The Late Hector Kipling

Plot summary

Hector Kipling is an artist who is famous for his ovarian paintings of big heads. When one of his closest friends is found to have a brain tumor Hector finds himself longing for someone close to him to die, because that would mean that Hector, as one left behind, would receive much sympathy.

Hector's girlfriend Eleni leaves for her native Greece after her mother is in a kitchen accident. Meanwhile, Hector's own father has ended up in hospital as well: the money Hector's mother spent on a replacement settee after Eleni and Hector stained the old one during sex is too much for him to handle.

At an exhibition, an assailant badly damages one of Hector's paintings. To make up for the damage done the assailant, Monger, will buy an expensive settee from Hector's parents' to get Hector's father out of hospital. He does so, but also robs Hector's parents of 15,000 pounds and kills their pet dog.

Eleni returns home, announcing her mother has died, but leaves in anger after she finds Hector with an American punk poet named Rosa Flood. Monger ends up killing Hector's friend and fellow artist Lenny Snook and Rosa, when he mistakes Lenny for Hector. Hector shoots Monger with the latter's gun and heads for the Tate Britain, where he paints the words "The simplest act of surrealism is to walk into a crowded street with a loaded revolver, and open the fire at random" on the walls and does just that.

After his arrest Hector is charged with killing Rosa and Lenny as well, but has decided to let it go. Hector's father has died in hospital upon hearing of his son's deeds and his mother has committed suicide by throwing herself into the Irish Sea, and he has never heard from Eleni again.