Free The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis Page B

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.
    ‘I see,’ says Eleni. I think she does see. I really think she does. ‘I understand what you’re saying.’
    ‘But is that sick?’ I say. ‘Is all that perverse?’
    ‘No,’ she says, picking up her fork and loading her mouth with a ball of monkfish. ‘No, I don’t think it is perverse. I think it is an honesty of you and brave.’

    Maybe I love her cos her language is so simple, which makes her thoughts seem so simple. Each word to her is a foreign word, so each word comes out with a balloon tied to the corner and the effect is wisdom. The effect is wisdom when maybe the reality is just limitation. No, Hector, that isn’t true. She knows what she’s saying. She chooses her words like a native. Perhaps more carefully than a native, so she’s right and she’s wise and it isn’t perverse. Except it is. Cos something, some shitty dark thing inside me, wants Kirk dead. It wants Kirk on a slab and me in tears and a black suit saying what devastation all this has wrought. I’m a monster and I should be nailed to the side of a mountain. I’m a ghoul and a freak and someone should notify the tabloids.
    The waitress takes our plates away. ‘Kirk wanted my canvas to paint a big spoon.’
    She smiles.
    I smile.
    We’re both smiling.
    It’s beautiful. I think.
    We’re not being cruel. Kirk’s a wonderful human being. I love Kirk. Kirk deserves the earth. But his paintings of cutlery are really quite crap. Is that wrong to say that? Should we tell him? Is the essence of friendship to tell a friend when you think he’s squandering his life painting kitchen utensils? Or is it to encourage him, cos maybe it’s you who’s ignorant and perhaps the world just isn’t ready for a ten-foot spoon. I don’t know. Actually, didn’t Claes Oldenburg already do a ten-foot spoon? He did a ten-foot dead match and a big burger and some lollies. I’m sure he did a ten-foot spoon. Who would have thought it, eh, Kirk? But there you go. It’s been done.
    We talk around it all for a little while, occasionally interrupted by the waitress saying ‘thank you’ as she fills up our glasses and empties our ashtray.
    ‘Perhaps you should investigate the body,’ says Eleni, all serious and Greek. ‘Perhaps you should explore tableaux.’

    Only Eleni Marianos could say ‘perhaps you should explore tableaux’ and not come over as bonkers.
    ‘Perhaps you should experiment with narrative.’
    Ditto.
    ‘What do you mean?’ I say, buttering my olive bread. Jay Jopling’s just walked in with Sam Taylor Wood.
    ‘If you want to examine it to be something more lateral then you should exploit fable.’
    ‘Mmmm.’ I’m not sure what she’s talking about now. Examine something more lateral? Did I say anything about examining something more lateral? I don’t think so. The word lateral never came into it as far as I can remember. Jopling’s just had a glass of beer spilt over him by some actress he was shaking hands with. It’s a funny old spectacle, cos he’s obviously excited to be saying hello to her,