Great Apes (32 page)

Upstairs each of the nestrooms was decorated individually. One was oppressively female with a flounced, white-painted four-poster nest, adrift on a sea-blue carpet; another was equally masculine, full of footballs, ski sticks and other sporting equipment.

It could be, Simon fluttered to himself, just the sort of house my infants and I might have lived in – had things turned out differently. A substantial group home on a tree-lined road in a comfortable North London suburb. Only two things marked the Busner house as being unassimilable, different, other, as furnished by the delusion as by furnishing: there were all sorts of handholds attached to the walls at convenient heights for bustling apes, handholds that were obviously as old as the house itself – wooden, brass, or covered with anaglypta. There were these, and there was also the oppressive, rank smell of those animals, who although now absent, were bound – like the three bears – to return.

He's in the sub-adult males' room,' Busner in-parted Charlotte, his alpha female. ‘They're out on night patrol and he seemed more comfortable in there for the moment than in the spare bedroom.'

‘ “Hoo” Zack. ' Charlotte stirred in the nest. ‘ “Grnn-gr”' do you really think it's a good idea to have such a severely disturbed chimp staying with us “huu”?'

‘Good idea for who “huuu”?' he replied absent-mindedly, the signs falling like the footfalls ofsome heavy insect between her shoulder blades.

‘For him, for you “hooo”, I don't know. It seems like only yesterday that you had that chimp with Tourette's here – don't you remember how his ticcing and involuntary vocalising began to drive you round the bend “huu”?' She rolled over to muzzle him and pressed her soft, liver-spotted cheek into his belly fur.

‘ “Chup-chupp” that's true enough, old thing, but remember what irritated me most about poor Nairn was how stereotypic his condition was. It was flamboyant, true enough, but there was nothing really there to get my fingers round. With Dykes I think the situation is rather different. His is a unique condition “gru-nn”. I don't know, Charlotte, you could be right, but I have a hunch that Dykes's may well prove to be my last truly important case –'

‘Zack, Zack, you shouldn't sign so.'

‘Charlotte, “huh-huh” as my oldest nestmate, my adored alpha, I think I need to show you something.'

‘What, Zack “huuu”?'

Charlotte struggled upright in the nest, pulling the sheets with her, and snapped on the nestside lamp. Dr Kenzaburo Yamuta, the Busner distal-zeta male, and Mary the theta female who were sharing the nest deprived of their covering stretched, groaned, rearranged their limbs and recommenced snoring.

In the sudden exposure Busner noted again how tired Charlotte looked. This oestrus had really taken it out of her. She was wearing a cotton nightgown that had rucked up over her belly. Her swelling was healing but still raw, there were gashes and nail marks around her neck. ‘Charlotte “clak-clak”, Charlotte old thing, neither of us is as young as we used to be “huh-huh”. We've done well in the past few years, the group is better established than ever, all our offspring are doing well – at the end of this year I'll be able to retire on full pension.'

‘Zack, do you really mean this “huuu”?'

‘Not only do I mean it, but there's another, less voluntary factor. I believe that Gambol is making an alliance against me.'

‘ “Euch-euch” Zack! You can't be serious, the little swine! “Wraaa” after all that you've done for him!'

Her fur erected under the thin cotton, her fingers grasped his, her brown eyes stared deep into his green ones. Busner began to groom the backs of Charlotte's hands. This was a special, intimate act of grooming that was exclusive to them. Busner, ever so delicately, teased
out the fur on the back of Charlotte's fingers using the thicker fur on the backs of his. It calmed her more or less instantly and she began to pant and smack her lips, while snuggling back down into the nest. ‘Charlotte,' the former television personality inparted, ‘your arsehole means more to me than anything, your “huh-huh” swelling is the whole world engulfing me –'

“‘Chup-chupp-hoo” sweet scrag, you silly old fool “chup-chupp” –'

‘I mean it, Charlotte. But you know, if Gambol can topple me from the apex of the hierarchy, then so be it. I'm old – this is the chimpanzee way, always has been. No, the only thing that really troubles me is that he and Whatley – I know Whatley is in with him – will mount a coup before I can make any real progress with Dykes. I'm certain that they're going to leap from the branch soon – the only question is when.'

