Phone

by Will Self

the stale bits … Come upon suddenly, in the heat – chickpeas? For

  breakfast? – the men appear schoolboyish in their awkward helmets

  and bulky body-armour, standing over their captives porting their

  popguns … Trooper Arbroath has a bad crop of acne – can’t find

  Clearasil in the bazaar. He squats by a prone figure in the far corner,

  holding up a bag of saline – a khaki-clad figure, unhelmeted and

  with a tile-white face: Bessemer! At the sight of the boy who’s just

  learnt his baby boy … is another boy’s, Gawain recoils into this

  sadly typical scene: he’d carpeted Bessemer, along with Trooper

  Sneddon, two months ago back in the YouKay. The pair of ’em

  shuffling their boots on the scrap of carpet in front of Gawain’s

  desk: black eyes and split lips had been equally distributed –

  they’d got into a really rather serious scrap over whose turn it was

  with … the PlayStation. Gawain had told them: I had to deal with

  a similar incident on Saturday – but that was between my sons.

  Actual children – not highly trained professional soldiers behaving

  like bloody children! They’d avoided his paternal eye and squirmed to

  attention. Why? Because they are bloody children – the bloody children

  of parents who’d been dumped on the post-industrial scrapheap:

  white goods … old fridges and washing machines, piled up … one

  on top of the other – kids get trapped inside them … toddlers younger

  than Miffy – led away from shopping centres by other … bloodthirsty

  children … The Rams always made a lot of their White Rose

  credentials, but the truth is its petals will be forever stained by the

  soot which once fell from Redcar chimneys. Most of the regiment

  is recruited from further north – up the coast, past Scarborough.

  Not white goods at all, really – let alone Little Englanders, but

  Lynndie ones! Skinny, spotty boys raised up by hand on sugar, vinegar

  and salt – stuck together with glue and old betting slips … For

  their fathers and forefathers joining the service had been a way of

  escaping the molten steel puddling in their guts – but for the Bessemers

  and Sneddons who now made up the ranks? Well, Gawain

  didn’t consider himself remotely cynical – only clear-sighted: they’d

  exchanged under- for unemployment. Instead of hanging round

  outside the bookie’s or sitting at home fiddling with a controller,

  they hung around the canteen or outside the chogee shop – or sat

  in their barracks fiddling with a controller. Yes, yes – they could

  drill beautifully, and provide the wetware for sophisticated modern

  figting vehicles as well – but none of this would be much use when

  they ended up job-seeking … Really, Gawain thinks – looking at

  the seriously wounded boy … I was meant to keep an eye on, they’re

  just like me: chocolate soldiers to a man – taken out of our box

  once in a while to melt in the mouth – not in the hand, Jesus! The heat!

  The heat in Ali al-Garbi this May noontide, which makes the

  concrete roofscapes buckle. The concrete roofscapes pallisaded with

  their own reinforcing, strung with cabling and clotheslines from

  which sky-blue bedspreads flutt– Pythian! Gawain yelps. The roof!

  Whatabout the roof – secured, issit? Perry Rat Likes Shooting

  Arseholes Regularly … The Rats may well be Perry-prepared for

  battle – but there’s no Rat-returning of fire to be done as yet – given

  we haven’t even, Like-located the fucking enemy! Pythian turns to

  a Kiwi officer Gawain hadn’t so much as noticed, who’s propped

  against the kitchen island: McClintock! Secured the roof, didja?

