Phone

by Will Self

  into their delusions … faster than Silicon Valley can innovate. Busner’s

  younger colleagues – protégés who’d troubled to stay in touch since

  his retirement – kept him abreast of such developments: the minute

  calibrations of the delusional, who, with transceivers implanted in

  their brains, were remotely controlled by the American military’s

  global-positioning satellite network, driven this way a few millimetre,

  then that, a couple of microns … In Room Five-Twenty,

  tottering on tender feet, he’d taken it all in: the bottle of Hildon

  Mineral Water standing on a circular glass table with a sign round

  its neck reading I cost four quid – don’t drink me! and beyond this

  the wall-sized window with its patterning of grey dots – dots

  which, when joined together, formed a picture of a contemporary

  North British inner-city: a gallimaufry of huge Victorian bricky

  things: arched viaducts, humped warehouses, scooped canals – the

  places in between them poured full of off-white concrete and roofed

  by steel-cantilevered glass. Gazing down to where lousy commuters

  scuttled in and out of a Continental-looking tram, Zack had

  thought then – and Busner thinks again, now: It might be Marseilles

  … or Mainz … or Manchester … Might be – could be,

  but then again … All conditioned phenomena are a dream, an illusion

  … a bubble … a shadow … like dew or a flash of lightning … You

  can always count on the Diamond Sutra, he ruminates, to get

  straight to the heart of the matter … and its immateriality. In the

  moaning, pressurised bathroom of Room Five-Twenty, Zack had

  hung on tight to the sink surround, his nostrils full of synthesised

  lavender … lest I be sucked into the void – the void full of all-seeing

  eyes and swirling suspicions. Tightly rolled towels were to hand,

  each in its own custom-made wooden socket … a cock-rack of carpentered

  cunts. He’d looked about and seen … my bits … infinitely

  regress in mirroring mirrors, while his face loomed large as he

  squatted under its watchful eyes … Dr Eckleburg, I presume, and

  did someone else’s business. – The groovy door swings open and

  a blushing black secretary girl ushers them in, eyes averted. She

  then retreats behind her desk and ducks right down out of sight.

  The outer office is panelled with the same bland wood as the rest of

  the establishment, and on this there’s a framed full-colour photographic

  portrait of a puce-faced, pink-haired old duffer with pigskin

  bags under his rinsed-blue eyes – exactly the sort of baggage …

  you’d expect the Hilton heir to be carrying. Put wood int’ ‘ole! comes

  from the inner office, and when the Pete-the-Podium-Restaurant-Manager

  has complied, it resumes: Bring t’dafty in ‘ere, willya …

  The sign on the desk reads MR MARSHALSEA, HEAD OF SECURIT,

  which strikes Busner as entirely apposite, because Mister

  Marshalsea’s head is enormous and secured by a … hairy bastion.

