The Late Hector Kipling

by David Thewlis

  Kirk used to go out with an agoraphobic called Audrey. Or I should say that he used to stay in with an agoraphobic called Audrey. She left him last year for a writer called Gordon. They’d met in counselling. Gordon wasn’t agoraphobic but he wasn’t too keen on going outside cos he was scared that flies would lay eggs in his ears. I think that’s what Kirk said. That was five years ago and ever since then Kirk’s been painting pictures of cutlery. Kirk’s been painting a lot of cutlery and getting nowhere. He used to paint kettles but gave that up cos it was sending him mental. Me and Snook are always telling him to look beyond the kitchen, but he won’t have it. As for me, well . . . I’m Hector Kipling, aren’t I?

  I’m Hector Kipling. It’s my real name. Hector Derek Kipling if you want it all. Fuck knows what Mum was thinking. She said it came to her in a dream, but Dad’s convinced it’s the name of some old boyfriend. Sounds like a cartoon dog. Pompous little dachshund or summat. Anyway, I paint big heads. A bit like Chuck Close paints big heads but not so real as his; more saturated and skewed, more grotesque I suppose. Think Otto Dix. I paint the sort of big heads that Otto might have painted if he’d ever got round to painting big heads. And because these big heads are so big they tend to go for about £20,000 a shot. And they do go. They’ve been going for about five years now and so I’m not short of a bob or two.

  But something happened the other day after that guy ran his bike through my canvas. I sat up all night, smoking, staring at a big white canvas propped up against the wall, on which I was gonna paint another big head. ‘Fuck it,’ I thought, ‘once and for all, just fuck it. I’m through with big heads. It’s over. It’s time to move on.’ That motorbike smashing through the middle of my gob was a sign. A symbol, if you like. It was the first time I’d attempted a self-portrait and it was only cos Myers was on my back, but it was obviously wide of the mark and that bike bursting through it was no accident. It was an omen. Or is an omen. Whatever. Oh yes, things are gonna change. Big Head’s dead, long live . . . Well, I haven’t decided yet, but it’ll be fabulous and important and new and . . . I think it’ll be big.

  ‘So what you gonna do?’ says Lenny.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, ‘but I think it’ll be big.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, I mean, I’ve got the canvas now.’

  ‘You could give that to me,’ says Kirk, fingering a pimple on his temple, ‘I could do a big spoon.’

  Me and Lenny look at him.

  ‘Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe all this cutlery’s just too fucking small.’

  That’s not your problem, Kirk.

  ‘You could give it to me,’ says Lenny, ‘I had an idea to do something big a while back.’

  ‘But you don’t paint,’ says Kirk, still fingering that pimple.

  ‘I’m not talking about painting. I had this idea to take a big canvas . . . How big’s yours, Hec?’

  ‘Fifteen foot by eight,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, as big as that. I had this idea to blag some veins from the hospital – I got my hands on some of Brenda’s after her varicose surgery – and weave them into a canvas. I’d have to run it past health and safety but, y’know . . .’

  I quite like it but he’s not getting my canvas.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, gazing at the ceiling, ignoring them, ‘but it’ll come to me. Summat’ll come to me.’ And we all sit in a bit of silence again like it might come to me in a minute. But it doesn’t, and I didn’t expect it to. I don’t know why it all went so quiet. They should have known that I wasn’t talking about that very minute.

  Kirk’s rubbing his head and looking a bit odd and Lenny asks him if he’s all right and Kirk takes a swig of his pint, swallows, takes a deep breath, takes another swig, finishes it, takes another deep breath, puts his head in his hands and starts crying. Me and Lenny look at each other. And just like Kirk’s no good with fists and passion and shouting in pubs, Lenny’s no good with deep breaths and crying. Neither am I come to that, but I’m better than Lenny so I touch Kirk’s dirty little cuff and I ask him what’s the matter.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says, and wipes his face, and he must have had some ash on his fingers cos there’s a black streak running from the corner of his eye to his mouth. Either that or he’s wearing mascara.

  ‘Come on, Kirk, there must be summat,’ I say, ‘what you crying for?’

  ‘I’ve just had too much,’ he says.

  ‘Too much of what?’ says Lenny. ‘Too much of life?’ He says it with a surprising sincerity and I feel quite touched on Kirk’s behalf.

