Phone

by Will Self

  Fiver said it weren’t so and we ended up with the relevant

  directories open on our knees, running fingers down lists of kikes

  and taigs – and he was right: there were more of us than them

  …. …. ! …. …. ! Moreover, I’ve increased the imbalance –

  single-prickedly, so to speak. Not that there’s any way of establishing

  the scores now – haven’t seen a phone book in ages …. …. !

  …. …. ! Don’t have one of my own any more – everything in

  this thing, this slick and slippery … thing. Turn it over, feel the

  smoothness of the bevelled-glass screen – turn it over again ….

  …. ! …. …. ! Annagain. Run your finger round the precise

  concavity of the home button – sorta tummy-button, really: touch it

  againannagain … stay in touch …. …. ! …. …. ! Feelies –

  that’s what we called them back in the day: small objects which

  sit in the palm of the hand – nice feeling to hold and touch

  them. I tried to make the Riddle tiles a bit like that …. …. !

  …. …. ! carried one or two round in my pocket for years –

  only connect: connect with the world, connect with other people

  …. …. ! …. …. ! But it’s damnably hard – getting harder

  all the time: I say something – anything – but they don’t seem

  to hear me …. …. ! …. …. ! What does Ben call it when

  his screen doesn’t reload fast enough? Lagging – that’s it.

  Annoying little spinning widget appears as well: lagging – yeah,

  lagging – that’s it, I’m lagging …. …. ! …. …. ! I’m

  lagging and there’s a sorta circlet – or corona, more properly –

  spinning in the very dead-centre of my visual field …. …. !

  …. …. ! Spinning and spinning and stimming and spinning

  and … stimming some more – a corona of precisely ruled lines,

  radiating round into and out of existence …. …. ! …. …. !

  Rota tu volubilis – status malus … Just goes to show, whatever they

  may say, there’s not much wrong with my memory – it’s only that

  I have to … sort of … download things …. …. ! …. …. !

  while in the meantime there’s all this other … data – such a lot of

  it, it pours in, more and more – and the more there is, the more it

  reminds you …. …. ! …. …. ! you’re alone in here – while out

  there it’s a Snowden aviary of a dining area, full of trilling laughter

  and cheeping chatter, out of which emerges this pleasing Scouse

  whine: Don’t wanna jib youse, but shall we cummere fer oor tea

  t’night? …. …. ! …. …. ! Above them not Lennon’s only sky

  but only fire-resistant tiles – always a lot of fire-resistant tiles in

  hotels, even expensive ones …. …. ! …. …. ! But why –

  why does that old codger have a sweatshirt with Jack Jones

  written on it? Is it part of a series – an entire fashion line featuring

  seventies union leaders? If so, where’re Vic Feather and Clive

  Sinclair? …. …. ! …. …. ! This is where their winter of discontent

  ended: in a summer city-break, complete with Hilton

  Honors points. There they are: queuing up in front of a wooden

  bench piled high with croissants and those muff-things, while their

  seriously overweight wives saw at the greasy meat on their plates

  with serrated knives – a mortuary sound …. …. ! …. …. !

  Hang on to the phone – that’s the thing to do. It’s all in the phone:

  my itinerary, my train times, my medical information – the whole

  lot. Hang on to the phone – feel the smoothness of its bevelled

  screen …. …. ! …. …. ! place your thumb in the soft depression

  of its belly-button – turn it over and over … a five-hundred-quid

  worry bead – and all I worry about is losing the bloody thing

  …. …. ! …. …. ! Sign on the toilet seat in the train yesterday

  afternoon: PLEASE DON’T FLUSH NAPPIES, TAMPONS, CHEWING

  GUM OR OLD LOVE LETTERS DOWN THIS TOILET – and a whole

  list of other stuff besides – whimsical things such as hopes and

  dreams, but also old phones…. …. ! …. …. ! Why old phones,

  why not new ones? Have to think about that – assemble a brains

  trust is what Maurice would’ve said: We’ll have to assemble a

  brains trust…. …. ! …. …. ! There would be Cyril, leaning

  back in his chair, pipe at a preposterous angle, pouchy, puckish,

  bearded face – carping, querulous, strangulated voice…. …. !

