Phone

by Will Self

  still … puffing away. What would a camera lens have captured as

  you gazed out across rumpled fields o’er bog and quagmire, and the

  unholy mess of opencast mine workings? P’raps the guilty shadow

  of the previous night’s self-abuse, conducted under clammy and

  none-too-clean sheets in a cheap hotel near Waverley – ‘cause it was

  a two-day commute in the early sixties. Queuing in the porridgey

  corridor with hungover travelling salesmen in their striped pyjamas

  and blanket-material dressing gowns. Peering out through a lancet

  window at Edinburgh Castle, floating on a mound of yellow smog,

  as you waited your turn to lie in the enamelled horse trough of a

  bath, where candid shots could’ve been obtained of you washing

  away the dried fish paste. Then, changing at Motherwell, and waiting

  by a huge old wall – anthracite-black and rain-dank – puffing on

  yet another gasper, would a camera have captured your innermost

  thoughts – your hopes and precious reveries? Doubtful – but it

  might well’ve seen you eating the fish-paste sandwich a weepy

  Missus Fitz had made for you back in Hampstead, and which

  had spent the night on the sill outside your grim room. She was a

  highly emotional woman, really – while it was simply extraordinary

  the things we used to put in our mouths … Cameras at Wishaw

  and Carluke as well, set up to snatch snippets of young Doctor

  Zachary Busner en route to his first psychiatric residency – cameras

  appropriate to the era: of cream Bakelite, Meccano and black

  vulcanised rubber. Cameras that sopped up all your most moist

  mercurial moments — see them flow-fuse together, quicksilver

  streams of images coalescing in an enormous oddwobbling instant

  — a tear welling up in the eye of God … C’mon – Pete-the-Podium-Restaurant-Manager

  manoeuvres Busner so expertly through the

  press of suits and wheelie-bags by the reception desk that his cup-of-elbow

  … doth not runneth over. All is as it was, Busner thinks:

  and when at last I get back to where I started from? Well, I’ll’ve

  risen because I rose – which is why I’ve risen again: risen into my

  rancid T-shirt and ruinous tweed suit. He improves his grip on

  staff and bowl, enters the smoglock of the revolving door – round

  annaround it goes. Captured from above by seeseeteevee what might

  be seen? The akathistic whirr of its glass blades never ending or

  beginning on an ever spinning reel … and caught up in it … lagging,

  the amnesiac ancient, who at last staggers into the open air, totters

  from beneath the glassy portico of the Bethan Tower and, responding

  to some dirty-dowsing intuition, turns left down Deansgate in

  the direction of the Castlefield Canal. He tastes the alco-crud in his

  rusted old throat – feels the mortar crumbling between the courses

  of his own … perished brickwork. The paving beneath his sandalled

  feet is hard – unyielding. He longs for bed again annagain – any

  bed: a cardboard paillasse and mattress of soiled nylon sleeping bag

  would do so long as it afforded repose. As for his covering, why, that

  could be a rug sewn together out of knitted squares sky-blue …

  fraying green … and a pinkish, oldish nylon quilt … spotted by

  saliva. As to where I’d lay my head … a charity shop sweatshirt

  stuffed with more of the same will be just dandy – especially if set

  beside it are a half-full can of Special Brew and a box of Biscuit

  Bob’s Dog Treats for early-morning … snacking. He looks up at

  the advertising hoarding bolted to the archway above the dossers’

  bivouac – a new model car whooshing along an open Highland

  road, apparently … the Lion Goes from Strength to Strength – then

  back down to find … someone’s been sleeping in my bed! Two some-ones,

  in point of fact, whose heads he hadn’t noticed, so surrounded

  are they by discarded puffa-jackets and plastic bags full of rubbish.

