The Late Hector Kipling

by David Thewlis

‘Oh no, Hector. That girl I met? She’s not well.’

  What the fuck’s she talking about? ‘How do you know she’s not well?’

  ‘A therapist knows these things.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bianca!’

  ‘Did you just call me Mum?’

  ‘No!’ I want to die. I want lightning to strike me in the groin. Right here, right now.

  ‘I need to talk about this girl.’

  ‘I’ll say one thing, Hector. You should forget about her—’

  I hang up and march out of the Square towards Piccadilly. The pavement rushes past like I’m on a bicycle.

  I can’t forget about her. I want to forget about her. I so want to forget about her. But if forgetting is just not happening, then how the fuck do you forget? By thinking about forgetting? But thinking about the thing you want to forget only enforces the . . . Oh, I don’t fucking know! Yes, yes. I’ll forget her. But I may be gone some time. If you want me, I’ll be down the pub.

  BOX STREET, BOW, LONDON

  I’m lying on top of Eleni’s piano, plucking the hair out of my eyebrows. Soon there will be nothing left.

  I’ve managed to put Rosa out of my mind. No, really, I have. The night was a dreamless sleep and when I woke up I woke up suddenly and leapt straight out of bed. I felt a little raw and blistered for the first half hour, but then I took a shower and even sang a little George Formby ditty, ‘With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock’. I’ve hardly thought about her at all. I had a breakfast of orange juice and toast, and I’ve decided to cut back on the booze. Maybe even stop altogether. In fact yes – stop altogether. No more fucking booze. No more fags. Well, less fags. Let’s not go mad. No more booze and less fags. And try to eat some vegetables. Maybe take some vitamin supplements. Do some push-ups. Call Eleni. Call Mum. Maybe fly out to see Eleni. There’s nothing stopping me flying out to be with Eleni. But what if Dad gets worse? What if Mum’s stopped picking up the phone and Monger can’t get through? Or what if Monger’s just some top-quality fruitcake and just went home the other day? Or what if he does buy the fucking settee and it makes no difference? What if Dad’s beyond help? Christ, what if he dies? I don’t want Dad to die. I don’t want anyone to die. Really, I don’t. All that stuff I said before, I didn’t mean it. I can’t fly off to Crete with my father in hospital. I should go home to Blackpool. There’s nothing stopping me. I could call a cab right now. Why not? But what if Eleni’s mother dies and I’m in Blackpool? I don’t want Sofia to die. I don’t want anyone to die. I only want Rosa to die. To die in my head, or my heart or my gut or my groin, or wherever the fuck it is that she’s set out her stall. But it’s all right. She’s on her way out. She’s fading. I’ve hardly been thinking about her. I’m not thinking about her. And even if I do find myself thinking about her I’ve developed a discipline of simply punching myself in the head three times and screaming ‘Get out!’ Which seems to be working.

  I might just sit down on the sofa with a cup of apple-and-ginger tea, and read a book. Here we go. Someone recommended Paul Auster’s Leviathan so I bought it a few weeks ago and now I’m plumping up the cushions and boiling the kettle. I haven’t had a fag yet. I’m doing really well. I’ve been up for two hours and I haven’t had a fag. So I suppose that it’s all right to have one now. Yeah, I’ll just have one now, whilst I’m waiting for the kettle to boil.

  Fuck, I feel a bit dodgy now. That tea and those three fags have turned my guts into a swamp. I might just have to lie down. Whatever. At least I’m not thinking about Rosa. She hasn’t come into my head once. Thank Christ for that, because it was really starting to worry me that I was obsessing about her so much. Much better now. Now that she’s only hanging around in the wings. When I was obsessing about her she was right there, centre stage, beautifully lit. But now she’s hardly there at all. Soon she’ll be gone and I’ll lock the stage door behind her. Soon she’ll be out of here and I can get on with the day. In fact I think she is gone. Almost gone. Maybe she’s completely gone. Yeah, yeah, you know what? I think she’s completely gone.

  Leviathan, chapter one: ‘Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin.’

  Oh Christ.

