Great Apes

by Will Self

  Busner was free to muse, free to consider the strange case of Simon Dykes and his human delusion. Busner had been more impressed by Dykes’s paintings than he expected. The idea of depicting, allegorically, the anti-naturalism of the condition of modern urban chimpunity appealed to him. What Dykes was doing with visual imagery was, he felt, similar to his own search for a psycho-physical approach to neurological and psychiatric disorders. The bodies of the chimps in Dykes’s paintings were placed in destructive environments – a crashing plane, a burning escalator, a plague-struck furniture superstore – which could be seen as analogues of the distorted relation between chimps’ minds and chimps’ bodies.

  Was it possible that Dykes’s breakdown had been foretold in the paintings? That like an epileptic’s furious flash of mystic lucidity prior to a fit, they were anticipations of the furious alienation from his own body, his own chimpunity, that he was now experiencing. And how did the human delusion itself fit into all of this? Busner ranged freely in his own mind over the associations that the human called up. The human was held to be the most bestial of the animals because it was the most chimp-like. This had been understood and incorporated into descriptions of all simian creatures, even before the discovery of the true anthropoid apes – the orang-utan, the gorilla and the human – in the sixteenth century.

  The human thus had a ready-made niche of demonisation waiting for it to occupy. If the Barbary ape, the hamadryad and the baboon had been seen as offspring of Lucifer – and some patristic writers claimed that the devil was made in the image of the baboon – then how much more diabolic could the human be? The human with its ghastly exposed skin; its repugnantly bulging hind parts; its voracious, inappropriate licentiousness? Yet paradoxically, the imagery of humans retailed in contemporary culture was almost always benign, cuddly even. Infants often had stuffed humans as toys. Birthday cards with humans dressed up as chimps on them were available in almost every newsagent. There were also the notorious commercials for P. G. Tips tea, with their absurd use of humans mimicking chimp behaviour; special effects used to convey the impression that they were signing intelligently and enjoying the beverage.

  Then there was the upsurge in the ethical preoccupation with animal rights. Some moral philosophers now advocated the extension of a limited form of chimpanzee rights to the human, on the grounds that given their genetic profile they were the closest living relative to the chimpanzee, as well as the most obviously intelligent.

  What elements of all of these images and versions of the human could Dykes have drawn on to provide the furniture of his delusion? Was there evidence to be found elsewhere in his life, outside of his art? Or was it sadly the case that this delusional system, like so many others Busner had seen elaborated, would collapse on closer examination, into the confused, disjointed wavings of the paranoid schizophrenic?

  One thing was certain, there could be no progress until they had managed to divine the extent – if any – of organic damage to Dykes’s brain. Then, and only then, would Busner be able to move forward. As yet there was little to go on, but he Busner had a good feeling about his new patient. This was a case that might attract a considerable amount of public interest, something Busner had never been that averse to.

  As if he had somehow deliberately timed his thoughts to coincide with the end of the performance, the audience chose this moment to derail Busner’s train by all leaping to their feet and pant-hooting their approval. “HoooGraaa! HoooGraaa!” Busner got bipedal and politely pant-hooted as well. ‘I hope there’ll be an encore,’ he inparted Charlotte. ‘I’ve been picking over the nitty matter of this chimp Dykes so much that I missed .’

  Chapter Twelve

  The scraggy toe-tip tapped on the lino, “Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap”. It was notable how much harder the skin was than that of a human toe, for precisely this reason, that as the toe hit the lino it produced the noise “tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap”. “Euch-euch,” Simon Dykes coughed irritably.

  The idiotic mask – made he assumed for infants to wear at Hallowe’en – turned to muzzle him, and from behind the rigid bow of vivid red lip came a soft grunt, ‘ “Gru-nnn” are you all right then, Simon – not feeling too anxious, or uncomfortable “huu”?’

  Simon couldn’t have signed how he did, but from the combination of familiar vocalisation and gesture, he knew that it was the psychiatrist called Bowen who was putting the finger on him. He had insisted that only she should accompany him while he knuckle-walked from the secure room, to the bowels of the hospital where the MRI and the CAT scans were done. But afterwards, as he slid from the great, hammering, steel gullet of the machine, he hadn’t dared, or wished, to gesticulate with the creature awaiting him.

