Phone

by Will Self

  to twist and shout, do the locomotion or rise up on a dizzying

  theremin fugue. He’d tapped the screen: That one – play me that

  one … although he’d no idea why. Doo-doo dooby-doo doo-a-doo-a-doo!

  Knick-knack paddy-whack, give-a-dog-a-bone … the

  synthesised tootling summoned up the old nursery rhyme’s words

  so effectively he’d heard the voices of … scores of marching Chinese

  orphans – but why? And why were they singing an English nursery

  rhyme? It hardly mattered – the important thing was, being the

  possessor of a smartphone with a distinctive ringtone made him

  able to … hold the manager at bay, because with thumbs and knees

  and shoes and doors the ringtone assembles … a little booth around

  Busner: a sequestration within which … I can press Button A …

  while the MANAGER remains impotently outside, unable to enter

  this very public, private space. Instead they stand and stare, and

  Busner wonders if the MANAGER is also preoccupied by possible

  meanings of NO CALLER ID, until … on my hi– it stops. The

  MANAGER gently grasps Busner’s elbow, and, speaking very slowly

  and distinctly, says, Come along now, I hope you aren’t gonna

  make any trouble. Slipping the smartphone into his jacket pocket,

  Busner replies: Trouble, why would I make any trouble – ‘sides …

  why’d’you want me to go anywhere? Come along now, sir, the

  MANAGER says, tightening his grip, this is hardly the appropriate

  place to be … to stand about in … Oh, bloody hell, man, you’re

  naked. – It’s true: Busner has forgotten he’s in … some dishabille …

  Or, rather: since coming to consciousness standing at the breakfast

  buffet in the Podium Restaurant, he hasn’t until now considered the

  matter of … my attire. But with his invisible booth demolished,

  Busner’s eyes are compelled to follow the MANAGER’S hand,

  which rises, describing a severe arc that takes in: Eamonn Holmes,

  the Jack Jones man, tables decorated with single orchids in skinny

  vases, some bizarre giant optics full of breakfast cereals, and,

  beyond these, in between shoulder-high white pots housing …

  giant bonsai trees – how can that be?… the sunny tumult of a summer

  morning in central Manchester, before falling to point out the

  deeply familiar … alien in its segmented, skin spacesuit that lies on

  the counter’s mosaic-tiled edge, seemingly questing towards the

  glistening piles of pork with a … Cyclopean eye. Busner is indignant:

  I’m not naked! bursts from him, even as he hunches over,

  partially hiding his penis with his roomy tweed jacket’s shadowing

  skirts, I’m half naked at best! – Mister and Missus Jack Jones are

  probably reconsidering their dinner options, Busner thinks, since

  the poor MANAGER has succeeded in creating the very scene he was

  determined to avoid — and now, slowly-sandily-trickling … minute

  flecks of recollection pitter-patter into his mind: Walking down the

  long, low, carpeted treads of the stairs from the lobby area …

  encountering a dumpy East European waitress with thick ankles,

  who asked for his room number, pointed out a table to him, took

  his order for a pot of tea, then watched, stunned, as Zack worked

  his way between the other tables, his big fat old naked pitted

  pitifully-bald buttocks … swinging, before heading over to the

  wall-mounted phone behind the counter and calling in this …

  public morality strike. Crowding him, the MANAGER goes on:

  There’re the other guests to consider, sir, and you’re in danger of

  doing yourself a m-mischief. Their eyes fall … Does anyone ever

  closely examine a penis besides a clinician? and he stammers on: It

  m-m-might get b-burned. I’ll come quietly, Busner says, I’ve no

  wish to make problems for you … In fact – he picks up one of the

  oiled and wooden-looking sausages and lays it on the tiles beside his

  penis, their grid of grout providing an instant means of comparison –

  I’ve no desire at all to speak of – not any more. I’ve attained

  Sannyasa, y’see – the life-stage of renunciation. But the MANAGER

  sees nothing besides … my shvantz, and so Busner further informs

  him: Even if I were still potent, it wouldn’t be much of an issue –

  I’ve always been a grower, not a shower, frankly, I’d’ve liked

  something a little more impressive than this chipo- … chipo- …

  chip-o-thing to bandy about in the changing room. He looks up,

  sensing a change in the atmosphere: the unionists, their wives and

  grandchildren have all retreated behind the chest-high partition

  separating the dining area from the buffet, and are lined up there

  goggling at … the floor show. As he watches he sees a child’s

  madly inquisitive face being pushed down out of sight by an adult

  hand … another intolerant beheading … which somehow summons

  up the cold comfort of camping with the Eighth Golders Green:

  a fat boy called Weiss who wore shorts … lederhosen-tight, despite

  which his ging-gang-goolie-wash-washes … were always … winkling

  their way out! Lissen, chummy, ‘less you can prove you’re a

  guest at this hotel, I’m going to escort you off the premises.

