by Will Self
Simon paid little attention to these amicable gestures. He presented to Busner – as he had learnt to do – pushing his scraggy arse in the general direction of the old ape; and when he had received a reassuring pat, reared up so that he could place his signs right in the shrink’s flabby muzzle. ‘Did you gesticulate with Jean – my ex “huuu”?’
‘Yes, Simon, I did.’
‘And “huu”?’
‘Simon “grnnn”, what I have to point out may upset you –’
‘She won’t let me see them “huu”?’
‘No, Simon – it’s not that. Simon –’ Busner dropped off his chair and knuckle-walked to where the sad, mad chimp squatted. ‘Jean showed me that you only have two male infants – not three, two.’
‘ “Hooo” really “huuu”? And which two are left to me, then “hooo”?’ Sarcasm welled from each of these vocalisations – Busner chose to ignore it.
‘Simon, there is no Simon junior. Do you understand what I’m signing “huuu”?’
‘Yes, yes, perfectly – you’re simply wiping out all of those memories, the bloody push-me pull-you of birth, the first embrace, the first this, the first that; and not forgetting a personality. This isn’t nothing you’re gesticulating about “euch-euch”! This isn’t nothing! It’s a fucking “boy”, that’s what. A real, human “boy”!’
With these last, guttural vocalisations – a reversion to the earliest days after his breakdown – the former artist slumped to the floor, rolled into a foetal pod, and commenced spraying. It was all Zack Busner could do to get a tourniquet on, shoot the solution home, haul the bag of misery back to its room, put it to nest.
In drugged repose Simon Dykes revelled in a transposed world. A marvellous realm inhabited by beautiful, courtly beings, their smooth bodies clad in weightless white shifts. A giant space, a hall of some kind, the walls of transparent rock worked into soaring arches and buttresses, the floor a grassy undulation. Around the pleasure dome the beings moved slowly and diffidently, with such natural grace. Their hands remained side-swaying, or if they sat, loosely folded in their laps, fingers as still as those of stone effigies, awaiting the apocalypse in quiet country churches. And when they parted their red red lips, mellifluous, sonorous, beautifully intelligible vocalisations emerged and soared up into the luminous vaulting.
Simon wandered among these aliens, not feeling the need to touch or be touched. As with so many dreams since the fateful night when chimpunity overwhelmed him, Simon was disconcertingly lucid in this measured gavotte of anthropoid forms. Is this what I’ve left behind? he wondered, as they floated past. Is this what I thought was Simon – little Simon “huuu”?’ He identified the lost infant as himself – or to be more precise his lost body. He saw his infant’s body, standing, shivering, naked of its protective coat. Little Simon, as gracile as a young bonobo; head fur blond and cropped at the back, features refined and serious, tiny cock and balls like the stamen of some superior orchid. Simon turned towards the lost infant, wafted across the grassy floor to get him. But as he drew nearer the infant’s blue eyes widened, and his red red lips parted, and the sapling body bent in an afflatus of anguish. Then Simon heard the awful, meaningful vocalisations; so guttural – but so just “Get away! Get away, Beelzebub! Foul beast! Ape man!”
Simon Dykes awoke, in nest, in his psychiatrist’s Hampstead home, screaming his way into his second month of chimpunity.
Chapter Sixteen
Despite this regression, Zack Busner didn’t waver in his determination to, as he put it, take Simon on tour. ‘It may look absurd to you, my dear old bum hole,’ he inparted Charlotte’s scrag as the two of them lay in nest, along with five others, ‘but “clak-clak” Grebe is the ideal chimp to have a gesticulation with Simon about the philosophic ramifications of his delusion “chup-chupp”.’
‘ “Huh-huh-huh” and why’s that, dear “huu”?’
‘Because the young fart’s a coprophiliac – that’s why. Simon’s spraying won’t put him off in the least “h’h’hee-heehee”!’
Busner was so invigorated by this slapstick image that he leapt from the nest, grabbed a handhold, swung to the door and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom still cackling.
