Phone

by Will Self

  of the photograph he cyber-shot in Al-Afrika Street: it shows the

  whitest and most pristine of the garden chairs the Kiwis tried to

  liberate from the Sheik. Askew tips his glasses to the very end of his

  Wensleydale nose and examines it. What do I really know about Islam

  and Muslims? A fragment of their burial service one of the ’terps translated

  for me: How can you reject Allah, when you were dead and then

  He gave you life, then He will make you die and then give you life

  again, then you will be returned to Him? But sir, Asif insists, you

  must be careful, I do not know what these friends are … Gawain

  looks critically at the ’terp – he’s sporting a red Sunderland EffSee

  tracksuit top … close to the boys, then, and with his hawkish profile

  and tight cap of blue-black curls he’s … almost good-looking. Asif

  has a pack of Marlboros poking from his back pocket – his shaking

  hand rests on the edge of the kitchen island. A fly dashes towards

  it … so sure of themselves in the air, Gawain thinks, dog-fighting

  over dog shit – but once grounded they lose their war-fighting

  spirit … Everyone in the kitchen hears the clatter of the helicopter

  passing overhead … Uther’s to the rescue! and Bessemer’ll soon be

  gone. It’s time for the rest of them to withdraw as well – Trimmer

  had been perfectly clear: Stick around for too long, Greeny, and the

  mucky lot – the Badr boys … well, takes ’em a while to clear their hash

  heads and sort their shit out, but when they do they’ll get on the blower

  and scare up a mob … Cause you plenty of bother – and provide them

  with plenty of … cover. You, Gawain orders Asif: get over there,

  duck down for cover … some cover – chipboard versus semi-automatic

  fire, and call out to the Sheik’s friends. Tell ’em they’re to push their

  weapons out first with their feet, then follow on with their hands

  high. Asif queries: In Arabic or English – or … Farsi? All bloody

  three, Gawain replies, retreating to the kitchen doorway, from

  where he believes he’ll be able to cover all eventualities … barring

  explosives. The troopers give their SeeOh tight smiles and thumbs-ups,

  and he notes important details: all three have spare magazines

  duct-taped to the stocks of their rifles for … speedy reloading.

  On the point of no return … Gawain feels his wife’s workmanlike

  hands on his shoulders: Because that’s the way we touch each other

  nowadays, with cursory efficiency – measuring each other up for a

  carpet … or a coffin. What’d Fi said? It’d been when the coaches

  were arriving – drawing up in front of the mess hall, and the young

  men were tipping their heavy bergens from their shoulders into the

  open luggage compartments … what did she say? There’d been

  the thin, watery sunlight of a late March afternoon in northern

  latitudes, and, mounting up behind her the moors all tawny big

  cats up there … kill sheep so they say – what did she say? Looked

  Gawain in the eye, she did, and said … But no, it doesn’t return to

  him … While I, he thinks, can never return to her, not with blood

  on my hands … What d’you fancy ? Jonathan sat grinning toothily,

  across from him in the Royal Oak – an efficient rather than an olde

  worlde pub, with pool table and jukebox towards the back of the

  bar, while they were plonked down by the front window, either side

  of a large fake-wicker basket full of individual sauce sachets …

  English mustard, vinegar, tartare, brown, gory tomato … It’ll have to

  be a steak, is what he always says. Fish’ll be frozen – pies’ll be processed.

  Steak’ll probably be shit, too, but it’s got more in its favour,

  so, saignant ou à point? Ou entre saignant et à point? Alors …

  peut-être entre à point et bien cuit, ‘cause you’ve always struck me as

  a well-cooked kinda guy, Gawain … And the well-cooked kinda guy

  had replied: Don’t be facetious, Jonathan, you’re not in some trendy

  London restaurant now. Worst luck, he’d muttered … the butcher!

