Duchamps's Heir

Simeon Linniment woke that morning thinking about Carol. He hadn’t been able to think about anything or anyone but Carol since that beautiful, beautiful field trip to Barcelona, when they’d held hands blatantly in front of the others. That had set the cat amongst the pigeons at college. Still, it was stolen, delicious, a magical three days - the spirit of Gaudi and the Anarchists had been infectious. It was a time of great awakening in him, after what seemed like many years of shallow, restless sleep. Today the sun shone brilliantly, reflecting the world in its true state, he thought.

There was just one little problem nagging away. Carol was a mature student, in his Textiles class...and physical relations with students were most unprofessional...

...yes, but she was really much more than just a mature student, wasn't she?

...well, if you must know, she was a old flame, a real blast from the past - we were lovers in our teens, at art school during the early eighties, when I still had hair...when I still had hair...

He was bald now. He'd hated losing his beautiful hair; he remembered waking up to find great cords of it broken on his white pillow, and he'd wept. It had all fallen out really quickly in his early twenties after ten years of chemical violence in the production of blue and green mohicans, surfing the avant-garde, on the front line in Lowestoft and Yarmouth...

Lowestoft and Yarmouth!

Proud as a peacock, he would prance around in his stilettos and fishnets, made up like a panda. He narrowly escaped a few kickings from the local rednecks, normally by abasing himself and legging it - Simeon wasn’t up for a fight. That was so neanderthal, for heaven’s sake, so brutal...He involuntarily ran his hand across his smooth pate. His beautiful hair! He remembered how it felt to have hair. What a means of expression! But he was paying for it now, in his middle age, although the rumour was of course that bald men are better in bed, more virile, have more stamina...you could always put a positive spin on it.

The strangest coincidence of all however was that Carol, his new lover, the familiar flame from yesteryear who had shanghaied him on the field trip with her girlish demure-mature sexuality, was also completely hairless. He’d told her that her baldness was attractive, which of course it was. She was lucky in that her small round scalp was beautifully proportioned, whereas his was monstrous, distended, lumpy and pulsing. Even though alopoecia totalis can be psychologically crippling for a woman, especially a beautiful woman like Carol, she'd learned to adapt...she wore it well...she was a survivor, very fit...you'd never know until you got up really close, too close for her comfort. Intimacy was hard work for her, but that was fine, he was the same. They were like two smooth peas in a pod.

And it turned them on when they fucked, that they were both hairless. He'd always shaved or waxed what little he had on the rest of his body. He couldn't stand bodily hair, especially on women. He liked the new trends for shaving, such as the Brazilian, or whatever. They talked about it - it turned them on. Two smooth hairless bodies moving together... They were able to create the illusion that they were younger than they were, which allowed them to construct and perpetuate the sweetest lie. At this point, they were both cheating, they both wove elaborate cover stories for clandestine fuckings whenever and wherever, they both fantasised about when they were young, when the world was still an oyster, before the light changed, when they could still feel the wind in their...

He rolls out of bed and pads quietly to the bathroom trying not to wake his wife or the two boys. He doesn’t want to disturb them. He’s going to slip out for a run, to invigorate his libido, to get his blood pumping, and then he’s going to shower and wax his legs. He smiles at himself in the bathroom mirror...not bad, even at 42...but as he looks closer at the face in the mirror, he wonders whether or not the hair of his eyebrows looks a little riotous...and there, in his ears... Oh no! Ear hair! Oh how disgustingly appalling! And it's grey too...how gross is the process of ageing, he thinks, frowning and bringing his bushier-than-before eyebrows into focus once more. He reaches for the electric clippers but thinks better of it. The noise might wake his wife, and she might notice that he's been taking more care than usual over his appearance. She’s already passed some fatuous comment on the fact that he was running, taking the mickey in that sardonic manner of hers. She was so vulgar, really.

He slips into his repro seventies Adidas tracksuit freshly pressed and oh so quietly pulls the door to, breathing a huge sigh of relief as he leaves his sleeping family. The sunshine is glorious. He feels like a million dollars - he feels like Tarzan, king of the jungle.

He would see Carol later, when that idiot of a husband of hers had gone to work. The good thing about being a lecturer was that there was a lot of self-regulation. He was trusted, second-in-command in Fine Art now, and with a reputation to build upon. He was still cutting edge. He could still pull it out of the bag. He was irresistible, despite having turned forty, but in the mind, time could be resisted, just as in the body, brutality could be resisted. He really believed that...

Carol’s husband was a brute by all accounts, though he'd never met him. Simeon was Carol’s chevalier from the past, a Gawain for her Ragnelle, saving her from an ugliness that must not be her fate...they were both meant for higher things, for art, for great works, for the cutting edge, for the triumph of beauty, for smooth clean lines, for clarity of definition. He starts to run, imagining how he was going to fuck her later, and he gets hard just thinking about it. He really wants to fuck her - those faces she makes, those black eyes...he just can’t get enough of her...she's invaded him, occupied him...they're like animals together, just like before, when they were...

