Phone

by Will Self

  revved-up hairdo, and the amplified whine winds them all in. We’re

  boy-racers, us, the Butcher thinks, powering towards the next

  century – the enemy’s out there, but we don’t know who he is any

  more … – This feller in Texas, ‘spect he were a bit of a nutter – but

  they didn’t have to send in them Swat teams an’ whatever, an’

  machine-gun ’em all to death – kiddies, too. No, it should make yer

  think – there’re all sorts in the world, so what’s so funny about

  peace, love an’ understanding? What indeed, the Butcher silently

  cavils. Problem is they’re all in short supply. He wonders what

  would happen if the emsee turned his/her fissured and glittery

  cheek to those Chester ranchers? There’s a great big worldful of war,

  hate and incomprehension between wolves such as them, hunting

  down nerve-gas precursors for brutal dictators to use on their own

  flock, and these dipped sheep, who’re standing about wiping the

  fungicide from their eyes with bar towels … (Wo Regenten wohl

  regieren, Butch.) Kann man Ruh und Friede spüren, Squills …

  The Butcher turns to Gawain, who stands slope-shouldered, head

  hanging, his sweat-soaked shirt a red rag on a knackered bull. He

  examines the cavalryman’s superb musculature – the Chobham

  armouring of his broad chest and the steely linkages of his sinewy

  arms. He considers the vast amount of tax payers’ money which

  has been expended bringing this young man to a peak of physical

  perfection, and filling his head with tactics and stratagems. Yet

  here he is, waiting and waiting … for the next Kuwait, whereas the

  Butcher – whose business is, after all, target acquisition – well, what

  am I waiting for? Soon after, the club shuts, and the emsee drives

  them all into the street with: This may be paradise, my little angels,

  but you can’t stay here fer eternity! The punters gather together for a

  few minutes, pairing off, swapping phone numbers, and speculating

  as to where another drink or drug can be found – then they scatter.

  Gawain staggers, and the Butcher supports him: a heavy weight on

  my shoulders. The junior officer’s right out of it now – way out at the

  end of the galaxy’s spiral arm, and babbling thoughtless bubbles:

  Light colours … in the tepee … Daddy said … hang it from the

  ridgepole … ups-a-daisy … (EmKayUltra should’ve known about

  this little cocktail, eh, Butchie?) Possibly, Squillster – however,

  as we know only too well, the problem with truth serums is that,

  while they may innoculate against perfidy, the product itself is

  often – (Well past its sell-by date?) I was going to say, decidedly

  off. Materialising underneath the arches, opposite the Ritz on

  Whitworth Street, the Butcher remembers watching live footage of

  target acquisitions at Langley, one of the shows the Agency likes to

  put on to impress their friends: the camera-eye, zooming through

  cirrus shreds to trap a racing technical in its cross-hairs – a vehicle

  which, no matter how fast it travels, can’t replace the fear – or the

  thrill of the chase … He slides his hand down Gawain’s chinos and

  into the sweaty groove between his buttocks – the cavalryman

  whinnies … Next they’re grazing on each other’s faces in filthy

  meadowland on the crumbling bank of the Bridgewater Canal …

  where have we been? Dawn has come – a fireball exploding over

  the Manchester Riviera, and diesel-powered ducks leave detergent

  wakes as beer cans bob-bob-bob about in the … Boddingtons. Dawn

  has come – its rays lasering down to etch this precise and frozen

  image: a slim, dark man in anonymous clothing lying on top of

  a bigger blond man who’s half naked, his washed-out, paisley-patterned

  boxers pulled down to expose his … boneless rump roast.

  The Butcher yanks them down further – then, pushed to the limit,

  he rises up, drags down his zip and unleashes … Squilly! who sniffs

  the fresh morning and the stale canal, then quests towards his

  quarry. This time the Butcher leaves a deep thumbprint in the

  little tin of Vaseline – he briefly considers the box of condoms he

  pocketed at the Britannia, but realistically what’re the chances?

