it less, than an instrument of murder. He might as well have been obliged to raise a cancer in a Petri dish.’ He takes a breath so deep that I’m not sure if there’s enough left for me. I am, you see, taking a few deep breaths of my own. ‘So . . .’ he continues, eyes closed, ‘that takes care of the first sixteen years of my life, save to say that on twelve occasions, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, I was forced to parade around my father’s bedroom in a selection of my dead mother’s dresses, whereupon I was drunkenly, narcotically and savagely violated. On precisely twelve occasions I was buggered and fellated and whipped and burned. He had named me Freddie, the same as my mother, and I couldn’t help but wonder, therefore, if this indecency had been constructed in my infancy.’