Great Apes

by Will Self

  Gambol also obtained more recondite texts. A facsimile edition of Edward Tyson’s classic anatomical study – published in 1699 – of an immature human specimen brought from Angola: Orang-utang, sive Pongid sylvestris. Or, THE ANATOMY OF A PYGMIE Compared With That of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man. This text had a most interesting effect on Simon Dykes. It sparked something deep inside the artist – or so Busner hypothesised. A forgotten, but originally conscious memory of the first meaningful encounters between the humans and Western civilization; or perhaps even a buried, phyletic memory, riven from the artist’s waking mind in the same way that the great riving of the Rift Valley itself separated human from chimpanzee, leaving the former in the evolutionary cul-de-sac of the jungle; and the latter ranging free over the patchwork of ecosystems that cranked up the accelerating process of allopatric speciation.

  Simon’s acute interest was all the more interesting because Tyson’s text marked the formal entry of the anthropoid human into Western consciousness. Some commentators believed that Tyson should be put on the same pedestal as Vesalius and Darwin6. But his classification of the human – he placed it within the chain of being somewhere above the Hottentot, according the species effective chimpunity – had a slow-burning impact. It took fifty years and the mythos of the Noble Savage, for the anthropoid humans to become material evidence in the great eighteenth-century trials between the anatomists and the Augustinians.

  Busner, observing the zest with which Simon fell upon the Tyson facsimile, began to keep pace with his patient. He had given notice to the Trust that he was working on a most interesting case. ‘Confidentially,’ he had inparted Archer, the senior administrator at Heath Hospital, as they picked over each others ischial rats’ tails in the canteen, ‘this patient I’ve “chup-chupp” acquired from Whatley at Charing Cross is something of a coup. His human delusion may have an organic basis that will reveal more about the relation between chimp consciousness and chimp physiology than a busload of ordinary neurological patients.’

  It would have been stretching a point to sign that Archer had seen it all before where Busner was concerned, but this wasn’t the first time the former television personality had flagged a Significant Breakthrough, and Archer knew it wouldn’t be the last. Wouldn’t be while Busner retained the network of alliances that had enabled his return to favour. But then alliances are always only provisional – and what goes up can come down again.

  So, Busner delegated his teaching responsibilities, and handed over his nominal caseload to a pushy work theta, an SR who was on the make. Apart from the occasional trip out to attend unavoidable meetings and untouchable grooming sessions, he remained at Redington Road during the day.

  Gambol had set up the large first-floor back room Busner used as a study so that Simon would feel as comfortable as possible there. All the pictures and photographs that gibed with Simon’s delusional state – the ones depicting chimpanzees in what Simon regarded as irreducibly human contexts – were removed. Even Busner’s collection of appalling clay sculptures, executed by coprophiliac patients, were tidied away. Strict instructions were posted on the kitchen bulletin board that no group member could enter the study while the patient was there. Displaying and mating activities were to be confined to the kitchen and the sub-adults’ ground-floor rumpus room. Lap ponies had to be severely reined in.

  Gambol also cleared the desk so that Simon could have his own side: position his papers and effects – such as they were – to create a notion of his own space. At Busner’s suggestion, Gambol even obtained some sketch pads, pencils and charcoals, and laid them out in case the artist decided to resume his work.

  ‘You can never know,’ Busner had gestured to Simon, the signs falling in among the carefully arranged art supplies, ‘when the muse might feel called upon to visit you.’

  ‘ “Hoo-euch-euch” yeah,’ Simon snapped back ‘and what should I “euch-euch” do if she does “huuu”? Give her a really thorough grooming?’

  Busner, sensing that physical admonition would only provoke more insolence, let this lie.

  Thus the two of them sat, ape trying to imagine the mind of man, man labouring to accommodate the body of the ape. They would leaf through the books, study the photographs, and hunch in front of the new computer, taking it in turns to click their way around the virtual world of anthropology.

  They garnered information from the directory of human research colonies at American universities. They visited the web site for the Uganda Six Day Human Safari; the Extant Animal Skulls, Human and Chimpanzee; the Human Zone – limited editions of human art, where Simon was able to see examples of humans’ paintings, titled by the animals themselves.