Autumn had come to London, stripping the leaves from the trees with damp, chilly fingers. In the mornings Redington Road flowed with white rivulets of ground mist and the tarmac gleamed, dark and wet. With the sudden leaf fall, the bodies of chimpanzees out for matitudinal brachiation were now visible, browner blobs outlined against the greyer skies. In the sharp air the pant-hooting of chimps in the environs of Hampstead sounded far louder, and the copulation screams of natal groups indulging in a round of mating before work were clearly audible above the background hubbub of the city.
At the Busner home, however, things were quieter. Charlotte and Cressida’s oestruses were long since over and although Antonia and Louise – respectively gamma and zeta – had come on, their swellings were never as impressive, and the numbers of suitors they attracted correspondingly fewer. From time to time, Busner would come upon a folorn male specimen, romping up and down the drive, or banging on the gate, his penis and fur erect. But these were second-rate scut-chasers, dismissible by the Busner females with a mere wave of a dishcloth, or spurt of furniture polish.
Many of the sub-adults had drifted off, either to work or to university. The infants were back at school – save for afternoon patrolling expeditions. Some days Zack Busner and his strange patient were the only adult males in the house, remaining in tight reclusion, ministered to by a scuttling, squeaking, but mostly invisible group of females.
Zack Busner finished his toilet with a quick check of his rear end in the mirror, and went to see how his patient was preparing for his longest outing to date. He found Simon Dykes lying in nest, undressed, the television screen flickering in the darkened room. The smell of rank, distressed adult male chimp was quite overpowering – even for Busner. He knuckle-walked in quietly and propped himself on the edge of the nest. Simon had frozen the video he was watching so that a single frame stretched and twanged on the screen.
It was, Busner infurred, a frame from Planet of the Humans. He had watched all four films in the science fiction series with Simon already, observing the chimp’s reaction to this inverted world, that must by rights conform to his fantastic recollections. But they’d hardly made any impression. Simon signed only that the make-up used to create the ‘humans’ was risibly inauthentic. ‘Humans have mobile, “euch-euch” expressive muzzles – these travesties are stiff and rigid, you can see where they’ve used a prosthesis. And anyway, as I keep “euch-euch” pointing out to you, Dr Busner – humans gesticulate with their voices, not their hands. Why wasn’t the writer of this beta feature more imaginative “huuu”?’
Simon was also, naturally, discomfited by the fact that the humans in the film weren’t exclusive rulers of the planet, joint suzerainty being granted to orang-utans and gorillas. He was grateful that the humans were pacifists and intellectuals, but Roddy McDowell’s portrayal of the human scientist Cornelius infuriated Simon. ‘ “Euch-euch” he’s ridiculous, the way he struts about like that, as if he were being dangled from a wire! Why “wraaa” didn’t he take the trouble to observe some real humans so he’d get the bipedal swagger right.’
Perversely, Simon had far more sympathy for the three chimpanzee astronauts, whose ill-fated interstellar mission brings them after three thousand light years, to the distant future of earth itself. He particularly admired Charlton Heston’s performance. Something chimed between his character Taylor’s world-weary, embittered attitude and Simon’s fervid despair. ‘I have to delineate this though,’ he signed to Busner as they sat watching Heston fingering. ‘In my world Charlton Heston was the very acme of smooth-chested virility. The idea that this shaggy thing and he are one and the same is … is … “clak-clak-clak” preposterous!’
It was Heston’s firm features that were now smeared across the screen, the top of his h
ead flapping as if he were mutating to a steady beat. The frozen scene came from early on in the film, just after the astronauts have crash-landed, and are struggling to accept that ‘Haslein’s Hypothesis’ means they are now two thousand years in the future. Taylor confronts his more idealistic, more emotional companion, Landon, signing, ‘It’s a fact, “euch-euch” accept it – you’ll sleep better.’
It was the last sign, the ‘better’ that Heston’s splayed fingers were forming. Busner stared at the fiddled comparative for some minutes, while musing on what the day’s outing would bring. Then he leant back and inparted Simon’s leg fur, ‘ “Gru-nnn” good morning, Simon, are you ready for your “huuu” outing?’