  I’ll put on some music. I’ll have a fag and put on some music. I think there’s a couple of beers in the fridge. It’s early but it might take away this gut ache. This is not a good day to give up the booze. I’m doing myself no favours, giving up the booze today. I put on some Gregorian chants and lie back on the sofa. There we go. Better now. I stare at the black spot on the ceiling. I close my eyes and wonder how Monger’s getting on. I’ve become quite accomplished at spotting when lucid thought turns into dream, and it’s turning right now. One minute I can see Monger ringing Mum and Dad’s bell, sniffing the plants in the porch. I can see Mum opening the door and inviting him in. I can see him stopping to look at the watercolours in the hallway and complimenting Mum on her hairdo. But then Monger floats up to the ceiling and can’t get down. Mum goes and gets the broom. She ushers him along the ceiling but when he reaches the stairs he flips over onto his front and slides up to the top floor. The landing ceiling’s too high for her to get at him with the broom, but it’s OK cos Dad comes out of the bedroom and starts firing at him with a tiny bow and arrow until he hits home. Monger bursts and falls to the floor. Mum collects the debris in a bucket and fries it up with some onions. They both sit there in front of You’ve Been Framed, forking bits of rubber Monger into their green, purple-toothed mouths. But this is not a dream. It might have been a dream, had the doorbell not rung.

  Well, everyone else has had a good cry, why not Lenny? I never thought I’d live to see the day, but there he is, slumped in the chair, wet bald head, like a buoy in a storm. Who’d have thought.

  ‘I’ll kill her. I will fucking kill her.’

  ‘Who will you kill?’

  ‘Who do you think? Brenda.’

  ‘Lenny mate, calm down, calm down. What’s happened? What did she do? Just tell me so I can help.’

  ‘She’s . . . she . . .’

  There’s a long thread of snot hanging down between his left thumb and the floor.

  ‘She what?’

  ‘She’s destroyed the piece.’

  ‘The piece?’

  ‘I got home after your show the other night and she’s chucked something all over my settee piece, blood or something, she’s slashed the cushions and smashed the window. She’s a fucking head case. She’s totally fucking out of her mind, Hec.’

  I take a long drag on my cigarette and blow out three blue rings. Well, well. There goes one problem.

  ‘Why’s she gone and done that?’ I say.

  ‘Cos she’s seriously, dangerously fucking insane, I’m telling you.’

  ‘But there must be a reason.’

  Lenny straightens up and his beautiful face is so sodden with tears and snot, I take Eleni’s tissues from the piano and hand him one.

  ‘She thinks that I’ve been fucking Rosa.’

  I catch my breath. My brain sprouts whiskers and I catch it again. ‘Rosa?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘B-but . . . how does she know about Rosa?’

  ‘She doesn’t know about Rosa. There’s nothing to know. Rosa was round my house the other night and she . . . she came round so that we could go to your show together and she said she had to get changed. She had a bag with her and she had to get changed. And somewhere along the way a bra’s been left behind. So . . . so Brenda comes home and finds this bra.’

  A bra? I didn’t see any bra. I scoured that house for things like bras. I didn’t see a bra. Did I? Maybe I did see a bra but thought it was Brenda’s. Obviously Brenda’s more attuned to these things. Obviously Brenda knows a foreign bra when she comes across one.

  ‘A bra?’

  ‘Rosa’s fucking bra. So I try to explain and she’ – he’s really breaking up now – ‘and she disappears upstairs. I can hear her screaming and
thrashing. And then I hear her footsteps . . .’ Sob, sob, sob. Come on, Lenny, come on. Get on with it. I need to know all this. ‘I hear her footsteps on the stairs, and then I hear the front door slam. I go upstairs, right up to the top floor. And there’s my piece. There’s my fucking piece in fucking tatters. Fucking ruined. Stained, slashed, smashed, fucking destroyed. Completely fucking decimated. I’m not going back. I’m never gonna go back.’ And he lies down on the floor and curls up into a ball. A big, tall, bald, sobbing ball. Who would have thought.

  I blow out some more smoke rings. I have one question.