  They browsed through the on-line files of the Human and Chimpanzee Gesticulation Institute, checking out the biographies of Washoe and the other famous humans who had been taught to sign by the Fouts7. And of course they dropped into Dr Jane Goodall’s Institute web site, where Simon tooth-clacked to discover the existence of a ‘Human Ambassador Learning Kit’.

  There was so much human information on the web it was bewildering. You could get a job working with humans via the net – as long as you had a negative hepatitis B, surface antigen test. And naturally you could contact human rights activists. Simply plugging the sign ‘human’ into the search engine produced over four thousand different links to sites.

  As this was both Busner’s and Simon’s first experience of the web, they both began to conceive of the global electronic gesticulation system as being entirely occupied by humans; a jungle of bytes. More than ever, observing the preoccupation of chimpunity with their soon-to-be-extinct closest living relative, Busner wondered whether in his patient’s condition the Zeitgeist had been fused with psychosis.

  From time to time they would adjourn, crawling to Simon’s cramped quarters to watch videos. But Simon could never stay with it for that long. It was as if each day he arose, determined to make something of his predicament, but as the morning wore on, it wore him down. Usually, after second lunch, just like some pathetic, captive human, Simon would get up and come round to Busner’s side of the desk, proferring his crooked, lank-furred arm. Busner would know what the ape man wanted; would lead him back to his room, push him down on to the nest, prepare the syringe full of Valium and push needle into Simon, plunger slowly into barrel, so that the neuroleptic infused, and pushed Simon down into dream.

  For if on the one hand the artist was making believably insightful – albeit obsessional – attempts to understand his psychic condition, so his physical being credibly failed to fit in. He still walked, like a travesty of a minstrel bonobo, quiveringly erect. His gait – even to a quinquagenarian like Busner – was gnawingly slow. What had appeared, initially, to both Busner and Jane Bowen, as a physical hypertrophy or hysterical paralysis was worsening. Simon seemed to be unable to get to grips with things. His feet never grasped. His extroception remained focused resolutely forward, in a tight conical beam, rendering his perception of the external world – or so Busner hazarded – like that of a car driver deprived of rearview and wing mirrors and unable to turn round.

  The patient’s reporting of his own physical state remained puzzlingly incoherent. At times he accepted the testimony of his own senses; that he was possessed of fur, devoid of proboscis, and big on ears. But at other times the strange, bodily agnosia – or even diplopia – was fully in play. Simon saw himself as taller than everyone around him, smoother, and like some chimp who has fallen to earth – unutterably beautiful.

  ‘It has occurred to me,’ Zack Busner signed one evening to Peter Wiltshire, with whom at last he had managed to arrange a proper grooming session, ‘that this “gru-nnn” acute impression Dykes has of inhabiting a human body might be some sort of phantom evolutionary memory. After all, if the chimpanzee foetus undergoes a series of morphological changes that parallel phylogenesis, then why not the psyche “huuu”?’

  ‘It’s an interesting notion, Zack. D’you “huuu” mind – ?’ Wiltshire
gestured in the direction of the drinks cabinet.

  ‘Of course, of course …’ Busner took the glass and swaggered across the room, his fulsome scrotum jiggling. Wiltshire got down from his chair and joined him, cradling his old ally’s balls gently with one hand while Busner poured them both a generous measure of Laphroaig and added water.

  ‘But what do you intend to do with Dykes now, Zack “huuu”? Will this particular psycho-physical approach go on indefinitely? And if so what do you expect to find out “huu”? Surely not just neurological data, because if that’s what you wanted there’s really no need for all of this … I don’t know how to be tactful about it … but this chopping of the air –’ Wiltshire signed, chopping the air to illustrate the point.

  ‘I know, I know. I’m not convinced that there is anything to find out necessarily, it’s just that the more time that I spend with him, the more interesting and unusual perspectives on chimpunity he throws up.’

  ‘And what of his feelings, Zack? “Huuu” what about his infants – he must want to see them “huuu”? And his consort?’