  Below this there’s snowy shirtfront sliced by snazzy tie, above it are

  amused eyes which regard him through clear lenses set in browline

  frames. The beard has a small loudspeaker behind it, which crackles

  into life: You can’t wander round my ‘otel wi’ nowt on but your

  birthday suit, old chap – Pete here says yer ‘ad yer tackle confused

  wi’ t’chipolatas. Are you A BIT CONFUSED, SIR? CAN

  YOU REMEMBER YOUR NAME … OR YOUR ROOM

  NUMBER? Oh, yes, Busner thinks, I remember my room number

  well enough – remembers, too, the ghastly spluttering as he’d let go

  and accented the white page of the commode with acutes, graves,

  circumflexes and cedillas of liquid shit. When he’d risen to wipe,

  Zack saw this lexical explosion, but also a splatter pattern … on the

  white tiles to either side … a crime has been committed here. He’d

  sighed, Ahhhh! – and continued to alternate between Ahhhs of

  disgust and those expressing a strange sort of satisfaction with his

  own incontinence, as he wadded toilet paper and mopped the mess

  up, conscious all the while of the swollen and hurting rosette …

  pinned to my … fundament. Zack’d seen then – Busner reviews,

  now – the White Hart Lane stadium … late forties, I s’pose, net

  curtains of drizzle hanging down from the floodlights, the pitch a

  muddy morass, and the players in long white shorts and bulbous

  boots calling to one another as … they pushed and ran. Nicholson

  and Burgess marauding at right-half and wing-half – Bailey, the

  cheeky chappie, out in front needling the visitors’ defence, Ted

  Ditchburn, stolid and sideboarded in the goalmouth, while the

  General strolled about in midfield, barking orders. Phillips, the

  chauffeur, drove them over from Hampstead for the home games

  in the wizard new Bristol Four-Oh-Five. Maurice kept a hip flask

  full of sloe gin in the walnut-burled reticule, and, once they were

  standing on the frigid terraces, breathing in the Bovril breath of

  the multitude – the men mufflered, capped and swaddled in

  gabardine macs or old army greatcoats – he’d withdraw it from his

  own beautifully tailored cashmere one and surreptitiously pass it to

  his eleven-year-old nephew … juniper fumes and white rosettes …

  thousands of them … puckering up. At Camilla’s Kilburn flat,

  where, once wine has been poured … we’ll watch pretty much anything,

  the trio slumped in front of a show called Extreme Makeover

  … or somesuch, and stared right into a shameless sphincter,

  Zack marvelling at a world in which there could be such a procedure

  as anal bleaching. Your starfish is how the Hollywood quack

  had encouraged his patient to cultivate his anus – but as he’d

  goggled on Zack had sensed the leviathan skulking in the depths of

  his own underpants. – Once he’d worn a white rosette pinned to the

  lapel of his blazer, but the frenzied baying Come on youuuuuu yiiiiids!

  had long since died away … I’m a Red Devil now, and, if any

  further proof were needed, there’s something diabolical down below:

  a red rosette – so red and swollen that when he’d parted his legs

  in Room Five-Twenty and tentatively applied the square of toilet

  paper, he’d dared not wipe but only … dab, then brought this swab

  up for examination. There they were … and by no means for the first

  time: bloody-shitty interlocking rings – a sort of … anal smoosh, or,

  more fancifully … lavatorial lemniscate, at any rate proof positive

  this was by no means his first … date with infinity, now — back to

  square one: I’m in Room Five-Twenty, he says to Mister Marshalsea,

  here’s my key card. He fishes the thing out from his jacket

  pocket and passes it across the desk. Marshalsea’s limpid eyes

  flicker in their tanks and he says, Fair enough. The Mancunian

  accent has evaporated – clearly it was intended to twit the others –

  who remain, awkward presences in an office that’s nothing special:

  desk, blotter, brown-vinyl-chair-grouping, framed awards and

  certificates, but … no windows – there’re no windows …
He’s a toughguy,

  this one … he’s going to tear off my rosette and punch me …

  Marshalsea resumes: That seems in order – but what about your

  name, you do have one, don’t you? In the silence that yawns between

  them comes the low whistling of the secretary girl, who’s on

  the phone in the outer office: There’s a fire alarm what’s been set off

  in Seven-Fifty-Seven … Busner wonders whether he should say

  this to Marshalsea: Designations – and names especially – rarefy

  concepts, which can lead to attachment to those self-same concepts,

  but the way of the Sannyasin is to let go of such attachments –

  with all this entails … but thinks better of it and ventures, Um …

  yes, I s’pose so – most of us do, I believe, but I’m afraid I’ve

  temporarily forgotten it … I do have these little episodes nowadays,

  postural hypotension, y’know. He staggers, but Marshalsea,

  unimpressed, clicks a keyboard with beautiful nails … his eyes swim

  to the monitor and he intones, Doctor Zed Bisner, Forty-Seven

  Redington Road, London Enn Double-you Three – this you, old

  boy, is it? A thread of old school tie dangles from Marshalsea’s

  rigging … don’t like the cut of his jib. Not a terribly doctorly thing

  to be doing, Doctor Bisner, is it, mind … the Head of Security

  has a frank look, but, unabashed, Busner simply says, I’m retired.

