Great Apes (28 page)

“… an infant, burning in mid-air, is at the centre of a canvas that makes a mockery of the suffering of real chimpanzees, in the most horrific London transport disaster in recent history. Why Dykes feels he has a right to do this is beyond …

… no sign of the artist himself, there was a great deal of
screaming and mating among the assembled critics and art-world types. Dykes's consort, Sarah Peasenhulme, appeared briefly, but was hustled away by Tony Figes and his coterie …

… interest that perhaps wouldn't have been shown were it not for the disappearance of the artist, who is rumoured to have suffered a total mental collapse in the week preceding the opening …

… he's mad – and she's bad, chimp. Swelling bigger than her head and not averse to receiving some ‘constructive advice' from prominent bonobo installation artist Ken Braithwaite. The two of them were seen after the private view, more down than up on the stairs of the Sealink Club …

The madchimp in question gathered together the leaves of photocopying paper that he had spread out on the institutional grey cover of his nest. He formed them into a loose ball, by scrunching one sheet up tightly and then wrapping the others round it. Even though he was distracted and enraged by what he had read, Simon still found himself appreciating how, when he willed them, his fingers responded with more exactness, more subtle dexterity, than he could remember from the time before his breakdown.

He regarded the fingers as they shaped and tucked. He'd never really noticed how hairy the backs of his hands were before – nor his thighs for that matter. Was it age, or some awful side-effect of the drugs they were giving him? The monkey denoted Bowen signed they'd taken him off the Prozac, but Simon couldn't believe this had had any impact on his mental state – unless it was to provoke these
delusions of a topsy-turvy world. He tooth-clacked mirthlessly, tossed the balled reviews in the air and without bothering to see where they fell, curled himself up into a ball as well, and began to rock back and forth, back and forth.

Some things didn't change. The world might be ruled by apes – be a
planet
of apes, but a moiety of them were still odious, grubbing hacks. Odious, grubbing hacks. Simon didn't simply remember the resentments – he felt them corroding his gut, as if his gut were a slopping sump full of battery acid, and this anchored him to the perversities of now more than any shrink could have done – human or chimp.

He groaned, clutching his shins. Were the paintings now of apes? Apes burning, apes falling, apes bleeding? Could this be true? And Sarah, what they'd written about Sarah and Ken Braithwaite, could that be true as well? Why don't I feel more jealous? When she was human I wanted her body to be exclusively mine. I wanted to have sole use of her smoothness, sole occupancy of her wetness, sole rights to her moans. And now the image of some oiled shaft sinking
inside
her …

… the dream. Me moving out of her. Being extruded from her. She was sitting in a tree. Hunched up. Biting at the cord that tied us. Biting with sharp canines. In the dream – she was a chimpanzee. She was.

Whatley and Gambol picked at salads in the Café Rouge across the road from the hospital. Given Gambol's acknowledged presence in the department, there no longer seemed any necessity for them to be secretive. He twined
his fingers in leaves of rocket and
radicchio
, then signed from this thicket, ‘I have something I think may “grnnn” interest you, Dr Whatley.'

‘ “H'huuu” yes?' the consultant countersigned around a wedge of avocado. ‘You know, Gambol, that I have no intention of an alliance with you unless it proves productive – and quickly! “Aaaaa” –' He broke off to call the waiter.

‘ “H'huuu”? Everything all right here, gentlemales?' The waiter had a white apron tied tightly around his waist. His white shirt had bright red buttons. His head fur was teased and dyed into a red quiff. Whatley and Gambol looked at him with undisguised contempt. ‘Fine, as far as it goes,' Whatley gestured, ‘but I ordered some garlic bread “euch-euch-huu”?'

‘Coming right up, sir. ' The waiter bounded away towards the kitchen, and meeting one of his colleagues
en route
they tumbled over each other in a precisely coordinated mêlée of limbs. Whatley grunted, turned back to his salad, and found that it had acquired a covering in the form of a shiny folder, the kind used by corporate entities to port reports and other documents. ‘What's this, Gambol “huuu”?' Whatley eyed the thing, then picking it up scratched his head fur with one of its sharp laminated corners.

‘Please take a look,' Gambol countersigned. ‘I think you'll find it
very
interesting – and entirely relevant.'

