‘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, and at the same time he’s pissed off at the ale on his Nicole Farhi.
‘You understand what I mean?’
I’m dragged back to the matter in hand by the inflection of a question. What is she saying?
‘What? What are you saying?’
‘Do you understand what I mean?’
‘What do you mean by fable?’
She embarks upon a protracted and confusing speech about Greek mythology, citing Goya, Picasso and Malcolm Morley. Malcolm Morley? Malcolm fucking Morley? I listen as though she’s on to something. But the truth is I don’t think she is. She’s not on to something. She’s floundering. She doesn’t understand. She just doesn’t get it. She’s Greek and her solution is to paint something Greek. ‘Paint the Harpies,’ she’s saying, ‘paint the Furies and the Fates,’ stuff like that. She’s wide of the mark. She’s very fucking wide of the mark. ‘Neo-classicism is the way ahead,’ is what she’s saying and it’s fucking awful, a fucking disaster, cos I sit there feeling the love beginning to slip. I don’t want the love to slip. Not with Eleni. Please God don’t let the love slip with Eleni. Not like it slipped before. Not like it slipped with Sheba. Why is she saying all this? Stop her saying all this. Put an end to this ill-informed inventory of mythological freaks. Stop her suggesting that neo-classicism is the way ahead, cos it’s not. It’s definitely not. Not even close, Eleni. Why are you being so stupid? Why are you being so unlovable? Why is the love slipping? Please, God, please. Die or something, but don’t do this. Die, right here at the table, face down in your sorbet, but don’t get it all so wrong.
I ask for the bill and smile at the waitress. She’s French with unruly black hair and magenta nail polish, and I watch her as she glides towards the till.
We walk home along the river, in the rain, which is supposed to be romantic, but it’s not. It’s foul and wet and stinks of pigeon. We hardly speak. I hardly speak. Now and then Eleni points out a building or a puddle or a dog or a boat. She asks me where I think the wind comes from and I mumble, ‘I dunno,’ and stare at my boots. She rambles on about how, when she was a child, she thought that the wind was caused by trees and that’s why they shook so much in a storm. ‘And the more they shook the windier it became.’
‘Hmm,’ I say. ‘Hmm.’
She talks about meteors and astronauts, about stars and time and life on other planets. ‘Hmm, yeah,’ I say, and then, ‘I suppose.’ But what about death on other planets, Eleni? Ever think about that one? And then I close my eyes and see how far I can walk without hurting myself. ‘Shut up, Hector,’ I think, ‘shut the fuck up. Ever think about that one, you twat?’
As we slump through the door the phone’s ringing. It’s midnight. I pick it up, hoping for something. I don’t know what.
‘Hello?’ I say, and shrug off my coat.
‘Hello,’ says the voice. I watch as my coat leaks a puddle across the wood.
‘Hello, sir,’ I say, changing my tone.
‘Sir’ is Eleni’s father. His name is Yiorgos. I don’t mess about with Yiorgos. I’m very polite with Yiorgos. Yiorgos is a big man. Yiorgos is as big as three men and he’s suspicious of me. So he should be. Perhaps if he died . . .
‘How are you doing, Yiorgos?’
‘Is Eleni with you?’ OK, Yiorgos, I’ll assume you’re fine.
‘Eleni’s always with me.’
‘Can I speak to her?’ I can hear him sniff, and then a small grunt. ‘Please’ wouldn’t hurt, Yiorgos.
‘Of course, Yiorgos, I’ll call her.’ See how polite, craven and dull I am with him? That’s the story of me and Yiorgos. I hold the phone against my chest. ‘Eleni!’ I shout. There’s an echo. Eleni comes through from the bedroom towelling her hair. ‘Your dad,’ I shout. She runs across the room and takes the phone from me. I turn and set off walking towards my canvas in the far corner. My big white empty fucking canvas. I think about pissing on it.
Eleni whistles me and holds up two fingers, like a child miming a gun, and moves them back and forth in front of her lips. I light a fag, take twelve big strides across the room and slip it into her mouth. ‘Thank you,’ she says, and ‘Papa?’
A cloud. It seems as though a cloud has just seeped into her eyes. I lie down on the floor and light my own fag. I’m just glad to be out of the rain. Glad to be home. I lie back on the floor and stretch out my arms and legs. I think of da Vinci and raise my head to look at Eleni. My chin doubles. I’m sorry, Eleni. I’m sorry I’m not good enough. I’m sorry I’m so feeble. I am. I mean it.
She’s wearing a blue T-shirt with ‘God Shave The Queen’ written across the front in yellow letters. She pushes a marble around the floor with her foot. ‘Oh my God!’ she says, and then, ‘Papa, no, no. Oh my God.’ She loses control of the marble and it rolls towards my head. I look inside. I stare into the bleeding helix of green and yellow. How do they do that? Could that be done big? Could a giant marble be made? A marble the size of a man? How do they do that? I bet Claes Oldenburg knows how. I bet Claes O
ldenburg’s already thought of it.
