Phone

by Will Self

  experienced as the Butcher can feel a little trepidation when he’s

  plying the scalpel on my own flesh … Is it Amir, is it? This question

  has tormented him ever since Dicky asked him to do this little

  favour – other colleagues have been out in the field, desperately

  trying to tie up any loose ends. Clearly, now fuck-all’s been found

  in the way of ennbeesee, the official enquiries are going to go from

  now until the Last Trump: the Butcher sees a committee room in

  Portcullis House, its bland slab of conference table and modular

  multimedia carousel – sees a harrumphing Chairman and dozing

  EmPees and scratching hacks. Sees the Angel of the Lord slice off

  all their foggily bureaucratic heads with his Samsung scythe … Yes,

  it’ll go on forever, with the pols grilling their barely civil servants,

  even as their own disingenuous noses grow and grow … But, while

  the source known as Curveball has bounced out into the open,

  and the Iraqi provocateurs who claimed to’ve had sources in the

  Mukhabarat are too flaky to be a threat, there’s this other fellow …

  is it, Amir – is it? whom Dicky, John – maybe even TeeBee’s filthy

  little fucker of a flack – were dumb enough to trust, and possibly

  even meet with, although they couldn’t be that stupid – could

  they? And if it is Amir? Well, he wouldn’t scruple to dump them all

  in it since he’s no fucking scruples at all. No scruples – and no hesitation

  in going to the highest bidder, because if you’re a half-Iraqi,

  half-Iranian Shia, with smarts enough to’ve worked your way up

  from nowhere to become a senior officer in the Islamic Republic’s

  intelligence services, then defected during the great patriotic war,

  then played both ends against the middle, well: loose ends are your

  stock-in-trade. But is it Amir … is it? The intel’ had come through

  via the slime’s aitchqueue – then to the Doughnut, and finally to

  VeeBeeArr: the asset they were interested in had successfully

  crossed the border near a town called Ali al-Garbi, but before he’d

  had the opportunity to identify himself to Coalition forces he’d

  been scooped up in a hard knock and taken to the local base …

  hard edge – and the light touch of … fate. The Butcher is buzzing: he

  hasn’t spoken to Gawain in over a month – they risked one call

  shortly after the Rams arrived in theatre, and Lieutenant-Colonel

  Thomas had waxed unexpectedly lyrical about the black sheep:

  You’re not gonna b’lieve it, Jonathan … when the Republican

  Guard pulled out of here they set fire to the wellheads, whole town

  was blanketed in the smoke for days – turned all the sheep black!

  It’s pretty bloody funny, really – when we arrived at the camp

  gates there was a flock of the poor silly things waiting for us …

  Prophetic – or what? Deplaning in Kuwait, the Samsung Barry gave

  him clonks lightly against his hip – the Butcher’s cresting the great

  wave of his own humanised electro-being. He popped a couple more

  pills on the flight … it’ll be a long day, and watched a film in which

  a young couple both get it together … and don’t – a fairly tedious

  counterfactual, he thinks, compared to the one he’s trying to

  engineer. Close protection are waiting for the Butcher ground side,

  and he can tell they’re impressed by how insouciantly Savile Row-suited

  he is – and how unencumbered: No luggage, sir – not even

  carry on? says the burly, shaven-headed Green Jackets Sergeant

  commanding the detail – and the Butcher says nothing, only shoots

  my cuffs … a silent rebuke to the Sergeant’s own exposed forearms,

  with their childhood Biro doodles called tattoos … At his request

  they drive him to the Shuwaikh district, where the general provisioning

  shops are. The Bangladeshi has purple lips and a boil on his

  forehead – he disappears between stacks of jerry-cans and coils of

  tow-rope to search for the items he’s been asked for, and, when he’s

  assembled the pile on the counter, the Butcher points out a canvas

  holdall and asks him to, Put it all in there, will you? He slings the

  bag in the back of the Wimmik and, getting in beside the driver,

  turns to the Sergeant: I’ve business at the Hilton before we can

  get going … They take him along Arabian Gulf Street, past the

  kebab joints. Kuwaiti girls sit at the pavement tables smoking

  shisha-pipes – the Butcher smells the fruity fumes as the car barrels

  by, and thinks of Sally lying tiger-striped by shadows while he rubs

  lip balm around her anus. The driver pulls up by the Hilton sign,

  and the Sergeant says: Off limits to uniformed personnel, sir – we’ll

  park up and wait. The Butcher walks along the curving concrete

  esplanade between the white reef of the hotel and the white sand of

  the machine-made beach. There are parboiled Brits on sun loungers

  – the families of EffOh staff stationed in-country. He hears them

  talking about Sven-Göran Eriksson’s love life – someone sing-songs

  in an undertone, You’re beautiful … it’s true. He enters an air-conditioned

  shopping mall through soundlessly sliding doors, and,

  passing by racks festooned with pashminas, lifts one to his discerning

  nose so he can savour the faintest odour of … Kaaaashmir.