  Busner took a long pull on his drink, and let the brackish douche sluice around his teeth before countersigning, ‘Yes, what of them, that is a problem. If it’s a true psychosis then contact with his offspring isn’t going to help matters at all – might even impede any progress. But if it’s an organic problem –’

  ‘You should let him go –’

  ‘But go where “huuu”? Into a long-term institution? You forget, Peter, this is a gifted chimp, someone worth saving. Let me put my finger on it for you, either we have to help him to recover his submerged – but still present – sense of his own chimpunity, or else we have to make it possible for him to adjust to the world, despite perceiving it through the lens of this perverse delusion.’

  ‘And how do you propose to do that “huuu”?’

  ‘ “Hoo”, the usual way. The same as I would with any of my Tourettics or more conventional agnosic patients. I’m going to take him on tour. But, whereas in the past I have had to get my patients to learn to cope with social, emotional and physical situations anew, in Dykes’s case I’m going to have to assist him at more profound levels –’ Busner broke off. Frances, a sub-adult female, had entered the drawing room carrying a tray of fruit.

  “Grnn’yum,” she vocalised, then signed, ‘Mother thought you and Dr Wiltshire might need something to chew on, Alpha – where shall I put this “huuu”?’

  ‘Pop it down here on the floor, my dear, then Peter and I can both get our toes on it.’

  Frances set the tray on the carpet, then went over to where her alpha was squatting. Busner put an affectionate paternal hand on her lower belly and began gently to part the fur around her vagina, so that he could slide a couple of digits into her cleft. Peter Wiltshire thought how tender and affecting the scene was – his old ally had certainly mellowed. Busner gestured from within his daughter’s crotch, so that the young female groaned and giggled, ‘The first stop will be Oxford. I thought I’d take Dykes to see Grebe, the philosopher, and possibly out to visit Hamble in Eynsham.’

  ‘ “Huuu”? Hamble – are you sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Why not, he’s a naturalist, an ethologist and an historian. If I’m to give Dykes as much of an insight into the interface between his delusion and reality, he must have some knowledge of all these things –’

  ‘ “H’h’h’hoooo”! Alphy, it tickles!’ Frances fingered.

  Busner looked down at his agitated hand. ‘Sorry my dear, quite forgot what I was signing on – you can go now “chup-chuppchupp”. ’ He released the sub-adult and she knuckle-walked out, closing the door carefully behind her scut.

  At the same time, in Chelsea, in a restaurant near the bottom of Tite Street, the three chimpanzees who were conspiring to bring about Busner’s fall were meeting for first dinner. Phillips, the Cryborg chimp, had suggestured the venue – ‘It’s a nice little place. They’ve got a tree in the middle of the dining room, so if anyone feels like a clamber between courses they can just swing themselves up’ – and he was waiting for Whatley and Gambol when they arrived.

  There was something of a kerfuffle while a provisional hierarchy was established, Gambol presenting in a blur to both senior chimps, his arse poking first one way and then the other. Phillips half presented to Whatley – and Whatley did the same. Then all three settled down to a preliminary, huddled groom.

  ‘So “chup-chupp”,’ Phillips signed after some minutes, ‘what news have we of the esteemed natural philosopher and his latest patient “huuu”?’

  ‘Well,’ Gambol countersigned ‘he’s taken Dykes back to his group home in Hampstead, and they’re studying together –’

  ‘Studying “huu”?’

  ‘That’s right “clak-clak”, Busner seems to feel that he can educate Dykes out of the delusion. If he learns as much as possible about anthropology, he can relearn his chimpunity, or at any rate achieve a functional state.’

  ‘It looks like an absurd idea – “chup-chupp” that’s good “clak”, just there – to me. I’ve heard of all sorts of atrophied, or even destroyed organic functions being relearnt, but an individual’s basic chimpunity – that’s simply bizarre.’