Simon stirred and propped himself up on his elbow. Busner noted – as ever – the apparent atrophy of the chimp’s lower limbs. His toes didn’t flex, so he was unable to sign with them; perhaps Grebe would have something interesting to inpart on this when they saw him. ‘ “Hooo-Gra”’ Good morning, Dr Busner. I’m sorry, I was just dozing. I don’t know about this outing – I’m, I’m feeling a bit like Landon there –’
‘ “Grnnn” really? In what way “huuu”?’
‘ “Hoo” two thousand light years from home, I suppose. Yes, that about sums it up.’
Busner wasn’t about to allow his patient to fall into some perverse reverie, some finial fugue atop the mansion of his delusion. He gave Simon a quick clip round the ear, and when the chimp began to whimper and keen, Busner was able to take him in his arms, give him a proper groom and a firm fingering. ‘Now “chup-chupp” poor Simonkins, I’m “chup-chupp” only admonishing you for your own good. I believe – in all sincerity – that it’s only by getting out, and finding out more about the nature of your own chimpunity that you will be able to recover. You’re like anyone else who’s had brain damage – if you properly encourage them, new neural pathways will replace the functions of those that have been destroyed.’
Simon obliterated this and pressed on. ‘But who is this chimp we’re going to see “huuu”?’
‘David Grebe is a fascinating chimp. He’s a bit of an allrounder. His main range is semiotic philosophy, so I thought it would be interesting for the two of you to gesticulate about your notions concerning human signage – this thing “speech”. But more than that, I’m sure Grebe is the right chimp to pull together certain strands of thought, form – as it were – a hank.
‘Then. ’ Busner got up from the nest and began to revolve around the room upright. ‘We’ll have a bit of light relief. I’d like to go out to Eynsham and visit Hamble.’
‘ “Huuu” Hamble the naturalist?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’ve read his books – they’re very good. Very funny.’
‘Yes, yes. Well, as you’ll be aware, Hamble has encountered humans in the wild. He’s also more knowledgeable about more aspects of the natural world than anyone I know. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting gesticulating with him – he’s rather eccentric.’
Busner decided against driving up to Oxford. For one thing Gambol was unavailable. He was spending less and less time around the Busner group home. He had indicated to Busner that there was some outstanding work to be done on a longitudinal study they had initiated the preceding year; and without bothering to check with him exactly what this might be – and such was the pace of Busnerian innovation, it could be anything from compulsive brachiating to nest wetting – Busner had given him a leave of absence.
And Busner himself didn’t like driving. Once, when his first batch of infants was still young, he had even gone so far as to buy an automatic car, claiming that the constant shifting of gears interfered with his thought patterns. He always preferred to travel by train, and on this occasion it was advisable to get Simon into the world a bit more. He might become distressed, but Busner would bring the sedatives. He felt quite able to handle Simon – if that’s what it took.
They left on feet and hands. ‘We’ll knuckle-walk down to Baker Street and get a cab – if that’s all right with you “huuu”?’ Busner waved as they quit the house. Simon acquiesced with a grunt, but the truth was the prospect of the knuckle-walk appealed strongly. He swaggered upright for a few steps, then without giving the posture any thought, dropped down on his knuckles. With his therapist’s nonexistent buttocks, and marvellously refulgent anal scrag on a direct eye line, Simon took up the rear and the patrol commenced.
The first halt occurred when they reached the junction of Fitzjohn’s Avenue and the Finchley Road at Swiss Cottage. It was mid-morning by now, and the ground mist had cleared, but it was still going to be an undistinguished day. Here in the very crook of urbanity, where car on car seemed bent on coldly welding, the contrast between grainy buildings, grainy atmosphere and the scurrying grains of chimpunity was no contrast at all. Busner kept his muzzle to the pavement and went on, down towards the concrete packaging of the library-cum-swimming pool. He had gained the arboreal precinct that islanded this building – not unlike a petrified Rotadex in outward appearance, or some other piece of desk-top giganticism – when he sensed that the rear end of his patrol had become detached.
