Great Apes (44 page)

Hamble's muzzle was pale for an adult male, but he sported particularly curly, gingerish sideburns of an almost muttonchop aspect. These, together with his exposed canines, were more than enough to unsettle Simon, who, leaving Busner to pay the driver, felt obliged to pant-hoot with utmost deference, then drag himself backwards across the yard, arse aloft, ischial scrag nervously puckered.

But Hamble was as eccentric as Busner had intimated. He gave the most cursory – and necessarily soundless – drum on the top of the hedge, pant-hooted as faintly as Simon, “HoooH'Gra,” vaulted over the hedge and began gently to groom him, inparting as he did so, ‘Please, Mr Dykes, may I call you Simon “huu”? Don't put yourself down with such deference. I acknowledge your submissiveness joyfully, but really “chup-chupp” don't trouble yourself
¹
.'

Simon got tit about arse and regarded his gesticulator. Hamble's mouth was wide open, but his top lip covered his
teeth, giving him an unthreatening mien. “H'huuu?” Simon pant-hooted.

‘Of course,' Hamble replied. ‘After all, remember what Coleridge wrote in his Epigram: “huuu”?'

Simon took in the big chimp's grinning muzzle, the eyes creased with good humour, and without troubling to consider what he was doing, pulled himself upright and embraced Hamble. It felt more than good to have those serpentine arms encircling him, and to feel Hamble's reassuring knead. After some seconds they broke the embrace and Simon signed, ‘ “Hoo” Dr Hamble “chup-chupp”, I can't blazon how much it means to see you sign that inscription. Coleridge remains one of my favourite poets. Why, only the day before my breakdown I was dwelling on his image of the mind as a roiling flock of swallows, fusing and fissioning –'

‘Just like a chimpanzee group,' Hamble flagged Simon down.

“‘Huuu”? Well, yes, I suppose so, just like a chimpanzee group. But I was thinking of the
human
mind – do you find that absurd “huu”?'

Hamble maintained his playful expression and turned to Busner who was gingerly picking his way across the muddy yard on some-threes, his briefcase tucked under one arm. The two senior males met and presented to one another in the cursory fashion of old – but not close – allies. “HoooH'Gra,” Busner pant-hooted and Hamble echoed him, then signed, ‘Well, well, Zack Busner, you look in
good shape. I haven't felt you in … how long is it “huuu”?'

‘It must be a couple of years, Raymond,' Busner countersigned, ‘since we went on that disastrous pub crawl together with McElvoy, after his lecture at the Royal Society “grnnn”.'

‘Disastrous,' Hamble fleetly fingered, ‘only because of the poor Tourettic you had with you. It was his inappropriate vocalising – if you recall – that got us into that fight. Honestly, Zack – all of that pant-screaming.'

‘Well, Raymond, that's what they do – Tourettics – pant-scream inappropriately. But anyway,' Busner continued, gently dabbing the thick fur in Hamble's groin, ‘we're “chup-chupp” in touch now and that's all that matters “huuu”?'

Hamble bared his canines and let out a loud tooth-clacking chuckle. ‘ “Clak-clak-clak” well, Zack, you've certainly made your point. Now, if I'm not entirely misdirected, my hump is that Simon here might benefit from some fissioning as far as your party is concerned. Why don't you leave us to gesticulate alone and take a knuckle-walk “huuu”? It's shaping up to be a beautiful afternoon.'

Busner took these signs in the manner they were posted. Why not? he thought. Hamble is as kind-hearted as any chimpanzee, and his eccentricity may make it far easier for him to reach out to Simon. Busner broke off the intromissive grooming and got upright. ‘Which way should I scuttle, Raymond, over there “huuu”?'

‘Yes, that's as good a way as any, you can get down to the river, but watch out for the bottom paddock, the farmer keeps dogs there and they can be frisky.'

Busner bestowed a sloppy kiss on Simon's muzzle and commended him to Hamble's care, along with his briefcase. The last the two remaining chimps saw of the eminent natural philosopher – as he liked to style himself – was his prominent perineum, like a pink-and-yellow flower, appearing first here and then there between the rows of hardy perennials at the bottom of the garden.

