Introduction

"You sounded like fucking Blofeld in there, cradling your iPad like a silicon Persian– it's fucking white, you evil bastard! I mean, at least a cat won't psychically overlay the image of your loafers with socks and sandals- it's a mindfuck: the only reason there's not been verbal public consensus about you looking like everyone's brother-in-law Creighton, the freelance consultant who has an app for his laundry, is that there's a further subconscious agreement that we– as a democratic nation– are not ready for the ensuing discussion of such a massive Freudian-fucking-spectacle as yourself. You make people uncomfortable and they think you're bonkers; lose the crypto-libertarian panty-liner before they worry about your keyboard phobia as well…"

A bit much, really. Tom's initial reaction was that only an embarrassment of routine medical proportions could generate such a fuss. He tried to remember if he had felt so emasculated after his first prostate exam; he hadn't, actually, but then again, Tom had spent a couple summers working at a pub in Brighton in between years at Uni. Not that Tucker didn't normally fall somewhere between "active volcano" and "active volcano on PCP" on the vitriol spectrum, but usually it felt less contrived– often even constructive, one might say after years of therapy. The mere fact that Tom could retroactively envision even a fleeting shade of altruism in the usual bouts of untethered abuse indicated that there really was something going on. More substantial was the fact that he wasn't surprised. Tom was not acclimated to discovering the places where Malcolm's armor had worn thin. He legitimately shivered.

"Malcolm, I have this intuition that you're upset about something– being me it could well be a schizophrenic delusion and all– but I really think-"

"Oh no, apologies for not being straightforward with the Right Honourable fucking spastic German tourist. I'll remember your limits in attention next time. This isn't about the love affair with 2010, Tom. Since I'm not in a rush or anything, I'll put it this way: if you put on the nipple-clamps for another locally-managed initiative– pardon, an in-progress, locally-managed country bypass which boasts an electoral notability consisting entirely of this phone call– my last hurrah before booking me and this party's ontological stability a joint-session at Dignitas will be to beat you with a bag of mandarins until you pray for fucking death."

"Well then. I was worried that this was something serious. There's-"

"Fuck me, sure the opposition's all tied up to the Saint Andrew's fucking cross right now, but before you've had a chance to sync the bomb-codes from your iTunes they'll be loose with their watch lasers and shoe-phones and fucking cockring-teleporters and a giant magnifying glass watching a private fucking contracting group oozing mediocrity over this gilded fucking Autobahn of yours… or wait, I liked your words more: 'the runway that this government's legacy will take off from'?"

Tom wasn't sure if it was the sleep-deprivation or if his oft-invoked neuropathies had finally come to exist in the form people seemed to think they did, but Malcolm's fucks had started to onomatopoeically resemble the measured chops of a cleaver, abbreviating every consideration of response or conciliatory interjection at its origin with a flash of gore-tinted steel. In the silence as the butcher pulled another slab from the cooler:

"Alright, so next time I hear of a personal development within my constituency that I happen to have an informed interest in, I'll just say, 'Well, I'm going to have to reserve my approval on that until I know for certain we won't fuck it up'? Sounds quite leaderly if I may say so myself. After all, the party precedent would be to, for lack of a better idiom, divorce the personal entity from the political."

A single gram of air was displaced in Westminster, via inhalation, exhalation, or the spasm of an obsessively maintained air of depersonalization within its host: it was impossible to accurately interpret the exact circumstances of the sound as it was transmitted, crackling through the crypto-libertarian earpiece of a device constructed in 3.7 seconds by a rabid Chinese orphan hooked up to a Ritalin IV, sifting into the aural canal of the certified mental case sitting in the rear-left seat of an Audi going 100 kilometers, AC at full blast, trees weaving into tapestries of brown, black, and green. Tom shifted, straightening his neck.

"How are things working out on your end, Malc? You know you can take two or three days if need be."

This time, the air froze.

"What the fuck do you know about anything 'working out'? When did you learn that concept? Was it when the blue ants were working their pale way out of your forearms?"

For a moment after the other line had been set on the table, as only the charged vocal ambiance of a conversation on the other end made its way through his set– sneaking behind the two-bar pots and pans like a poorly produced karaoke double– Tom wondered if he would rather Malcolm had just forgotten to hang up or was just having an uncharacteristic aside. If he were to listen, he could hear the Blackberry as Malcolm picked it up. Vertigo.

"Listen I don't know what you've been hearing… Nobody knows what you've been hearing during your talks with fucking Napoleon and Casper the Friendly Acid Visual… You are so slightly the easier choice between status fucking quo and a vote of no confidence that I'm…"

Seriously, is this going to end with the dry-cleaners?

" I'm– as soon as I hang up, I'm having Sam dig out the voodoo doll, and then I'm going to have her inject enough escitalopram to disorient an old-testament god directly into its spine. And then I'm going to personally nibble off the pair of grape nuts that correspond to your reproductive organs, because I refuse to subject the future to some kind of Caligula on steroids… Giga-Caligula, if you will-"

"Malcom-"

"Caligigula."

"Malc, I realize this isn't an amazing time for me to fuck up, and I'm sorry I did. I'll be quiet with the constituency from here on… Surgeries like today, but no hospital tours or demonstrations to kindergartens about the spellings of various tubers… Nobody will hear about this bypass again, and I'll be the most disinterested PM in regards to his constituency of any… of any there's ever been."

"…"

"… As disinterested as fucking John Q. Adams"

"... I want it so that no paper in London will ever dream about putting the words West Duggan and Cottingtonshire in print until they finally get that spree killer they're due."

*Click*