  Busner had been as good as his sign, and done his best to clear the corridors and areas Simon traversed on his way down. The occasional simian figure scurried out of their path as he followed Jane Bowen’s scut; and each time this happened Simon recoiled and pressed himself against the wall. And each time she had coaxed him back up on to all fours, then led him on. Bowen wanted desperately, seeing his distress, to give Simon a good, sound grooming and reassure him in the most chimpmane fashion she knew, both as a doctor and a female. But she knew better than to attempt it.

  There had been no shot of Valium that morning. Bowen had delineated over the ‘phone that were he to be in any way sedated it would affect the validity of the testing. ‘If you feel a bad attack coming on, you simply have to call to me and I’ll take you straight back to the secure room. We are only trying to help you, Simon – please remember that.’

  But besides catching sight of the odd chimpanzee, what had disturbed – and perversely reassured – Simon, was the interior of the hospital itself. Simon had been in Charing Cross Hospital before. How many times he could not have signed, but enough for it to seem familiar. The notices pinned up on bulletin boards along the walls; the glass doors with their graticule of mesh; the tawdry, squeaking linoleum floors; even the route they took, down an escalator, across an internal courtyard, down in another lift – all ofit could be matched with memories of coming to the hospital to visit ill allies.

  Perhaps it was the absence of the Valium, or simply being released from his confinement, but there was also something about the hospital that jarred with his expectations: the scale of it. Everything, the height of the ceilings, the width of the doors, the bulk of the furniture, was slightly diminished. It was so subtle as to be almost indiscernible, but Simon caught on. This was Charing Cross Hospital maddeningly rebuilt for beings just that bit smaller than humans. Redesigned for chimpanzees.

  For the first few minutes after he emerged from the relative safety of his confinement, Simon was bewildered. Bowen’s mask certainly concealed her ghastly, simian features, but the trousers she donned to cover her brutish, furry legs were made from some diaphanous material, and fur could still be seen through them. This, together with her down-at-heel white coat, made her a clownish figure.

  I must keep seeing them as absurdities, figments, Simon abjured himself. I must not give them too much credence – to do so is to accept that I really am mad. I must cling on to my humanity. So he huddled himself up like an old chimp with some chronic, wasting illness and shuffled along, head down, fur lank.

  Bowen was dismayed by Simon’s behaviour when she led him from the secure room. True, he wasn’t lashing out or spraying at her. True, he seemed able – just about – to bear the occasional glimpse of another chimp, but his whole manner was so torpid, so lacking in affect, that she found herself making a damning – but signless – diagnosis. Dykes reminded her, she realised, of chimps in states of near-catatonic depression, or suffering from severe neurological dysfunctions. The human delusion, she began to think, might only have been the flamboyant onset of a condition, the chronic stage of which would be characterised by apathy, withdrawal and eventually complete mental collapse.

  Now the two chimps were back up on Gough, waiting in the day room to do the perceptual t
ests – and waiting for Zack Busner. The day room was a bland space. There was a Melamine-topped table, some functional plastic-backed chairs, and a steel box of a dustbin in one corner. The vertical, textured louvres were blocking out the sharp, noonday brightness, and the strip-lighting hummed and flickered overhead. A ‘phone squatted on the table, sign-lently. The basic odour of the place was – Bowen admitted – one of bleached despair.

  ‘ “HooGraa” Simon, I’m just going to go and get a cuppa from the machine, would you like one “huu”?’

  He looked up at the sound of her vocalisation and countersigned, ‘Yeah, all right.’

  ‘Tea, coffee “huu”? Milk, sugar “huu”?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Bowen knuckle-walked to the door shaking her head, so that the ridiculous mask chafed her ears. Poor bastard, she thought, his gesturing just confirms my suspicions, the signs so fumbled, so lacking in emphasis or tempo.