  And Gawain had an impulse to grab the cutlery, tightly wrapped in

  a thick red paper serviette, unwrap the steak knife, plunge it in his

  complacent neck and watch the fucker bleed out on the carpet … His

  wife’s words at last return to Lieutenant-Colonel Gawain Thomas

  as he toggles the Sig Sauer’s safety, which is just the latest entry on

  the long list of everything I’m doing wrong: I don’t need to tell you to

  be careful, she’d said. Gawain snaps his fingers – Asif coughs out.

  A pause. He coughs again. A nasty hiatus – then mutterings audible

  from behind the door. The damned door – the six-panelled Georgian

  door: not dissimilar to the ones Gawain sees every morning back

  home, when he sets off for work … ranged round the cul-de-sac. Tell

  ’em they’re surrounded, Gawain calls to the ’terp … ‘cause there’s

  no butcher here who’ll cry cliché! Do it! And Asif dutifully translates

  this into … bronchitis. Another pause, then sc-sc-sccrrrraaaape the

  door scrapes over the tiled floor … He’d driven off down Church

  Lane without so much as a backward glance. Cruel, really, and

  unnecessary – could’ve given me a peck on the cheek … entre à

  point et bien cuit. But then we’ve never been able to talk about the

  physical side of our relationship much – any more than we’ve been

  able to talk … shop! The men who emerge blinking into the hard

  light of the kitchen are grey-faced and furtive. There’re one … two

  … four of them easy-peasy … nice and … neat beards, black robes

  and white clerical-looking turbans. They stand, stranded on the far

  shore of the kitchen island, and Asif coughs at them: they cough

  back, and he leaps up swinging the muzzle of his AyKay in an arc

  which traverses … their bellies. Sokay … click-click sokay, Asif says

  … his teeth won’t obey his jaw: So-click-click-kay … no guns … so-click-kay

  … Gawain gestures with the Sig Sauer and the two

  troopers rise up, move forward and pat the beards down … they’d’ve

  enjoyed this in Bardney, where Gawain had in point of fact resisted

  the impersonal farewell, hung on to Jonathan’s gloved hand and

  asked directly: Why Kuwait, is the balloon about to go up? Up –

  we both looked up … ‘cause I thought that he’d want what I want …

  Yes, they’d both looked up, and witnessed a similar meterological

  phenomenon up there in the Lincolnshire sky – an unusual one,

  certainly, but by no means unprecedented: a single, puffy-white

  cloud hanging maybe four or five thousand feet … away from the

  flock. Jonathan had slowly removed his overcoat, then his jacket,

  folded each in turn and laid them on the Merc’s back seat. When he

  eventually replied it’d been in the most official of drawls: Ye-es,

  we-ell, Dicky-dearest has got it into his head there’s a viable asset

  in that neck of the woods. Utter bullshit, I’m sure – prob’ly just

  some Ba’athist cadre who’s weighed up the odds and decided since

  his life is effectively worthless under the regime he may as we
ll cash

  it in with us – the Firm’s always been a cash-on-demand business,

  as the epithet would suggest … In bed, as they post-coitally

  slumbered, Gawain’s lover was tender and vulnerable, but with each

  successive layer of expensive material he sheathed his body in, he

  grew more and more condescending. Only an hour since, Gawain

  had been revelling in his two-up promotion: Top cover! Best possible

  position for a tank commander – he can scope out the terrain

  ahead … the clonking mahogany headboard, the striped wallpaper …

  that butcher’s bed-head buried in … the pillow … Yet there he was,

  shuffling his merely serviceable shoes on the frozen bitumen, racking

  his brains for the meaning of … epithet. Kindly escort these, ah,

  gentlemen outside, Colonel Thomas instructs his men – then to

  Asif: Tell them we’ve reason to believe they came over the border in