  The Kiwi bemusedly levers himself upright – stunned not by

  Pythian’s obvious contempt, but by the dawning awareness of …

  the massive clusterfuck he’s perpetrated. Yet, if Gawain’s honest … if

  I’m honest, at this moment in time … at this moment in time, in the

  kitchen of Number Twenty-Seven, Al-Afrika Street, Ali al-Garbi,

  Maysan Governate, Iraq … the Middle East, the World, the Milky

  Way, the Universe … Can I be here … now? No – no, he can’t:

  Double in, Pythian, Gawain says. Check and secure the roof area –

  take Arbroath and Hodges … His radio barks: Hotel, Lima,

  Foxtrot … d’you read me? But no, Gawain only reads the Power-Points

  from a Staff College lecture that appear before him … a

  heads-up display, and which’re better than a poxy old mnemonic

  when it comes to remembering the key differences between AirLand

  Battle and Full-Spectrum Dominance … Not that either strategic

  overview alters the fundamental reality that … within the battle-space

  the effective tank commander maintains multiple perspectives. Yes!

  Indeed! Meaning he sees pretty much what all the men under his

  command see, hears what they hear, feels what they touch and

  smells what they sniff at – or at least tries to, because in practice the

  Rams have mostly been trained to go mano-a-mano with hordes

  of … white dots tracking across their monitors … now – Now, Asif …

  As if ? Be so good as to introduce me to the Sheik of the White

  Plastic Garden Chairs … The ’terp turns to the Iraqi men cross-legged

  along the wall, all sporting dishdashas, keffiyehs and

  black polyester trousers which’re … flat-fronted for that becoming

  pot-bellied silhouette – get outta my head, Jonathan! Mutter-mutter,

  goes Asif, and then: Gobble-gobble-gobble, cough-cough-cough.

  The eldest and most venerable-looking of the Iraqis replies:

  Cough-cough-cough, mutter-gobble-mutter … He’s a moon-faced

  man with pot-bellies under his hooded eyes, and as he splutters

  on Lieutenant-Colonel Gawain Thomas recalls some off-the-wall

  briefing about cultural sensitivity: Despite having no knowledge of

  someone’s language you can still show – by nodding and making small

  noises expressing encouragement – that you get their … general … drift.

  Yes, a drift and a draught – the Sheik sprays the radio Velcroed to

  the front of Gawain’s body armour with his spittle … stale garlic,

  recent chickpeas, long-rotting teeth and the … blood of innocents …

  One of the little girls is whimpering – if control of the battle-space

  is to be maintained, she should really be … put on the naughty step.

