Great Apes (27 page)

‘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.

The problems Simon had with the simple tests became clearer when they moved on to the harder exercises. His eye–hand coordination, his vision, his hearing, all were slightly impaired. There was no evidence of any actual cognitive dysfunction, but somewhere between Simon Dykes's brain and the rest of his body an attenuation, or diminution, was occurring. He would keep misplacing a digit, a letter, or a figure. When Busner or Bowen pointed these errors out to him, Simon could immediately see them, but when presented with a task to all intents and purposes the same, he would make the same mistake again.

Busner also gave Simon a very limited thirty-two-question
Stanford-Binet test, devised for schizophrenics, and a similarly circumscribed MMPI, or Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Simon sat, his shabby fur oozing with sweat as he worked his way through these sheets of questions with only one sane answer. He neither asked Busner what they were for, nor showed any animation, except when querying those parts of the tests that cut against the grain of his delusion. With the MMPI, for example, there was an entire section dealing with mating, a section Simon passed over save for ringing each instance of the sign ‘mating', and placing a question mark next to it.

Busner and Jane Bowen looked on in novocal, using the opportunity for an extended grooming session. Busner slid gratefully from his chair to the floor and laid his head in Bowen's lap. She worked her way carefully over his head fur, his neck fur, and after removing his jacket and shirt all the way down his back fur, giving little smacks of her lips the while. She popped some of the gleanings – mucus, dried sweat twistles, crumbs, food particles – in her mouth; and made a small pile of others – paper bitlets, plastic filaments, lice eggs, staples, scabs and winnets – on the linoleum. When she was done, they reversed their positions and Busner got to work on her back. He snuffled and grunted as his lips palped and his fingers combed. Finding himself surprised by the quantities of medicaments mixed up in Bowen's sleek, dark fur, he inparted between her shoulders, ‘I shall have to watch what I'm doing here, Jane, or I'll find myself sedated!', at which she heaved with soundless laughter.

Simon finished the last question and threw his pencil in the air. It fell to the floor with a minor beat. Busner heaved
himself upright. ‘ “H'huuu” are you done then, Mr Dykes?' he signed, one hand cradling his testicles.

‘ “Hooo” yes, I am. I'm done, done-fucking-in. Show me I'm mad now, Doc-tor human-muzzle “euch-euch”, show me …' The artist's fingers faltered – then fell signlent. There was shocked signless between the three apes that endured and endured, while Bowen expected an outburst from Busner, but none came. He merely regarded Simon quizzically, his eyebrow ridges deeply furrowed.

The ‘phone rang, Bowen answered it. She employed a toe to smooth some fur Busner had set against the part, while watching the chimp on the other end of the camera, then broke the connection with the same digit. ‘It's the biotechnician down in the bowels –'

‘And “huu”?' Busner's ridges unfurrowed, rose.

‘They're ready.'

‘Good, good. Very “grnn” good. That
is
quick. Tell me, Jane, was this your influence alone, or did Whatley have a part in it “huuu”?'

‘I've no image, Zack, I like to envision it was down to me. ' She scratched her knees.

The patient, who during this exchange had remained squatting in novocal, now sparked up again and his fingers flew. ‘So “euch-euch” what about these reviews then “huuu”? Didn't you sign I could look at them once I'd done your stupid tests “huu”? Now didn't you, human-muzzle. Human-muzzle! Human-muzzle!' Simon illustrated these insults by picking up one of the human masks and waving it in the muzzle concerned. Busner lost patience and swung on him, a roundhouse punch that sent Simon sprawling. The results were traumatic to observe.
Simon crumpled up into a ball and began his odd, low-pitched keening, while his hands, half covering his anguished muzzle, shaped the signs, ‘You fucking bastard! You hit me! You bastard. You aren't a fucking doctor – you're a monster, a fucking monster!' and then he began to scream in earnest, “Aaaaargh! Aaaaargh! Aaaaargh!”

Busner and Bowen exchanged wary looks. This was not the response to physical admonishment either would have expected from a psychotic patient – whatever the nature of his delusion. Busner had seen Simon's case notes, but he still found the lack of physicality in the chimp, of basic reflexes, difficult to handle. Even with his many years of clinical experience, the atypical behaviour wrongfooted his impulse to offer reassurance. It was left to Jane Bowen to squat down by Simon, grunting gently, ‘ “Grnnn-gru-nnn-hooo” Simon, I'm sorry, but you really shouldn't challenge Dr Busner's authority in this way, it can't help matters –'

‘AllIwan, allIwan –' he fumbled.

‘What's that “huuu”? Simon “huu”?'

‘AllIwans t'see them. Thass all.'

‘See what, Simon “huu”?'

‘The reviews, the fucking reviews.'

‘Simon, Simon “gr-unnn” Simon, please, “chup-chupp” I'm sorry. You're still my patient, you know – and a very interesting patient too. Here they are …' Busner crouched by Simon on the biffed and battered linoleum. He so wanted to take the chimp's head in his hands, to cradle it, to pressure it, to offer proper, chimp-mane comfort, but Bowen's look warned him off. ‘Please accept that what I “grnnn” did to you I would have done to any patient who behaved in this fashion. Now, Dr
Bowen and I need to have a look at your test results. It's boring stuff for you – very technical. What I suggesture is that you go back to your room, have some third lunch, read your reviews – I think you'll find them entwining, if not altogether pleasing – and in the meantime we'll go over the results. We can reconvene in an hour or so … “huuu”? … What d'you sign?'

