The Late Hector Kipling Read Free Page A

look at a painting, but most of the time he leaves them on, and he wears them to read, but then he drives in them and watches films in them. So what’s going on with these specs? What kind of specs are they?
    He found them, he says, under some floorboards in the Chelsea Hotel. What he was doing lifting up floorboards in the Chelsea Hotel, fuck knows, but he found them there and took them into some optometrists (his word, not mine) and asked them to fit his prescription. They obliged, for a price, and he’s come home in them. Ludicrous things they are; little Crippen specs, bendy silver wire, creepy, like he’s got an insect strapped to his face. ‘They’ve really changed the way I see things,’ he said the night he came back from New York. ‘They must have belonged to someone who stayed there. They could be anybody’s. Pollock once stayed there. They might have belonged to Pollock.’
    ‘Statistically unlikely,’ said Kirk.
    ‘But they might have,’ said Lenny.
    ‘Or they might have belonged to some Belgian pornographer called Rene,’ I said. ‘Or Nancy Spungen.’
    ‘Fuck you talking about?’ said Lenny, and he went quiet for a bit. Me and Kirk winked at each other and he caught us. Then he started in about his night with Koons, and then we laughed, and then he fucked off.
    ‘So how’s your show going?’ he asks me now. It’s something to say.
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘Where’s the gallery?’
    ‘Bethnal Green.’
    ‘What’s it called?’

    ‘The Doodlebug.’
    ‘And it’s all ready?’
    ‘Yeah. Nearly. I’m just finishing the self-portrait.’
    He stops in his tracks. ‘Self-portrait?’ he says. ‘You finally got round to a self-portrait? That’s amazing. How is it? Happy?’
    ‘Happy’s not the word,’ I say, and start reading my travelcard. ‘Happy’s not the word,’ and start folding it up, cos I really want to belt him in the mouth, give him a big healthy smack in his smug, handsome gob. ‘And how’s your work going,’ I ask, ‘how’s the piece?’ and the travelcard’s the size of a stamp.
    ‘It’s coming along,’ he says.
    ‘You’ve got it all worked out, have you?’
    ‘I think so. It’s hard to tell. It may be something, or it may be nothing at all. I don’t really want to talk about it. Not yet.’
    ‘Well, fine,’ I say, missing out the rest.
    Well, fine, Lenny, then don’t talk about it. Don’t debase your shitty little self. I don’t want to know anyway. I only asked cos I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I only still know you cos I’ve known you for so long.
    ‘And how’s Eleni?’ he says.
    ‘Eleni’s beautiful,’ I say, cos she is, and cos he knows she is, and cos he’s stuck with Brenda. Comical-looking Brenda who had him strapped to the banister well before he was Mr Bobby fucking Dazzler. Mental Brenda who threatens she’ll stab herself in the neck if he ever attempts to leave her. ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘Eleni’s beautiful.’
    ‘Great,’ he says. ‘And your mum and dad? Still trying to sell the house?’
    ‘No,’ I say, ‘they’ve given up. They can’t get rid of it.’
    ’That’s a drag.’
    Fuck off, Lenny. ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘it is. But they’re fine about it. They’ve decided to change things round a bit instead.’

    A cab drives past and Lenny waves it down. ‘I think I’m gonna take this,’ he says.
    ‘Oh,’ I say, ‘where’re you going?’
    ‘I’m meeting Jopling in Soho.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘I’m gonna show him some sketches I’ve made for the piece.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Where’re you going?’
    ‘I’m going to Earl’s Court to see Bianca.’
    ‘Who’s Bianca?’
    The taxi’s got the window down and Lenny’s shouted, ‘Soho,’ at the driver.
    ‘She’s my therapist,’ I say.
    ‘Since when?’
    ‘Since July’
    ‘You never told me that.’
    ‘Well, you haven’t really been around, Lenny.’
    ‘Well . . . great, good luck er . . .’ and he hovers in the doorway. He makes a move towards me, as