Jane Bowen took a pant-hoot from George Levinson in her office. ‘ “HoooH'Graa”' Dr Bowen, how are you today “huu”?' He was, even at this range, suffering from an
obvious hangover. Sportive sunglasses teetered precariously on his high nasal bridge. His long, brown sideburns were dirty, still encrusted with bits of last night's fun. ‘ “HoooH'Graa” not too bad, Mr Levinson.'

‘Did you enjoy the opening last night “huu”?'

‘Well enough, well enough – not really my sort of thing.'

‘I “euch-euch” wouldn't sign it was altogether representative of private views. I suppose you saw some of the fights that broke out “huuu”?'

‘The beginning of one. Was fusion eventually reached?'

‘ “Euch-euch” well, not exactly. Show me, has Simon seen this morning's papers “huu”?' He worried his side-burn fur, twisting it this way and that between fiddling fingers, as if this cheekborne dangleberry were the artist himself.

‘I believe he's reading them now. We've had a fairly successful morning. We got him out of the secure room and did the tests we wanted –'

‘And “huu”?'

“Hoogrnn.”

‘Dr Bowen “huu”?'

‘ “Hoogru-nn” I'm afraid I'm not entirely at liberty to delineate them, Mr Levinson – as I'm sure you appreciate.'

Jane Bowen hoped Levinson would hold back – but knew full well he wouldn't. He goggled at her from behind the sunglasses for a while. Even though she couldn't see the dealer's eyes, Jane knew they would be bedded down in hammocks of enpurpled veins.

Eventually his fingers twitched. ‘The thing is …'

‘Yes,' she snapped back.

‘The thing is, as you are aware his ex-alpha has no real inclination to take up cudgels strongly on Simon's behalf –'

‘ “Euch-euch” but you do “huu”?'

‘I am his ally … I've gesticulated with his lawyer. If he's to be put on a full whatsit – section, we have the right to claim power of attorney – we are both executors and named in this further capacity –'

‘Would you want to object to a section “huu”?'

‘ “Hooo” I don't know, Dr Bowen. Please, I don't wish to challenge your authority, I think of you as the wisest, most benign, most adorably perspicacious psychiatrist. Your ischial pleat entrances me … And now you've been joined by the
eminent
Dr Busner, well… I'm sure Simon is quite safe in your hands, but the point is, is he a risk to himself or others “huu”? Do you think further confinement will help him “huuu” – ?' He broke off, one finger up under the eye wear. It reappeared sporting some bit of grit – or grout – which he placed gingerly on his tongue.

Bowen visualised for a moment. Clearly it
was
time they made a decision about Simon Dykes. His condition was becoming more rather than less anomalous as they investigated it, and what with this evidence of organic damage – even deformity – could it really be argued that he was insane in any ordinary sense?

‘ “Grnnn” well, Mr Levinson, I must confess we are in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with Mr Dykes – I believe we shall convene a case conference sooner rather than later –'

‘Meaning “h'huu”?'

‘That it probably
would
be an idea for you and his lawyer to secure power of attorney. If Simon won't agree
voluntarily to whatever course of treatment we decide on, it may be a question of persuading
you
to force
him'

‘That looks rather ominous from where I'm sitting “euch-euch”.'

‘I think I can sign this without in any way prejudicing the situation, Mr Levinson. I don't think the chances for Simon Dykes's recovery are that good – whatever it is that ails him.'

After hanging up Bowen lifted the receiver again. She pant-hooted Whatley, she pant-hooted Gambol on Busner's mobile, she called the psychiatric social workers' department, and finally – out of courtesy – she pant-hooted Sarah, in order to show her that there would be some sort of decision made about Simon in the near future. Then Dr Bowen lay back in her chair, put her feet on her desk, pushed her head forward, and gave herself a good, thorough licking out.

The chimps assembled singly some two hours later, in Whatley's office. Norris, the nominee from the social work department, swung himself up the outside of the building from balcony to balcony and in through the secretary's window. Zack Busner barrelled along the corridor that ran the length of the psychiatry department, shucking submissive chimps off as he came. Whatley showed up from his conspiratorial feed with Gambol. They staggered their entrances, Whatley manifesting himself like the Cheshire Cat in reverse – the first anyone was aware of him was his teeth nibbling furtively at their calluses; and Gambol turning up late, ostentatiously cleaning away the evidence of a recent mating with fingers and lips.