  Gawain is undoubtedly one of us, but the Butcher is a past master of

  such tradecraft and intuits Gawain has never, ever gone beyond

  prep-school circle jerks – why, despite the lateness of this early hour,

  his handkerchief is still perfectly aligned in his breast pocket, so

  all the world can see … just how fucking straight he is. No, no – this

  is a faggot who’s never been ignited, who’s got his jollies up until

  now on the playing field – the Butcher kneels to feed the ball in,

  hearing twenty-year-old changing room jibes: Woolly-woofter!

  Fucking poofter! and feeling Mister Marshall’s wedding ring snag on

  his waistband as the Deputy Headmaster checks to see if De’Ath

  Major is wearing underpants under his rugby shorts, in direct

  contravention of the school rules. Coaxing Squilly into full and

  majestic turgidity, the Butcher takes a moment to ruminate bitterly

  on the legalistic fig leaves with which paedophiles mask their

  proclivities … Hold! before uttering a small prayer of his own

  devising: Soon to be dearly beloved, I do hope your back passage

  is … uncluttered. Hold! The world strains all around him – he feels

  the undergrowth writhe, every blade of grass is neon-edged, thistledown

  floats through his yawning eyes – eyes that see not this

  colossal incongruity: two of Her Majesty’s upstanding servants

  lying on a canal towpath preparatory to performing a sodomitical

  act – but … Kins! Specifically, his father’s bloodhound visage,

  its heavy jowls and lacrymal bags. Poor Kins! He too has been a

  smoker … a joker … a midnight toker – he, too, has been nailed

  up on the cross of a forbidden love. Kins, at Colindale Avenue,

  standing by the French windows, peering out at the lawn-shaped

  patch of mud, sown with hoppers and choppers … deflated and

  rusting. Kins, who, his eldest son acknowledges for the first time,

  I’m alike, in this respect at least: both of them, whatever they may

  say or do, are fated to remain homeless, especially when we’re

  at home … Hold! Gawain groans, perhaps anticipating the bite of

  the Green Knight’s axe-blade … Hold! a dying fish up-plips in the

  moribund canal … Hold! And –. Diddle-ooh-doo, diddle-ooh-doo,

  diddle-ooh-doo-doo! The throb in his pocket is insistent –

  more insistent yet than Squilly (What the fuck, Butch?). He

  fumbles the Nokia from his pocket and squints at the tiny screen:

  number witheld. Indeed … all their numbers are withheld – they’re

  very withholding people … Hold! The Butcher hits the necessary

  button and the ooh-dooing diddles away … he rubs the glob of

  Vaseline expertly into and around Gawain’s anus … and Engage!

  The scrum-half feeds the ball in so fast Gawain curses Trooper

  Pythian – F-F-Fucking dickhead! – who, as ever, hasn’t sufficiently

  engaged with the front row. As his
arm slips from the Pythian’s

  sweaty hips, Gawain braces his shoulder against the Lock’s

  buttocks … taking up the strain in this push-of-war. The patch

  of cratered mud bucks and heaves before his own fanatic face –

  boots scythe into view, steel studs scrape on shanks and shin

  pads. Cartilage grinds against bone – behind him Tizer grunts,

  Steady, lads … steady, as the thirty-two-legged creature we’ve

  become crab-walks across the sodden ground. Gawain hears the

  seagulls … our biggest fans flapping about the touchline, while

  into his shoulder pumps all the tension in Pythian’s buttocks and

  haunches – together with all the pushing and pulling of interlinked

  arms, the thrusting of legs, the … butting of heads. Steady, lads,

  steady … Beyond the wheeling scrum range the loosening line of

  backs, each man, Gawain thinks, vitally connected to me by eyeline

  and anticipation … Steady, lads, steady … The SeeEssEmm is

  killing his hangover with a sneaky can of Tennent’s behind the

  home goal posts – he, too, is vitally connected to Gawain by the

  chain of command, the links of which join all the men on the establishment

  – gunners and tankers, Yorkies and Scotties, Queue-men

  and blanket-stackers – into one enormous dutiful and purposive

  creature that longs only to serve … A creature which is itself only a

  part of a still greater body of men … Steady, lads, steady … the ball

  flips back – Gawain slips, knee-knocking it forward into the melee.

