Phone

by Will Self

  Anderson is in the last bit appetising. There’s Shabba, so-called

  because he’s come up through the ranks ha-ha … and Potso, who’s

  over-bitingly posh – then there’s the other one, Greeny: a blond six-footer

  with a medium build who gives as good as he gets – although,

  when the banter dries up, the Butcher catches a glimpse of the

  young cavalry officer’s true nature: shy and defensive … he’s something

  to hide – quite possibly, the thing. So … Mike – it’s Mike, is it?

  Yeah, well … Mike, y’know the score, do you? Tizer asks the

  Butcher, who’s given them the first name that occurred to him …

  By which I mean not just where does a man go in this town to get a

  skinful, but where does he go to be in with a chance of getting his

  leg over! The Butcher, who’s skulled his martini and switched to

  lager … one of the boys, that’s me, is thrown for a moment – thrown

  into the flesh pit of the Eagle’s back room, where the high-energy

  pumps and the leather-clad bodies writhe … He sees faces slick

  with secretions – mouths howling out demonic lust as the dancers

  struggle to stay afloat in the great moaning ocean of the un-fucked …

  Well, he says, for starters you wanna give the club in the basement

  here a miss – we’re talking terminally dull middle managers and

  their secretarial squeezes out for a hop and few glasses of cheap fizz.

  (LAUGHTER) Ditto the Haçienda – whatever you may’ve heard

  about Manc’ raver chicks off their tits on ecstasy, truth is, they may

  be all touchy-feely on the dance floor, but head back to their place

  and you’re in for a long night grinding your teeth while she yaps on

  about the meaning of fucking life … (MORE LAUGHTER)

  Nah, best bet is, have a couple more bevvies here, then round the

  corner to Twenty-One Piccadilly – check out the cattle market, hear

  the Manc’ moo, but keep yer heads down, lads – it can kick off. So,

  if there’s no action there you’re best off making a tactical withdrawal

  to the Circus Tavern, which is by way of being a perfect stag, since

  it’s the smallest pub in the entire fucking world! (UNBRIDLED

  HILARITY) You can plan your next move there, but, I’ve gotta

  say, Tizer, your gear ain’t exactly in order for this sorta op’. You

  what? Tizer grunts. Manc’ birds … the Butcher explains … well,

  they like a well-turned-out bloke. You lads’d score in seconds if

  you had your number ones on – split-seconds if you were in dress.

  What’s yer badge by the way? The young cavalry officers look oddly

  at the Butcher, who wonders if he’s overdone his little act – though

  it’s always easier to stay in character if you’re a bit of a character. Then

  the blond called Greeny pipes up: Sorta sheep thing … big sheep

  thing – sorta ram rampant … (Ooh! Squilly flutes, The pathos

  of the tiny old acne scars pitting hith downy cheekth!) Here they

  are, Squilly, the Butcher says: here are the young men. (Oh, yes,

  Butchie-dearest, but there can’t be much weight on their shoulders

  – not with thuch empty heads!) … Anyway, Greeny persists, what

  about later on? And the Butcher, noting the furrowing of his

  forehead, thinks: Not your scene at all, now is it, boyo – because it

  takes an imposter to spot a heterosexual-impersonator … but he only

  says: Legends is good enough for a stomp, but don’t get too sweaty

  ’cause then it’s on to the New Conti, where you brave warriors

  will hit gash-fucking-gold: nurses, social workers, speech-fucking-therapists

  – wall-to-wall bleeding hearts, any one of ’em ready and

  willing to offer up their rarebits for a bit of pork scratching!