  Are you, chummy? Can you show me your key card? Key card, card

  key … carkey … Karpov … massive intimidation – staring the poor

  little Short down, a million calculations going on behind hooded Russian

  eyes … drinking and drinking and drinking glassafterglass of water, a

  thick and corded stream powers the irrigation wheel … out there on the

  Deccan Plateau … Keccan Cocteau … Ke-ca-nate … Ke-carnate …

  Key card, car key – Come along now, chummy, you clearly ain’t

  got it … Oof! They’ve collided … we’ve collided … with a pair

  of security guards, whose squawking walkie-talkies and general

  jobsworthiness surround Busner and the MANAGER, so it’s as an

  awkward squad that they negotiate the tables and gain the ramp up

  to the lobby. This is a bit of a mither, says the younger security man,

  who has nibbled cauliflower ears, where’ve his bloody keks got to?

  The MANAGER is indignant: How should I know – I just got an

  eyeful of his bits dangling down on the sausages … Called Marshalsea

  – ‘e said get the old loony to his office and he’ll look after it

  from there … Busner supposes he should be offended by being

  referred to as the old loony, but he isn’t – his eye shoots from its

  socket, rolls up the ramp and across the lobby, then bagatelles around

  the spiral staircase up to the mezzanine … Fitness Centre – and

  now he remembers yesterday evening: swimming in the hotel’s pool,

  a hot trough of sweat and chlorine he’d swilled about in for half an

  hour, quite enjoying the odd sensation of being at once semi-naked

  and floating over the workmen erecting a scaffold in the shadowy

  alleyway below. Less enjoyable had been the braggart in the

  changing room afterwards, going on about his luxury apartment

  thirty floors up … With his bins he could see walkers on the

  High Peak … With his telescope he could see his over-ach
ieving

  children down in London … coining it. With his t’riffic financial

  acumen he could see the shape of capital to come … his way.

  The man, recently retired, had rubbed his towel gently between

  his wobbling breasts, revolved it over his bulging belly. Zack had

  shuddered then – Busner shudders now … clap-clap his feet applaud

  the cool lobby tiles … flip-flop his scrotum flaps from thigh to

  thigh … click-click his nails are in a shocking state … Busner’s

  buggered old knees near-buckle as the odd trio limp on across the

  lobby area of the Hilton Deansgate, the MANAGER holding one of

  his arms, the security guard the other. There are burly young men

  in well-pressed T-shirts leaning against mighty pillars, making

  phone calls – there are screens behind the concierge’s desk displaying

  the departure times of flights from Manchester Airport.

  There are clocks designed to resemble the binnacles of ocean

  liners in the Blue Riband era. All places, Busner hypothesises, now

  exhibit the characteristics of hotel lobbies: at once somewhere,

  nowhere and everywhere – simultaneously then, now and … whenever

  the zoetrope of style stops spinning. While all people feel like

  paying guests, checking in, checking out, never truly … at home in

  this world … I’ve got a home on high … Shalluz gi’ t’dibble a bell,

  Pete? says the security guard – and the MANAGER is terse: Think

  we’ll leave that up to Mister Marshalsea, shall we … Yes! Zack

  remembers his room number now: Five Hundred and Twenty –

  revisits knick-knack the hellish chamber’s sprayed-on soullessness

  … Recalls how he’d sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at his

  Melba toasty old toes, crusted with calluses and corns, and thought,

  Those need clipping … toenails go on growing after you’re dead …

  therefore … I must be dead. He’d carried on examining his feet …

  which is the first thing any remotely competent doctor should do for

  an elderly patient … both little toes had been farcically broken at

  different times: the left catching-then-snapping on the leg of a

  coffee table when, naked, he was actually fleeing an irate husband –

  the right, decades later, as he’d been hobbling from a podiatrist,

  verruca just excised, and tripped over a kerb. So it was they’d ended

  up ironising their fellow “toes”, which, blobby and misshapen, hardly

  seem fit for purpose … any more – Bunyan, Busner thinks, he was a

  walker … striding from village to village, preaching from the hip.

  They were all t’riffic walkers, those Protestant proselytisers … the

  Sannyasins of their day, stepping out gaily towards the next world

  … certain as … as … nail clippers – their anodised legs levering

  together … closer and closer … marrying with a loud … snick!

  It occurs to him: Once upon a time I was married … three fairytales,

  actually … and when he’d been in this estate he’d had lots of possessions

  … a set of autographed Jack Nicklaus championship golf

  clubs … why? along with flats and houses to hold them – but that

  was all over now: the varicose veins bunch so heavily on his calves

  he can feel them … squidging as he hauls one leg in front of the

  other … will they carry me? Yesterday evening, when he’d arrived at

  the Hilton Deansgate, the Duty Receptionist was waiting for him,

  behind the L-shaped desk in this same vast lobby – there’d been

  a conga of young people queuing for the express lift to the cocktail

  bar on the twenty-third floor, the men honking of aftershave and

  with short sleeves exposing their pumped-up biceps, the women

  in the miniest of skirts, their unhosed thighs mottled with fake

  tan. The Receptionist had been … a fairy in the same dark green

  suit as the Podium Restaurant’s MANAGER: six-button cuffs and

  a butterfly collar … who rubbed Zack up with the high polish of

  his indifference, then shined it still more … with his bounteous-bloody-hair.