When Simeon returned, he could hear his wife and the boys thundering around upstairs. They were up. Thankfully, the run had taken his mind off Carol for a moment. He managed to make it into the bathroom without bumping into his wife but she came in while he was in the shower. She sat herself down and waited for him to say something but he carried on regardless. He knew what she was waiting for, but he couldn't bear the thought of making the effort. After a sterile five minutes which screamed at him, she opened the cubicle door. He didn’t want her to see him so he turned his back to her. They hadn't had sex for several months and he wasn't going to give her any ideas now. There was a moment's silence, and then she said, ‘Simeon, you’re looking very hairy all of a sudden. Are you taking some sort of hormonal supplement or something? Your back is covered in fine black hair, all over...what’s all that about?’

‘Oh you are such a nasty little bitch when you don’t get what you want, aren’t you,’ he growled from between gritted teeth, and without waiting for her answer, pulled the cubicle door shut, bisecting the space between them, shutting her out.

'And what do I want then Sim? What do you think I want then?' she shouted coarsely, sarcastically. It really summed up what was happening in his marriage, which was effectively grinding to a halt. It was going to be painful - no doubt he'd lose the house...but he didn’t want to think about that now. He wanted to remember Carol’s eyes, her black eyes locked on his as she went down on her knees, as she went down, down, down on him. She was good...really...good...

He didn’t have time to wax his legs now. He checked his body in the Laura Ashley gothic Victorian oak full length mirror which he hated for its bourgeois character...it had been a good job that someone pushed her down the stairs...such horribly cliched design...and a completely gutless use of colour. His thing was objets trouve...art made from lost items...that recontextualization of Michaelangelo’s David that he'd fashioned out of extruded polystyrene packing and wire mesh for his MA thesis had brought him into contact with the fabulously nasty Emin, the Chapman droogs, Damien, the whole London scene. After his last exhibition, he’d even been introduced to Saatchi, very briefly. It was a glittering world, and it seemed he was within reach of it...perhaps only a dinner party away...he was building up to it...a little curating, a little consultancy, a little lecturing to keep his hand in but overwhelmingly, a conscious push to produce a collection of his work that would take the London scene by the short and curlies...He would be Duchamps's heir - the art world was his for the taking.

But wait. His wife was right. He is growing a lot of hair! He looks a little closer. How bizarre! He seems to be getting hairier by the moment. On his chest too...imagine that, at his age! Must be all that hot sex he’s been having...the best sex he’s ever had. She wanted to eat him! He remembered her as she was when they were seventeen, at Yarmouth Art College together. She was irresistible then, but so was he. Now, he worries. Hairiness? How gross, how utterly disgusting... He looks at his legs. Sure enough, they look much darker than before. Still nothing on his head though! Typical! Everywhere but where he needs it. Perhaps it will grow there too. Oh what a revelation, what joy, to have hair again...to run my fingers through it...and I’ll keep it long....but black? It was never black before...what on earth is going on? He couldn’t go turning into some sort of ape-man now, could he? Carol would never love an ape-man...

This thought niggled at him as he dressed hurriedly, not wanting to look, only thinking about those fathomless black Burmese eyes of hers, glistening like two fathomless pools of oil.

He’d sort out the prep for tomorrow's seminar on Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko later that evening. The important thing this morning was to show his face in the office, so that they all knew he was in college today, and not fucking one of his students which was what he shortly expected to be doing. He found himself feeling a little out of sorts when he got into the college car park. He’d started to itch, all over...whatever was going on? He walked into the college foyer and was immediately spotted by Cassie, one of his colleagues.

‘Ah, just the man I need to see!’

Shit, he would rather not stop and talk, but as she was technically his boss, he had no choice.

‘Long time, no see Simeon...how are things?’

She was smiling, but her eyes were concerned, searching, more than curious perhaps, or was he being paranoid, reading more into things than were really there? That was the thing about cheating; it screws you up a bit. He hadn’t been comfortable with it at the start. Oh sure, he’d fucked other students in the past...discreetly of course. He was a master strategist...but Carol was the first on a really regular basis. The others were only quickies. There was something bestial between them, really! It was something to do with those eyes...no, that mouth...no, that wicked darting tongue...not that even, something else...what was it...on the tip of his tongue...he scratched his neck vigorously through his old original Karl Lagerfeld t-shirt which he’d stolen during that dizzy trip to Paris when he’d developed a taste for Brando... That was it: her smooth hairlessness...because she was just like him...two smooth peas in a pod.

‘Hi Cassie, things are fine thanks...how about you?’

