Phone

by Will Self

  was taking his rugby seriously and considering a military career …

  he was going one way – I the other. Derek was probably already having

  the odd toke … Christ knows where he got the stuff, while Gawain

  joined the school cadet corps and acquired a permanently raw

  knuckle from manipulating the bolt of a Lee Enfield – the rifle he

  was instructed how to use, in preparedness to fight … the war before

  the war before this one. So, Gawain, you’ll accompany the vehicles

  down to Maysan, will you? He hears the GeeOhSee inside his

  hot head – which is where they all are: all the British forces taking

  part in Telic Eight – Royal Welch and the Anglians, the King’s Royal

  Hussars and the Coldstreamers. All those battle groups – all those

  thousands of men, and a few hundred women, concealed in the

  static fizzing between his ears. Christ! The heat – even at dawn

  it’s hot, then the sun climbs and climbs and … keeps on fucking

  climbing, until it reaches a brutally effective position from which to

  aim and fire its rays – projectiles which can pierce standard-issue

  body armour … better than a seven-point-six-five round at five hundred

  metres. Over the radio net Gawain hears his colleagues being

  summoned one after another: Steve up in Al-Amarah – Donny down

  in Dhi Qar – summoned from the blinding light which is itself

  … another kind of darkness. And they report on petrol-smugglers

  apprehended and angry mobs dispersed with warning fire – all the

  Dixon-of-Dock-Green policing required once you’re done with Tim

  Collins’s bullshit and are facing an angry mob armed with pitchforks

  and staves, because you’re asymmetrically bogged down. He’s not

  asleep, Gawain – not sliding down into the bubbly bath of sleep …

  Hello, matey! Instead he’s daymaring the burning sandy wastes of

  southern Iraq – the unknowable concrete-and-mud-brick towns and

  forgotten bazaars where the Rams could well lose themselves … in

  a wilderness of dust. All of it – the white plastic garden chairs as

  well – has been folded into the complications of his sun-struck and

  hurting brain, while Gawain is abandoned … Daddy’s not coming.

  If he’d been called upon to identify the moment when they’d swung

  past each other – Derek clambering down the chain of command,

  while Gawain prepared to inch up its carefully polished links – then

  it was while his father was posted to Faversham, and the Task

  Force set off from nearby Southampton for those fly-speck islands

  in the South Atlantic. They sat together in the airless living room

  watching it all on a brand-new Trinitron – not that there’d been

  anything colourful to see in that remote era, when wars were

  reported using … archive footage, to the accompaniment of a commentary

  delivered by … the speaking clock. Derek lay in his armchair,

  his growing hair fanned out on its old antimacassar, a Heineken

  can in one hand, a fag in the other – the very image of indolence,

  but he sat up straight … when we sank the Belgrano. Yes, we both …

  clocked that. And Derek had squeezed his Heineken can until it …

  crumpled – never seen him do that before. After which he’d huffed and

  puffed – said it was worse than regrettable – a fucking crime: all those

  Argies – only boys, and conscripts to boot. The Thomas family had

  had one of those novelty dipping birds on top of the fridge it dipped

  and sipped while Derek Thomas dipped towards the telly screen and

  sipped the last bitter dregs of his patriotism down: I’m not pretending

  to be a great patriot, boyo – but the lady’s right, the reputation

  of the country is on the line … It must’ve been a year or two later,

  by which time Gawain had been away to camp, where he’d live-fired

  a Bren … felt its sexy shudder, that he dared to ask Derek if he

  regretted it – not having seen proper combat, that is. The Major had

  thought for a moment. I don’t want to piss on your parade, son, he’d

  said eventually, but combat – in my view – is something very much

  to be avoided. See, any squaddie worth his salt knows how to keep

  his head down. Officers? Different cuppa type oh altogether. Got to

  be seen to be in the thick of it, bullets flying through the peak

  of your cap, getting a fucking suntan from the falling flares. My

  expertise consisted in keeping whirlybirds in the air, not putting

  human beings … in the ground. But he, too, had had his moment.

  When Derek finally detached altogether – told Gawain, his mother

  and sisters he’d gotta go, then fluttered up from his telly chair,

  flittered into an embroidered Victorian nightdress and sailed away

  into the hills to join Sid Rawle and his tepee hippies – he’d left

  his son – who by then was wearing the blues of a Sandhurst cadet,

  and feeling … pretty ally – wondering if he’d been afflicted with

  peetee-essdee all those years ago, under the hurting Aden sun.

  It hadn’t been combat exactly – Derek was crewing a Saracen when

  the lad on top cover panicked as the first Molotov cocktail hit,

  and unleashed an ill-judged burst. Seen! but not seen, the lad doing

  obs’ … knobbly knob-head poking out of the front hatch took it all

  in the neck and chest … his knobbly knob-head was nearly bloody

  severed. After that tour Derek Thomas felt he’d been quite as close

  to combat as he ever wanted to be, so corkscrewed away into the

  whirlybirds … We shouldn’t’ve been there at all, boyo. Riot control?

  Bum-sucking on the fag-end of empire we were … Charlie One?