In the staff canteen Bowen grabbed a corner table. It meant they could go through the x-rays and scans without a light box. Busner brought the trays from the serving hatch, Bowen the buff envelopes and buffer folders. They spread out the sections of Simon Dykes on the table top and dived in. ‘I don't want to do this systematically, Jane,' Busner gestured, while cramming an individual steak and kidney pie into his mouth. ‘I just want to look at the things as rapidly as possible, form an impressionistic diagnosis. If you notice anything – sing out!'

Bowen rubbed her thighs together, feeling her fur comb itself, hookless Velcro. Oh to be licking a pink, damp swelling at this moment, to feel deliciously hairy teats swell in her mouth like ripe – Enough! She shoved the image aside. Her nestmate, Rachel, wouldn't be in oestrus again for another, frustrating week, better to give the finger to the thought, rather than visualise fingering her.

‘ “Wraaa-hoo” my God! Look at this!' Busner was holding up one of the slide sheets with the MRI sections on it. ‘Look! He's got a definite focal signal hyperintensity, here, here … and here! Several of them, right along the Sylvian fissure. “Hoo-hoo-hoo” I never really thought we'd turn up such obvious organic damage at all. And his
frontal lobe doesn't look right either … No “hooo” it certainly doesn't –'

‘It's swollen, isn't it “huu”?'

‘Horribly swollen. If I didn't “grnnn'yum” know better “grnnn'yum” I'd sign this was hydrocephalus –'

‘It would square with the other wet bits, “huu” wouldn't it?'

‘If
that's what they are – maybe they aren't. Pass me the PET scans, I want to try and correlate them.'

While the MRI scans were colourless, like ultrasound, pictures defining the shape of the brain in shades of grey, rendering it as massy and weirdly differentiated as a ball of fluff recovered from a blocked vacuum cleaner, the positive emission tomography produced fantastic coloured slides, more akin to heat-sensitive satellite imaging. Simon Dykes's brain, as revealed by PET, was a lurid collision of deep blues, dark purples and virulent greens. And as the cerebellum was palette-shaped in outline, the effect was as of observing some arty-facts, or analogies of colour sensitivity.

This is what Dykes himself might have thought on seeing the nuclear mapping of his mind, but Busner, despite his vaunted artistry, looked at the PET scan with technical eyes, noting the disjunction between the dark, depressed shades on the left-hand side of the brain, and the lurid flashes of red, yellow and orange on the right-hand side. “Grnnn-grnnn” he grunted as he perused them. ‘ “Grnn-grnnn” look at this, Jane – this certainly correlates with Dykes's behaviour, even if it doesn't explain it. You did an EEG on him, didn't you “huu”?'

‘Yes. The results are here in the folder. ' She footed it over.

‘ “HooGraa” as I expected. There's this massive burst of electrical activity on the right-hand side of his brain – really quite universal – but the left is terribly depressed, terribly depressed. That explains why our chimp is so cack-handed; and
possibly
why he has these extraordinary delusions. It's by no mean inconsistent – although not altogether characteristic – of a multi-infarct dementia “hooo”. As for these FSIs, well, they sort of
blanket
that central cortical region, don't they, but as the MRI shows, they must in fact be spread
throughout
the brain “h'huu”?'

‘You don't think they're tumours of some kind, do you, Zack “huu”?'

‘Good point “chup-chupp”. They don't have the right tints for wet patches, but on the other foot they're by no means solid. No, I think they're some sort of shadowing, perhaps lesions or scarring. Foot me the MRIs again.'

While Busner pored over the slides, Jane Bowen turned her attention to the X-rays; and now it was her turn to exclaim “HoooGraa!” Every chimp in their section of the canteen turned to see who was pant-hooting.

‘Keep it down! Keep it down!' Busner signed frantically. ‘We don't want any fusion over these “wraaa”!' He warned off some of the more inquisitive chimps, who nearly had their muzzles on the table. ‘What is it, Jane “huu”?'

‘Here, look here on this transverse image of Dykes's head. Here, below the jaw.'

Busner, heedless of his own warning, took the X-ray and held it up to the sunlit window. A waggish surgeon some fifteen feet away from them could see the shape of the cranium, and reacted as excitedly as Jane Bowen. He burst into loud, tooth-clacking laughter. ‘ “H'hee-hee-clak-clak”
whatever next, Busner! Got yourself a human to lead around on a chain now, have you!'

Busner didn't rise to this. He dropped the X-ray back on the table, and inparted his colleague's leg, ‘He's got no simian shelf, has he, Jane “huu”?'

‘No, Zack, he doesn't appear to.'

‘Could it be the result of some kind of accident “huu”?'

‘Unlikely – I'd sign.'

‘A congenital defect then “huu”?'

‘Maybe.'

‘Or perhaps he is human after all!'

… why Dykes feels it necessary so crassly to manipulate the consciences – and even the stomachs – of his public is beyond the scope of this review, but there is something both crude and self-seeking about these paintings that takes them down a peg from being true examples of art, to mere caricature …

… Dykes, whose
World of Bears
caused such a buzz of interest when it was bought for the Tate's permanent collection last year, disappoints mightily with this slipshod series of exploitative tableaux. Having abandoned the perverse formalism of his earlier, more sculptural work, he proffers in its place the formal perversity of his painting …