  (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE, CRIES OF ENCORE!) For

  real? Greeny asks, putting down his pint on a coaster he’s carefully

  aligned with the ashtray. Cautious … a little obsessive … the

  Butcher thinks … but doesn’t understand himself. One of those

  slightly plodding types who’ll practise and practise ‘til they can do it

  so competently they don’t know they’re doing it at all … The flock

  walls of the Britannia’s cavernous bar recede, leaving the Butcher

  with his sweaty back against a slab of corrugated iron, watching

  two boy soldiers who sit opposite one another on the dusty ground,

  disassembling their AyKays, reassembling them, snapping the firing

  pins, slotting in the magazines, aiming, firing … small arms for the

  fucking eighties, eh … Yeah, for real, the Butcher replies: For real –

  for unreal, for all that’s fucking righteous and pure. They’ll lead

  you by the todger, gentlemen, and screw you ‘til you cry out for

  your Home Counties mummies … You’ll be coming, will you? asks

  Greeny, and the Butcher’s melting heart runneth over – ah, diddums!

  For it’s awfully hard to picture this well-scrubbed and freshly shaven

  young man knocking on the door of hell’s darkest chamber and

  requesting admission – not with that provincial middle-class accent.

  The Butcher has a question of his own: Um, Greeny – what’s that

  about, mate? And the junior officer blushes – Blushes! Oh, my heart

  will burst! Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon and Phlegon gallop across the fiery skies!

  He’s the One, Squilly – the One! Bit naff, Greeny says – the nickname

  and the real one. Then he sticks out his hand: Gawain, he says,

  Gawain Thomas. The Butcher takes it, and, noting the others are

  distracted by Lineker and goal difference, queries, As in Gawain

  and the Green Knight? But doesn’t let go until the other … loosens

  his grip and, blushing still more furiously, says, Pardon? I mean – is

  that it, the poem, I mean? I mean, I’ve never actually read it –

  should, I s’pose … Well, the Butcher counters, you should certainly

  read enough of it to put this lot right – the Green Knight’s the chap

  in the other corner … While to Squilly he exults, Pardon! Pardon!

  (Yes, yes – the very signature note of English good manners, useful

  in such commonplace phrases as, Pardon me while I put my

  cock in your arse.) The blond peers at him from under puckered

  brows, but I don’t think I’ve been blown … and repeats, You’ll be

  coming with us, will you? The Butcher chuckles, holding up his

  ring finger … Brr-Brr-Bravingtons nineteen ninety-nine: No can do,

  mate – if I’m not indoors by nine the ball’ll start yanking on the

  chain. He pulls out the Nokia and shows it to the junior officers:

  Made the mistake of getting one of these – now she can reach me

  anywhere. It’s the shape of things to come, lads – privacy’ll be a

  thing of the past … Over by the revolving doors they say their

  adieux. Tizer, Shabba and the slunk they call Potso have all been

  back up to their rooms, and are now sporting blue blazers with

  regimental crests on their top pockets … Poontang trumps Pira

  every time. You’ll be all right in the pubs and bars I’ve mentioned,

  lads, admonishes the Butcher. But if you want my advice don’t

  go off-piste – on a Friday night there’ll be loads of squaddies out

  and about. You know the drill: once they’re mullered th
ey can’t

  recognise an officer – least, that’s what they’ll claim when they’re up

  on a charge for beating the shit out of you … There are manly

  handshakes all round – and “Mike” is gone … dematerialised – elsewher:

  me jus’a flash it roun’ the worldie … They go right – he goes

  left, the bummadum beat from the Britannia’s duff disco vibrating

  through him as he gains the corner, turns it, slips out of his jacket,

  turns denim inside out of worsted, puts it back on again, unbuttons

  his shirt, takes out a small tin of Vaseline, combs the short hairs

  above his perfect ears, replaces it, gets out a Marlboro, lights it and

  stalks on, his mane shining … born free, and life is worth living! as

  he prowls into the gay village. Where he sees slappers with grazed

  legs and sore mouths stumbling around the bus station, scallies

  in shell suits crackin’ on and ruffled little chickens, weepy-eyed

  from the exhaust fumes and waiting to be plucked … Not that the

  Butcher’s going to do the plucking: I’m not a fucking game dealer.

