Phone

by Will Self

  unshaven sock-puppets who were grubbing up handfuls of peanuts

  and raisins from tinfoil salvers. The Queue-man had said he could

  maybe get hold of some Medjool dates, but Gawain nixed this on

  the grounds of cultural insensitivity, given so many of the date

  groves – along the Shatt al-Arab and here, on the banks of the

  Tigris – had been … shot-to-shit. The sock-puppets coughed up

  Arabic and the terps spat out English – what was there to communicate

  anyway, save for infectious distrust? Gawain, picking up

  from Trimmer’s briefing, spoke about provisional reconstruction

  and military instruction teams, and the sterling work they’d be

  doing: building schools, hospitals and vital infrastructure – training

  newly recruited police and army personnel. As his words were

  chewed over, then regurgitated in the form of nutty burps and

  fruity throat-clearings, he wondered … who believes this bullshit

  less – me or them? Thought this – and watched hands dart out to grab

  thirty-three see-el bottles of water and magic them under the folds

  of their … invisibility cloaks – although no boy wizards, they …

  Gawain wondered at the time if this was really the essence of the

  current conflict: hiding things … Hiding mineral water – hiding

  heavy water, hiding Sarin gas. Had he ever believed the casus belli?

  That there were fleets of mobile EnnBeeSee units cruising about out

  there in the sandy sea? True, these men – Shia notables with hidden

  empires of their own – were hardly likely to’ve been entrusted with

  anything by the Ba’athists – nevertheless, they shared the same

  shattered land, where streetlamps were sawn off at the root, then

  carted off for scrap, and the way of settling a little neighbourly dispute

  was to lob a few mortar rounds over on to their rooftop – much

  as a Surrey householder might plant a fast-growing leylandii. Who

  let the dogs out – Bush! Bush! No! Not dogs at all but wolvish Rams –

  and here we are, chomping at the bit, the finest light cavalry in the

  world, trained to within an inch of our sodding lives, perfectly

  calibrated pieces of human materiel, upgraded regularly so’s to be

  fully inter-operable with the latest computerised gun-platforms,

  veritable cybernetic warriors – such as Gawain saw day in – day

  out … fighting their way across the monitors of his sons’ peesees,

  but reduced now – just as the army establishment overall was being

  constantly, politically … shrivelled, shrunken, withered … to the

  status of khaki-uniformed menials ordered to scoop up the human

  poop … So here Gawain finally was, on his way to war, in profile, in

  a frieze of painted men, doing everything he’s not meant to do – but

  then the guidelines – and they are only guidelines – would geld the

  Rams – leave them bleating, the better to reflect the quibbling of

  their … idle-minded overlings. Healthy and safe, perhaps, but utterly

  impotent, wandering about with thick rubber bands around their

  useless bollocks, waiting for them to … drop off. Gawain was on

  his way to war – the White Plastic Garden Chair War is how

  it’ll go down in the annals. A commemorative decoration for the

  Rams’ rampant table ornament will need to be obtained from Thos

  Askew and Sons, Jewellers and Engravers of Pickering, Yorkshire,

  est nineteen hundred and four, ting-ting goes the swinging door:

  Difficult job, Colonel Thomas, name’s too long for a standard plaquette –

  now, if it were El Alamein, that’d be another matter … Yes, that’s

  how it’ll be known – and it’ll rightly be judged a conflict of a

  triviality to rank alongside the Soccer War, the War of the Golden

  Stool – to which, no doubt, it would be compared by the Staff

  College instructors – and the Rum Rebellion. Yes, Gawain is at last

  embarked on his quest – finally he’ll have the opportunity to slay

  the green demon of his own envy. He’s looking pretty fucking

  gleaming … if I say so myself – face bronzed, muscles more toned

  than they’ve been in years, Tag Heuer sunglasses dangling around

  his neck – a corded, lean neck, also encircled by a scrap of khaki

  cravat. Riding shotgun in the lead Wimmik – again, strictly against

  established protocols, since that’s where you’ll get a camel’s head up

  your arse … but how’s a commander to earn his men’s respect if

  he doesn’t … lead from the front? Gawain feels the sweat pooling

  in his keks, then cooling … and cooling. Ice water courses down

  his face – he’s gripped by a frozen exhilaration. The past forty

  months rewind, flickering, and he’s back in the deefac on the rolling

  plains south of Saskatchewan – back watching the mighty tower

  slump to its knees and keel over into the dust of its own demolition.