  ‘So did you?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Did you fuck Rosa or not?’

  ‘No!’ snaps Lenny. ‘Listen to what I’m saying. She just had to get changed. She went into the bedroom to change. I stayed downstairs. Don’t you start, I’ve been through all this with Brenda. She just got changed and somehow left a bra behind. I don’t fucking know. How do you explain that to your bird and expect her to believe it?’

  ‘Well, I suppose . . .’ What is it that I suppose? I’m not really thinking straight. I know he needs advice, but I’m not sure that I have any. ‘Well, I suppose . . . er . . . I suppose that it is a little bit suspicious having a girl round at the house in the first place.’

  Lenny picks himself up from the floor and comes at me.

  I’ve known Lenny for twenty-six years and he’s never come at me. But here he is, coming at me.

  ‘Lenny, man, what the fuck!’

  He starts slapping me about the head with the slabs of his palms. Well at least he’s not punching me.

  ‘Lenny, man, what the fuck? Fuck’s all this about?’ I manage to squeal.

  ‘You’re no fucking help! You’ve never been any fucking help! You’ve never been ANY fucking help! All you think about is you!’ And he keeps on slapping me about the face. Fuck, I don’t need this.

  ‘Lenny, Lenny, Lenny,’ I say, in between blows.

  ‘You don’t give a shit about anyone, you twisted fucking get! All you wanna know is whether or not I fucked Rosa, and you only wanna know that cos you wanna fuck her, you don’t give a shit about me, or Brenda, or the piece, or any-fucking-thing else!’

  He may have a point there.

  ‘Lenny, that’s so not true!’

  ‘All you care about is your fucking self!’

  ‘Lenny, Lenny, please.’ I’ve got my arms up and I deliver a few slaps of my own until the whole rumpus dwindles into a melee before tailing off into a debacle. Fuck, I’m tired of all these words. Why don’t I just paint all this? ‘Lenny, come on, calm down, I haven’t said anything.’

  ‘It’s fucking ruined. The show opens in a week and it’s totally fucking annihilated. Ripped to fucking shreds.’ And he collapses back onto the floor into a ball. An almost perfect ball. Difficult, when you’re so tall. Still, he pulls it off.

  Idea For a Piece: A black bucket of tears. Real tears. Collect the tears of loved ones. Make loved ones cry enough to fill a bucket. A big black tear-filled bucket in the middle of a white room. Call it Autumn.

  She’s out there somewhere, thinking. What is she thinking? Rosa, are you thinking what I’m thinking? And what is it? What is this thing we’re thinking? Or is it just me? Are you thinking of other things? Did it all mean nothing? What did it all mean?

  ‘So then Kirk starts wiping it down with a cloth.’

  ‘A wet cloth?’

  ‘Yeah, a cloth dipped in turpentine.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  Lenny’s sat on Eleni’s piano stool, hitting notes now and again. We’re sharing that last beer.

  I tell him about being hit by the car and make up some story about being taken to the hospital by some passing coppers; quite an elaborate story. I give the coppers names and features. I describe the doctor and how I quite fancied one of the nurses. Oh yeah, that’s right, I’m pathetic.

  ‘So what are you gonna do?’ I say.

  ‘About the piece?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I’m gonna have to start again – if there’s time – or just forget the whole thing.’ He starts to cry again and I put my arm around him. He feels huge. I’ve never held Lenny before. I’m not sure what to do. When I’ve held crying girls (and I’ve held plenty), I’ve kissed their brows and cheeks, I’ve squeezed their hands and stroked their hair. I can’t be doing any of this with Lenny so I just rock him a little, but that just feels silly and so I stop. ‘Can I stay here for the night?’

  ‘You can stay here as long as you want, Len.’

  I tell him about Monger, and Monger’s story. In an attempt to present some consolation I tell him about Monger’s plan to buy back the settee and that maybe he could bring it back to London, and how the settee might be a possible replacement for the one that Brenda destroyed.

  ‘But you said that it was fucked. I thought the whole point of your dad being in hospital was that this settee was totally fucking ugly.’