Hamble grunted, took Simon by the hand and led him inside the house.

The next couple of hours were the most stimulating, engaged, and embodied Simon had spent since his breakdown; and also the most disconcerting. Busner's estimation of Hamble's influence was correct in one sense, because the naturalist's knowledge of all things connected to anthropology was so playfully tweaked and caressed that Simon found himself finangled by the foreplay into more acceptance of his chimpunity than heretofore.

But at the same time Hamble's obvious eccentricity, his peculiar house and his decidedly chimp behaviour enhanced Simon's sense of his receding humanity. There was that – and there was the fact that before his breakdown Simon had read Hamble's books and retained a mental picture of the chimp as a man, of his seeming sideburns as real whiskers. Hamble didn't help matters by encouraging Simon to smoke a joint.

But that came later. First they entered the Set, which is what Hamble denoted his house. This was blazoned by the bas-relief of a vixen suckling its young which formed the lintel of the old, oaken door; by the curving corridor, carpeted in an earthen colour that led from it; and by the
further curving corridors that branched from this, each one ending in another burrow-like room. On their way down the main corridor they encountered three of Hamble's large brood of infants, and both adult males stopped to tickle them and applaud their playful displays.

Besides the infants, knuckle-walking around the Set was difficult. Everywhere Simon placed his feet or hands there was another thing. The Set was heavy on things – full of them in fact. There were animal skeletons, stuffed birds, chimpanzee skulls and collections of butterflies, either hanging on the sagging walls or stacked against them. There were shelves groaning with tomes of all sorts, and a bewildering variety of tables and chairs. Some of these surfaces also suppported smaller collections of sea shells and crustacea, dried flowers and plants, rock samples and semiprecious stones, all arranged with amazing precision. Any remaining wall space was filled with water-colours of flora and fauna, pen-and-ink drawings of the same, African tribal masks, and the Hamble infants' clumsy poster-paint daubs.

Not only were there the daubs, there were also the infants themselves, and their toys: lead and plastic soldiers, doll's-house furniture, Lego bricks, model trains, teddy bears – and, naturally, some stuffed humans – all arranged with the same lavish attention as the adult artefacts, and mingled with them so as to make the most peculiar palimpsest of reification.

Hamble moved about this domestic museum with utter assurance, and after squatting Simon in a comfortable leather armchair and commencing gesticulation, it became clear to him that there was an internal order supplied to this intermural moraine, an order supplied by Hamble himself.

In the squatting-room-cum-study, with its small windows set high in the walls and its cheerfully crackling fire, the jumble was overwhelming. Hamble, as he fingered, would from time to time leap and pluck up an object or a book to illustrate his remarks. He always, Simon was amazed to see, selected the right thing, whether it was in front of, or behind him. This extreme extroception, Simon knew, was not unusual for a chimpanzee, but more peculiar was the way it was expressed by the arrangement of artefacts. It was as if they were an analogue or simulacrum of the contents of his own mind. After only a few minutes of flicking, Simon had the sensation that he was signing with the big chimp inside Hamble's own – admittedly capacious – head.

“Gru-unnn,” the naturalist happily vocalised as soon as they were squatted, then signed, ‘In answer to your question, Mr Dykes –'

‘Please,' Simon flagged him down, ‘denote me Simon.'

‘Simon then. Well, while in no way wishing to lend my support to the activities of extremist animal rights campaigners “euch-euch”, I have a more inclusive view of the nature of consciousness than most of the scientific community. Drink “huuu”?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

‘Beer, wine, something stronger “huuu”?'

‘Beer would be fine “grnn”.'

Hamble bounced up, reached hands behind his head and without looking took a bottle from the drinks tray, uncapped it, poured out a glass of beer, then passed the full glass to Simon without spilling a drop, while continuing to footle on the subject. ‘Even though he wrote at the
beginning of the century, and had more than a fondness for morphine, I think Eugène Marais' delineation of mind is still worth manipulating. You've read, I suppose, his
Soul oj the Human
“huuu”?'

‘I'm afraid not, Dr Hamble.'