  …. …. ! Eeeoooh, an old phone preeohsupposes a neeohw one –

  and surely, what we neeohd to ask ourselves is what sort of society

  we’re living in when anyone at all takes it upon themselves to discard

  an expensive piece of GeePeeOh equipment quite so casually

  …. …. ! …. …. ! When did he quit the stage … ? Before

  fifty-five, I’d wager – and he wasn’t that old, prob’ly, though

  he looked like Methuselah so far as I was concerned …. …. !

  …. …. ! On it goes – and if Maurice were to answer it?

  Hampstead four-oh-five-six he’d say – then he’d repeat it twice,

  before beginning to panic: Push Button A! he’d yelp, at once

  convinced there was some Mitteleuropean Busner on the end of

  the line, fresh off the boat train, the dirt of the shtetl trapped

  in his turn-ups, and wholly unversed in the ins and outs of

  British public telephones …. …. ! …. …. ! Push Button A!

  Maurice’d cry again, becoming increasingly agitated – he was

  still doing it twenty-five years later: long after Button A had

  gone … he lingered on. I’d call from a pay phone, and, as I fed

  the ten-pee piece in, I’d hear, soaring above the instrument’s

  mechanical digestion, his anguished confusion: Push Button A!

  Push Button A! …. …. ! …. …. ! And what – what exactly

  would happen? B, I s’pose – B would happen – you’d have to push

  Button B! …. …. ! What did Button B do … ? Not that Maurice

  was restating the fundamentals of causation – oh, no, because the

  exact same thing happened when answer-phones came in ….

  …. ! …. …. ! He kept on applying the old rubric of communication

  to this new means – could never get the hang of leaving

  a pithy message …. …. ! …. …. ! Not really known for his

  pith, Maurice – any more than I am. He’d ramble on, speaking

  as if he were dictating a letter: Dear Zachary, it’s Maurice here,

  I do hope you, Miriam and the boys are all well. Barbara and I went

  to see the Pirates of Penzance at the Savoy Theatre last evening.

  It wasn’t a terribly impressive production, I’m afraid – several of

  the chorus were woefully out of tune … While as for the very

  model of a modern major-general – why, he was nothing credibly

  of the sort at all …. …. ! …. …. ! And so on …. …. !

  …. …. ! again annagain – really, I should’ve obtained the

  services of a scribe to copy down these messages – which often

  ran to hundreds of words – then sat and read them over breakfast

  …. …. ! …. …. ! Bless him – we’re all like him now,

  smoothing our remaining Nuctol-enriched hair, putting a record

  on the gramoph
one … attempting to make our way across this

  new wasteland using the same old ways …. …. ! …. …. !

  The old Bakelite phone … its twelve-eyed minstrel face still

  goggling at me from the screen of the smart one Ben gave me

  …. …. ! …. …. ! hearken to its persistent insistence ….

  …. ! …. …. ! reverberating on the telephone table, a specialised

  item of furniture, the walnut-burled compartment of which seems

  to’ve been purpose-designed to amplify its …. …. ! …. …. !

  carping self-importance: Answer me …. ! Answer me …. !

  And we did – by golly we did. Didn’t matter what you were

  doing – eating dinner, making love, making war … sitting on

  the lavatory …. …. ! …. …. ! The reverence accorded the

  malevolent little household god was so great – you’d no sooner

  dream of not answering it than you would of not standing for the

  National-bloody-Anthem …. …. ! …. …. ! Hunchbacked

  across the parquet, trousers and pants bunched around your

  ankles, turd halfway out – a waggling Devil’s tail … Hello! Hello!