  Charlie One? Even dripping through the radio net the GeeOhSee’s

  chocolate tones are unmistakable. Everything going well up there

  in Ali Baba, Gawain? – covering everything in soft, warm sweetness

  … not a scratch on him – never will be. Relishes the smell of napalm

  in the morning … as he pours it on his cornflakes … For a moment

  Gawain considers saying something along these lines: It’s Ali

  al-Garbi, Boss – I know you’re only trying to lighten the mood, but really

  it doesn’t help: it’s our basic insensitivity to their culture that’s making it

  so fucking hard to connect with these people whose nation WE’RE

  MEANT TO BE REBUILDING! But these words only fall

  to the floor of his own hot head, while he replies: Some bad boys in

  town the past few days, sir – locals shut up shop, coffee stalls all

  closed. Our int’ cell has a local asset of their own – says they’ve at

  least a couple of mortars, arrpeegees … etcetera … Says they’re not

  all Mucky’s boys – if any. Says the Dawa lot’re active here now –

  and we’re only twenty-five clicks from the border. I’ve doubled

  patrols and put it on standing orders the lads’re to be lidded at

  all times when they’re out. – What’re you saying, Gawain? – I’m

  saying it’s a bit of a rum do, sir – the atmos’ is dodgy, and my lads’re

  fed up with having to fetch and carry for these Kiwis, who’ve

  bugger-all to do except Force Protection for this team of Jap construction

  workers. They’re a hell of a liability –. �
�� Who? The Kiwis

  or the Japs? – Well … both, sir. – That doesn’t sound like the

  Fighting Rams’ SeeOh talking – chin up, Gawain, I remember you

  in sparkling form on the rugger pitch – and with your chaps, these

  Japs and Kiwis you’ve half the Six Nations. Organise a sevens

  tournament, old chap, that’ll build morale … A calendar hangs on

  the Portakabin wall behind the radio – presumably advertising a

  local business, although, since the whole thing is in Arabic, it’s

  difficult to tell what kind. The picture page features a young woman

  in jeans, abaya and headscarf … Filthy Fatima not showing anything

  she’s got! Phwoar! It’s hot! standing in front of what appear to be large

  refrigeration units. Some culturally sensitive wag in the sig’ unit has

  embellished this with a black Biro … I’ll have to have a word – the

  ’terps come in here … loopy-looping down from the hem of the

  young woman’s robe, the dense, pen-stroked curlicues merging with

  the pubic-hair type, and making her the smiling possessor of … the

  biggest fucking bush this side of Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan – now

  that was soldiering, that’d been the Fighting Rams at their finest:

  their squadrons all in beautiful playing-card formation: five Chieftains,

  three Scimitars, seven aypeesees, laid down in patient rows

  on the plain, which rolled away in undulating waves of scrub

  towards a lowering and cloudy horizon. Gawain had at long last

  been in command: sitting there in the grinding, winking gloom,

  listening to the servos calibrate the cannon’s aim – registering the

  hushed interplay between gunner and targeter, and seamlessly

  integrating this with the continual positional updates coming

  through his cans … I was in the flow, kayaking down the cataract of

  action, precisely adjusting the disposition of this mighty force –

  hundreds of men and officers, scores of fighting vehicles – with

  mere dabs of … my paddle. Saskatchewan – there’d been lighter-than-lite

  beer in the mess, on tap twenty-four-seven … and we all

  had a thirst. It’d been a joint show with the YouEssEmm and the

  Rams’ Canadian hosts. Inter-operability was the latest buzz-word,

  but in practice they’d lent us poor boys their gear. Although this wasn’t

  a live-fire exercise, they’d the kit necessary to simulate one – a round

  on target would hit the kill switch, disabling the vehicle. Nothing

  for its crew to do but sit there, smelling each other’s farts while

  they waited for it all to be over … but can it ever be over when

  it’s never exactly … begun? Gawain forgot about the brass who’d

  flown in that morning to observe, and who no doubt were sitting in

  their stand – a giant sort of bird hide, rising up proud of the scrub

  and its attendant mosquitoes – snacking on garden salads, cold

  cuts, asparagus and mayonnaise, slurping up lighter-than-lite beer

  before taking an idle peek through bipod-mounted bins. He forgot

  about the miserable months he’d spent with the Export Support

  Team, posing at arms fairs … a showroom dummy in uniform,

  demonstrating state-of-the-art materiel, even as his beloved Rams

  were suffering … death by a thousand defence cuts. The talk was

  all of putting stuff out to private tender, creating profit-centres

  and public–private partnerships – getting a corporate sponsor and

  changing the Rams’ name to the the Yorkshire Carphone Warehouse

  Hussars. Gawain remembers giving sales spiels to dodgy Middle

  Eastern buyers – men with furtive, sweaty faces, their eyes quailing

  behind dark glasses, their fingers nervy with worry beads, their

  queries matter-of-fact and to the point: the unit prices of shells and

  the extent of after-sales support. You’re not a fucking salesman, he’d

  told his reflection in the mirror above the basins in the gents’ at

  the arms fair again annagain – and, it being an Indian convention

  centre, everything was conventionally filthy: shit- and snot-stained

  tissues strewn in the stalls, and plastic pots soupy with bacilli for

  those who … manually wiped. Waiting in the hot darkness for the

  GeeOhSee to extrude another dollop of wisdom, Gawain sees

  himself as he’d been four years before: a dinky little Glengarry

  perched on his blond hair, the breast pocket of his sandy-coloured,

  belted tunic edged with modest amounts of braid, ribbon and a

  couple of bits of tinware: What’s that one for, mister? – That one, son?