  ‘No,’ says Kirk, ‘I mean just too much to drink.’

  Neither of us believe him and we both sit there staring at him like he might say more, but he doesn’t. He just stares at the froth on my pint like he’s counting the bubbles. He takes out a pencil and starts to doodle a fork on Lenny’s pack of Camel Lights. I look at Kirk’s odd little face. He’s quite ugly in a way. Chubby little face. But he’s quite beautiful as well, in a way. I look at him now and I’m reminded of something Paul Gauguin once said. He said, ‘The ugly may be beautiful, the pretty, never.’ And I look at Kirk’s damp fat face with the black streak of ash running from the corner of his eye to his mouth. ‘How true,’ I think. I’d never understood it before now, but how true. And suddenly I get it into my brain that I want to paint his head all big and . . . ‘No! No! Stop it!’ I think. ‘No more big ugly heads, even if it is Kirk all sad and confused with something he’s not telling us. No more big heads!’

  ‘I might have a brain tumour,’ he says, shading in the prongs of his fork, ‘I’ve had a scan, an MRI, and I’ve got to wait for the results but my doctor’s worried.’ There’s a pause, and then, ‘Pessimistic,’ he says. His eyes look like they’ve been laminated. There’s some blokes over at the bar watching snooker, making jokes at the barmaid about balls and pockets. One of them says something and another pushes him and he falls off his stool and everyone looks and it’s all gone a bit strange.

  Like Lenny says: it’s an easy thing to bring horror into a room.

  I’m lying in my bed. It’s the middle of the night and I’m staring into space. I keep staring into space for a long time until I suddenly get the feeling that space is staring back and I shut my eyes and stare at that, whatever that is. The back of the eyelids, I suppose. But it’s not just the back of the eyelids when you shut your eyes, is it? It’s something else. What is it? I don’t know, but it scares the shit out of me sometimes. It’s scaring the shit out of me right now cos I’m seeing things that I’m not even thinking of. Ever have that happen? Like you’re witnessing some projection that you had no hand in? Insane tableaux: hundreds of iron dwarves riding a carousel, or masks made of lemon peel floating in a lake of mercury and pepper. Ever had that? Sometimes, of course, I just see big heads and I suppose that Kirk just sees mounds of cutlery, huge open graves of cutlery. Fuck knows what Lenny sees, or what Mum and Dad see, or what Eleni sees.

  Eleni’s sleeping. We came to bed at midnight, got all excited that we both had no clothes on – even after three years we still get excited that we both have no clothes on – and started kissing. My body started to feel very different to how it felt in the day and she lowered the sheet and licked my hips. But she’s asleep now and I’m awake with my eyes closed and I can see Tutankhamen pedalling his bike out to sea. And I wonder what that means. I open my eyes for a few minutes and wonder why I’m seeing such a thing. And then I think about it, and somehow, it seems to me that I know exactly what it means. Well, I have my suspicions, let me put it that way.

  The first time I came to London was to see a dead body. I was six. It was the only time I ever visited London with my parents. It took five hours by car. Me and Dad shared the driving. Him in the front, me in the back with a nice plastic steering wheel suckered onto the seat.

  Dad wanted to see his chariot, Mum wanted to see his mask. I wanted to see his mummy. I wanted to see the corpse. The swaddled and crusted corpse.

  But w
e didn’t. We never saw it. The queue around the British Museum was so impossibly long we couldn’t face it. Well, I could face it, but Dad’s corns were playing up so that was that. We took a train to Hampton Court instead. Dad sat and had a pot of tea and me and Mum got lost in the maze. And then we went home. I was miserable, really miserable, and sulked, and wouldn’t talk cos I’d really wanted to see that dead body. And I’m miserable now as I think about it, and I’m sulking now. But I’ll talk now, cos I think there’s something to say about all that and it has to do with me, my Aunty Pat, Big Heads and Kirk’s tumour.