He looked back to see that Simon had halted by the entrance to the tube station. Busner hustled back. ‘ “HoooGra”’ what’s the problem, Simon “huuu”?’. Simon signed nothing, just reaching out a hand with one finger crooked in the direction of the dirty descending stairs, where some desultory mating activity was going on, and on, and on.
Busner understood, without the need for further presdigitation, what the problem was. Simon had been isolated at the hospital, and apart from the short forays with Jane Bowen and the carefully circumscribed trip to the zoo, he’d barely been out. As a consequence he hadn’t seen much mating activity at all. With his psychosis so bound up with matters bodily, it was unsurprising that he maintained his ‘human world’ to be a mating-free zone; or at any rate as somewhere where copulation took place mostly between two individuals, and – Busner thought this a particularly clever, and most artistic flourish – in the dark.
“H’h’hee-hee-hee!” Simon tittered, then signed, ‘Look at this! I realise that you “euch-euch” chimps fuck like it was going out of style – but this!’
In fact there was nothing much to this particular round of mating. A middle-aged female – a bank worker judging by her plain grey jacket and plainer white blouse – had, Busner judged, come on that morning. She’d decided to advertise the fact by wearing a not unattractive swelling-protector, which now lay, a heap of pleats, some steps below where its owner bucked and yawped.
She must, Busner concluded, have accepted the first suitor when she reached the tube, and having presented her delicous pink bowl for an initial stirring, she was now receiving other cooks that had arrived at the kitchen. There was now a loose line of these males, all with erect, slimy cocks poking from their erect, slimy fur, ranging up the stairs. While further down on a half-landing, two males who had already coupled were licking and picking sperm and mucus from each other’s groins.
‘Actually, Simon,’ Busner inparted Simon’s leg fur, ‘this is far from being a particularly libidinous spectacle – certainly by London standards. You wait until you see some of the mating chains there are in town when chimps get out from work and begin drinking. You may have a young female in full oestrus, trailing a line of twenty males as she scampers through a gauntlet of chimps who are lounging outside the pub.
‘And if one of those males launches a successful suit on another female, while he’s still importuning the first, you can get a cross chain of mating. I’ve seen the whole of Oxford Circus positively garlanded with these conga-lines of buggery. Sometimes the police have to cordon areas of the city off and give the rutting chimps there a dousing from a water cannon before they come to their senses. So, as you can see, this isn’t much of a show. But one information sign, Simon –’
‘ “Huu” what’s that?’
‘Please be discreet when remarking upon mating practices. Whil
e it is in no sense taboo to observe, to comment can be regarded as distinctly rude “wraaa”! Watch out, Simon, that one’s coming for us!’
It was true. The male who had just, with a hissed squeal, pulled himself from the oozing swelling of the bank worker was swaggering up the stairs towards them, horripilating and uttering a series of loud waa-barks. He was a big specimen, and the spectacle of his exposed canines, still encrusted with some wheaten breakfast food, and his exiguous tumescence, which metronomically beat from side to side, counterpointing his advance, would for Simon have been comic, were it not at the same time incredibly frightening.
Simon felt the fur at the nape of his neck stiffen and bristle – a sensation which he had never consciously experienced before. He too began to utter a series of aggressive barks, while drawing himself up to his full height. The angry male continued to mount the stairs, picking up handfuls of leaves, discarded tickets and other detritus as he came, and hurling these in the direction of the renowned anti-psychiatrist and his patient.
For a few, tumultuous moments it looked as if they would be able to intimidate the big male. But then the two other, post-coital males – who meanwhile had been leaping up and down, yammering, and slapping their attaché cases against the tile walls of the staircase – decided that they would like to get involved. With this shift in the odds, Busner decided it was time to leave. He grabbed Simon by the scruff. ‘ “Waaaa”! Come on, they’ll be on us in a second!’
