Great Apes (11 page)

‘Of course “wraaaf, he's the twerp who made those ethical objections to our work at the British Psychological Association meeting last year in Bournemouth.'

‘The very same. Well, I think he's going to be doing some grovelling now, because Jane Bowen signs he wants our help.'

‘ “Hoo” really –' Busner flagged down and turned his attention to the thick layer of shag-pile carpet on the dashboard. ‘I sign, Gambol, have you had the car re-carpeted again?'

‘Last week, when it was in for its service – don't you like it?'

Busner hated to admit it but the new carpet Gambol had chosen for the dashboard was a distinct improvement. It had a bold pattern of lozenges and hexagons, in alternating purple and red – a delightful incitement to fingers or toes
itching to groom. Busner found himself absent-mindedly parting and reparting the thick pile; which reminded him. ‘Here, Gambol,' he signed, ‘see if you can get this bloody jam out of my neck fur, will you “huu”?'

‘I'll do it, Alph!' one of the sub-adults in the back seat signed – actually in the jammy patch. Busner wheeled around in his seat, grabbed the culprit – it was Erskine – by his ear, and bit him hard under the eye.

“Wraaa!” Busner barked, and then flailed, ‘When you're old enough to groom me in the morning, Erskine, I'll let you know. Until then – dear Skinnikins – keep your darling little fingers to yourself.'

‘Sorry, Alph,' Erskine signed, doing his best to appear contrite. Yet within a matter of seconds – despite the gash under his eye – he was mucking around with his brothers, the three of them heaving and whimpering with ill-concealed juvenile laughter. The two adult chimps ignored them.

Gambol wetted the fingers of his left hand and began soothingly to tease the sticky twistles of fur under Busner's jaw. Busner soft-grunted his appreciation, “Huh-huh-huh”, then signed, ‘So, what is it that Whatley wants “huu”?'

‘Well,' Gambol inparted, ‘apparently about a week ago a seriously disturbed chimp was brought into Whatley's unit –'

‘Self-referring, from a GP “huu”?'

‘No, it was an emergency. The chimp had had some kind of psychotic breakdown or outburst; they had to send a crash team. Restraints, tranquillisers, the lot.'

‘I see.'

Gambol's fingers fell from Busner's scruff while he concentrated on the tricky turn into Hampstead Hill. The rush hour had thinned out, but there were still dense knots of traffic moving up and down the main road at speed. Gambol wound down the window, made hand signals and screamed loudly until a white BMW driven by a bonobo flashed for him to enter the traffic stream; then he resumed. ‘For the first couple of days they couldn't get a thing out of the chimp – his name is Simon Dykes by the way, apparently he's a fairly well-known artist.'

‘I should sign so,' Busner cut in. ‘One of his photomontages is in the Tate modern collection. Big triptych, showing a lot of teddy bears working in a laboratory – you must have seen it.'

‘I don't go to galleries much, Dr Busner, it's not my thing.'

‘Well “euch-euch”, you ought to. As you know a great deal of our work relates closely to the kinds of intuition and lateral reasoning employed by artists. We aren't looking for dry, linear or causal explanations – you should appreciate that by now, Gambol –'

‘Boss “huu”?' Gambol gestured, hunching in the corner of his armchair, just in case his alpha decided to lash out at this impertinence.

‘What “huu”?'

‘Could I please just finish “huu”?'

‘Hoo … all right.'

‘As I was signing, when they brought Dykes in he was in a catatonic state. To begin with Bowen and Whatley couldn't figure out if this was symptomatic, or if the crash team had been more than usually enthusiastic with the tranks –'

“Wraaf!” Busner barked. He had a hatred of tranquillisers, and indeed of all psychopharmacology, all the more so since the débâcle surrounding the clandestine trialing of Inclusion by Cryborg Pharmaceuticals. A project Busner had foolhardily got entwined with, in the belief that the drug represented a sort of panacea for depressive conditions.

Gambol went on, ‘When Dykes came round they couldn't get near him. He kept signing about monkeys and beasts, vocalising like a human, and attacking the staff – albeit ineffectually. Whatley and Bowen then hit upon the notion that he found simian contact itself traumatic, so they isolated him and began to correspond –'

‘Correspond, what do you mean “huu”?'