  Then – a commercial break: Coors Light, the Coldest-Tasting Beer in

  the World! Then back to Armageddon: Poor little Greeny! suspended

  on a tightrope between the Twin Towers – out there in the void,

  all alone, cavorting – dancing in full-dress uniform, celebrating

  this vertiginously millennial moment – thrilled to the core of his

  masculine being as he glances to the right, to the left, and into …

  the void. Five minutes approx’ to our arvee, Boss, the Trooper in the

  back shouts over the grinding engine, then to the driver: Second

  left! Through the dirt-filmed crescents of windscreen, Gawain sees

  the grubby streets strobing past – sees bleached plastic bones …

  rotting concrete organs … rusting corrugated-iron flesh – sees

  this: the very compost heap of civilisation itself, where decay’s been

  under way for … seven-thousand-bloody-years. It was this the Rams

  were sworn to defend … with our cocks tucked up between our legs.

  Which is harder, Gawain wonders, for a camel’s head to penetrate

  an insufficiently armoured Land Rover, or a rich man to enter the

  Kingdom of Heaven? But I’m not a rich man! His pay is adequate,

  and, while certainly not enough to cut his lover’s dash … at least

  what I have isn’t proffed. There were grants for the kids’ education if

  the regiment was on a prolonged foreign posting – Fiona had some

  money from a spinster aunt, while Rodney might … come through

  eventually. But there was no long-term job security, for officers and

  men alike – instead they’re bombarded with the management-speak

  to be expected in any contemporary British organisation obsessed

  by its own … corporate culture. The hissing quack of Trooper

  Hodges’s cans is followed by: Man down, Boss – it’s Bessemer …

  Bessemer! Fucking Bessemer – Bessemer, who Fiona had told him

  to keep an eye on. Bessemer, whose dumb little tart thought the

  thoroughly decent thing to do was to tell him the truth … and how

  bloody selfish is that? Her clean conscience has led directly to this …

  dirty little incident. Man down … No, boy down – child down … My

  child down – the flesh-of-my-flesh … Bessemer down! The first casualty

  of this … children’s crusade. And they’re my children – so how bad is

&nbs
p; that? Calling home from Camp Val is a complicated rigmarole –

  card calls, strictly rationed, can be patched through the radio net,

  then via an exchange at Shaibah. But some techie-minded trooper

  in the int’ cell has figured out how to piggyback Skype calls on the

  wonky Iraqi internet. Gawain was unaware of this until two nights

  ago, when in the hot crotch of darkness he walked into the comms

  Portakabin and found Tizer with his keks down round his knees,

  beating his meat to the enthusiastic encouragement of an on-screen

  girl – a very young girl to judge by … the tensility of her tits. Ever the

  true and gentle knight, Gawain had simply muttered, Sorry … and

  quietly withdrawn – now, as the Wimmik clanks over a battered

  metal hoarding no longer effectively advertising Freedom Cola, he

  gets the sit rep’ from Hodges he should’ve had days ago: turns

  out Bessemer was up for a Midnight Express call with his Carol

  late on Sunday – but instead of the silky Agent Provocateur lingerie

  he’d been expecting, he was … sorely provoked: Gary was meant to

  be going home in a fortnight, Boss, for the wedding … This

  Gawain already knows, having signed the authorisation himself –

  nevertheless, banging about in the hot crotch of the personnel carrier,

  he apprehends this fact in all of its very contemporary absurdity:

  Incredible! Difficult to imagine the Indian Army troops who

  occupied Basra in nineteen fourteen being allocated such highly

  compassionate leave – Difficult? Bloody impossible … But then,

  just as the nine-millimetre Sig Sauer holstered at his hip is …

  so soft – a Dalí gun, so the impotence of the entire British Army’s

  deployment is confirmed by such … humanitarian considerations.