  Yes … Hampstead four-five-oh-six …. …. ! …. …. !

  Annagain: Hampstead four-five-oh-six – Push Button A! Push

  Button A! Push Butt–. It stops: the thrumma-dum-dum, the

  insistent trilling. It stops – and is slowly succeeded by: Scritch-itch-itch

  … scritch-itch-itch … scritch-itch-itch … When I’ve

  done what? Scritch-itch-itch … scritch-itch-itchright away! What

  if he won’t come quietly? Scritch-itch-fuckit

  Normanyou’vegotta-mantherewithhiscritch-scritch-itch

  … A very small trapped bird or

  possibly an insect, Busner thinks – sealed in plastic, not Bakelite

  any more, but it still sounds the scritch-itch same. Everyone …

  he persists … has either done it or thought of doing it: smashing

  the handset against the telephone table … againannagain ‘til it

  disintegrates – leaving a rice-paper disc macarooned there now

  the voice it once contained has … busted out of this wiry prison

  and straight into my head! — A world is shimmering into being,

  Busner thinks, bodying-forth from the handset the Manager of

  the Podium Restaurant holds clamped against his head – visible

  waves of materiality ripple into the human spectral range, bearing

  this flotsam on their crests: Eamonn Holmes slapped across a

  wall-mounted flat-screen telly, a news thread ever unzipping his

  comfortable belly … A whole melon poised on a mound of crushed

  ice, its flesh elaborately tooled into tight, leafy tessellations so it

  resembles … a monstrous artichoke! Beyond this are more shape-shifting

  legumes: a forest of miniature carrot-trees surrounded by

  swirls of cucumber and tomato roundels – a steel tripod bearing a

  jungly mess of salad leaves and multicoloured peppers. Further

  away, through the misty atmosphere, Busner spots an entire Continental

  section: frills of ham and cooked meats, cheese slices fanned

  out around an entire Gouda on a wooden trencher. And there are

  people – guests – shuffling alongside the counter, tonging black

  bread, dill pickles, mini-muff-things and full-sized croissants on to

  their already high-piled plates, or spooning porridge into deep

  white bowls, or thrusting specialist scoops into Tupperware tubs

  full of organic muesli, honey-nut cornflakes and Rice Krispies …

  blebs. All Busner can see, as his own head waggles furtively, first to

  the right … then to the left … are other heads, hanging in the air,

  eerily illuminated by the spotlights above the counter, disembodied

  by the steam rising from it. They are, he thinks, each and every

  one a world entire, around which all … this … orbits – all the

  coconuts and the curries and the Castlefield Canal … All conditioned

  phenomena are a dream, an illusion … a bubble … a shadow … like

  dew or a flash of lightning … thus shall we perceive them … He

  holds this thought, while thinking that it, too, is a conditioned

  phenomena – then all at once is puffed up with giddy spiritual

  pride: P’raps this is it? he exalts. I’ve slipped into enlightenment,

  as a lesser man might … a ditch! – But then, he considers: That’s

  exactly the sort of pride which can lead novices into the most awful

  … glistening, glutinous, sickly smelling … swamp. Busner’s gaze

  wanders from the serving dish heaped with baked beans into … a

  charnel house: glinting, calcified slices of black pudding … oozing

  grease – still greasier sausages, and a great Rattenkönig of bacon,

  smeared with globs of white fat, its rinds woven into a … gristly

  plait. This is where desire, that most conditioned phenomena of all,

  ends – he acknowledges wearily – in the abattoir, where the poor

  beast is first poleaxed, then … flayed. The MANAGER (it says as

  much on the badge he wears on his lapel) has freed his ear from the

  wall-mounted phone behind the breakfast buffet and shimmered

  into a dark green suit with lighter green silken lapel-facings, pocket

  flaps and … reveres. I’ve Maurice to thank for that: Never spare

  money on tailoring, Zachary, see the flaps on these pockets …

  lovely bit of stitching – the clothes maketh the man … the clothes

  maketh the man … Down to Dave Wax on Hammersmith Broadway

  – soft touch on the inside leg: Nice bit of shmatte, that … Never

  afraid of a cliché – Jews or Englishmen, as for English Jews: It’s a

  fair cop, guv’nor – you’ve got me bang to rights for saying, Nice

  bit of shmatte, that … What was the final result of all those fittings?