  To either side guests had been checking in: curt queries

  were being punctuated by monosyllabic replies – while for him it’d

  proved a lot more testing: Can you provide me with a credit card,

  please, Doctor Bisner? Laboriously, he’d worked his way through all

  twelve pockets in all three pieces of his yellowish tweed suit looking

  for the smartphone Ben had given him, and his reading glasses …

  must get some bifocals! How very maddening it is to have to interpose

  a glass surface so’s to see … a glass surface … As he’d rummaged,

  his grandson’s breathy monotones returned to him: It’s got touch

  eyedee, all you gotta do, Gramps, is place your thumb here … and

  returned to him again: All you gotta do, Gramps, is place your thumb

  here … because however great the progress Ben had made in coping

  with his disability, he remained … profoundly palilaliac. Retrieving

  the enigmatic little slab from his right-hand trouser pocket, Zack

  did indeed do as he’d been told and … I’ve set it up so the very

  first thing you’ll see on the screen will be your schedule … and if you

  scroll down like this … a further top-up tutorial on how to use the

  phone’s other functions … on how to use the phone’s other functions …

  There it’d all been: his itinerary – his train and ferry times, his

  accommodations and their locations, a list of the pills he needed to

  take, how many and when … And all the host of heaven shall be

  dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a … scroll …

  Under the mocking eyes of the Receptionist, he’d scrolled through

  his own immediate future, still marvelling – as he had ever since

  Ben had introduced him to the wonders of capacitive touch – at the

  way his fingers intuited how to prink, palp, pinch and wipe … the

  Gorilla Glass – it’s just one old silverback stroking another … I’m an

  ape-man, I’m an ape-ape-man … There, right beside the Hilton’s

  name and address, had been this stentorian slogan: YOUR ROOM

  AND BREAKFAST HAVE BEEN PAID FOR IN ADVANCE, so he’d

  relayed this to the Receptionist, while thinking, Just as well – since

  I am Bhikku, one who lives by alms alone … Then he’d been asked

  to sign … here, here and initial there … before the Receptionist

  enquired if he’d be needing any assistance with his luggage. Zack

  hadn’t been able to suppress the little warm thrill of … pride – yes,

  pride: Oh no! he’d cried, since I am Sannyasa I carry only these …

  He’d held aloft his walking stick and begging bowl, but the Receptionist

  carried on … reading from his training scroll: Will you be

  needing any assistance with them, sir? Which was no good at all –

  not even palilaliacally. No doubt, as soon as the Receptionist had

  handed over the key card in its little card folder, he forgot all about

  the funny old codger in his eccentric get-up – When Ben found the

  material online Camilla had guffawed, Don’t be bloody ridiculous!

  Granted that’s tweed, Gramps, but it’s not stuff for clothes – it’s for

  covering furniture and that sorta stuff … Zac
k loathed the way

  they both called him Gramps – loathed equally Camilla’s hippy-dippy

  bullshit and her syntactic mangling, which reminded him of

  a broadcaster called upon to extemporise … the situation for David

  Cameron is difficult, although not as difficult as difficulties he’s had to

  cope with in the past … By contrast her son’s sentences were always

  well formed and cogent – he simply repeated them word for word,

  sotto voce. Still slapping across the wipeable white floor of the lobby

  with his burly escorts, Busner ponders the matter further: Was it

  her constant proximity to Ben that had done it to Camilla? Having

  to communicate with an autist – even a high-functioning one – was

  always an oddly alienating experience, some would argue more like

  transmitting than truly communicating. Did she p’raps experience

  their life together, sequestrated in a flat off the Kilburn High

  Road, as a broadcast that had run … decades over time? He knew

  her well enough – knew she often teetered on the edge of delusion,

  sometimes stepping over its threshold into outright fantasy. He

  knew also this was why he’d taken to her in the first place – long

  ago, long before he’d swung on to the Via Negativa and embraced

  … the logic of not, he’d had a professional interest in such borderline

  mental states: I was a sigh-kaya-tryst … the syllables are strange

  to him now – it was a line of work he’d fallen into … for want

  of any great impulse towards anything else, but which in hindsight

  had turned out to be … a haven for me. Back to Redington Road,

  where the seventeen-year-old Zack had spent the summer holidays

  of nineteen fifty-five – his last before embarking for medical training

  at Heriot-Watt – trying to talk Ben’s great-uncle down from his

  dizzying psychotic spirals … he believed himself to be a kite, spinning

  at the end of its string high over West Heath … and it was Zack who’d

  held the other end … my words came to him in pulses as I jerked on

  its fraying end. It had been a tragic situation … although not as tragic

  as tragedies I had to cope with in the future. A future now long in the

  past … he played knick-knack on my thumb … When he’d eventually

  reached Room Five-Twenty the hotel’s general manager had been