  A dosser limps towards him, tucked under one arm the Big Issues

  he’s mostly nicked from some other seller. Big Issue, mate? The

  Butcher stops, takes in torn and stained shirt, shat-upon trainers

  and a water rat’s drowned face. Big Issue, mate, he pipes up again –

  Pipe down! Kins would eventually shout when the Butcher and his

  brothers grew too rambunctious. – D’you remember that, Squills?

  (I do, Butch, of course …) and to the dosser the Butcher says, The

  really big issue is whether or not you can score – can you? The

  dosser’s eyes frisk the Butcher, patting down his reversible jacket,

  pulling out his wallet … checking to see if there’s a warrant card.

  What’s yer game, mate? the dosser wheedles, I mean, ‘ow do I know

  you ain’t some jarg cunt? (Most perspicacious of him, Squilly purrs,

  given you’re probably the jargest cunt he’s ever clapped his piggy

  little Scouser eyes on …) But the Butcher simply says: I’m gagging

  for some brown, mate – rocks as well. I’ve got the readies … he pats

  his breast pocket … I’ll see you right for a bag. Which, to the casual

  listener, might not be the most obvious incentive, since the dosser

  already has a sleeping one draped round his scrawny neck. — They

  walk south on Oxford Road, the dosser moseying ahead, tripping

  into and out of the gutter to avoid the students milling outside the

  pubs and clubs. The Butcher is in his element: perfectly attuned

  to the city and its febrile inhabitants. He lights another Marlboro

  and breathes out: a centuries-long exhalation, laden with coal-smoke

  and cotton fibres, which wheezes through the rusted ribs

  of derelict warehouses and the perished brickwork of old viaducts.

  The chase is on! and der Freischütz feels not only dry-cleaned but

  positively sand-blasted. Who am I, Squilly? he asks, and Squilly

  obliges (You’re your father’s son, of course). They stump under the

  ring road and emerge into … a different limbo: the paler brick and

  beiger concrete banalities of the University area, the Butcher seeing

  not the junky Virgil tripping along before him, but Kins – Kins

  sitting on the lavatory at Colindale Avenue, grey flannel trousers

  and bilious underpants down round his lumpy legs. Kins, with an

  Ordnance Survey map crumpled in his lap – a relief landscape he

  pores over through horn-rimmed reading glasses: the Fat Owl of the

  Remove, who was yet so very … elusive. If the Butcher is his father’s

  son, then Kins – or Peterkins, or Peter De’Ath, or whatever cover

  name he operates under – had also to’ve been playing the doublegame.