  In the lobby area he speaks with an Indian dressed in the chain’s

  natty-green uniform, and then he’s conducted to a back office.

  The sign on the door reads: MISTER MARSHALSEA, HEAD OF

  SECURITY. — Less than an hour later their convoy is under way:

  three Wimmiks, no less – the one carrying the Butcher in the

  middle. The desert, the Butcher thinks, should be clean and stark

  and ecstatically eternal – but the environs of Kuwait City are grubby,

  cluttered and painfully … provisional. A breeze has got up and grit

  spatters the windscreen. They drive out along Highway Six, passing

  old Mercs and newer Toyota pickups coming the other way, plus the

  occasional British military truck painted the colour of old custard …

  with young squaddies lolling on top, keffiyehs round their necks,

  goggles masking their exhausted eyes. They take the road for Umm

  Qasr, which curves around the city, and the Butcher watches the

  sun set into a golden haze of dust behind the gleaming towers of …

  El Dorado, while a perfect crescent moon rises in the west, its low

  rays lighting the scrublands along the coast and glimmering on

  the waters of the Gulf. The border is, the Butcher thinks, similarly

  allegorical: a Portaloo in lieu of a guardhouse, which is manned by

  someone who does indeed have shit-for-brains. They wait while he

  phones here, then there, to check their authorisation – then wait

  some more for the aypeesee to arrive from Shaibah. The Butcher

  wants to get out and stretch his legs, then sit in the cool of the desert

  night on a conveniently located white plastic garden chair – but the

  jobsworth Sergeant won’t let him unless he puts on a helmet and

  twelve kilogrammes of body armour. Clearly, this is a man who

  knows nothing of what it takes to preserve … fine tailoring
. When

  the vehicle finally arrives, he insists the Butcher cross-deck into it,

  which he does purely in order to keep the peace. They continue north.

  The Sergeant says, In-and-out job, is it, sir? And the Butcher, his

  hips painfully grating in the poorly upholstered bucket seat, gives

  a small, tight smile. Looking through the tinted side window at

  the moonlight glazing the dune crests, the Butcher ponders the

  revolution that’s taken place inside his head. It began, he thinks,

  years ago – although he failed to notice it, so slight, to begin with,

  was the modulation in the tone adopted by my malignant deceiver.