  One of the heads is narrow and electrocuted by a shock of ginger

  hair – the other is … brachycephalic – Christ! Will it be these Latin-isms

  which survive my decline and fall! and has a disturbing divot of

  black hair. This is no coincidence, for now Busner spots, wedged

  between biscuits and beer, the flap torn off a cardboard box,

  on which has been scrawled: EX-ARMY SOLDIER ON THE RD WAS

  25138694 I HAVE PTSD CAN YOU HELP ME TO FIND A BED FOOD

  SHELTER THANK YOU’S so MUCH COMPLEX SIMON … Busner’s

  kicking the prone form none too gently and shouting loudly enough

  for passers-by to stop and stare: What the bloody hell’re you doing

  here, man? Are you stalking me? Are you? Answer me! However, it

  isn’t Complex Simon who answers him – he awakes with the instant

  alertness of a well-trained military man, rolls over and sits up,

  blinking – but Ann. Ann, who opens her lashless lids and simply

  says, And? – And … And … ? Busner splutters, dancing on the

  spot, striking the pavement with his staff: And zoingggg-zoingggg!

  what!? To which Complex Simon calmly observes: And we’re

  reporting for duty, Doctor Zebadius Obadius Anthraxobadus, all

  present and … sorta … correct. – It takes Simon and Ann only a

  couple of minutes to bundle up their stuff, and then all three of

  them are down on the towpath, looking out across the confluence of

  canals to a patch of waste ground on the far side, where other ladies

  and gentlemen of the road have pitched their hump-backed and

  DayGlo tents. It’s a peaceful scene, Busner says, could be a campsite

  in some area of outstanding natural beauty. To which Ann predictably

  conjoins: And? – And nothing, Busner replies, striking out

  tents, viaducts and the looming wasp-waisted Bethan Tower with a

  stroke of his staff. Lissen, he continues testily, what’re you two

  doing here, and what’re your intentions … ? Simon’s about to

  answer when this old man, he played one he played knick-knack on my

  thumb, With a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a – I’m sorry, Busner

  says, groping through his many pockets … I am Kali, answerer of

  phones – why, why won’t he stop? Stupid bloody boy–. Ben’s been trying

  to call you, Doc . . . Busner’s warder, his PeeOh, my ruddy-fucking

  screw, spits out: Trying to tell you he’d given Ann ‘n’ me some

  squids, fortyish – nothing stupid. Put us on the coach up here to –.

  To do what precisely? Busner counters – but the fight’s gone out

  with the proud ships and a used condom short-circuited eel floats

  on the scuzzle … the scummle … the scuds … And? Ann ands, puffa-cuff

  in lips all cold sore NO, NO! BEEN HERE DONE THIS! To

  which a small but prissily officious voice – repellent yet so familiar

  as to be mine all mine – pipes up: Yes, but you’ve never really seen it

  from the mentally ills’ point of view – not fully. You’ve flirted with

  madness, made a fetish of it, used it for your own ends – but even the

  psychosis Freud accorded everyman eluded you. Fond of ’em, aren’t you?

  A whimsical wee thing your precious fondness can be … then the voice

  further modulat
es – becoming shriller and more convinced of itself,

  its timbre that of stone … and tablet. Which, I’ll grant ye, may well

  be a sweet little meat – but when it’s tucked under an idle wagging

  tongue, confectionery is a crutch, just as alcohol is a crutch, and the carnal

  relation is … a crutch. Why, religion itself may be abused by being used

  as a crutch – but the worst crutch of all … the voice descends into

  weaselly quibbling … the one thass truly an abomination in the eye

  of Almighty God, is pride! Busner, shaking shaggy his wispy locks,

  seeing satisfaction in the morning midge cloud dancing on the

  duck-shit-dappled canal, is so relieved the sermon’s object is collective

  rather than only me … personal, like, that he salutes with his

  staff the heads which thrust through the glistening surface tension

  of the present, hatted and capped against the chapel’s notorious

  chill, and unable to remove them since their shoulders, arms and

  hands – all remain trapped in the past. It’s the chapel … is as far as

  Busner’s prepared to go – and when Simon and Ann take him under

  either arm and begin walking, willy-nilly, he doesn’t mind. Yes,

  Simon resumes, Ben’s worried about you – Camilla, too. They’ll feel

  better if we, like, sorta –. Escort me? Busner objects: Take me to a

  bloody Buddhist retreat like a prisoner in chains? You know what

  you are, Simon, you’re a ruddy-fucking screw, and all screws are

  nonces – it’s a well-attested fact no innocence, never was – and after

  chapel in his tuck-shop cubbyhole, what did he say to you then? Said:

  Every boy wants to be of good report. And what did you say?