  Confound their knavish tricks … Confuse their pol-i-tics … Better get

  aitchqueue on the blower, Hodges, we’ll need to have Bessemer

  casevaced out to the aypod asap. He turns to Ali, the ferret-faced

  Basrati ’terp who did the same for the Welchers … You can trust

  him. A bit, was all Trimmer had said. D’you know what the fuck’s

  happened? is Gawain’s blunt enquiry – and he tries to infuse this

  with great dollops of Jonathan’s savoir faire: I know that you know

  that I know that you know something I’ll never fucking know – which is

  HOW THINGS ACTUALLY WORK HERE! It is a difficult

  situation, Colonel … the ’terp says, twisting towards him: his thin

  body hangs down from his thin wrist, which is caught in a thin

  hanging strap. Outside, the earth burns in its heavenly crucible,

  inside the Wimmik a half-eaten packet of Starbursts waggles about

  in the dash-mounted cup-holder. Ali’s smile is … thin, and from

  it emerges slim pickings … Your New Zealander colleagues were

  looking for these chairs, it’s true, but the man who has them is

  an important Sheik – someone who gives hospitality in the Arab

  way … and he has friends visiting right now … Off course there

  will be upsetting … Off course. As they roar down streets empty of

  every living thing besides a wonky-donkey tethered to a pile of

  shit, Gawain interrogates the ’terp: Is this man linked to the Jam?

  To other Iranian-backed militias? What sort of firepower might

  he be able to muster? Outside, it’s pushing fifty in the shade and

  those shadows are … sharp as scimitars – inside the Wimmik it’s

  still hotter, and Gawain’s nadgers … are … boiling in their bag.

  It’s gloomy, too, and the complexity of light and dark passing

  across Ali’s ferrety face expresses all the awful ambiguity of his own

  position: What’re we doing here? Our enemies’ enemies are also our …

  enemies – and we have no real friends at all … This is it, Hodges says,

  removing the pack of Starbursts from the cup-holder: Al-Afrika

  Street … Yes, Al Afrika Street, a soap opera about ordinary Iraqis

  going about their business in a typical post-conflict situation: cuppas

  of mint tea, chatting about the weather – Ooh, it ain’t ‘alf ‘ot, Mum –

  innanout of each other’s houses with each other’s white plastic

  garden chairs … Only the central grid of Ali al-Garbi’s streets, laid

  out in the seventies before the Great Patriotic War, are metalled –

  out here in the ‘burbs there are no pavements, while the roadways

  are dust-fields … irrigated with raw sewage. Gawain stands, sun-blinded,

  blinking down at his boots, each surrounded by concentric

  rings … dust-waves. He looks up and sees a poster of Muqtada

  al-Sadr smilingly jollily in black turban and robe. He looks way up:

  a single off-white cloud is chalked on the slate sky … wool caught on

  barbed wire. Quiet! he bellows, although in this highest of noons

  Al-Afrika Street is a … graveyard, and besides: If it were incoming,

  I should’ve heard its discharge … Still, a la-la-la-single cloud in

  an otherwise empty sky … isn’t it rich? The Kiwis’ Samil slumps

  sideways in the roadway, while beside it is the Wimmik their

  Force Protection must’ve arrived in. Gawain admonishes himself

  to Stay grounded! but keeps peeking skywards at the anomalous

  little cloud … aren’t we a pair? The Venetian-blind-slatted sides

  of the aypeevee throw shadow-bars that tiger-stripe my lover’s fair

  skin … Jonathan rolls away from him, up and out of the trench

  their ardour has dug in the old horsehair mattress … dust-motes –

  honey-light. He props his sleek weasel’s head in his hand, reaches

  for the Marlboro smouldering in the ashtray on the bedside table,

  takes a long, luxuriant drag, and, his lungs … popping and crackling,

  exhales a long, luxuriant plume of smoke, over his sternum and

  belly, igniting a burning bush! which dies down to reveal his heavy

  and serpentine cock … Kaah! heavy with blood. Swelling, it pushes

  out from the jungle … hakuna matata … hakuna ma– Boss! Boss!