  – Ask him, please, Asif, who exactly his friends are, where they’re

  from, and what the bloody-hell they’re up to – ‘cause innabout thirty

  seconds me and my men’re gonna open that door none too gently,

  and if we don’t have a pretty good idea of what’s waiting for us on

  the other side … Well, let’s just put it this way: whatever grand

  designs the Sheik may have re’ his home improvements will have to

  be put on hold. Permanently. – So it goes: Asif and the Sheik carry

  on … mutually contaminating, while Gawain maintains multiple perspectives

  … climbing the bare concrete stairs with Pythian – peering

  through the sights of Abroath’s EssAyEighty as it tracks here,

  then there, holding on to a discarded item of clothing or a dropped

  shoe, then letting it go. As Asif does his job, the S
heik stares

  hungrily at the ’terp’s Adam’s apple … like to eat it: He say he don’t

  know – these friends are not his friends, they are the friends of his

  cousins – but, bismillah, it is the Arab way to welcome guests …

  Had your men not arrived bearing arms, acting insensitively, he

  would have shown them the same hospitality –. For Christ’s sake,

  Asif, Gawain baas, tell the man to get to the bloody point! Up on

  the roof cross-hairs quarter a satellite dish … a white plastic garden

  chair … a pile of breeze-blocks … a sky-blue bedspread flapping …

  The Sheik carries on coughing, while one of the three Kiwis remaining

  in the kitchen comes up to Gawain, grinning inanely …

  Bernard-bloody-Bresslaw: Sir … Sir … he sirs – but Gawain only

  snaps: You still here? If I were you, I’d clear right out – we’re going

  in, and need room to manoeuvre. Davis, Patel … double in, Rams,

  and sharpish: get this lot outside – he indicates the Iraqis with the

  muzzle of a sidearm I seem to’ve drawn – all of ’em. And keep ’em

  covered – never know what they might have underneath their …

  bedspreads … sure of my lines, eh ? Asif is as well: The Sheik says

  he believes that they may have AyKays –. – Of course they’ve got

  bloody AyKays! The bloody schoolchildren have AyKays in this

  godforsaken country – what about anything heavier? These are

  fighters, aren’t they, Asif – AREN’T THEY? Gawain’s spoken

  TOO LOUDLY, and, despite the shuffling and scraping of the

  Iraqis getting to their feet and stretching their cramped limbs …

  EVERYONE HEARD ME. Hears him – sees him, too: because

  if the effective tank commander maintains multiple perspectives

  within the battle-space, so that battle-space maintains multiple

  perspectives on … me! They see him – Iraqis, Rams and Kiwis

  alike – see him standing hunched under the low eaves, peering

  through the distorting pane at the hooded crows clustered on the

  church roof – they see him turning towards Jonathan, who stands

  half naked in the cold light of a winter morning … You’ve got so

  bloody thin, he remembers saying – and further carping: It’s those

  dreadful little pills, isn’t it – they’re drugs, aren’t they ? They’re turning

  you into … a … scarecrow. And Jonathan? He’d laughed – he was

  always laughing nowadays, albeit … edgily. When he’d stopped

  laughing, he stretched, thrusting his ribcage into still greater

  prominence. You’ve got to enjoy deception, dearest Teddy Bear, he’d

  said. You must revel in the double life – else there’s no point to it.

  You must experience the sheer exhilaration as you take the short

  hop over the abyss yawning between one of your identities and the

  next – ‘course, you’d know all about that, since you … do it all

  the time. And Gawain, far from being flattered by this, was still

  more … riled: I’m not like you, Jonathan – really, there’s no comparison.

  I may be an … adulterer, and … um, closeted, but I’m not

  some international-man-of-bloody-mystery! Yes, a world-bestriding

  enigma, who let fall one exotic destination after another – Caracas,

  then Cairo – to impress his lover, no doubt – but also to frustrate

  any knavish tricks … For with no real idea of what Jonathan

  got up to, Gawain found it impossible to … keep my eye on him.