  The preternaturally gifted Butcher realised this when he

  was very young – he carefully logged his father’s absences, then

  analysed their pattern. He found evidence in the seat wells and

  glove compartments of Kins’s Rover – the strange Lifesaver of a

  rolled stocking, alien hair grips, a copy of the Bunty he’d leafed

  through with great absorption, eager to discover what became of …

  the Spectrum Girls. He sniffed the perfume that clung to his father’s

  tweed jackets, together with the faecal aroma of stale cigarette

  smoke and old whiskybreath. It was his mother’s complicity with his

  father’s subterfuges that’d struck the Butcher most of all – her complacent

  sigh, each time he announced he was running over to Hemel

  to pick up one or two … things, when she knew – we all did – he was

  going somewhere else entirely: a dead-letter drop, from which he

  always returned empty-handed. Had Kins been running Maeve or

  was she running him? The precocious Butcher understood unhappy

  marriage from infancy – it was not a sector in which intelligence

  can be gathered. Rather, the distorted intimacy of a divided couple

  is typified, he’d realised, by counter-intelligence: both parties knew

  those closest to them had been turned, yet they continued to run

  each other, on the basis that, were they to stop pretending to be a

  good and faithful spouse, the opposition would roll up the entire

  network … – Then there’d been the momentous and windy day

  when Kins had at last taken the Butcher with him on a mission. The

  Baker and the Candlestick-maker must have stayed at home in

  Saint Albans with Maeve – at any rate, the Butcher remembers

  there being plenty of room in the Rover for the woman and her two

  children: the girl the Bunty must’ve belonged to, who was the same

  age as him, with wild brown curls and wicked black eyes, and a

  littler boy of six or seven, who’d sat solemnly between them on the

  back seat, one hand squeezed down the front of his tight shorts …

  hanging on to his Squilly. Kins introduced the woman as a colleague

  of mine who’s doing some very interesting work with handicapped and

  disruptive children. She didn’t look like other colleagues of his the

  Butcher had encountered, who seemed half dead. The woman – who,

  true to type – had dyed-blonde hair and exaggerated makeup, was

  twice as alive as anyone the Butcher had ever encountered before: as

  Kins drove through the outskirts of Hemel, she’d chatted away

  non-stop, deploying a choice vocabulary of fucks, bollocks, wankers

  and even a … cunt! She’d seemed quite as disruptive as any juvenile

  delinquent – but Kins hadn’t urged her to … pipe down! When

  they’d arrived at the comp’ – a collection of one-storey concrete-and-glass

  hutches – Kins canted awkwardly around and lectured

  the children from the pulpit of the front seat: This is the very first

  unit for handicapped children to be opened as an integral part of a

  new comprehensive school – we should be very grateful for what

  Missus Whoever has done, she’s a remarkable educationalist and a

  real battler for change … A real battler indeed, Squilly! the Butcher

  carps as their odd trio marches across the dual carriageway and on

  into the Hulme war zone. And remarkable, if only for her ability to

  keep my father stuck in her honey trap for so many years. The gala

 
opening for the new special unit remains enzoed on the toughened

  glass of the Butcher’s painfully clear mind, even after all these years:

  the wind kazooing through the struts and bars of the playground

  equipment – the girl with the black eyes taunting the Butcher,

  then running away. He’d pursued her. Peter and Maeve De’Ath

  were drinkers, certainly – and the sort of Francophiles who thought

  it the dernier cri in sophistication to serve their sons watered-down

  wine – but this was the first time the Butcher had been

  truly, madly … deeply pissed. The girl-with-the-curls had nicked a

  little bottle of gin from the table where the tombola prizes were

  arranged – Quality Streets, a tin of car polish, Crabbie’s Ginger

  Wine – and led the Butcher by his beautiful, aquiline nose into the

  dank and dripping lavatories, where she tried to get him to touch

  her between her pasty-white thighs. When he wouldn’t, she’d made

  a grab for … Squilly. After that the Butcher did as he was told,

  knocking back gulp after gulp of the gin. until he lapsed into a

  sense-manging swoon: I could taste her maniacal giggling … He’d

  followed her back out into the windy afternoon – the grown-ups

  were all gathered by the chainlink fence on the far side of the

  playing field. The goal nets, the grass, the banner announcing the

  grand opening, the women’s ugly smock dresses, the woolly clouds

  stampeding overhead – all of it had rippled … seethed. The naughty

  girl had egged him on – I smelt hot egginess … The witch’s hat

  roundabout squealed and clanked – the rocking horse neighed

  and curvetted … The Butcher put one hand on the cold climbing

  frame … and smelt old dried blood. Next, he’d been standing at the

  very top, crêpe soles planted on the highest parallel bars – and

  the girl was beside him, her Medusa curls uncoiling to hiss in the

  wind. She’d smiled at him – and at last the Butcher had wanted to

  touch her, touch specifically … her bum, and her shrinking-little-violet

  arsehole. Then they’d both opened their bitterberry lips and

  the scream that’s forever screaming – the silent scream of entropy

  itself – streamed out from them. Then they were tumbling down

  through the climbing frame: Bong! Bong! Bong! For Jonathan

  De’Ath, aged ten, this news bulletin had been all about control: getting