  Bosh-bosh! Fi’s brother, Steve, is bosh-bosh! downwardly mobile down

  the bog … A plumber and a thoroughly decent chap – sticks close.

  Comes round on a Sunday – and only family do that: Caterpillar

  boots furry on the tufty mat as he puts his plunger … right down

  the bog – bosh-bosh! And I’d only shat in it … minutes before. He

  straightens up … ‘cause he’s straight, smiles, presses the lever and

  the awful, clotted mass of toilet paper and … the shit of my flesh

  disappears in a cleansing swirl. Steve says: Bosh-bosh! All done,

  mate – no need to worry ‘bout that any more. Boss! Boss! Gawain

  hears – yet doesn’t hear. He takes a sip from the warm plastic tit,

  mm … the milk of Camelbak kindness, and sends his eye along the

  upper storey of the bosh-bodged buildings, seeing over-wrought

  iron balustrades, airy bricks, post-conflict satellite dishes, a sky-blue

  candlewick bedspread flapping on a clothesline, but … no sign

  of life. Boss! Boss! There are troopers at all four points, kneeling,

  gats ready, faces dead-white, lips sealed, eyes wide open … don’t

  bother – they’re here, and so is their SeeOh, who shouts, Drives – stay

  at the wheel! Hodges, any eeteeay on the
‘copter yet? Hodges,

  involuntarily, looks up … cloud’s still there! Fruit-of-the-sky’s-loom –

  particular about his underwear is my boy … Standing in the cold

  morning light beneath the dormer, one slim, arched foot raised

  … and questing, while Gawain implores him to Stay just another

  couple of hours – can’t you? Won’t you? During the run-up to the

  invasion, this had become the most frequented of their bivvies:

  a bed-and-breakfast near Lincoln Jonathan had seen advertised

  on a web site … Bum-Boys Welcome Here, and, once they’d sampled

  its creature comforts, proclaimed satisfactory: These chaps’re priceless

  – utterly otherworldly, so completely trustworthy … The chaps

  in question being Brian and a … my name’s John, too, who, in

  near-matching cardigans and beards, closely resemble the parish

  councillors they in fact are … The parish being Bardney, a village in

  the middle of fucking nowhere, surrounded by a desert of beet fields,

  which stretch away … at all four points to where the grey-green

  outlines of ancient copses … sail along the horizon. This was a

  domesticated side to his wild lover Gawain had fantasised about

  but … never dreamt I’d see: Jonathan in shirtsleeves, sitting at an

  awkward little breakfast table set with odd bits of china, steaming

  toast rack and poxy-little aluminium dishes with blobs of jam and

  pats of butter on them … don’t you love farce? Yes – yes, he does:

  he loves the long-running Whitehall one – loves also to take it on

  tour, with his … trousers down round his ankles. That winter morning,

  Gawain had showered second, then came downstairs to find

  Jonathan earnestly discussing with John and Brian the odd – and

  purely coincidental – fact that his father had worked on some sort

  of farming co-op in the area during the war … but only briefly.

  And you chaps – what brought you out into these homophobic

  wilds? he was saying as Gawain ducked under beams and brushed

  past horse brasses on his way across the room. And John – a little

  older, a little taller, his beard a touch more pointy – droned on:

  We-ell, Brian was working in Doncaster at the time, while I had

  a two-year contract down in Dunstable, so neither of us was in a

  position, initially, to quit our jobs … Jonathan had been at his