‘Send Dykes notes along with his food tray, asking him what was the matter and so forth.'

‘And what exactly did Dykes write then, Gambol? Has he given a reason for his breakdown “huu”?'

‘He showed Bowen that he was human.'

‘I'm sorry “huu”?'

‘He wrote that he was a human, that the whole world was run by humans, that humans were the dominant primate species, that he had gone to sleep with his human lover and when he awoke the following morning she was a chimpanzee and so was everyone else in the world.'

‘Including him “huu”?'

‘Well, obviously he looks like a chimpanzee to us, but as far as he's concerned he's human. He feels human. He signs he has a human body. He believes that he has gone completely mad and that the world he now perceives is a psychotic delusion.'

It had taken the Volvo all this time to inch down Hampstead Hill, but now they reached the traffic lights on the corner of Pond Street and Gambol made as if to turn left towards the hospital. ‘What are you doing chimp “huu”?' Busner poked.

‘Sorry, Boss “huu”?'

‘Pant-hoot Whatley on the mobile ‘phone right away – this looks fascinating. Let's drive down to Charing Cross and see if we can find out a bit more about this mysterious delusion. ' Gambol gave a wide, playful grin. He'd anticipated this and was already dialling Whatley's direct line with his hallux.

Whatley's rather mangy muzzle appeared on the dash-mounted screen. His eyes had an unpleasant white tint to the pupil that made him seem at once feral and weak. “HoooGraa',” he pant-hooted, and Busner and Gambol pant-hooted in return; Busner even drummed the dash a little just to impress upon Whatley that he wasn't going to be remotely deferential.

‘I suppose your epsilon has pointed out to you something about this chimp Dykes then, Busner “huu”?' signed Whatley, his fingers, which were, Busner noted, rather on the warty side, wiggling around furtively in the very corner of the screen.

‘He's given me a very brief outline. What do you make of it “huu”?'

‘I hardly grasp it, Busner. The chimp has been here for a week now. When they brought him in he appeared to be in a state of severe shock – although I now concede that it may have been some sort of manic interlude.'

‘What was his behaviour like “huu”?' Busner hunched
forward in his seat so that he could concentrate closely on what Whatley was signing.

‘He would move upright to the corner of his room if any of the staff appeared in the doorway. If they entered he would try to get under the nest, or even “hooo” attack –'

‘Attack “huu”?'

‘That's right. The attacks were however incredibly ineffectual – he appears to have little or no physical strength, some kind of motor-functional inhibition, or possibly even partial atrophy. At any rate, even though he was clearly terrified he was unable to inflict any damage on the staff, so we haven't even put restraints on, or given him more than a mild sedative, because he's quite harmless.'

A nurse appeared in the corner of the screen and handed Whatley a clipboard. ‘Excuse me,' Whatley signed. He wrote something on it, and dismissed the nurse with a wave of his hand – not even a light cuff for the impertinence.

Busner turned to Gambol and contemptuously raised his eyebrow ridges. As soon as he had Whatley's attention again he signed, ‘So what about this business of being human, when did that first arise “huu”?'

‘Well, he was signing after a fashion when they brought him in, according to the duty psychiatrist. He was also vocalising – but very gutturally and incoherently, all sorts of odd noises. It wasn't for a couple of days that his gesticulation became at all comprehensible.'

‘And “huu”?'

‘Well, he kept wringing his hands – Get away from me, you fucking ape! Fuck off, Beelzebub, you dark creature! – things like that. Bowen got involved at this point, started
this correspondence, by way of attempting some sort of diagnosis. We assumed to begin with that it was either drug-induced, or a flamboyant, hypomanic outburst –'

‘Does he have any history “huu”?'

‘We-ell …'

‘Does he, chimp “huu”?'

‘According to his GP, a chimp called Bohm up in Oxfordshire, he has a history of depression and some drug dependency. Had a fairly bad breakdown a couple of years ago when his group was fissioning “euch-euch”, but nothing like this, nothing so incontrovertibly psychotic. When we got hold of his notes and learnt this we tried a different approach with him, gentler, more accommodating.