‘Oh, Papa, don’t cry,’ says Eleni, and then the rest is in Greek. I’ve not really made an effort with the Greek. I can say a few things, read a few things, but when they start speaking, well, I’ve not quite got that far. ‘No, no, no,’ she’s saying. Is Yiorgos crying? Yiorgos? Huge Yiorgos? Crying? I try to imagine such a thing. I picture his hard black whiskers made soft by tears. I picture his lips all bubbled with spit. The sound of him. The smell of him. His immense leather fingers pinching the bridge of his quarried nose. What’s going on? Eleni pulls on her cigarette and it’s almost gone. What’s going on here? It’s all Greek to me.
At half-past midnight Eleni puts down the phone like she’s putting a small animal to sleep.
‘My mother has been badly burned,’ she says.
‘Oh my God,’ I say, raising myself up. ‘How?’
‘There was a fire in the kitchen,’ she says, Alexis tried to put it out with water.’ Alexis is her stupid brother. ‘She has been burning with a boiling fat. And then she fell into the fire.’
‘How bad?’
‘Bad.’
‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘Oh my God.’
I’m not sure what it is, but I don’t think that I trust myself. I really don’t trust these Oh my Gods. I stare at my canvas.
I like Eleni’s mother, Sofia. I don’t just like her; I love Sofia. I think I can say that I love Sofia. She looks like Eleni. I’ve seen photographs of her when she was young. It’s Eleni. Sofia always holds me tight; really tight; beautiful amber arms full around me. Face against my chest, eyes closed. Turquoise eyes. Like she’s listening to my heart and blessing the saints of my nativity. Like she’s protecting me from big old scary Yiorgos who watches all this and breathes and grinds his feet into the tiles of his taverna. Sofia always holds me, and it feels a lot like love. Eleni’s happy and that’s what Sofia sees. I don’t know what Yiorgos sees. Perhaps he sees the blackened pips buried in the core of me. Clever Yiorgos. Wise old Yiorgos. I’m sorry, sir. I’ll do better sir. Try harder. Sorry, Yiorgos. Sorry, Sofia. Sorry that you’re burned. Sorry that your daughter’s crying. Sorry that I’m all fucked up and jealous of her; jealous of her burned mother. My mother’s fine. She’s looking for a new settee, Yiorgos, cos I fucked your daughter on the old one and made her bleed. And I know that you want a grandson, you’ve made that clear. But I’ll tell you what: you don’t want one like me, do you? Oh no, sir. I know you don’t want a grandson that in any way resembles me. Sorry, sir. See how big he is? See how much he’s crying? Strange isn’t it, when big men cry. Strange when anyone cries.
‘What you gonna do?’ I say.
‘I don’t know. Papa says we’ll see how she is tomorrow.’
‘Do you want to go?’
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘No,’ I say, and then, ‘Yes,’ and then, ‘I mean, do whatever you need to do love.’
Eleni reaches for my fags and takes a long time taking one out. She clicks and fails with the lighter. Clicks and fails, clicks and fails, as though she’s never used a lighter before. ‘I think maybe you need anyway some space,’ she says as she finally gets it going.
‘I’ve got space,’ I say, sweeping my hand around the room. ‘How much more space could I have?’
‘But I am in it,’ says Eleni, and stares at the floor.
‘But I want you to be in it.’
‘You have a lot of pressure. The exhibition, the broken painting. The new self-portrait.’ She stares at the empty canvas over in the corner of the room.
‘Eleni, this isn’t about me and my pressure. It’s about whether you need to be with your mother.’
‘We’ll see.’ And she walks off into the bedroom. I follow her.
‘What’s the matter, love?’
‘I’m getting on your nerves.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Yes.’ She pulls back the blue sheets and climbs onto the bed.
‘You’re not getting on my nerves.’
‘You’ve been impatient of me.’ She pulls the sheets over her head. She’s gone. She’s disappeared.
‘Impatient with you.’
‘Yes, with me,’ she says, appearing for a second. And then. ‘No.’ I sit on the edge of the bed and stroke what I think is her shoulder. ‘I know, Hector, I can feel it.’
‘Eleni, love,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry about your mum . . .’
I can hear her sobbing beneath the sheets. I gather her up. A tiny blue bundle. I hold her tight, tight enough to break her. How simple it would be right now to break her, to love her so hard she snaps. To crush her. It’s an easy thing to bring horror into a room.
‘I’ve just been tense,’ I say.
‘With me.’
‘No, no, not with you. I’ve got a lot on my plate.’
‘Your plate?’ she says. It’s not sarcastic. It’s perplexed. Confused by the idiom.