  the night, so we’re going to take them back to Camp Val for

  preliminary questioning … and … if they can’t satisfy us as to the

  legitimacy of their, ah, business … well, we’ll have to send them

  down to the DeeDeeEff at Shaibah … As he speaks Gawain falls

  in behind the troopers, the ’terp and the mysterious mullahs – and

  when he’s finished they’re all standing, sun-struck, back in the

  high noon of Al-Afrika Street. Fresh sweat bursts from Gawain’s

  armpits and crotch, soaking through each successive layer of cheap

  material … Only the previous week he’d come upon some Rams

  just back off patrol: they were sitting in the shadow of the compound

  wall, frying eggs on the ceramic plaques they’d removed

  from their body armour. The Colonel had stood in silence and

  watched while the full screw who was doing the frying took

  the orders: Easy-over, lads, or sunny-side up? Whistling while he

  worked – until, that is, he became aware of this … deeper shadow

  looming over him: Good to see you lads aren’t cooking in your

  Guccis, Gawain had begun easily enough, bantering away. You

  wouldn’t want to have egg on your ties – might put off those

  well-born Arabian virgins we hear so much about … But then

  the seriousness of their situation had begun to bear down on

  him. Heavily: Small piece of advice, though. Down in Basra, where

  things’re a fuck of a lot hairier, our comrades are dying for want of

  adequate armour – you’re aware of that, are you? Aware of the

  wider-bloody-picture? There’d been a surly silence – they looked at

  the father of the regiment with the sheepy, shame-faced expressions

  of … the naughty boys they still are. Naughty boys who took the

  Duke of Edinburgh’s challenge seriously, struggling up the scree

  of Scafell Pike, wishing, hoping, dreaming all the way … I wanna

  go to war. As he’d walked away, the responsibility of command

  heavy on my shoulders, Gawain heard the men burst into excitable

  chatter – the way schoolboys do when they’ve been told off by a

  hated teacher whose authority is rapidly waning … my fault, I fear.

  He should’ve hung on to Jonathan’s hand forever, on that frosty

  March morning – hung on to it and pressed it to my lips … Then

  confessed that: all things considered, rather than fight the coming

  war with the weapons, the tactics and the skill-set designed for

  another conflict altogether, he’d far prefer it if his own skin were to

  be sheathed in silk … not sweat. Should’ve admitted he couldn’t

  forgive his lover for not shaving off his beards and making his

  own … public avowal. And, most sheepily and shame-facedly of all,

  should’ve told Jonathan that the only time he’d ever enjoyed a trip

  to the theatre was when they were at the Academy, and he and

  Tizer went on a double-date. Tizer nearly lost his nut – ‘cause his

  girl had booked them all tickets to see … some gay-fucking musical!

  Okay, everyone? Gawain says, glancing to the end of the street,

  where the cracked concrete minaret wavers in the super-heated

  air … admonishing me. The Rams nod their helmets as their SeeOh

  does a quick head-count: with the five Iranians added into the

  mix, there’re eighteen suspects – then there’re the Kiwis and their

  Force Protection, and of course the brick he arrived with – fuck!

  Ruddy-fucking fuck-fuck! Fuckety-fucking fuck! Fucking Pythian –

  Arbroath … Hodges! He’s lost control of the battle-space, and the

  confirmation of this comes immediately, in the form of … popcorn

  being made on a massive scale! – an automatic rifle firing a burst on

  the rooftop above. Then, all hell breaks lose … When it’s over – and

  it’s over in seconds – the trooper on top cover in the Wimmik is

  screaming … more clichés: None of youse move a muscle! I’ve got

  you all covered! Which he does: the evil eye of the geepee-emmgee

  swings back and forth, from one crumpled bedspread to the next.