  Fuckinell, Greeny, Tizer grunts – but without malice … At the

  Academy, five weeks in and fitter than he’d ever been, what with

  daily log-runs and increasingly frequent bad-boy badge parades,

  Gawain was legless with fatigue. Slumped in a War Studies lecture,

  drowsing fitfully while a tweedy-old pipe-puffer droned on, he’d

  had this epiphany: I belong – I truly belong. Each beat of Her

  Majesty’s loyal heart pumped life through mysterious constitutional

  mechanisms into the grey matter of Her Government – which in

  turn animates all of us: a hundred thousand highly trained bodies,

  knitted together by our instinctual drive to fight! It was this he’d

  been fleeing to from … the Welsh desert. This he’d yearned for on

  the sodden afternoons of his childhood when he wandered the

  sodding lanes around Nantyfynn: a family that was, above all, functional

  – while as for the other thing, the breaking free from your

  lies, you’re so self-satisfied … well, he didn’t need it – didn’t need

  the fauny figures in their slinky green leotards hefting him aloft to

  the camp tootling of their massed synthetic horns. Although, aged

  eleven, hunched up with his siblings on Missus Price’s parlour couch

  to watch Top of the Pops, he’d feared he might explode with excitement.

  – Go, Greeny! Go, you fucking bell-end! The ball – hooked

  back to Tizer, knocked back again by him – lies at Gawain’s feet,

  its voluptuous form so huggable. He boots it forward, eccentrically

  oscillating – and, breaking from the scrum, catches it on the fly! He

  scopes out the killing zone between him and the touchline: the

  Welsher’s full-back, together with the rest of his brick, are spread

  out between Gawain and the touchline. On the range there’s a catch

  in the Rarden’s throat before it begins to hammer out thirty-mil’

  rounds. On the hoof, Gawain hesitates for a moment, calculating

  his trajectory – then, roaring, he begins a charge that ends … in

  the changing room: Nice one, Greeny … Blinder, Greens – fucking

  slotted those Taffies, didn’t we … Christ, we’re pure. Awaaay,

  away away awaaaay! We are the sheep-men – we are the Fighting

  Rams! Gawain joins in with the pink and steaming choristers: No

  ifs no butts, we’re the Rams! Baaa-baaa-baaaa! Ha-haa-haaa! Alll-right,

  Greeny – room for one more on top! Don’t bend over for the

  soap, boys … ! Agitated by muddy rivulets snaking across the white

  tiling, a single, wiry questioning pubic hair interrogates him: What

  are you, Lieutenant Thomas? And, as he rubs the suds around his

  cock and balls, Gawain wonders, Will the harshing ever cease?

  Back at the regimental lines, flushed by his rubdown, exhilarated

  by their victory, he runs into Blakey, who sniffs self-importantly:

  Gawain, this briefing this afternoon … Turns out it isn’t just

  normal slime – SeeOh wants full opsec, dry run. We’ve the real

  McCoy coming up from London. – Meaning? – For fuck’s sake,

  Gawain, what an utterly bone question … Captain Blake’s pinched,

  white face darkens, why’s he always so bloody angry? – As my Two-EyeSee,

  I need you to be a little bit more on the actual ball – not

  just the rugger one. Rumour is we’ll get our movement order any

  day now. Taffies still here? Gawain grins: They’re in the canteen,

  Phil, hoovering it up – prob’ly not a lot of scran back in Taffy land.