  But on that occasion – in Bardney, on the cold winter morning

  when he’d exposed his hand to Brian and John, Gawain was

  emboldened, and apprehended the battle-space, so for once asked him

  directly: Where’re you going? I don’t mean in general – I mean right

  now: Where the fuck’re you going? But Jonathan had only deigned to

  answer obliquely. Downstairs, signing the register with someone

  else’s name, he finally replied, Me? Well, since you ask, Brian,

  I’m just popping back to my London flat to pack, then it’s off to

  Kuwait – my firm keeps me on the move, sorta

  circus-dog-trotting-on-a-big-rubber-ball sitch … Next they were standing out in

  the lane, scraping the frost from their respective windscreens. The

  hooded crows had been restive, Gawain recalls: kraarking from

  the squat flint bell tower of the church … hakuna matata. Jonathan

  had arrived in what passed for his casual wear – an expensively soft

  brown-leather jacket, a cashmere crew-necked sweater, cords and

  leather loafers … delicate as Miffy’s ballet slippers – but he was leaving

  in full Whitehall fig: spongebag trousers, black jacket and waistcoat,

  patent-leather dress shoes, Crombie overcoat with a velvet collar …

  And of course he’d been driving the silver-grey pillarless coupé, a

  vehicle which was almost as absurdly visible! Gawain had pictured

  him then – pictures him now: the long ribbon of Lincolnshire

  tarmac unrolling from the Merc’s rear bumper, and from time to

  time a burst of chaff being fired from concealed barrels – glow worms

  up too late in the Fenland day, draping their smoky tails over

  drenched fields and dormant hedgerows. So that’s it, Gawain had

  spat. You definitely want us to be found out, don’t you? Why – is it

  the only way you can get your kicks any more? Or perhaps that

  bullshit about Kuwait was just another lie – or cover story, as you

  call them … Scccraaape. Jonathan had rubbed his hooded fingertips

  together – icy shavings fell at his well-shod feet. No, he said, that’s

  not it – I really am going to Kuwait, Teddy Bear, it was just my way

  of letting you know without having to say it right out – which goes

  rather profoundly scccraaape against the grain. There’s no need to get

  tetchy – after all, it’s rather a tricky time at work at the moment for

  both of us … To’ve shown public affection is, was – would always

  be: unthinkable. That morning, as on all the others, they’d kissed

  before leaving their room – kissed the famished kiss they always did

  on parting … Kaaa, feeding on each other’s lips and tongues

  beyond the point of satiety, ‘cause we never know when we’ll make

  another … kill. So, in the lane, they’d formally shaken cold hands.

  What did we look like? A to-the-manor-born saying farewell to his

  man-of-all-work – a deferential type, who, even in this egalitarian

  age, reaches for an invisible forelock to … tug. Some of the ’terps go

  armed – others not. When Speedwell, the Brigade Political Officer,

  visits from Amarah, he looks askance at Asif and the others lounging

  about Camp Val with the off-duty Rams – their Kalashnikovs

  locked in the same rack, while they, too … squabble over the PlayStation

  controller. Asif’s hand twitches – and it’s notoriously tricky,

  the safety on an AyKay. The armourer went over it all on Gawain’s

  last Optag: Some fighters’ll do a field modification and fuck it

  up – see, there’s this flange on the dust cover’s edge, catches the catch if you

  aren’t … careful – rendering it off when it should be on, with predictable

  results. Shocked, Asif stutters: I am t-truly not knowing – this

  Sheik-fellow, he
is saying they’re friends only –. Okay, that’s

  enough, man. Gawain silences him by raising the muzzle of the Sig

  Sauer … I’m using my sidearm in a combat situation – never done that

  before … Patel, you go right – Jenks, you go left … He waves the

  muzzle to indicate where the troopers should take up position so as

  to have the widest possible field of fire when … I open the door.

  Bessemer is being carried out on a stretcher – saline feels chilly

  going in, or so Fi told him after one of her deliveries when she

  haemorrhaged. This much Gawain remembers – but which of their

  children was it? Troubling, that – makes a bit of a mockery of my

  claim to be a conscientious husband and father … Bessemer looks

  up at his SeeOh, his lips pale and cracked, his top lip sweat-shiny.

  Sir … Sir … he kraark-kraaark croaks. He may’ve lost a lot of

  blood, but he still glows with pride – pride at his great and valiant

  achievement: wounded in the line of duty when commandeering vital

  supplies … is what he probably thinks the citation should read –

  while there’s a gaudy Ruritanian medal dangling from the crimson

  ribbon which unrolls in his mind’s eye: cast by Thos Askew and

  Sons, Jewellers and Engravers of Pickering, Yorkshire, est nineteen

  hundred and four. Ting-ting goes the swinging door: You again,

  Colonel Thomas – back from that Eyeracky carry-on, are you? Sssir,

  sssir … Bessemer hisses – and his SeeOh says: Rest easy, Trooper,

  you’ve done your bit … then squats down, and before he knows it

  Gawain’s bestowed a fatherly hand on the poor boy’s burning forehead.

  Straightening up, he cries: Carry him away! Before returning

  to the … jeweller’s: Bit of an unusual one for you, Mister Askew –

  my boys got mixed up in a little bother, somewhere we, ah, shouldn’t’ve

  been – if you get my drift … Acquitted themselves fine – Rams always

  do, but non poss any sort of official recognition, and my chaps are

  understandably aggrieved … Together with my senior officers, I thought

  we’d do a little something for them – if you’d oblige … Like a charm-thingie

  for one of those bracelets – like the one I bought for my daughter

  but bigger … In silver as well – good old sterling silver, like the

  Rams’ table decoration … He passes Mister Askew a colour printout