  Just as well, Marshalsea rejoins, I hardly think the GeeEmmSee

  would take a positive view of doctors who wander around hotels

  stark naked. Technically speaking, Busner back-snaps, I’m only half

  naked – then, rubbing his palms on his tweedy belly, he intones,

  The Munis, girdled with the wind, wear soiled garments of yellow

  hue, they, following the wind’s swift course, go where the gods

  have gone before –. All right, all right … Marshalsea flops a

  surprisingly camp hand, the forefinger and thumb of the other dive

  behind his lenses to massage his jellyfishes … I don’t think we want

  anything more out of you just now – bona fides and credit rating

  notwithstanding, I could have you nicked – or, if you are as

  batty as you seem, call an ambulance … ZACKERGHASTED:

  But, Mister Marshalsea! I was only preaching a silent sermon, in

  honour of the Lord Buddha – he held up a flower, my own man-one

  has been less … RHEUMY OLD EYES SADLY CAST

  DOWN … upstanding. Marshalsea’s tone softens: Look, I realise

  this must be distressing for you as well, so, this is what I suggest:

  Pete here will accompany you to your room and help you get packed

  up – in the meantime I’ll get on the blower and see if I can find a

  family member to come and pick you up – I’m assuming you’ve

  an emergency number in that phone … You can leave it with me?

  But no, Zack wouldn’t like to leave his phone with Marshalsea:

  he loves his phone, loves the shiny-black inscrutability of its

  unawakened screen, reverences the smoothly rounded corners of its

  steely casing, admires the leadfeather heft of it in his hand – adores

  the mild shock when it throbs into life … Shock Your Friends

  with the Amazing Hand Buzzer! One-and-Sixpence plus Fourpence

  Post and Packaging … He’s still gripping it when he’s brought

  back to earth by the lift’s upward surge. They must’ve obtained

  a towel from somewhere, because he’s girdled with one … of a

  white hue – a robe readying me for my ascension to … Cloud Twenty-Three

  … Manchester’s most iconic cocktail bar … sophisticated …

  stunning … stylish … minimalist … There’s a little voice sing-songing

  in the corner … You got me slippin’, tumblin’, fumblin’,

  sinkin’ … as they rise – Who, Zack thinks, will come to pick me

  up? He sees himself standing on the apron of paving outside the

  Hilton, looking forlorn, his trunk beside him, his school cap

  crammed down on his time-buffeted old head. He sees … the ghost

  ship of the Bristol rolling down Deansgate, Phillips’s corpse behind

  the steering wheel, Maurice’s cadaver propped up in the back seat.

  — If he goes, Zack had shouted at his own bullying and ungrateful

  progeny, I bloody-well go with him! Daniel, quick, slight, dark …

  and pretty like his mother, Oscar … with my own flabby face-mask,

  Lottie and Frankie – the former a mutation, the latter a clone, of

  their etherially beautiful mother, Lalage herself … boss-eyed and

  bamboozled, stolid social-working Pat and venal, conniving Vigo –

  they’d all stopped yakking and freeze-framed with mouths stretched,

  arms and legs akimbo, a jumble of shattered spars and tangled

  emotional rigging, at the centre of which I sprawled, accepting it all:

  Kiss me, Hardy! And roll out the brandy barrel! It being the Euston

  School time of year, Zack had been wearing all three pieces of his

  earthen suit. Just as well – the speech he’d delivered required the

  accompaniment of thumbs hooked in waistcoat pockets: And by

  go with him, I mean go entirely – that’s right! I’ve had the papers

  drawn up for some time – they’re at Marcus Rotblatt’s office, I went

  by this morning and signed them – yes! Signed them! All of you –

  especially you, Lottie – have now got what you wanted: the house

  will henceforth be jointly owned by you all, with Mark’s share held

  in trust, managed by Rotblatt on his, Camilla’s and Ben’s behalf …

  As he’d been speaking – and this was sort of heavenly – after decades

  of listening to them squabble, shout at him and, in the boys’ case,

  swing the occasional mistimed punch or roundhouse kick, he

  realised he had their full attention – that it’d taken the gift of an

  entire desirable London property to obtain seemed … appropriate.