  But then he stopped lisping! Stopped lisping – and stopped teasing

  and back-biting as well. His voice became deeper, his accent more

  public school – and he began delivering little homilies rather than

  snide asides (Such a bore, that – there’s a limit, isn’t there, to such

  badinage, don’tcha think?). When, with the darkened desert

  streaming into his gaping pupils, the Butcher considers his relationship

  with Squilly … a hundred and one nights of jittery fabulation, it

  occurs to him that at some point in the past decade or so … I passed

  him by. Squilly, who, for as long as the Butcher could remember,

  had been dominant, always yanking his chain, forever threatening

  him with the lash of his lisping tongue, had failed to move with the

  times – failed, specifically, to get older. What was it Kins used to

  sing after his second drink of the evening … Put your head on my

  shoulder, You need someone who’s older … his saggy red face suffused

  with sentiment. The Butcher, who’s now been up for twenty hours

  and is strung out taut as Tamsin’s gee-string, wouldn’t mind resting

  his head on the shoulder of the man sitting next to him – a private

  contractor who’s customised his rifle with childish decals …

  Eat Lead … Die Another Day … Pudsey Bear … Shits, Shits – I See

  No Shits … He must’ve slept (With his head on my shoulder), the

  sweat pooling in the bucket seat, because next he’s waking up, and

  drenched … shivering – have to run a caucus-race … They’re under

  searchlights in the rat-run. The Sergeant swivels round and delivers

  this snide critique: Bit of a late arrival, sir, I hope whatever you’ve

  brought in that holdall justifies the risk you’ve exposed me and my

  men to … But the Butcher only grunts, and, sitting up, begins

  groping under the seat. You’ll need to sit tight ‘til they’ve check– the

  Sergeant begins, but stops because there’s a small group of very

  obvious brass coming towards them along the sandbagged gulley,

  and next the door of the Fuchs is being opened: I’m Major-General

  Fitzhugh, says a tall, stooping, donnish man, and this is my Two-EyeSee,

  Gerry Fox – and you are? Jonathan, says the Butcher,

  getting out of the aypeesee and stretching luxuriously. Reaching

  back in, he pulls out the holdall, and, turning to the Sergeant, says,

  loudly enough for the rest of his men to hear: You’re not a fucking

  nanny, man – and this is no nursery. If I ever run across you

  again, I’ll thank you to do as you’re told and keep your fucking trap

  shut … A little abrupt, Fitzhugh says as they weave through walls

  of sandbags and chainlink fences draped with hessian cloth – did

  he do something to nettle you? And the Butcher, stepping lightly,

  says, I’m here on a matter of state security, General – something

  profoundly important to AitchEmmGee. That chap seemed to feel

  the safety of a handful of ‘roided-up ex-nightclub bouncers was

  more important – I didn’t … There’s silence for a while, except for

  the crunch of their shoes on sand, then their cold slap on cooling

  concrete. Met you once before, the General says, as they come round

  the end of a T-wall and see the base spreading out before them,

  row upon row of low concrete buildings, set out with something of

  hell’s lack of imagination … You were lunching with your Chief

  at the Cavalry and Guards … Pulling up short, the Butcher reins

  in Fitzhugh, Fox and the other unnamed bods, and, giving the

  General a full scan, matches him: Ah, yes – Charles, isn’t it? You

  were taking your wife to see the History Boys, and wondered

  whether either Dick or I had been … Fitzhugh’s face is an allegorical

  painting in the moonlight: Unease and Relief fighting each other

  to a standstill, he says, Yes … yes … that’s right – astonishing

  memory you have … I s’pose that rather goes with the territory.

  Now, er, Jonathan, this matter in hand – this man you’re interested

  in … Well, thing is, our people up in Ali al-Garbi may’ve braced

  him a little hard … I don’t know – could be he had some preexisting

  condition … Anyway, when they arrived here at eleven

  hundred he was –. Really? the Butcher interrupts. That’s splendid

  news – now I won’t have to do the business myself, chop him up,

  bung the pieces in this holdall I picked up in Kuwait City and bury

  it in the bloody desert … A suitably shocked silence meets this

  lethal insouciance: the professors of violence stand staring at him,

  waiting no doubt for the rider: only joking … which doesn’t come.

  Instead, the Butcher says: In which case you might tell me where

  I can get my head down, General – I can identify the body in the

  morning. They walk on, passing guard posts manned by … heavy

  smokers (Wouldn’t mind bumming a fag myself). From reports

  he’s read, the Butcher knows the Shaibah base is the size of a small

  town – a home to tens of thousands of mainly British troops, their

  support staff and civilian contractors. By night it’s … a faubourg

  of shadows, out of which, from time to time, a helicopter lifts …

  spitting out feux d’artifice, and dances away over the perimeter

  wall. They pass by the tinted windows of a bar established circa two

  thousand and three in a reinforced concrete bunker – looking in,

  the Butcher sees all the gamesmanship to be expected: big men –

  and a few big women – taking time out from punching well below

  their weight to play pool and darts by little boys’ rules … On a wall-mounted

  screen there’s the former Royals and Blues officer

  reassuring them they’re … beautiful, although, in his parka, in the

  purity of his love, awaiting his angel, he most certainly … isn’t.

  They trudge on – and the Butcher knows Fitzhugh is silent

  only because he’s struggling to find the appropriate words. In the

  Butcher’s experience, which is rich, varied and includes being

  roundly buggered by them … military men are usually pretty inarticulate.

  But at last, as they near what are clearly accommodation units

  of some sort, the General chimes up: Thing is … ah, Jonathan …

  Thing is, our man from Ali al-Garbi’s still here – in a bit of a state

  actually … Sound chap, so far as I can gather – played loose head

  for the army in his day … Anyway, Provost Marshal’s sort of

  got … involved – inevitable, really, after the kerfuffle up at Majar

 
al-Kabir … The General keeps tailing off, clearly expecting the

  Butcher to interject – but he doesn’t, so eventually Fitzhugh is

  compelled to: Thing is … he’d rather like a word with you. Of

  course – the General now rushes on – I realise this is pretty

  unorthodox, but, given the highly unusual circs, we rather thought

  you might be able to put his mind at rest … smooth things … over

  … as it were. In the silence which follows this ridiculously big breach,

  the Butcher hearkens to his own inner-counsel (In my not especially

  humble opinion, Johnny, you’ve no need to remain loyal to any of

  ’em – politicians, the military and especially your own doubly

  duplicitous colleagues. I always counselled you against this career –

  and now look where it’s taken you.) To which he soundlessly replies,

  What’s it to you, anyway, you bigoted old fool – this is my lover

  you’re talking about, my noon, my midnight – my talk, my song?

  Everything you refused to acknowledge about me – everything you

  could never accept. (Well, not to be too pat, or too pi: times change –

  I do accept that. Y’know, I, more than most, am able to concede

  that my prejudices were formed by my background. Views which

  were once wildly heterodox have become really rather mainstream –

  you take my own field, local government finance … Why, when I

  published my first book in …) On it drones onanon, but, whereas

  when it issued from living lips, the Butcher experienced each and

  every phoneme as … a lash across already opened wounds, he now

  finds these familiar words nothing but comforting, so, as Kins

  pontificates, he says to Major-General Fitzhugh: All right, then, I’ll

  see if I can calm the silly fucker down – then I’ll have a word with

  the Provost Marshal, find out exactly how far things have got. You

  can dump your bag in here, sir, says one of the General’s bods,

  unlocking a metal door and swinging it open. The Butcher walks in

  and Fitzhugh follows: We call ’em pods – for obvious reasons. None

  too comfy, but you’re under hard cover, which is more than can be

  said for the majority of our men – certainly those in the outlying

  bases – but I’m sure you people in London are perfectly well aware