Phone

by Will Self

of that. The Butcher looks at the landlord-magnolia walls of the

  pod. He looks out through the thick Perspex window at the distorted

  view of the pod opposite. He drops the holdall on the single

  bed and looks at Fitzhugh, who must’ve escaped being retired by

  one of his own greying whiskers. The General takes off his wire-rimmed

  spectacles and massages his saggy eyes. His face is dead in

  the mortuary light. The Butcher takes an interest in a tray with tea

  bags, coffee, sugar sachets and miniature youaitchtee milk pots –

  then hitches his silk-weave trousers at the knee, so he may bend and

  open the dinky fridge. Inside there’s a green apple and a Mars Bar

  on a small plate. The Butcher picks the chocolate bar up, his fingers

  absorbing the chill and savouring it. Fitzhugh says abruptly, We’re

  launching this sort of media strategy here – EffOh initiative, but

  thing is to sort of normalise relations. The Butcher queries: With

  the Basratis? And Fitzhugh laughs shortly, Heh-heh, no-no, ‘fraid

  we’re rather out of the running there – no, normalise relations with

  the media. One of the bods steps forward – he has a Coldstreamer’s

  Captain’s badges, longish dark hair and a slightly sloppy, dew-picked

  expression. He wears his camos … as if they were fucking

  chinos and hands the Butcher a press pack blazoned with the slogan

  A BETTER BASRA, in what some press officer presumably imagines

  is a sexy typeface. The Butcher looks into the bod’s eagerly exhausted

  face and says, You’re beautiful. Fitzhugh laughs his little laugh:

  Heh-heh – the bod blushes – and the Butcher says, Just thinking of

  your chap with the hit single – hear it everywhere I bloody go. He

  chucks the folder on to the bed beside the holdall and says, Shall

  we, gentlemen? Fitzhugh says, Don’t you want to have a wash and

  brush-up? And the Butcher says, I’m not going on a fucking date.

  Then they’re walking through a narrow defile between yet more

  hessian-swathed fences and Fitzhugh’s maundering on about

  incoming rockets and arrpeegees: Since things’ve hotted up everything

  has to come in by night, air-wise – even then the Merlins

  can touch down only for a few seconds, unload, and they’re away

  again … The Butcher sees Portakabins and Hesco walls, sangars

  and breeze-block-built blockhouses jumbled up in the moonlight –

  thinks of how it is that any large military camp represents the sum

  total of – (A lot of grown-up children playing with building blocks,

  wouldn’t you say, Johnny …). They pass through a wicket gate

  manned by a Gurkha sentry who punctiliously examines all their

  eyedees. One of Fitzhugh’s bods indicates the locked rack of sidearms

  beside the gate: No weapons inside the Divisional Detention

  Centre, sir, so if you’ve … ? The Butcher gives him a cold, old look:

  Don’t be silly, young man … And to Fitzhugh he says, Y’know

  what the military historians will call this phase of the conflict when

  they come to write it up, General? Fitzhugh, who’s chaining his

  automatic to the rack, grunts interrogatively, so the Butcher tells

  him: Losing – that’s what they’ll call it. Fitzhugh doesn’t respond

  to this provocation, only gestures to the low concrete blockhouses

  and says, This is where all those detained in our sector are brought

  for processing – Rams brought eight down from Maysan this

  morning, unfortunately two of them were dead on arrival … They

  turn into another narrow defile between fences all dressed up –

  but with nowhere to go … at the end of which something whitely

  insubstantial looms, which, as they draw nearer, turns into a translucent

  white plastic tent, lit from within so its occupants appear in

  the form of two clearly defined black shadows writ large on the

  canopy: one the bulky outline of a man seated upright in a chair,

  the other long, low and rectangular. Moths and other night insects

  are crawling over the translucent fabric … bamboozled muons and

  positrons, their antennae twitching, their tattered wings fluttering.

  A vast sheet, the Butcher thinks, has been thrown over the camp,

  one patterned with towers, domes and cupolas – all the superfluous

  ornamentation you’d expect to see if you were arriving by camel

  for Belshazzar’s feast. There’re two red caps standing at ease beside

  the tent flap. They’re wearing full body armour and snap to attention

  as Fitzhugh’s party strides towards them. At ease … at ease … he

  says – and to the Butcher: I could, ah, dismiss these men …

  Jonathan, but I’d rather not. The Butcher takes the ArrEmmPee

  Corporal to one side and shows him his EssEyeEss eyedee and

  diplomatic passport: I’ll be speaking to your boss shortly, he says in

  an undertone, but in the meantime I want you and your colleague to

  skedaddle, roger that? The red cap, who must be a deal smarter than

  your average plod, simply gestures to the private to fall in, and the

  two of them evaporate into the Iraqi night. A dog starts barking

  somewhere out beyond the perimeter. Barks and barks and screams

  some more. Y’know, Fitzhugh says, they don’t treat the poor mutts

  as pets at all – never allow ’em in the house, it’s against their religion.

  Haram, the Butcher says, and Fitzhugh says, Bless you, and the

  Butcher says, No, it’s haram – it means forbidden. It’s forbidden

  to have a working animal in the home – now … if you’ll excuse me?