The two senior Busners went on grooming each other for a long time. Through the open windows of the bedroom came floating the faint valedictory pant-hoots of chimps departing from the bars and restaurants of Hampstead. The night air cooled, the house around them quietened. Eventually Charlotte began to snuffle and then when her snores oddly harmonised with those of her sleeping subordinates, Zack Busner was left alone with his thoughts.

As was Simon in the sub-adult males' room. It was true, he did find its ambience more comforting that the chintzy, emphatically spare room. But at the same time, the doubly scaled-down pine bunknests with their
brightly patterned duvet covers; the posters of pop stars and football players stuck to the walls; the model aeroplanes dangling from threads pinned to the ceiling; and the pygmy bookcases overflowing with picture books – all of it dragged the memories of the Brown House, the memories of his infants, the memories of humanity, screaming back to him.

“Daddy”. Nothing. “Daddy”. Nothing. “Da-ddy!”. Nothing. “Daddy-Daddy-Daddy!”. “What? What is it?”. “Daddy, you're pooh-pooh.”

Lots of giggling about this. Three blond heads knocking together like nuts; and the squirrely fingers digging into his thighs.

““Daddy”. Nothing. ““Daddy”. Nothing. ““Da-ddy!”.

“What? What is it now?” “Da-da, Magnus is the sky and I'm the world. And the sky is more biggest than the world, isn't it?” “Bigger, darling, it's bigger than the world …”

He had thought his love for them was more biggest than the world, but perhaps it had been nothing of the sort. He had thought that the intense physical sympathy he felt for his infants would keep him anchored to that world, but he'd been wrong. How could this have been so? As he lay in nest, in Hampstead, in a world dominated by the physical, the bodily, Simon stared at the dark wall, stared at a poster tacked there that showed a chimpanzee with a pronounced eyebrow ridge screaming into a microphone. Underneath the muzzle was the legend ‘Liam Gallagher, Oasis'. Some oasis, Simon mused, more like a mirage. A mirage that should dissolve.

Every scab, every graze, every knock and blow. The time the hernia swelled, hour-by-hour, in Magnus's little groin, until it was the size of a goose's egg and he and Jean
cried with anxiety while Anthony Bohm probed it with certain fingers.

The time Henry ended up on the children's ward, at Charing Cross Hospital. His little muzzle trapped by the plastic mask of the nebuliser. The awful “ker-choof, ker-choof” as it pumped the gas into his failing lungs, puffed the life into his labouring body. And in the plastic-curtained booth next to him, Simon had watched as a well-fingered young doctor delineated carefully to uncomprehending Somali parents, that their little infant's colon would have to be removed. That her life would be, from this day on, a veritable crock of shit.

And the time Simon junior, the middle infant, the sensitive one, had been bullied at school. Come home crying, his snub-nasal bridge red, biffed about. And Simon had marched into the prissy head teacher's office; marched in with Simon in his arms, and while the infant male's body shivered against his, berated the woman, berated the school, berated the more biggest world that could harm his offspring.

Simon struggled round in the cramped nest to muzzle the wall. He pulled the diminutive duvet tightly around him, feeling the cotton prickle against his hairy shoulder. He tucked his head into the crook of his arm and willed himself to sleep. To sleep was to dream of a world where you weren't touched unbidden, where the tedium of gussets reigned, where his infants slickly snuggled against him. Simon willed the Valium Busner had administered to work, to drag him away from this ravening reality. He wanted to dig into the nest, to submerge himself in its familiar cotton confines. He yanked the duvet up, so that it
covered his fluffy head with its bright pattern of dancing little humans.

Morning arrived like it always did at the Busner house – with pandemonium. The night-ranging, sub-adult males were back and racketing around in the kitchen. The older females were preparing first breakfasts for everyone who had to get off to work. Cressida was still in oestrus after three whole weeks, a fact that caused her pride and discomfort in equal measure, but mating activity was relatively subdued.