  Said: What d’you mean by that, Bobby? ‘cause that was me name,

  auld man, wasnae it? It was. Say it. Say what? SAY IT! Your

  name was Bobby – and Simon, walking ahead of Busner along the

  towpath, turns back, his hydro- … hydro- … hy- … round head

  so … so … incredibly … round: You all right, then, Doc? – Oh,

  yes. Busner’s right at home now, surrounded by derelict old warehouses

  and the solidified grime of inner-city dereliction … You

  wannin’ the cludgie? Clock this: big man here too sissy to come out wi’

  it … He remembers the alleyways scored between the tenements

  down Leith way – alimentary canals, carrying everything even this

  thriftiest of cities couldn’t choke down … D’ye wanna tap, s’only five

  bob? For a knee-trembler – a ruddy fuck up against the cludgie or

  some other shit-hole, his balls puckered-up … sloes … the cold

  wind blows on hawthorny little pricks, and the rub of the … bricks

  … Aye, coming back to you now, is it? With you now, is it? As much to

  silence the voice – and obnubilate the visions of the chapel at State

  Hospital, Carstairs, Lanarkshire, on that fateful October Sunday in

  nineteen whenever, Busner, although he plods on, staff marking

  each dyad of paces with a sure double thwock on the hard-pocked

  mud-path, answers, Yes, I’m good enough, Simon – and happy to

  have you along. Yes – and you, too, Ann, you, too – happy to have

  you both along for the journey. But I’m jiggered if I know what

  you’ll do once we get to Holy Island, beyond turning round and

  heading right back – and that wasn’t what we agreed for you …

  Simon, who’s pacing ahead, with Ann trailing from one capable

  arm, while his sleeping bag’s a stole draped all ladylike over the

  other, throws back: Well, we’ll worry about that as and when, shall

  we, Doc – as and fucking when … Upon which Bobby, sitting in

  his nineteen whenever cubbyhole, comments: Every mental defective

  wishes to be of good report … And Busner whispers, Not Simon, I’d

  fixed it all up for him – and Ann. Mukti at Saint Mungo’s said he’d

  take them on … group therapy and meds for his peetee-essdee …

  Sort out some sheltered accommodation for them both as well – yet

  here they are. Every mental defective wishes to be of good report …

  Bobby whispers … dinnae fash yersel’ – you’re no daftie, Doctor B, but

  you’re still trying to be the big compassionate man, eh. Bobby, a homunculus

  really – wizened, a child-man born of the system, with the

  squeaky voice and painted-on features of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  Utterly institutionalised, taken away from his family in Perthshire

  when he was a troublesome wean … at the Perth Special school they

  hadnae objection if parents wanted to remove their children, but no one

  ever came for me, Doctor Busner. Me mammy wrote – monthly at first:

  news of her new husband, my half-brother and sisters – but then she

  musta got fed up, aye … For a couple of years there were bags of

  sweets at Christmas – but these had to be shared – then nothing.

  Bobby had absconded – absconded again. Ran away to Glasgow,

  met a man at coffee stall near George Square. Went back with

  him to a cold old tall house on the edge of the Gorbals. Up five

  flights the man put him to bed on an iron bedstead in an attic

  room beneath an uncurtained dormer. Strip of lino on the splintering

  floorboards. Piss-pot under the bedstead. His hot hard prick

  between Bobby’s buttocks in the middle of the night served me right.