  Whatley leant into Phillips at this point and commenced signing with great seriousness. ‘That’s as “chup-chupp” may be, Phillips, but if you – as Gambol and I have – had seen Dykes you would understand. The delusion is amazingly sustained, it’s furniture firmly in place. But demarcate for me, Phillips “chup-chupp”, what it is that you know about all of this “huuu”? Gambol has shown me the material relating to Inclusion. Is it really true that Busner was involved in an illegal trial of a new anxiolytic compound “huu”?’

  ‘ “Hoo” yes, yes indeed. He most certainly was involved in it. And there’s something else, you see, something Busner himself may be unaware of.’

  ‘And what’s that “huu” – ?’

  ‘Excuse me,’ a waiter flicked at them, ‘are you gentle-chimps ready to order just yet “huuu”?’ Gambol held up three fingers and the waiter knuckle-walked away, swung himself round the ornamental tree and headed off to the kitchen.

  ‘The pigeon looks tasty,’ Gambol signed. ‘Have either of your rear-end magnificences made a decision “huuu”?’

  ‘Oh shut up, Gambol “wraff”!’ Whatley administered a smack to Gambol, and Phillips did so as well, so that the poor epsilon chimp’s head oscillated, cartoon-like, between their heavy hands. ‘Let Phillips finish what he was going to sign – can’t you. Phillips “huuu”?’

  ‘Well, as I was signing, before being so rudely grasped, Busner was engaged by Cryborg to manage a double-blind trial of this compound Inclusion. A corruptible GP was found in the region of Thame, Oxfordshire, who would be prepared to administer both compound and placebo to numbers of his patients diagnosed with clinical depressions – or at any rate depressions that might be amenable to psychopharmacology –’

  ‘What-what was the name of this GP “huu”?’ Whatley’s fingers almost plaited with Phillips’s as he chopped in. Gambol was also standing on his chair, arms out, horripilating, teeth bared.

  ‘ “HoooGra” his name? Well, there’s a thing, the name of this little country doctor, who was prepared to place his own advantage beyond that of his patients, was Dr Anthony Bohm.’

  ‘ “H’hoooo” well, I’ll be buggered – Bohm, you sign. ’ Whatley slumped back down in his chair and began picking at the linen tablecloth in a distracted way, as if it were animate and in need of grooming. ‘Well, this does put an odd complexion on things. Do you mean to sign that Dykes may be a victim of this compound Inclusion “huu”? I mean – what were the results of the trial? What’s happened to the “huuu” drug?’

  But the waiter had reappeared by now, and Phillips took his time, asked what specials were on offer, gave pointers as to how his cut of meat should be prepared, and then spent some minutes passing feet and hands over the wine list before he coul
d be persuaded to make a decision. Eventually he turned back to his companions, whose avidity was unblunted. ‘The drug “grnnn” has been withdrawn from any kind of testing – illegal or otherwise. Busner’s trial did go perfectly well for a number of months, and without the results even being calibrated it was clear that the drug was having the desired effects. But then, one of the patients being unknowingly prescribed Inclusion, had a flamboyant mental breakdown.’

  ‘Was it “huuu” Dykes, Your Anal Eminence?’

  ‘Yes, Gambol, it was.’

  The three chimps sat motionless for a moment, identical strings of drool looping from all three open mouths. The waiter reappeared, bipedal, walking backwards between the tables, their starters cradled between his shoulder blades. He set two bowls of soup and a plate of pâté down on the table, then without so much as a frontwards glance, signed ‘Bon appétit!’ and knuckle-walked off. Whatley disentangled his watch chain from his neck fur with one foot, picked up his spoon with the other, and then gestured what all three were thinking: ‘Does Dykes know any of this “huu”?’

  ‘ “Hoo” no, I don’t think so. I mean, Dykes would hardly put himself in Busner’s care if he knew that this was the psychiatrist who had irresponsibly precipitated him into a bad, psychotic interlude – now would he “huuu”? More interesting though, is the possibility that Inclusion is in some way responsible for Dykes’s current delusory state.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that is an interesting speculation – although perhaps ultimately unknowable. I reverence your bum bits, Dr Phillips, I revere your perspicacity, but highlight for me, why is it “grnnn” that you’re prepared to point out all of this to Gambol and myself – what is your “huuu” motivation?’