  My Aunty Pat wasn’t really my Aunty Pat she was my mum’s mum’s sister so I suppose that made her my Grand-Aunty Pat, but that made her sound a bit grand so we just called her plain Aunty Pat. So my Aunty Pat went mad and died. I have no idea how you might define this madness, but after it rained you couldn’t keep her from running outside with a towel to dry the road. Perhaps it was some form of hydrophobia. Perhaps she was rabid. But I doubt it; there wasn’t much rabies where she lived. I hadn’t seen her for twelve years, but when she finally went under I wasn’t told until two weeks after the funeral. Mum explained to me that since I hadn’t seen, nor spoken to, Aunty Pat for twelve years, as far as I was concerned she might as well have been dead for twelve years. But of course she hadn’t and I could have seen her at any time, though I didn’t, and now I can’t, so you’re wrong, Mum, it’s not the same thing at all. And she was the only aunty, or grand-aunty, I ever had, and it’s the only death we’ve had in the family, the only death in my lifetime, and I missed out on it. All my grandparents died before I was born, so I missed out on that as well. None of my friends have ever died and no one I know or knew has ever died, so I missed out on that as well, and I missed out on seeing Tutankhamen and now he’s pedalling out to sea on his bike. I didn’t even know he had a bike.

  Eventually, of course, three years ago, I did get to see some death. I got to see Godfrey Bolton’s corpse hanging from the rafters and I was naked and I fell in love with Eleni Marianos right there beneath Godfrey Bolton’s swinging grey feet and that’s when I started painting big heads. Godfrey Bolton’s big dead head. No one knew it was Bolton cos I didn’t paint it from life, obviously, he was dead, and the coroner hustled him away. The eyes were open and the mouth was open, and although he was grey and green and God knows what other colours, everyone thought he was just a bit intense. I called it God Bolton, and with me being from Lancashire everyone just thought it was some intense bloke from Bolton; as though it was a comment upon the town. But it wasn’t. It was Godfrey Bolton and he was dead, and it was beautiful, and Saatchi bought it, and suddenly I was famous. Interviewed, photographed. So what should we make of all that? Well, let me tell you something else.

  New York, December, 1980. A jewelled forest of candles outside the Dakota Building. Millions upon millions of people all over the world, grief-stricken, incredulous, stunned. Me too. Oh yes, me too! But was I sorry for Yoko? Was I aching for little Sean and Yoko? No. I was sorry for myself. I was aching for myself. I was jealous of Yoko and little Sean. Jealous of Sean’s and Yoko’s grief, of the dignity, the nobility, the gravitas it bestowed upon them. And that’s never gone away. I envy them to this day. I envy their famous and tragic history and I’m sulking cos some part of me wants it. I want that history. I want that gravitas. I want the texture of death. I want people to know and feel sorry for me and comfort me and say things like ‘How awful’ and ‘We can’t imagine’. I want that. I want that awful intense and serious unhappiness, cos then I might feel better, and then I might be happy.

  Which brings us to Kirk Church and his tumour.

  We had to carry Kirk home from the Pillars of Hercules. He couldn’t even stand by the end of it all. Lenny had his shoulders and I had his feet and we lugged him across Soho Square, along Carlisle Street, across Wardour and down D’Arblay to Berwick Street where he lives with his collection of boxed scorpions and a cat called Bacon. And cutlery. A ridiculous amount of cutlery. Like it’s some sort of mental problem he has. We carried him up the stairs and dropped him on the bed and then he went and shat himself. He was muttering, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ over and over as we worked on him with a flannel. But he wasn’t saying it to us cos he was asleep and dreaming. Lenny didn’t want to go home. Lenny couldn’t go home. Lenny was scared to go home cos he’s splitting up with Brenda Barker, and Brenda Barker throws knives and plates, and rips up floorboards, and then throws floorboards, so we agreed that Lenny would stay the night and that I’d go home to Eleni, cos I love Eleni and that’s what’s right with my life. But I’ll tell you what’s wrong with my life. I’ll tell you the problem with my life. The fucking problem with my life is its lack of death. And now Kirk might be dying and I might get what I want, although, of course, I don’t want to get what I want cos I don’t want Kirk to die. Anyway, for now, while Kirk’s still alive, all the attention’s on him. Everyone’s sorry for Kirk, everyone’s rooting for Kirk, not for me. And it’s only when he’s dead that I’ll get my share and I’m lying here in my bed and Tutankhamen’s pedalling his bike out to sea.

  Mum called the next morning. She said it’s fine about the blood on the settee cos they never really liked it anyway, and it’s old, and my dad, based on nothing, is allergic to it, and it’s gone. They’ve taken it to the dump and they’re looking for a new one.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait till you’ve got a new one before you chucked out the old one?’ I said.