  In the corridor she encountered Busner, who was grinning broadly and bearing down on her fast. An old-fashioned leather briefcase was rammed up under one of his arms and he was bipedal, swaggering. In his scut came his research-assistant epsilon, Gambol. ‘ “HoooGraa”! Well, hello there, Jane, recovered from your ranging into the art world “huu”? No, no, no need for that, please, please …’ Busner began fending Jane Bowen off, for naturally on sighting him she had fallen to the floor, offered up her arse and was now insisting he kiss it. ‘You’ll just have to get used to some of my informalities, Jane, if we’re working together again. Isn’t that right Gambol “huu”?’

  ‘ “Hoo” absolutely,’ Gambol countersigned, although his thoughts were knuckle-walking in an entirely different direction.

  Would it be possible for him to get away this morning and have another gesticulation with Whatley? They had left things inconclusively the previous day. If an alliance was in the offing, it was time for Gambol to make good with his promise of some dirt on Busner, make good with his plans for advancement, conquest and eventual dominance.

  ‘I’m just going to get Dykes a cup of tea, Zack,’ Jane Bowen signed. ‘I think you’ll be “gru-nn” pleased to learn that the MRI and the CAT scan went off fine. I had them do a comprehensive set of X-rays as well; and I’ve asked them to try and hurry up with all of them so that we can correlate the results with whatever tests you intend doing.’

  ‘ “Chup-chupp” good “gru-nnn” good, we-ell I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to meet our patient muzzle-to-muzzle. Have you got one of those masks for me “huu”? As you can see I’ve brought my own trousers!’ And with this Busner pulled from his briefcase a pair of harem pants not dissimilar to the ones Jane Bowen was wearing. The three chimps couldn’t restrain themselves, the idea of donning these nestroom garments in a workaday environment was so absurd – it was positively kinky. ‘ “H’hee-hee-hee”,’ Busner cackled. ‘ “H’hee-hee-hee-hoo” my God “clak-clak”! I know we shouldn’t laugh about it, but this case is already throwing up some of the most ridiculous antics it’s ever been my good fortune to indulge in as a medical practitioner. Here “h’hee-hee-hee” Gambol, hang on to my case while I put these on.’

  * * *

  The ‘phone rang but for some seconds Simon didn’t respond. He squatted, slumped at the table, his head cradled in his arms. I’m a lost soul, he thought, or no soul at all. I’ve lost it now – lost it for ever. As if looking down a long corridor, he could dimly discern some visions from his past; they were visions of lost bodies, human bodies. His first infant emerging in a splash of liquor from the womb – not just emerging but shooting out, a blue ball of life, hitting the rubber sheet, arms and legs flying out, larynx blurting an incontrovertibly human cry, a beautiful cry. “Wraaaa!” Simon screamed, “wraaaa!” and his fur shook with the emotion, the sadness, the loss.

  The ‘phone was still ringing. Simon answered it, and waited for the mist to clear on the screen. Another caricature mask of a human muzzle appeared, but this was different to the one Bowen was wearing. This ‘human’ sported a blond lick of plastic hair falling across its shiny, flesh-coloured brow and an absurd, blond handlebar moustache above its rigid bow of lip. Without quite knowing why, Simon guessed before the beast signed that it was Busner.

  ‘ “HoooGraaa” good day, Mr Dykes. I’d like to congratulate you on your show –’

  ‘What “huu”?’ Despite himself Simon was gripped. The fact of the mask and the gesticulating fingers didn’t obtrude. He felt the same acute, skittering anxiety that always took hold of him when there was any evaluation of his work in the offing.

  ‘At the Levinson Gallery, the show of your apocalyptic paintings – I am right in envisioning them apocalyptic paintings “huu”?’

  ‘Ye-es, obviously “gru-nnn” I was positioning them in that overall context, although equally obviously I also intended them to subvert the religious tradition of depicting the apocalypse.’

  ‘Obviously, obviously … “gru-nnn-euch-euch” I think the subversive nature of the work was what most impressed the critics who attended “huuu”.’

  Busner was trying to sign in what he imagined to be a ‘human’ way, while also maintaining an uncomfortably still posture. The performance was, however, ruined by his signing hands which kept going to the bi-focals hanging around his neck and fidgeting with them. Certainly Simon was unimpressed. The masks weren’t working at all. He could see Busner’s gnarled ears protruding either side and the meaning-conveying fingers that wiggled and tickled in front of the screen were as hairy and tough-looking as Jane Bowen’s toes. “Euch-euch,” he coughed, then signed, ‘Look, Dr Busner, I don’t think there’s any real point to this charade with the mask, or the trousers, they’re not helping – I still see you as a chimpanzee. Or rather, I still believe that you’re a chimpanzee under that mask, so you may as well take it off.’