Cassie’s didn’t say anything at first; she seemed to be staring at his neck rather incredulously. ‘Yes, er, well, I was a little concerned that you weren’t present for the Open Day last week, Simeon. You could have emailed me or something...'

He could hear the complaint growling in her mind, just waiting to spring. He scratched again, ignoring his colleague’s stare. ‘I was ill, Cassie...’

‘Oh come on, pull the other one Sim. I saw you driving on the Acle straight in the middle of the day. You were with someone...someone else...’ She looked at him askance, just for an instant, but he caught it, understood it, and scratched again. He felt like he was crawling...he realised he was itching all over now. Not pleasant. Whatever was going on? Just at that moment, his mobile rang: it was Carol, so he excused himself and stepped outside to take the call. Saved by the bell.

‘He’s gone to work...are you coming?’

He could hear in her voice that she was breathless – he loved that! He loved the conspiratorial nature of it. He loved the idea of getting paid for fucking his students: it was nice work if you could get it...But oh God he was really scratching hard now. His neck felt like he had four or five day’s growth on it. It seemed to be getting worse. Perhaps he was experiencing an allergic reaction...yes, perhaps that’s what it is...Simeon assured Carol that he was on his way and would be with her inside the hour, but first he thought, he’s going to have to see about this hair business. How extraordinary!

‘Are you okay, Simeon?’ It was Cassie again. She’d been watching him through the glass doors of the foyer. ‘It’s just that you’ve been behaving a little strangely recently...and if you don’t mind me saying, its been noticed...perhaps you’d like to come and have a chat, talk about things...a trouble shared is a trouble halved, you know...’

What a ridiculous thing to say! How could she possibly understand? He was on the cusp of leaving this two-bit rural backwater for a glittering life of art and design in London...Saatchi and the Chapmans would pave his way...he would take up Duchamps's mantle...he would move to Japan, where the sun would remain risen, shining brilliantly in perpetuity...

‘Thanks Cassie. Yes, I’m having a few problems with my marriage. Things haven't been...well...’

He let his words tail off, anticipating the effect...

‘Oh I am sorry, Simeon. Claire's such a lovely girl too.’

His wife's name jarred him; it was just like being run through with a rusty sword...Just shut up you silly bitch....what do you know...how could you possibly understand? He felt that Cassie's sympathies might well lay with Claire and so the need to escape, before he said anything else, became paramount... Before he could start his closing gambit however, Cassie said,

‘Simeon...I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, but...we’ve been friends and colleagues for an awful long time now...so I think that, notwithstanding our professional relationship...I hope I can speak frankly with you...’

She was spluttering, running out of steam, unable to articulate the reproach...but he wouldn't help her out now...he waited for her to take the plunge. If Cassie knew he was boning one of his students on a regular basis, he would be in breach of his contract of employment...his skin crawled and he pinched his buttocks together to effect some sort of relief which was not forthcoming. The irritation was relentless. The silence between them became so embarrassing that he could no longer restrain himself...

‘Oh come on then Cassie...' he said, impateiently 'let’s get this thing out into the open, throw some light on the matter... you know I don’t like secrets...’

In fact, Cassie thought, she didn't know anything of the sort. She'd always considered Simeon Linniment to be notoriously secretive and sly, and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. She felt sorry for poor Claire, stuck at home with those two beastly children. She was such a nice woman, so pretty. Of course Simeon screwed his students but as most of them seemed to be feckless young things struck by the awesome, magnetic power of his personality, Cassie had been prepared to turn a blind eye... This time, however, things were different. She knew who the passenger was in the car. The whole thing was ludicrously obvious. Those two had been luvvying and duvvying their way around the campus like the empty headed, selfish little fools that they really were. Cassie knew all about it - everyone did. The whole college knew. It was pathetic to watch it. The only people who didn’t know, she guessed, would be the partners and the families. More broken homes, more tears, more perfidy, no doubt...All in the name of vanity and ego, always vanity and ego...If it wasn't so tediously predictable, it would be tragic. Perhaps now was not the moment however. Simeon looked different somehow this morning...a little threatening...

‘Well, it’s just that you look...you look very odd Simeon...you’re looking very hairy...look at your arms!’

This was shocking, not what he'd expected. He thought he knew what was coming. He's been expecting a summons to Cassie's office, a telling-off, a dressing-down...these women stick together. But what was she saying? He looked down at his arms, which had been hanging loosely at his sides...they were covered in a black downy hair...he turned over his hands... He was mortified...

‘Oh...yes, look...’

He scratched again, revealing a part of his collarbone. The skin underneath only just showed pink beneath a shiny mat of black hair. Whatever was going on? What was happening to him...it was worse than turning into a beetle!

‘My God, Simeon...what’s happening to you...you better get yourself over to the hospital and get yourself checked out...you look like you’re turning into a baboon!’ She couldn’t help it; a little titter escaped...