  Why, I won that for building a new shower block in an abandoned

  Bosnian paint factory … But the pathetic accessory which had

  shamed him the most … wouldn’t look out of place in Claire’s, compounding

  the offence to his amour propre … only took the job ‘cause

  I’d been passed over, was a little arse-wipe-sized piece of chainmail

  attached to the right epaulette of his tunic, which dangled down his

  left shoulder. Chinka-chink the chainmail flip-flopped about all day,

  every day, a constant reminder of his true status … no chaste knight,

  me – only an impotent one, with a balsawood lance and a foam-rubber-fucking

  sword. It’s a fool’s errand, Uncle Rodney had told him when

  they dined at his Victoria flat – Gawain bunking off from both

  regimental and domestic duties … on some pretext or other. Rodney

  had been Derek Thomas’s best mate when they were stationed in

  Germany – a committed bachelor, is what Derek called him, which

  had been his way of saying gay – and he didn’t have any problem

  with that, an enlightened man, the Major … I could’ve told him –

  could’ve had a better life, made an honest man of myself. He and Jenny

  Thomas had settled on Rodney as their eldest’s spiritual mentor …

  Did they have intimations – had they noticed my enthusiasm for the

  dressing-up trunk? It’s a fool’s errand, Gawain … Rodney had said,

  carefully applying a pat of duck pâté to a beautifully crisp and

  feather-light slice of toast … peacetime soldiering, that is. Derek

  had dropped out altogether – but his friend had slipped sideways

  from the Remmy to take a job handling the pyrotechnics for the

  Royal Tournament. – If you’re going to be a chocolate soldier,

  Gawain, you may as well be in a presentation box … Although his

  godson suspected rather more venal motivations, as Rodney rose up

  the chain-of-direction, eventually becoming responsible for auditioning

  … all the principal boys. Had a bit of money, did Rodney …

  might be a little something for me, and did right by himself. That evening

  there’d been the pâté and the Pomerol – Château Le Gay, how

  obvious was that? – the veal and a vintage Reuilly. All the time

  they’d been eating, there was a very young naval ensign hard at

  work in the bedroom – Rodney took him a plate through, but

  it wasn’t until after Medjool dates, some chèvre and a glass of

  Muscatel that he did his Big Reveal: taking Gawain’s elbow in his

  large and fleshy hand, smiling at him enigmatically from behind

  his bushy-black moustache … must dye it by now, and guiding him

  into
the gilded gloom where the boy crouched, silk-bristled brush

  in hand, laboriously painting tiny figures on to the wallpaper.

  At once Gawain had realised the intent: to create a waist-height

  frieze, running the entire way around the room. The ensign had

  looked up from his task … bum-fluffy brunet, a tight grouping of

  acne on the tip of his nose – yet still perfectly fanciable and smiled. Very

  difficult to get the highlights right on this cuirass, sir, he’d said – or

  words to that effect. It had been then Gawain saw exactly what the

  ensign was minutely rendering: miniature figures in the full-dress

  uniforms of all the British Army regiments there’d ever been – Since

  Waterloo, his godfather had put in: I mean, going back further than

  that … well, there was no sort of consistency, not even with the

  New Model Army – officers were always customising their kit.

  Gawain had gawped at the strange procession: the tiny figures

  marching in profile around the room, every-man-jack zealously

  undertaking … a fool’s errand which might well endure … from

  here to eternity. The dinner must’ve been, Gawain thinks, a couple

  of months before I left for Delhi, but it stayed with me … such that

  he couldn’t help seeing himself as a brightly painted little figure,

  rendered in exquisite detail, right down to the highlights on his

  arse-wipe of chainmail, marching around the arms fair and giving

  these pathetic demonstrations: running the video loop which

  showed the negligible impact of shaped-charge projectiles on Chobham

  armour, directing the tiny team of gunners as they creaked

  about on the carpeted dais, pretending to unlimber, then fire a

  mobile artillery piece – and all the while the balloon inside of

  Gawain was being … filled up with shit. Once, twice … twenty

  times he’d quickstepped back to the gents’ and squatted over the

  hole. Once, twice … twenty times he’d sworn to himself that

  this was the end: if he couldn’t return to the Rams as their SeeOh,

  he’d do whatever was necessary … to get the fuck out. He wasn’t,

  he believed, like Rodney at all – and would never be satisfied

  by chocolate soldiering. Besides, he didn’t think of himself as a

  homosexual – he was more of a Jonathansexual, or one of those

  indisputably macho Latin men he’d heard about, who confirmed