  – Well, you’d know all about that, Lieutenant Thomas – anyway,

  chivvy ’em along now, get ’em off our patch. I want everyone in the

  briefing room by fourteen-thirty, okay? No excuses – no bullshit:

  everyone. Captain Blake swivels neatly on his heels and stamps

  away. It’s a clear, sharp Saturday afternoon in early October and the

  wind is stripping the leaves from the trees. There’re kids mucking

  about in the playground behind the married personnel’s accommodation

  – boxy little brick semis with white-painted aluminium

  facings which wouldn’t look out of place on any council estate, on

  the outskirts of any British town. Gawain pictures Fiona sitting

  inside one of them – sitting knitting, a Moses basket by her side.

  He hears her needles ticking away, smells the furniture polish and

  sees the future ahead: years will rotate – nothing will change …

  He calls after the stiff, retreating back: I think Pisspot and the

  SeeEssEmm were out on the lash last night, Phil … Stiff back

  turns to soft belly and Captain Blake scowls: I don’t give a ruddy

  fuck about that, Gawain. In less than a week we may well be under

  fire from some Serb scum who haven’t troubled to wade through all

  thirty-two pages of Unprofor’s rules of engagement – our blokes

  need to be completely clued-in. So see to it, Gawain – that’s an

  order. He does his habitual finger-fidget, intended to solicit the

  salute which Gawain grudgingly sketches – then turns away again.

  Noting the forty fucking Walnut Whips on each of his SeeOh’s hips,

  Gawain thinks, He won’t pass the physical if he doesn’t put a sock

  in it … – Oooh, yeah! Boo-yaa! Greeny! Greeny! The cries go up

  from the men seated either side of the long Formica-topped table as

  Gawain bashes through the swing doors – it isn’t the first time he’s

  scored the winning try, but this is a different sort of victory: he feels

  held, embraced, by my brothers in arms … a t’riffic relief, given that

  ever since he joined the regiment Gawain has struggled with …

  distance. At the Academy, together with the rest of his peers, he’d

  cheerfully ignored the smal
l mauve-jacketed book which had been

  left on top of his bed-block: Serve to Lead, eh … Okay, agreed, he’d

  flicked through, pausing to read the odd fragment: Success in battle

  really comes from a combination of the skill and daring of the leader and

  the skill and confidence of the led, and we, the British … He was open-hearted,

  manly, friendly, and independent, a most gallant and zealous

  officer, and much devoted to his own corps … then chucked it aside –

  after all, this was the sort of guff he’d heard since childhood from

  his own father. Heard it right up until Derek Thomas left the army

  and went postal … But on the morning Gawain first strode out on

  to the parade square, and saw H Company lined up before him –

  thirty lairy young men, their wary eyes frisking the nig Rupert to

  see if he’d anything to hide – he’d had a mad urge to rip the pips

  from his shoulders, cast his peaked cap aside and throw myself among

  them. Because that’s you all over, isn’t it, he admonishes himself as

  he takes his place on the bench, between Pythian and one of the

  Welshers … you pathetic little poofter – you’ll do anything, repeat

  ANYTHING, it takes to be one of the boys. And, just as at the

  Academy, where he’d floundered at first to make my mark, so he’d

  realised his future with the Hussars would have to be cemented

  in the churned-up mud of the rugby pitch. Better he should be

  known as a fully fledged rugger-bugger than the other sort. Better

  he should assume the habit of command than hearken to his finer

  feelings. But it remains difficult – damnably difficult. It’s entirely

  possible, he supposes, for a man to be as hard as nails and as bent

  as a nine-bob note – his curse is to be not exactly a gentleman, but

  very definitely a gentle one … and, seeing some seventeen-year-old

  Geordie holding back the tears, Gawain still longs to put an

  arm around his shaking shoulders, bestow a kiss on his spotty

  forehead. Objects in the mirror may appear larger … which is why

  it’s so damnably difficult to keep my distance. Then again – there

  were tales enough of unbending Ruperts, who bore down on their

  men with all the weight of their entitlement, so were subjected to

  creepy mind-fuck: brews adulterated with salt, whispering campaigns

  during briefings, salutes so sketchy as to merely suggest what a