Taking one look at the large room with its leaping, bouncing, gyrating and overwhelmingly chimp inhabitants, Busner decided that it was too soon to subject Simon Dykes to the full force of normal life. “HooooGra!” he pant-hooted loudly and tom-tommed the top of a freestanding plastic bin. The noise died away. ‘Right! “HooGrnn” you lot. I showed you that I would be having another patient staying with us, but I just want to drum this home a bit more …' He drummed on the bin some more. ‘This poor chimp Simon Dykes has a genuine malaise that has afflicted him with the delusion that he's human –' Some of the younger Busners began giggling and tooth-clacking. ‘ “Wraaaf! Can it, you lot, or you'll feel the clamp of my jaws on your miserable muzzles. “Waaaa”!' The giggling spluttered to a halt. ‘Now, I want a reasonable amount of quiet and decorum in here. I'm going to take Simon out to the summer house to have his first breakfast – I think he may find the company of the lap ponies a little easier to bear than yours. “HooGraaa”!'

Busner leapt back out of the room and bounded up the
stairs. He hesitated on the threshold of the sub-adult males' room and grunted interrogatively a few times before swinging in. Simon was just levering himself up, rubbing his eye sockets. Busner was intrigued that he'd chosen to sleep on the bottom one of the bunknests. This was undoubtedly, he mused, another ramification of the human delusion. Human-like, Simon sought shelter wherever he could. ‘ “HooGraa” good morning, Simon. Did you sleep well “huuu”?'

Simon could barely focus on the digitations. He massaged his head. For some seconds he knew where he was, he knew who he was signing with, but he couldn't have said which species he belonged to. Then the fug of sleep cleared and the former artist confronted the hell of another day among the apes. “HooGra,” he vocalised feebly, then signed ‘Good morning, Dr Busner. I'm sorry, Your Radiant Arseholiness, I was dreaming … dreaming … of being human –'

‘And you're human on awaking “huu”?'

‘Yes, yes, of course.'

‘You have no fur “huu”? Your limbs are straight, the arms shorter than the legs “huu”?' ‘Yes “hooo” yes! Of course –'

‘Your buttocks are as rounded and smooth as two salad bowls “huuu”?'

‘ “Clak-clak-clak” well, if you sign so! Although it's not exactly the image I would have chosen!'

With this distinctly good-humoured outburst, the ape man grabbed the bottom of the top nest and swung himself out of the bunk. He swaggered around the room, ignoring Busner's presence, and picking up articles of clothing. He
put on one of the T-shirts from the plastic bag Tony Figes had provided, and a denim jacket.

Simon refused to attempt the climb down the outside of the house, so the maverick anxiolytic drug researcher led him down the stairs and out the back door. Simon was still forcing himself to walk upright on the level – and he ignored the handholds.

Simon hung back as they traversed the terrace, and laughed on peering through the french windows. He'd yet to see so many chimps of different ages in a domestic setting, and the sight recalled parody; the films he'd seen as an infant of chimps' tea parties at the zoo. They all seemed to cram as much fruit or bread in their mouths as possible, and they all grabbed at the food in each other's mouths. They swung around the place using the very ordinary furniture – a set of pine chairs and matching table, a Welsh dresser and the formica-topped breakfast bar – as a species of jungle gym. Observing Simon's amusement, Busner merely fluttered something about ‘Family, too noisy, bit much for your first day. Daughter still in oestrus …' and led him on to the octagonal gazebo at the end of the garden, which he'd ordered from a catalogue in a moment of bucolic aspiration.

Here Simon sat and chomped his way through a bowl of sloes – remarking that they were unpleasantly bitter, and a bowl of custard apples – remarking that they were nauseatingly sweet. Busner tried to interest him in a slice of durian, signing, ‘Best there is. My gamma female gets them from some Sumatran deli in Belsize Park,' but the smell alone put Simon right off.

The things that seemed to calm Simon most and distract
him from the more problematic aspects of his new home were the Busner lap ponies. As usual three or four of them were trotting around the garden, neighing reedily and depositing their small, hay-encrusted droppings neatly among the rose bushes. Simon found them captivating. ‘They're so small,' he signed wonderingly to Busner, who was deep in the
Guardian.
‘Why are they so small “huuu”?'

‘Small “huu”? Yes, they are. Of course, the original wild horse was considerably larger, but over the millennia that chimpanzees and horses have lived together they've been bred for size until the modern, domesticated horse has achieved this convenient stature – just right for fertilising gardens and crops without damaging them “chup-chupp”. ' Busner hoisted one of the little beasts aloft by its bridle and petted its caramel mane.