‘He clearly found grooming incredibly upsetting, so we made a rule that none of the other patients, or the staff, should touch him. This has paid dividends – over the last few days he's begun to gesture more fluently, while recounting to Bowen this astonishing delusion about being human. According to him he went to sleep one night a human in a human world, lying in nest with a human female, and awoke with the world as it is now –'

‘What about the consort “huu”?'

‘ “Huu” the female he was with when he had the breakdown?'

‘Of course, of course.'

‘She's all right. Upset naturally, but she doesn't think she's an animal!'

‘Look, Busner,' Whatley signed after a pause, ‘you know “euch-euch” that I'm not overly impressed by the general tenor and direction of your current work –'

‘Yes, yes, I am aware.'

‘But I must concede that this case not only has me held at bay, but it's also obviously right up your scrag. The most astonishing thing is the consistency of the delusion. Bowen has pursued the ramifications of Dykes's psychosis, but neither of us have ever encountered a delusional state that was at one and the same time so comprehensive – he has an answer for everything – and so complex. I'd like you to examine him if you have th –'

‘I'm on my way right now,' Busner snapped, the finger-flourished ‘now' coinciding with him punching the off button on the telescreen.

After finishing his pant-hoot to Whatley, Busner sat signless. Gambol noted that his boss had drawn his feet up on to the seat and was manipulating a coin, so that it moved over and under each finger, over and under each toe, around and around on a twenty-digit circumnavigation. This was, Gambol knew, a sign that Busner was deep in thought; to disturb him now would probably result in a sound thrashing, so he kept his feet on the wheel and drove. Even the sub-adult chimps in the back seat sensed their alpha's preoccupation and remained novocal.

Busner was thinking in the very clear way that he only thought when confronted with a new pathology, or at any rate a case that exhibited a symptomatology with which he was unfamiliar. His personal image for this kind of thought was that it was akin to mopping up termites. He thrust the back of a figurative hand into the confused zone of new information, supposition and conjecture, then drew it out. Attached to his conceptual probe would be tens of little hypotheses, wriggling in the fur of cogitation. At his leisure,
Busner would pick these tasty hypotheses out and examine them, thus:

A chimpanzee who suffers from the delusion that he is human. Not only that, but also believes that he has his origins in a world in which humans have been the evolutionarily successful primate species. Not only that! But the chimpanzee in question is a successful artist. Could this conceivably be an organic disfunction? The business about motor-impairment Whatley marked out is promising, but hardly conclusive – it might be an hysterical conversion. If it were an organic impairment the phenomenological implications would be intriguing … but I mustn't swing in front of myself. Wait to see the patient, Busner; maintain objectivity, dispassion for the moment.

… and yet, how funny that this should come up today of all days, when only this morning I was dwelling on the lack of interesting cases to manipulate –

But there was also a deeper level of supposition that Zack Busner found himself descending to. A level that, mezzanine-like, occupied the area in between conscious conscience and guilty unconsciousness, between daydream and nightmare. A GP called Bohm in Thame; a patient locally treated for depression – presumably with anxiolytics. Could this, Busner wondered with a wondrous lack of acknowledgement, be more of the fall-out from that bloody drug trial?

This hand-jive of thought was interrupted by Charles who began vocalising in the back seat.

“Aaaaa!” Charles cried and then inparted, ‘Alph, can't we “huu” stop here for a minute, just for a frolic, ple-ease.'

“Wraaaf!” Busner barked, whirling round in his seat to
muzzle three anxious, ingratiating countenances, all floppy lower lips, yellow teeth, and six hands frantically gesturing, ‘Ple-ease, Alph, ple-ease, just a little frolic, just for a few minutes!'

The Volvo was standing by the lights on the corner of Albert Road; ahead Busner could make out the frothing greenery of Regent's Park. To the right he could see the topmost spars and cables of the Snowdon aviary in the zoo. “H'h'hee-hee,” Busner chuckled, and turning to Gambol signed, ‘We could stop off here and have a look at some real live humans, before going to visit this notional one – what do you think “huu”?' Gambol looked nonplussed, his thick lower lip twisted enquiringly. ‘Just joking, you don't have to take everything I sign so seriously. ' He turned back to the sub-adults. ‘All right, we'll have a patrol up Primrose Hill for twenty minutes, but then we must get on.'