  You’ve all seen the changes I’ve been making these past few

  years – unburdening myself of possessions, giving up my ex-officio

  consultancy at the Heath, withdrawing from worldly affairs, and

  yes, slipping from social conventions … Well, this process has now

  reached its logical end-point: I have achieved the life-stage of

  renunciation and become Sannyasa! Then … then … nothing –

  sod-all: they’d just gawped at him for a while, until Daniel, tugging

  at the fleshy folds of his chinlessness he did it as a child … stammered

  out, N-Nothing will c-come of this – n-nothing g-good

  at any rate. Nothing good can come of something so … so …

  nothingy. Zack had stood staring at his second son – it was difficult

  not to pity him: at his age I’d already been a consultant for a

  decade – despite my disciplinary problems … while he … he has

  no specialism … picks up locum jobs where he can – and there was

  that murky business of the anorexic woman who complained to the

  trust … So many children he has the notion he’s some sort of

  patriarch, so he tries to patronise me. Are you saying, he’d flung

  back in Daniel’s sententious face, I don’t know my own mind? Oscar

  then entered the lists, sneering: Well, you only just now reminded

  us you’ve given up your practice – your only insights into anyone


  were professional ones. Now you aren’t a psychiatrist any more,

  you can’t even look inside your own shrunken head … And after

  this Simon had … stuck his own oar in: Smarty-arty-leathery-pants

  here – he’s gotta point … Iss like … Iss like you’ve unwhatsitted

  yourself of all this stuff, including your own mind, yeah – and

  your mind’s sorta grown legs and put poncey leather keks on ’em,

  and grown a dumb hipster beard making it look like A FUCKING

  ARSE! – And after this things had got rather out of hand,

  with Oscar screeching, Yeah? Yeah! Who the fuck’re you to tell

  me who I am, you fucking homophobic bastard – what’ve you

  got going for you, an ex-bloody-squaddie with mental health problems!

  And Simon shouting back: I served my country! I served my

  fucking country! What’re you, jeeze: fucking nothing, a big fat

  zero still living off your old man in middly-bimbly-bumbly age!

  In the lift, remembering the unpleasantness, Busner shifts from

  sole to sole, toenails grow when you’re dead … therefore … If it’d only

  been a person-to-person row, it might’ve been contained … but

  we had a party line, and Lottie had then chimed in: Whaddya

  mean, Dad, especially me? Why especially me? And her father had

  flustered, You’re always saying you want to have a child, Lottie,

  but you’ve nowhere suitable to bring one up. Now, I thought …

  well … I thought you could do it … well, here. She’d groaned

  theatrically, Ohhhhmyyyygaaawd, and, grabbing fistfuls of tumultuous

  blonde curls, inveighed, You know nothing about my life,

  Dad – fuck all. I’m with Oscar on this: I’ve been trying to get

  pregnant by donor-insemination for months now, a small fact you’re

  in complete ignorance of. As for having my baby here … up she

  went an octave, across the Atlantic and into a cartoon: I don’t think

  so. You may be blissfully free of troubling memories, but for me and

  Frankie this is a house of horrors … She’d rounded on Lalage:

  Always late picking me up from school, always stoned … Nothing

  in the fridge but your flying-fucking-diaphragm on a saucer!

  Whereupon Lalage … histrionic as ever had begun sobbing hysterically,

  I tried my best! I tried my best! I tried my best! Rooted,

  Zack had reeled as his adult children turned on each other – but

  while he watched, slightly awed, his progeny had ceased bemerding