  The beautiful Coldstreamer Captain salutes the Butcher, and Gerry

  Fox says, Thirty minutes enough for you? And the Butcher replies,

  More than … and the defeated brass and their bods tactically

  withdraw. The Butcher stands for a moment, sniffing the night

  air: burning dung and cooling piss – the after-reeks of cordite and

  phosphorous from the chaff fired by ascending Merlins. Soon, he

  thinks, I’ll be standing in Sloane Street, looking in the window

  of an Italian suit retailer, and wondering whether I can face the

  ignominy of buying off-the-peg never allow them in the house –

  it’s against their religion … The Butcher remembers a reception at

  the Embassy in Vienna twenty years past – the usual suspects:

  EffOh wonks and their wives … the Anglican vicar … the British

  Council representative – who had indeed borne an uncanny

  resemblance to Wilfrid Hyde-White – and the opera singer or

  ballet dancer he’d brought over from Blighty to be preyed upon

  by sharp-beaked, flabby-faced and chiffon-winged Austrian lady

  culture-vultures. Bored to distraction by the speechifying, the

  Butcher had wandered away towards pastures old: wood-panelled

  reception rooms and salons with pale striped wallpaper in which the

  dust motes rose from over-stuffed armchairs to hover below lead-crystal

  chandeliers. He’d touched up the old ivories of an ancient

  Bösendorfer baby grand – he’d sipped his not-so-Qualitätswein,

  and admired a sub-Sargent: a jut-jawed lass, her face at the epicentre

  of an explosion of silks and satins. He’d peered at another painting:

  Henry de Worms, First Baron Pirbright, Pol
itician, Writer and

  Historian of Austrian Descent … and marvelled at the timelessness

  of such solecisms … A servant came soundlessly across the Persian

  rug towards him, bearing a silver salver on which there was a small

  pyramid of gold-foil-wrapped bonbons … exquisitely … captivatingly

  … clichéd, and the Butcher took one and slowly unwrapped

  it. Why does he remember this episode so distinctly? Not only

  because of the chocolate testicle which melted on the palm of his

  hand … not in my mouth – but also because of the message the servant

  dutifully delivered, verbatim: Mister Amir is outside the embassy

  building, sir. He’s in a metallic-green Volkswagen parked at the junction

  of Salesianergasse and Strohgasse – he says he’s only half an hour, sir …

  The Mars Bar is melting in the Butcher’s hand (You’ll mess up that

  suit of yours …), and the cracked actor’s words, penned for him by

  his filthy little flack, have also been retrieved from his database:

  Looking back over twelve years, we have been victims of our own desire

  to placate the implacable … He pulls open the tent flap and hunches

  inside. Gawain sits on a white plastic garden chair. He’s wearing

  full body armour and holds his helmet in his lap. His face is drawn,

  bloodless – its expression is utterly vacant. The corpse of a man lies

  on a table in the exact centre of the tent, naked except for threadbare

  boxer shorts in a faded blue-and-green Paisley pattern, and

  irradiated by the harsh white light of an unshaded bulb clipped

  to the tent’s ridgepole. It’s this clash of patterns that troubles the

  Butcher initially: the Formica tabletop the corpse lies on has exactly

  the same multicoloured speckles as the ones in the canteen at Saint

  Alban’s Grammar … these eggshell fragments shored against my ruin.

  The corpse is that of a man in his early fifties, of Middle Eastern

  origin, with a thin ascetic face … you’ve waited twelve years, why

  not wait a little longer? Its skin is less picturesque than General

  Fitzhugh’s face: a sickly beige canvas daubed with purple and

  maroon patches where the contusions inflicted before death have

  subsequently clotted … One eye is so bruised it’s swollen completely

  shut, the other’s wide open and staring dully at the dull roof of the

  dull tent – whoever worked the man over did so systematically,

  dully, over many hours. The Butcher takes two strides and is beside

  the table, looking down into that face – a face he matches against

  scores of potentially relevant images he retrieves from his vast databank

  of all those he’s ever had business with. One time at Thames

  House, Ventris, a senior plod, thought he’d belittle the Butcher

  by introducing him to one of the so-called super-recognisers they

  retained – in this case to try to match the walk-ups who’d streamed

  in after the Twin Towers attacks against thousands of indistinct

  mug-shots the Pakistanis had reluctantly ponied up. While the

  super-recogniser was actually doing his bit, the Butcher scanned the

  screen over his shoulder for a few seconds, then tapped here, ping!

  and there, ping! Those’re your matches, he’d said curtly – now go

  and give ’em a pull and stop piddling to the press about how under-fucking-resourced

  you are … But this face – this thin, intellectual

  face, with a nose which would’ve been pretty, had it not long since

  been broken twice – once by the Iraqi Mukhabarat, once by the

  Iranian Vaja – this face the Butcher matches against younger, live

  versions of itself, met initially in Vienna in ninety-one … next seen

  across a café table in Aman in ninety-three … through a plate-glass

  window in Cairo in ninety-five … reflected in the wing mirror

  of an old Peugeot in Tehran in ninety-nine. Not that he needs any

  comparison: he knew who the man was that morning, standing in

  the blankly buzzing clarity of his own house … pulling up my pants.