  Sitting with him after chapel in his Aladdin’s cave – the prisoners’

  tuck shop he’s made his domain – young Doctor Busner is prepared

  to listen. Listening, he already understands, is the best he can do for

  any of the patients, who for the most part are deeply submerged in

  the Chartreuse pool of Largactil which fills the harled and white-painted

  detached villas of State Hospital. He has ideas, though,

  does the freshly minted psychiatrist – and he’s on his own: the Chief

  Psychiatrist, appointed by the Scottish Office, comes at best weekly,

  and they administer electro-shock treatments together – a perverse

  ceremony, conducted wearing nylon robes and rubber aprons: False

  teeth out, rubber stick between rubber gums. No pre-med – and the

  rubber earplugs for doctors McClintock and Busner rather than the

  patient, who, as the current lances between his temples, is at first

  galvanised into a series of hideous spasms, then goes all rubbery …

  sweaty. Doctors McClintock and Busner suck on bulls-eyes, lemon

  sherbets … toffee bonbons – sometimes tablet: in short, any crutch

  they can find to take away the taste of that rubber. In winter, the

  lights dim – not just in the room where the treatment’s administered,

  but in the entire unit, which goes dark as the patient’s screams

  echo along its distempered corridors. Busner thought it was all

  wrong at the time – but knew better than to question McClintock’s

  methods: he was too busy passing … Passing at his digs, where he

  did nothing to disabuse his landlady, Missus Kane, of her peculiar

  notion that his origins were Belgian – passing at State Hospital,

  where he made it his mission to … understand – not judge. Since

  judgement might well be seen as … the mark of the Hebrew. Understand

  the scene in the day-room, where the patients sat, volleying

  invisibl
e balls … the Largactil kick, they called it. Passing in the

  meetings – which were entirely pro forma: the rubber stamp for

  the rubber stick – and all the while reading voraciously: Sartre and

  Freud … Camus and Jung – Ronnie’s paper on his rumpus room at

  Gartnavel, which gave the young intern his big idea to do something

  similar for Bobby and the other lost boy-men: treat them as

  individuals, not pathologies. To be mad is an affliction, says Doctor

  McClintock – and to be bad is a curse, but to be both mad and bad

  is to suffer the torments of the damned … Dunno why you say that

  Doc, Simon chimes up, it’s the way of it nowadays … Somehow

  they must’ve swum through the mercurial morning to Piccadilly –

  Busner has a wan recollection of waving his staff at the memorial

  for Aids victims beside the canal, and delivering an extempore

  lesson – words to the effect that: progress in human conduct – while

  intermittent and piecemeal – nonetheless does occur, and here was

  the evidence: an acceptance of same-sex love all the more profound

  for being prosaic – we’re out and we’re … dully municipal. To which

  Ann had remarked: And? Then they’d presumably been on the

  station concourse, faffing out tickets from the machine – and now,

  as in epic films hymning the long samba of trains through the

  twentieth century … ‘Stamboul, Vladivostok – all points East …

  Busner stares out of the window at the grey-and-red carriages

  swaying their way between the piebald flanks of the bare hillsides.

  He’s hooked on this worn-out line: I’m on the train and we’re past

  Lockerbie so the … I said WE’RE PAST LOCKERBIE AND

  THE RECEP–. It’s the torment of the damned, Busner remarks

  to the carriage at large: having to listen to one side of a conversation,

  because, unlike listening to two people talking, with a mobile

  phone call you’re compelled to supply THE OTHER SIDE OF

  THE CONVERSATION! Eyes swivel round and lock-on –

  earphones are squelched from waxy ears. The carriage lights dim as

  the shock passes through them all. It’s a Bateman cartoon, Busner

  thinks, observing round mouths and ink-spot eyes: The Man Who

  Objected to the Mobile Phone Call … And Simon whispers: Shut

  the fuck up, Doc, you’ll get us put on report … And every mental