  ‘ “Huuu”? Really? You don’t find them comforting? These were the best ones the shop had, almost up to the standard used for theatre and television. My infants were absolutely terrified by them. Don’t you find them at all realistic “huu”?’

  ‘Not at all “hooo”.’

  ‘ “Hoo” well, in that case …’ With a Mission Impossible flourish Busner removed his mask and at the same time asigned that Gambol should pull the harem pants off his legs. ‘Bloody things are making me itch,’ he inparted the epsilon’s scruff.

  Simon confronted the muzzle of the beast, steeling himself not to recoil. Whether to picture himself or the world gone mad was not the issue – it was important only that he try and deal with Busner. Accommodate the psychiatrist and maybe, just maybe, things would get better.

  ‘Now “huuu” how’s that?’

  ‘All-all right,’ Simon signed with fingers partially covering his eyes, ‘just-just … well, please try not to move so suddenly – especially if you come in here – I find the speed with which you all move quite terrifying. D’you understand me “huu”?’

  ‘Well, of course I do, after all, chimpanzees do tend to move a lot faster than humans, don’t we “huu”?’

  ‘Do they “huu”?’

  ‘Yes, a lot faster. It seems that you have quite a lot to learn concerning the world, Mr Dykes; perhaps if we regarded our sessions together as educational it would help you to find my physical appearance less disturbing “huuu”?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘ “H’huuu” let’s just proceed on that basis, shall we? Now, would you be prepared to accept my presence in the room with you – there are some perceptual and relational tests I need to do which really require that we be within grooming range –’

  ‘What “huu”?!’

  ‘I’m sorry, I misfingered, Dr Bowen shows me simian contact is disturbing to you. I simply mean that I need to be within … how can I put it … within putative grooming range.’

  ‘Just as long as you don’t touch me – or get too near. ’ Simon broke the connection, and leant back in the chair. His posture was, Bowen noted, as ever, curiously
stiff and upright. He didn’t grasp his toes, as most chimps did when arranging themselves in a chair, or make any perceptible nesting movements.

  During this gesticulation Bowen had divested herself of her mask and trousers. She then shrank into the corner of the room, partially hiding herself behind a chair, so as not to appear at all threatening to Simon.

  Busner came in upright, and moving with such exaggerated slowness that Bowen feared Simon might find it patronising, placed his stuffed briefcase on the table, pulled out a chair and squatted down, adopting a position not unlike Simon’s, back straight, hands furled – when not signing – loosely in his lap.

  ‘Now, Mr Dykes, I have some very simple tests I’d like you to do for me today, so simple I fear you may find them insulting to your intell –’

  ‘Dr Busner “huuu”?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Dykes.’

  ‘You signed something before about the critics at the opening.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You couldn’t be a bit more forthcoming, could you “huu”?’ There was no evidence of apathy now. Simon was bent forward, almost within reach of Busner, his muzzle puckered up with an intensity and concentration Bowen hadn’t seen before.

  ‘I took the liberty of getting my research assistant, Gambol, to photocopy the notices in this morning’s papers – you’d like to see them “huuu”?’ Busner withdrew the sheaf of paper from his briefcase and held it up for Simon to see. Simon lurched forward and tried to grab it, but Busner jerked it out of range signing, ‘Not yet, Mr Dykes, you’ll forgive me for this crude behaviourism, but I really feel we should do tests first, reviews later “huuu”?’

  Simon fell back in his chair. ‘All right,’ he fluttered listlessly, ‘but I’m buggered if I know what you expect to find out.’

  The session lasted all morning. Busner and Bowen began with perceptual tests. The simplest of these were easy enough for an infant to do, matching shapes, fitting one figure inside another, arranging colours spectrographically and interpreting various symbolic congruences. On all of them Simon Dykes performed adequately, although by no means as well as you would expect of an adult chimp in good health.