  ‘The ugly may be beautiful, the—’

  ‘The pretty never. When are you gonna stop saying that?’

  ‘When it stops being true. And anyway, my mum and dad’s idea of what’s ugly may not be the same as ours. Maybe it’ll be a fantastic settee.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ says Lenny and releases himself from my embrace. He stands up and pulls on his jacket.

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘I have to go down to the Tate to sort things out. Domesticated Goose Chase is arriving from Amsterdam. That’s if Brenda hasn’t intercepted it.’

  ‘Here, take a set of keys,’ and I hand him mine.

  ‘Thanks, Hec,’ and he smiles at me. A beautiful smile. ‘Sorry for hitting you.’ What a beautiful man he is, this friend of mine, this Lenny Snook. What a gentle soul. And what a twat sometimes. But not now, not now. God bless him.

  I heat up some sardines and boil some broccoli. There are a few cherry tomatoes from last week but they’ve gone a bit soft. No matter, I bung them on the plate with a smear of mustard. Some kind of peace has descended.

  I take a page of sheet music and begin to make a list of the things I should say to Eleni. This has gone on long enough and I’m about to ring her, but I can’t afford to be an idiot about it. I number the issues, one to ten:

  1

  How’s your mother? (Sympathize in proportion to the severity of the answer.)

  2

  How’s your father? (Assure her that he’s a very strong man, and will always be there for her.)

  3

  How are you feeling? (Assure her that I’m quite a strong man, and will always try to be there for her.)

  4

  Explain about Monger’s attack. (Keep it simple.)

  5

  Tell her about Dad. (But don’t compare it to her mother.)

  6

  Explain my lack of contact. (Blame the Cretan phone system.)

  7

  Say that I mean to come out any time now. (I just have to wait to see how Dad is.)

  8

  Tell her I miss her. (I do. I really do.)

  9

  Tell her Lenny’s moving in for a while. (But that he’ll be gone if she needs to come back.)

  10

  Ask her if she wants to add anything. (I’ll listen and apply myself to the best of my ability.)

  I stare at the page and then, after some careful consideration, obliterate the list with a fit of heavy grey squirls. My stomach is filled with dead butterflies and my left thigh is beginning to fizz.

  The telephone rings. I’ll just have to play it by ear. If it’s Eleni, my love, at last, I shall just speak from the heart, for the heart is no fool. Except, of course, for those times when it is the biggest of all fools. Whatever. I pick up the phone.

  ‘Hector?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hey, Hector, it’s Rosa.’

  ‘Rosa!’ I say, nearly falling off my chair. And then I say it again, ‘Rosa!’

  ‘Hey, what are you up to?’
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  ‘Erm . . .’ I look around the room. For what, I don’t know. ‘Nothing much. Just making a shopping list.’

  ‘How ya doin’, angel?’

  ‘I’m doing fine, chuck.’

  She calls me angel, I call her chuck. Such is the language of love. Well not love, but you know what I mean.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Er . . . how are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m just hanging out. You know . . . I just bought a new little frog skull, so I’m painting it green.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ What a girl.

  ‘Have I caught you at a bad time?’ says Rosa.

  ‘No, it’s a good time. A very good time.’

  ‘I just called to say thank you for your sweet note and . . . and . . .’

  ‘De rien.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said “de rien”.’

  ‘What?’

  Fuck, this is going terribly. ‘It means “that’s nothing” in French, “not at all” . . . well not “not at all”, that’s “pas de tout”, which means the same thing. It means “don’t mention it”.’ Fuck, this is all so fucked.

  ‘Well, listen,’ says Rosa, ‘I think maybe we need to talk.’

  ‘Oh yeah, we should talk.’

  ‘I mean – like you said in your note – it’s unthinkable that we won’t see each other again.’

  ‘Unthinkable,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. So . . . you wanna meet up?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘You wanna meet up right now?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah?’ she says, a little excited.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, a little excited myself.

  ‘OK, why don’t I come round in like an hour?’

  ‘Round?’

  ‘Lenny told me you live in my part of town.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to Lenny?’

  ‘The other night at the show, he said that you lived nearby.’