  ‘Cos we’re mad,’ she said and giggled.

  ‘But what will you sit on?’

  ‘The chairs,’ she said, and I couldn’t argue with that.

  She asked how her lovely Eleni is and I told her she’s fine and how she’s really sorry about the blood. Mum said not to worry cos now it’s at the dump. She’d seen an advert in the paper and she’s off to take a look but Dad’s not going with her cos his guts are playing him up and he’s in bed with a fever and a book about shelving.

  ‘Go easy,’ I said.

  She asked me what I meant.

  ‘Just go easy,’ I said, ‘with all that stuff you’re doing to the house. You’re both knocking on and you should be paying someone to do all that.’

  ‘Nay,’ she said, ‘we’re not paying folk to do what we can do ourselves. What’s the point of that?’

  I could see lots of points to that because I paint big heads and people buy them and I’m lazy and I’d pay someone to brush my teeth if there was such a thing. ‘Oh well,’ I said instead, ‘I suppose so.’

  She said goodbye and then rattled on for another ten minutes about how it’s a good job that I don’t eat meat because the French are feeding shit to their cows. She didn’t say shit, of course. Dung, is what she said. Dung. I love Mum. I love the way she makes an effort.

  4

  J. SHEEKEY’S, ST MARTIN’S COURT, LONDON

  I’m prodding at my tuna and crafting elaborate contours with the barley. I’m attempting a little barley head and squeezing the blood from my tuna to render the lips. Eleni’s got the fisherman’s pie but she’s not playing with it, she’s eating it, like everything’s all right, like everything’s as usual, as though last night’s epiphany never happened. But then again, she was asleep and I’ve said nothing so she’s entitled to eat her fisherman’s pie. And now I’m beginning to shake. I am, I’m definitely shaking.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ says Eleni. ‘You’re shaking.’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say, looking for a dribble of soy sauce to work into the shadow beneath the nose.

  ‘What’s that?’ she says, looking at my barley face. ‘A face?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, and grit my teeth, cos I hate people who say things like ‘yep’ and ‘nope’, and ‘poss’ and ‘gotcha’. But I say ‘yep’ and grit my teeth. Not my real teeth; the teeth in my brain. I’ll tell you about the teeth in my brain later.

  ‘Is something bothering you?’ says Eleni.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I think s
omething is bothering for you.’ Her accent, or her grammar or her inflection, makes it sound like a question or an accusation or a reprimand. First it was the nibbling on her toast in Blackpool that got to me, and now it’s her accent. I love Eleni. I love her accent. What’s going on?

  ‘Well, maybe something is bothering me,’ I say, and I think that my accent, my dull, Blackpudlian mumble, must make it sound like a confession or a rejection or an ultimatum.

  Eleni puts down her fork and strokes my neck. I put down my fork next to hers and cover her hand with mine and press, like I love her. Like I love her for stroking my neck when I’m being such a moody prick. I stare at my fork. I stare at both our forks there on the crisp white cloth. And I think of Kirk and my heart fills with petrol.

  I tell her the story of Kirk’s revelation and the journey home and the stairs and the bed and the shit and the dream and how Lenny couldn’t face Brenda, and how Dad couldn’t face Tutankhamen’s queue, and how I could, and wanted to, and would have loved to, but didn’t, cos Dad couldn’t. And I tell her about Bob, the dead budgie, and Pat, the dead aunty, and Yoko and Bolton and Kirk’s pessimistic doctor, and wouldn’t it have been stimulating if that biker had died when he went crashing through my head? Wouldn’t that have been fine? Wouldn’t that have been a story? We didn’t know him. What the fuck do we care? It might have helped the situation. Eleni frowns at the word ‘situation’. Or maybe it’s just the rest of it that she’s frowning at. Yeah, now I think about it, it’s got nothing to do with the word ‘situation’, she’s frowning cos I’ve just revealed some horrendous and Satanic depravity, and I sit there thinking, ‘Maybe she wants to call the police, or an ambulance, or . . . Fuck, I don’t know, maybe I need the fire brigade. I need something, I know that, I need someone.’ And Eleni strokes my neck again and I realize that I need Eleni. Then I realize I have Eleni, and calm down a bit and stop shaking. And I love her accent and I love her nibbling. Fucking hell, Hector, get a grip. You’re losing it.