Laughter can have a strange effect on people. Simeon Linniment was very cool. He wore Paul Smith. He dined with Dinos Chapman. He was cutting edge. He was Duchamps's heir-apparent. No-one ever laughed at him, and he never laughed at anyone, unless it was behind their backs. Never! At anyone. It was his golden rule. He was Gawain, he was Simeon, the designer, the coutourier, the avant-gardista, he was hyper, super, his accent was Parisian...He would exchange his ex-squatted-council-flat-in-Sommerstown-turned-lucrative-property-investment for an apartment in Montmartre...and then on to Kyoto or New York, perhaps both...He was the king of the jungle, not the Primate...he was not a baboon! He coloured violently and strode past her, resisting the temptation to scratch once more, not uttering another word. For her part, Cassie knew she’d overstepped the mark but experienced a delicious but very childish and unprofessional delight in irritating the stuck-up, arrogant little prig for once, rather than the other way around. She let him go.

Simeon was burning from head to toe with a petulant rage. He could not stand any sort of cruel satire at his expense. It was something to do with a monumental pride that, had he only known it, had been weighing him down since before he could even think of himself as a human being. Carol was like that too; they were very similar in many ways, like two peas. She'd said that they were made for each other, and somewhere in his mind, he'd identified what it was...but he didn’t like the conclusion that his intellect had come to, so he decided not to consider it. He squeezed the truth into a matchbox, put that in a jam-jar, screwed the lid tight, sealed this inside a Tupperware box and that inside a biscuit tin, locked the...

People in the car-park were staring at him. His hands were definitely covered in visibly thickening black hair. It was surreal. His mobile sounded again...a message from Claire...something about itemised telephone accounts and she knew why he was calling this one particular number, which was of course, that belonging to his lover's mobile...but he couldn’t look at it now...something was happening to him. Some students were gawping, actually gawping at him, and he realised what was happening when he saw his reflection in the window glass of the battered old Nissan that he drove because he loved kitsch 80’s Japanese pre-late-capitalist post-recontextualized aesthetics...

What he saw was bizarre...utterly bizarre. Only an hour ago he had been clean shaven. He remembered shaving that morning. He never needed to shave twice in one day...NEVER EVER...now he looked like...he looked like Cornelius in The Planet of the Apes (1968)...he looked like a demonic black baboon, but bald on top. He looked like he was wearing a fancy dress costume, but without the head-piece...Panic rose up into his gorge...his bile frothed...his tongue was cloven to the palate...he could not speak...He scrambled into the Nissan and put his foot down, his tyres screeching...he would never live this down...

His mobile blared once more...Carol again...could he stop off and bring her some razor blades from Tesco Metro? She wanted to shave the only hair remaining on her body. She wanted him to do it, she told him archly, because she knew it would turn him on.

He couldn’t believe what was going on...it was just incredible. He was wondering about whether he should go to A&E. He could see the hair visibly growing now. He had a beard growing, rich and thick, entirely not like him. He was hairless, smooth, so smooth...

He put his foot down as his anxiety increased. He bent the mirrors away so he could not see himself, but he could not resist scratching of course, and strangely took great comfort in stroking his new beard. He was turning into some sort of yeti! Even his nose and ears were irritating him beyond belief...it was hellish.

He hit the A47 doing a fair lick...the old crate shuddered and juddered at eighty...but he felt he had an emergency on his hands now...he could feel the hair like a layer of felt under his Karl Lagerfeld t-shirt...it was gross, utterly disgusting. His mounting anxiety manifested in an insane increase in speed. The old Nissan was screaming, but Simeon paid no heed. He was intent on one thing only now...getting to the hospital to find out what the hell was going on...

He didn’t see the truck pull out across the dual carriageway at the last minute. The driver had miscalculated the weight of the container which he was pulling and the speed of the oncoming traffic. Despite braking frantically when he suddenly realised his imminent demise, Simeon slammed into the metal frame doing between seventy and eighty. No chance of surviving that for long.

Simeon hung on until the emergency services arrived. First the police, and then the fire brigade and the ambulance, almost together. They had to cut him out. He'd lost a lot of blood before he died. It had matted the hair, so that he looked like a twelfth century ascetic wearing a hair shirt. According to the Coroner’s Report, the hair had kept on growing long after he had died. By the time he was buried, they’d had to trim him twice...and God alone only knows what he looks like after a couple of months underground. Lizzie Jordan was the last person to see the body. She prepared him for the funeral. She said she'd had to use shears, that she’d never seen anything like it in thirty-five years on the job, and that the strangest thing was, when she was finished, although she'd done her best obviously, the poor man looked just like one of those monkeys you see on David Attenborough’s wildlife programmes...you know, those ones with blue bottoms...only this one was just a bit bigger...