  In Maurice’s case a wholly irrational belief that he … passed, that

  he could have himself sewn into the … very model of a modern

  major-general – not that he was fool enough to try passing for

  a military man, but he wore tailored English suits and shirts,

  handmade English shoes, Saint Michael’s not-so-hairy vests, pants

  and socks – gold cufflinks from Asprey’s, gold fountain pens from

  Parker, leather wallets, pocketbooks and card cases from Smythson’s

  … That he sported Italian and French silk ties only confirmed

  him in his opinion of his own essential Englishness: if the Angels

  of Death were to come swooping down over Whitestone Pond on

  swept-up Stuka wings – if they were to dive, deploying some sort of

  Semitic-blood-seeking equipment – then they wouldn’t locate

  Maurice, who’d remain in the drawing room at Redington Road,

  sipping tea, listening to the Light Programme … You can do it with

  a Latin from Manila to Manhattan, You can do it with a gaucho in

  Brazil … The ready-to-wear others would be selected, transported,

  forced to remove their own inferior clothing, gassed, then flayed –

  The clothes maketh the man … and the meat puppet … Would you

  come with me pl– . The MANAGER’S opening salvo is sung over

  by the smartphone in Busner’s pocket, which bursts into life,

  throbbing in a hand that had forgotten it was holding it: This

  old man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb! ringing

  tones that lance b
etween Busner and the MANAGER, then pierce

  the wavering heads further along the buffet, looping them into:

  With a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone! The MANAGER,

  Busner’s amused to see, cannot proceed: he is held in check by

  the … singing ringing thing I hold … this old man came rolling

  HOME! Busner withdraws the smartphone from his pocket and

  together this old man … and the MANAGER stare at its screen,

  while the rondo continues: This old man, he played two, he played

  knick-knack on my shoe! NO CALLER ID. The semantics of this

  simple statement bother Busner: how should this be interpreted?

  Is it that the caller is devoid of an identity due to some psychological

  or physical trauma? Or is it the smartphone which is unable

  to establish the identity of the person making the call? The latter

  would seem more logical, and to be consistent with Busner’s – albeit

  hazy – telecommunications knowledge – although to support the

  former comes this paddy-whacky notion: surely only a sentient

  machine could establish that the entity contacting it is devoid

  of self-consciousness? That the smartphone’s self-aware seems indisputable,

  since it continues to cry out, Give a dog a bone! and

  launches into the next verse … This old man he played three! with

  positively gay abandon – while the MANAGER and the disembodied

  heads are unable either to look away or to intervene. Busner can

  remember well enough when Ben downloaded the ringtone: Choose

  something catchy that you’ll definitely remember, Gramps, he’d

  said, ’cause you can have just about anything you want as a ringtone,

  and when you’re in public it’s confusing if you hear a phone ringing

  and don’t know if it’s yours … and don’t know if it’s yours …

  Yes, it was confusing – ever since his grandson had alerted him to

  the phenomenon Busner has heard them: the old Bakelite phones

  resonating in new suit pockets and shiny patent-leather handbags –

  the young people doing some sort of Schuhplattler: slapping their

  thighs and hips as they hopped from one foot to the other. –

  You don’t gotta have an abstract sorta noise-thingy, Gramps – you

  can download a tune, or even someone singing an old pop song …

  or even someone singing an old pop song … He’d scrolled down the

  options, clicking on one after another, but Gramps hadn’t wanted