‘Please, denote me Raymond. Well “grnn”, it was Marais who first made the distinction between individual and phyletic memory in animal minds. His theory was that the ratio between the two determines the degree of consciousness, sentience, what you will. He might have agreed with' – and here the naturalist lunged unerringly for a book, opened it, and passed it to Simon while continuing – ‘Linnaeus himself who maintained, See, here is his original
Systemae Naturae
, which classifies the human as a species of chimpanzee, and assigns it the name of
Pongis sylvestris
or
Pongis nocturnus
. Although I doubt that Marais would have gone quite this far “huuu”? Beer all right “huu”?'

Simon knew better than to express irritation at this representation of reading he had already done. Instead, he got down off his chair, crawled across the room and presented low, whilst gesturing, ‘Please “HoooGrnn”, Dr Hamble, Raymond, I revere your books and despite our short acquaintance find your anal scrag most affecting … I am familiar already with most of the historical literature concerning the primatoids, and in particular the human. Everything I learn merely increases my “HoooGrnn” sense of the world having been subject to a complete reversal – human for chimpanzee, chimpanzee for human.'

Seeing that Hamble was still holding out a hand to him,
Simon continued signing as he backed to his chair. ‘What I'm intrigued by, and what I think will help me most with my “euch-euch” bizarre impression that I am “hooo” human, is information about
wild
humans. I couldn't see myself in the humans at the zoo at all. I'm missing one of my infants, you see – and wonder if he may be with wild humans …' And with this distinctly strange revelation Simon Dykes's fingers fell still.

It was an idea the former artist had been harbouring for some time. While the unorthodox therapy Busner was applying to him had been effective to this extent – Simon's impressions of his own chimpunity becoming less problematic, as he adapted his unfamiliar body to the world – still the former artist was plagued by incontinent nostalgia. Memories of his own very human sexuality, of Sarah's body, and dragging behind these images of Simon junior, his infant, clear and irrefutable. In this arsy-versy world he found himself in, Simon battened on to this one fact, that he had
three
infants. If he could locate the missing infant then perhaps that would act as a rip cord, opening a parachute that would then deposit him safely back in a smooth, hairless world.

Hamble's eyebrow ridges creased when he saw this. Busner had outlined Dykes's condition when he ‘phoned to make the appointment. Hamble had expected the partial atrophy of the chimp's limbs, and the amazing coherence and insistence on alienation from chimpunity, but this was something else. He steepled his fingers, then flicked, ‘As you wish, Simon. Well “gru-nnn”, it's true that I've encountered humans in the wild. ' Again he reached unerringly for some illustrative material, this time an unmistakably
human skull. This he passed to Simon, who cradled it throughout what followed. ‘And as you correctly surmise they are considerably different to those in captivity. But let me mark out a quid pro quo, I'll show you about my encounter with wild humans – and in return you show me something of your understanding of humanity. What I would most like “grnnn” to know is more about human sexuality “huu”?'

This touched Simon's painful core of recollection, and despite paying close attention to what Hamble signed next, he remained haunted by a bare expanse of fleshly imaginings.

‘I have,' Hamble let his fingers do the walking, ‘been in the Congo for six months of the past year, and while not ostensibly researching wild humanity, I did “gru-nnn” encounter them. I was out ranging with some of the local bonobos. We weren't actually in the heart of the equatorial forest, rather on the “h'hooo” fringes, with sparse tree cover. Some of the bonobos were brachiating ahead, but I found it easier to knuckle-walk. We came down into a broad, shallow river valley and saw on the opposite ridge a vast patrol of the creatures “hooo”.'

‘It was frightening then “huuu”?' Simon flagged down.

‘ “Wraaa”! Absolutely, there were well over a hundred of them, thronging in the trees like ghosts or zombies. That's the reason they're so feared by the indigenes; the humans always patrol in large numbers and if they find an isolated group of bonobos they can overpower them through sheer weight of numbers.

‘Anyway “grnnn” on this occasion our patrol came to a halt and formed a tight huddle, waiting to see what the
humans would do. Even at this range – and we must have been five hundred and eighty-three metres away – we could distinctly hear them gesticulating with their odd, low-pitched vocalisations, and even making crude signs. It must have been their night nesting site, because we could make out some of their crude shelters among the trees –'