‘No, no,’ I say, and ease her beautiful Greek face from the sheets. ‘It’s got nothing to do with plates. It’s Kirk and . . . and I don’t know . . . I’m just all messed up.’
Brilliant, this. Quite fucking brilliant the way I’ve just made it all about me. Like her mother’s just fine. Like it’s really me who’s splattered with hot fat. Like it’s really me who should be smothered in bandages. Eleni burrows back beneath the covers and I can hear her breathing. I sit for a long time and listen.
I walk out into the studio and look at the canvas. There it is, all giant and white, like the fucking Antarctic. Like I should just stick a fucking flag into the middle of it. I feel like I’m in a film about a struggling artist who keeps getting up at all hours of the night to look at his big, blank, empty canvas. And in a way I am. Except that I’m not struggling. I’m Hector Kipling. I might be getting up at all hours of the night to look at my big, blank, empty canvas, but I am not fucking struggling.
I climb into bed. Eleni’s almost asleep, I can hear her breathing on the edge of a dream. I touch her thighs. I want to fuck her. She eases me away. Gentle, slow. Almost not at all. I really can’t blame her. Her mother’s unconscious in a Cretan bed smeared with Vaseline, what am I thinking of? I roll over, push my face into the pillow, listen to my heartbeat for an hour and then fall asleep. I dream. I remember dreaming. I dream of fucking Sofia, Eleni’s scalded mother, in a strange bath. We’re tiny and naked, in a strange bath filled up to the top with cold green, mild green, Fairy Liquid.
Monday’s come round again and I’m with Bianca. We’re sat about five feet apart and she gently pushes over the tissues with her foot, her toes on the box, like she’s touching a landmine.
‘So,’ she says, ‘what’s going on?’
I look her in the eyes. She has these deep-set coral eyes.
‘I don’t know where to begin,’ I say.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘that’s a beginning in itself.’ When she listens she strokes her neck.
I begin to talk. She listens. She strokes her neck.
‘Up to the age of twenty-four,’ I say, ‘I’d never had a bird shit on me. (Then, one day, when I was twenty-four, I was shat on twice, the same day, by two different birds. Once by a pigeon outside Euston Station, the second time in Blackpool by a seagull hovering over the Pleasure Beach.’
‘I see,’ she says, her long fingers caressing her throat.
‘So,’ I say, ‘what do you suppose that means?’
TURNER PRIZE, SHORTLISTED ARTISTS
Archie March, for his solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery and his poignant contribution to Assassin at Moderna Museet, Stockholm in which he displayed a perceptive and uncompromising dedication to exploring the borders of the subconscious.
Kim Large, for her inventive portrayals of domestic alienation, utilizing materials both unexpected and difficult, as seen at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Elvira Snow, for the presentation of her work at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and for her solo exhibition at the Lisson Gallery, London, and
for her contribution to several group shows, including Aggggghhhh at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and My Daddy Gone Crazy at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.
Lenny Snook, for his outstanding solo exhibition, Berserkr, at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and for his contribution to the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh.
Archie March. Just five years out of St Martins and he’s covered a football pitch in Berlin with hexagonal black and white football leather. On the centre spot sits a ball. The ball is made of mud and grass. And that’s it. Football Crazy, he calls it. He’s going to have photos of it at the Tate and maybe a scale model. He’s going to have a dartboard of bone and pork. There will be a glass pool table with glass balls and glass cues. There will be a kinetic sculpture of blue boxing gloves boxing skulls, and an entire wall of leopardskin cricket pads. A looped tape will chant ‘He’s strange, he’s weird, he wears a goatee beard, Archie March, Archie March!’ The whole thing will be called Sports Illustrated, and everyone in the know expects it to win. It’s all about being accessible; bringing the opposing worlds of sport and art into a harmonious unity. Art for the common man. And funny and deep, I suppose, or so I’m told.
Kim Large fills baths with paint and lines them up in six rows of three. Eighteen baths plumbed up to run paint from the taps and the plugs open so it empties at exactly the same rate as it fills. In Tokyo she did it with white paint, in New York, black. For the prize she’s going to use eighteen different colours. She calls the baths ‘fountains’ as a homage to Duchamp. And that’s about it. Sometimes she does it with sinks and once, in Amsterdam, she did it with toilets, filling and flushing, filling and flushing. I like it. She never makes any claims as to what it all means other than it looks quite beautiful, and I like that. And I like her. In fact I quite fancy her. She’s twenty-eight and looks a lot like Ingrid Bergman. Eleni knows that I quite fancy her cos I told her and I know that she’s cool about that kind of thing. I love Eleni. I don’t love Kim Large, but I do quite fancy her and I like her painty baths and I wish that I’d thought of it cos it’s silly and pretty and smelly and odd.
The Late Hector Kipling Page 7
