The Late Hector Kipling Read Free Page B

though he might hug me, and then he makes a sort of sideways move, as though he might not hug me. He throws out his hand, but it’s sort of the wrong way up, and I try to shake it but he does something funny with his thumbs and his knuckles and I try to join in but it all goes to pot.
    ‘See ya,’ he shouts as he bends himself into the cab. ‘I’ll call you.’
    ‘Say hello to Jay.’
    ‘I will.’
    The taxi pulls away. I watch it as it scuttles up the road like a shifty cockroach. I can see Lenny sitting forward, bossing the driver.

    Bianca makes me a cup of tea and lights the candles. She puts a sheet over the parrot and settles herself on her sofa. There are two sofas. Isettle myself on my sofa. I stir my tea and take a look at myself in the back of the spoon. That wasn’t a very good idea, as it turns out.
    ‘So,’ she begins, ‘so how is everything? How are you and Eleni?’
    ‘I’ve just been walking round the Tate with Lenny,’ I say.
    ‘Aahhh,’ she says. Bianca is a sixty-year-old arthritic Austrian lady who smiles more than she should. ‘Aahhh,’ she says again and picks up her mug of algae, or whatever the fuck it is. ‘Lenny.’
    ‘Lenny,’ I repeat.
    ‘So he’s back from New York?’
    ‘Got back last week.’
    ‘Lenny,’ she says again, and drifts off into a reverie, taking small sips of her foul concoction.
    ‘Lenny Snook,’ I say, and fiddle with my lip.
    ‘I see, I see.’ She fixes me with her stare. ‘And you have been crying, have you not?’

 

2

    57 NORRIS AVENUE, BLACKPOOL

    ‘Hector,’ yells my mum, ‘do you want some chicken?’
    I’ve been vegetarian for years, she knows I have. Never slipped once, she knows that too. So what she thinks she’s doing offering me chicken I can’t tell you. She’s been offering me chicken for nearly twenty years and she’ll go on offering me chicken for another twenty, as though one day I might turn around and say oh go on then, and tuck in. I’m sick of it.
    ‘Did you hear me?’
    Yes I heard you, Mum. ‘Mum, it’s meat. Chicken’s meat.’
    ‘But it’s not a cow,’ she says, appearing in the doorway of the lounge.
    ‘What kind of logic’s that?’ I say, pouring out the other half of my beer.
    ‘Ooh, you and your long words,’ she says, almost coquettishly, and flings her oven glove at me. ‘Mushrooms. You’ll eat mushrooms, won’t you?’
    ‘Yes, why wouldn’t I eat mushrooms?’
    ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re like,’ she says, and lets it hang in the air, like she means so much more. ’It’s always changing with you. One minute it’s “Yes I will have a biscuit” the next it’s “No, no, I don’t eat biscuits.” You’re drinking, and then you’re not. You’ll have sugar in your tea, next time you won’t. I don’t know if you eat mushrooms or not.’
    ‘Mushrooms are fine.’
    ‘What?’ says my dad, who’s sat in the corner watching the rugby.

    ‘Nothing, Dad. I just said that mushrooms are fine.’
    ‘Mushrooms are what?’
    ‘Fine, Dad,’ I say, and he frowns and tucks in his chin. He gets back to the game, turning up the volume.
    ‘Cos I can do you a mushroom risotto if you like.’
    ‘That sounds lovely, Mum.’
    ‘And will Eleni have that as well?’
    ‘Yeah, that’ll be nice.’
    ‘Does she not want chicken?’
    ‘No, Mum.’
    ‘But she’s not vegetarian,’ she says, scrunching up her eyes, ‘is she?’ She knows damn well she’s not, which, for some reason, she gets a kick out of.
    ‘No, Mum, she’s not. But she doesn’t eat much meat and she doesn’t like chicken.’
    ‘Doesn’t like chicken?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I thought everyone liked chicken. I mean I can understand avoiding it if you’re set against it, like you are, but if you’re allowed it and then just not liking it, well ... I can’t imagine.’
    ‘Well, there you go, Mum.’
    ‘Do they not have chickens in Greece?’
    ‘Of course they have chickens in Greece.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know,’