  Gawain shouts out, Anyone wounded? And Pythian appears up

  above, silhouetted against the hurting sky, his arm raised and

  waving: Man down, Boss! He shouts, It’s Hodges … Great! Fucking

  great the way he spoke to me – so unbelievably patronising:

  Things’re ramping up, Gawain – who knows how much time we’ll

  be able to snatch from the jaws of war? Balloon’s definitely going up

  before the summer – of that there seems little doubt: TeeBee’s so far

  up Bush’s bum they’re using the same toothbrush – and when they

  run out of toothpaste, either Dicky or John’s on hand to oblige. You

  Rams’ll get your precious deployment sooner or later, while as for

  me? We-ell, let’s just put it this way: there’re people I care about out

  there in the sandpit – kiddies, some of ’em, really – and I’d as soon

  they were all tucked up in beddy-byes before you lot start playing

  with your toy tanks … Ye-es, playing with toy tanks, indeed.

  A month or two later Gawain had been sat at home – their new

  one, exclusive to EmmOhDee personnel – and watching the advance –

  as he had so many of the critical conflicts of the era – on fucking telly.

  The platforms that’d been Herced into Kuwait headed north in a

  cloud of dust. How had the brave boys looked on their toy tanks?

  Not terribly ally – some of them didn’t even have desert camos, and

  were potentially going to their deaths in crappy, standard-issue

  battledress. A cup of tea balanced on his emerging paunch, Gawain

  goggled as infanteers moved along the rutted roads into Basra – and

  how did they look then? Eccentrically overdressed when compared

  with the Basratis, who trotted past them, lolling across the shafts of

  their donkey carts, the sleeves of their tartan shirts rolled up, one

  hand casually supporting a looted air-conditioner unit or a teetering

  stack of … white plastic garden chairs. Then there’d been more

  footage, taken at an intersection where two roads crossed on their

  way to … nowhere: a noisy crowd of Basratis doing their best to

  ignore some skinny-necked boys from Pwllheli, prob’ly – or …

  dunno, Daventry – who were taking a fag-break in a nearby ditch.

&n
bsp; Stretched out in a Barcalounger Fi sweetly believed would help him

  with his bad back, Gawain had been further transfixed, as all the

  brand-new fixtures and furnishings vanished from around him:

  the watercolours of Snowdonia slipped their hooks, the spotlights

  slid off their tracking, the fitted carpets pulled out their own staples

  and rolled themselves up – then all of it reappeared, on-screen,

  piled high on the back of a Toyota pickup which was being driven

  at speed along … the Via Dolorosa. In those first few weeks of the

  conflict Gawain experienced the sort of tense exhilaration Jonathan

  displays every time … he pops one of those bloody pills. Walking on

  Sundays after church parade, with the children up by Fylingdales,

  he visualised the electro-magnetic waves pulsing from these

  humongous golf-ball-shaped installations – and thought of those

  who received them: the spooks and EssEff bods, the selectively

  briefed policymakers … This exalted community partook of the

  wafers, threw back the wine and so were transformed, becoming

  completely aware of the wider picture. But he … he’d strode on,

  Gore-Tex boots slipping and sliding through drenched gorse as the

  children whooped and skipped beneath a high, wide moorland sky:

  he strode on, towards a horizon he never reached, all the while

  muttering this very plain chant: We have to go … We have to go …

  We have to go … Had to go because: They need us there … Just as

  the Rams had been needed in Sierra Leone and Kosovo – at Imjin

  and Inkerman. He strode on, g-g-grinding his teeth – and was

  g-g-grinding them still! Was it two hours, or two years later? Sat

  back in the Portakabin, as he types up his report prior to emailing

  it down to aitchqueue, his jaw clenched and … aching: Double-youOhTwo

  Pythian surprised the two suspected fighters, who were hiding

  on the roof, and in the exchange of fire Trooper Hodges was wounded.

  Down below, in the street, A Squadron’s interpreter, Asif al-Sayyab,

  assuming his comrades and their detainees were coming under fire,

  attempted to return fire. Unfortunately, his weapon jammed, and he

  was shot and killed by one of the detainees who had secreted a weapon

  … Weapon-weapon … Under fire – return fire … These clumsy

  repetitions bother the Colonel – at Sandhurst he’d endless difficulties