Bowen came in from her own office, knuckle-walking with her rump aloft, a sheaf of folders shoved up in her armpit.

Dr Bowen convened the meeting: “HoooGraaa!”

“HoooGraaa!” they echoed, some more vigorously than others – Gambol gave merely a token grunt and drummed the lino, whereas Busner roared while bashing a cushion so hard Whatley mewled, then signed, ‘My daughter made that “hooo”!'

When there was novocal and signlence Bowen proceeded to flick over the particulars of Simon Dykes's case from the beginning, his collapse, his reaction to the crash team, his behaviour towards both the hospital staff and the chimps well known to him. Then she recapped the details of his medical history, reading where necessary from the records supplied by Anthony Bohm. Putting the notes to one side she digitated for a while on the possibility that Dykes's current condition represented some sort of hysterical symptomatic conversion from his essentially depressive state. She also palped and picked at the image that there was some maladaptive response to the Prozac Bohm had put him on; possibly catalysed by the MDMA he had taken the night of his breakdown. She then returned to the matter in hand – and teased out its various parts. Finally she presented some of the test results showing evidence of a bipolar disorder; and without going into it exhaustively, drew their attention to the organic neurological damage.

When she had finished she pant-hooted and squatted down, thrusting out a leg so that Norris, the social worker, could get to work on it. Whatley's fingers were the first to fly. ‘So, what are you signing, Jane “huu”? It seems to me as
if the probable, eventual diagnosis will centre on these FSIs, or areas of manifest organic damage in his brain. The prognosis must be, with this degree of “euch-euch” damage – whatever it turns out to be – pretty poor. Obviously Dykes's human delusion is besides the point; there's no way that understanding it can help us to help him “h'huuu”?'

Bowen wrinkled up her muzzle, scratched the thick fur beneath her jaw line, freed a bit of pasta lodged there since her third lunch and gestured, ‘Well, yes, Dr Whatley, I really think you may be right there.'

Norris flicked in, ‘Is he insured “huu”? Will his mating or natal group help out “huu”? Has anyone investigated whether they're prepared to fund private rather than NHS hospitalisation?'

‘I'm afraid it's “euch-euch” no on all counts,' Bowen countersigned. ‘His natal group has long since fissioned, same with his mating group. His consort tells me that there's no insurance – because of his history of mental illness “hoooo”; and his close ally and art dealer, Mr Levinson – who's in the process of getting power of attorney in case we deem a further section necessary – shows me there's nothing much in the way of assets until the proceeds from his current show come in – if “hooo” there turn out to be any.'

All the chimps appeared suitably grave about this information. Dykes might be an artist of some repute, but mental illness was a great leveller – that they all knew. It was quite possible to imagine Dykes a few months hence, drooling his days away in a dark corner of some long-stay institution; or doing the same in the frighteningly exposed
surroundings currently offered by ‘tree-covered accommodation'.

‘I'd sign that there's some “grnnn” quality oflife element to be considered in all of this. ' Whatley chose his signs carefully, placing them so all could see. ‘It does seem particularly cruel to leave this chimp – who's felt by many to be a fine, if unbalanced individual – to rot on the wards here, or elsewhere for that matter. Surely Levinson is prepared to do
something
for him “huuu”?'

There was a deep rumble of phlegm from the corner where Zack Busner lay, on his back, his feet softly bicycling against the walls so that the Artex deliciously abraded the itchy soles of his horny feet. “Grnn-grnn-HooGraa!” he vocalised – and when he had gained their attention signed, ‘I do think there may be another course of action available to us.'

‘Which is, Dr Busner “huu”?' Whatley smoothed down the signs, coated them with symbolic glycerine.

Busner hauled himself into squat, grunting, and directed Gambol to groom his back fur. ‘Which is to allow me to take care of Mr Dykes. I've done as much in the past, with both psychiatric and neurological patients that exhibit unusual symptomatologies. I don't doubt that there is nothing
ultimately
mysterious about Mr Dykes's condition; and as for the prognosis – I've seen patients with far worse trauma achieve a form of recovery. The brain – as you all know – has a marvellous “aaaa” plasticity. Correctly channelled it can regain “chup-chupp” homeostasis. Furthermore … “grnn” as he represents no danger, except to himself, I cannot see why he shouldn't be released into my care –'