  He stares down into the corpse’s open eye, seeing there, caught in

  the already fraying net of its retina, a single silvery image, frail

  as Victorian découpage … I also want to pay tribute to our Intelligence

  and Security Services for the often extraordinary work that they do. He

  looks closer, and can just about make out the faint reflection of ram’s

  horns … Goodbye, Amir, the Butcher says, teasing down the dead

  Iraqi’s eyelid with the very tip of his beautifully manicured fingernail

  … they say they grow when you’re dead – like all horny things …

  At last, he turns his attention to his lover: Are you in shock? are his

  first words – his next: You should eat this – I can see you’ve low

  blood sugar … Gawain’s eyes swim, then weep as he brings … the

  Butcher into focus. I’ve had enough chocolate to last me a lifetime,

  he says blankly, tears running down his cheeks. Jonathan turns

  away slightly, stripping the wrapping from the softening Mars Bar:

  Well, his tone is brusque, in that case I’ll have it myself – nothing’s

  passed my lips since London. Gawain stirs dully, says, still more

  dully, What was that titbit, then, Sally’s clit? And the Butcher darts

  a sharp look at him: This isn’t a fucking film, Gawain – and we

  don’t have time for histrionics of any sort. You need to buck up

  and tell me exactly what happened if you and your men’re to avoid a

  court martial. Gawain stirs in the white plastic garden chair, his

  hands tightly gripping its white plastic arms. He blinks furiously,

  trying to turn it all – the corpse, the tent and the Butcher – off

  and on again … a factory reset. I thought … he says at length …

  I thought you and your people rather wanted rid of this man anyway

  – that was the impression I got from the intel’. The Butcher’s

  mouth is gummed up with chocolate, toffee and nougat – which is

  just as well, because by the time he’s able to, he speaks rather than

  shouts: What my people want is of no fucking account, Gawain –

  this man had a name, and his name was Amir Ali al-Jabbar, and he

  happened – strange to relate – to be a fucking friend of mine! The

  Butcher drops the crumpled-up Mars Bars wrapper to the gravelly

  ground and kicks it under the corpse’s table. He balls his fists and

  thrusts them deep into his trouser pockets. He can’t look at Gawain,

  yet senses this emanation coming from him: a steady pulsing, as

  from a bright light … He thinks of the press pack lying on the

  pancake-thin mattress under the hard cover of the pod: it isn’t

  the sort of thing the EffOh wonks would want publicised, but it

  appears that Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas, commanding officer of

  the Yorkshire Hussars, has finally become who he’s truly meant to

  be … Did you murder my friend Amir, Gawain? The Butcher at

  last pops the question … the answer to which will in all probability

  terminate, rather than commence … our civil partnership. Gawain

  shifts awkwardly from buttock to buttock. Murder’s a bit much, he

  mutters. Killed, then, the Butcher snaps back – and Gawain shakes

  his head. Killed’s also
an overstatement – this man was detained by

  me and my men during a routine hard knock. A brief firefight

  ensued and he shot and wounded one of the Rams – Trooper

  Bessemer, who subsequently died. It might be that my men were

  a little over-enthusiastic when it came to interro–. You what? the

  Butcher cries, at last turning to look at the lost sheep … You

  what? You had strict instructions to get anyone who came over the

  border down here and turn them over to the slime. What the fuck,

  Gawain … what the fucking fuck … Silence falls heavily on the

  lovers, and the Butcher remembers the blond’s woolly leg thrown

  across his own, under the duvet, beneath the eaves of the old cottage

  in Bardney where we spent so many happy hours … He shivers disgustedly

  – the object of his repulsion is fixated on his own cloven

  hooves. Suddenly the Butcher is all business: Okay, you need to start

  talking now – and you need to start talking well. I want the names

  of every one of your miserable little troopers who had any contact

  with these detainees, either on the op’ or subsequently. Fitzhugh

  says the Provost Marshal knows about Amir’s death – and there’s

  another, isn’t there, Gawain? Gawain stirs in his absurd chair – a

  garden party guest who’s had rather too much of the Pimm’s – and

  says, One of the detainees just upped and died on us – must’ve had a

  heart condition or something … It unsettled the men, Jonathan –

  what with their comrades getting banjoed, they just … sorta …

  lost it. The Butcher is on him in two strides: his hands on the

  arms of the white plastic garden chair, he stoops to vanquish … And

  you – you, Gawain, you just sorta let them lose it, did you? Then

  it all vomits forth: the thick, stinging, sweet-sickness of it – the

  smelly-melting dissolution of this chocolate soldier. Gawain hunches

  forward – the helmet drops from his lap and rolls under the dead

  man’s table. Gawain puts his balled fists in his swollen eyes – and

  smites his armoured breast as he tells his lover of Tizer’s breakdown:

  I dunno why he hasn’t said anything before … He’s clearly been

  thinking it for years – since I bested him for SeeOh … Surprised

  he hasn’t used it against me before – then again, I personally led the

  detachment which went to clear up after the Kiwis … strictly