Great Apes (14 page)

‘Address “huuu”?' countersigned the duty psychiatrist.

‘63 Margravine Road, ground floor.'

‘Any details “huu”?'

‘Not really. Some kind of acute breakdown, male, late twenties. We were pant-hooted by the consort who's in a bad way herself.'

‘Drugs “huu”?'

‘We don't know –'

‘Any idea at all of whether he's violent “huu”?'

‘He has tried to attack the consort, but he hasn't managed to hurt her. She signs he's very weak.'

‘Weak “huu”?'

‘That's right, weak.'

‘OK, we're on our way.'

The receiver was slammed back on to its cradle. The duty doctor, whose name was Paul, waved to his two nurses. ‘It's Margravine Road “euch-euch”, hardly worth bothering to take the vehicle –'

‘What do you suggest then “huu”?' Belinda, the new female on the team, scutted in. ‘We knuckle-walk round there and get him to carry us back again?'

‘This is no berserker – in fact he's weak according to the consort who made the emergency pant-hoot.'

‘Weak “huu”?'

‘That's right, weak. ' Paul looked at Belinda; her short white coat rode up exposing her nether regions. Nearly there, he thought, funnelling his top lip and sucking in the must of her; another couple of days and that swelling will be positively oozing – can't wait to mate the little creature. For the time being he filed the lust – the three other members of the team were already outside and Paul could hear the ambulance hacking and hawking into life.

Simon Dykes, the artist, awoke, his consort's hard teat cushioning his cheek. He sighed and burrowed down into the shaggy sweetness of her. The disturbing cadences of the lucid dream had faded, replaced on waking with the remnants, the cool leftovers of their lovemaking, which cancelled out the worst of the hangover, the maculate froth from the spilt beer of last night's debauchery.

Warm water, thought Simon, that's what I need. Warm water, warm salt water up the crud-filled nose. Then coffee, then juice, then work. It would all begin in the
rhinencephalon, that most ancient of neural pathways, which stretched across the front of the cerebellum, jerry-rigged by selection, the very embodiment of the individual, the cultural, peeling away from the phylogenetic, the primitive, the primateive.

Simon sniffed, simiously. A clutch of large hairs on Sarah's teat was actually pushed up his nostril, in amongst the crapulent deposits. A clutch of large hairs that smelt indefinably – for Simon – of chimpanzee. Chimpanzee, warm, cuddly furriness. Chimpanzee post-coital smell of sweat infused through fur. In its way a lovely smell – and all the more erotic for being braided with Cacharel, the perfume that Sarah always wore. A clutch of large hairs
on
Sarah's teat … Simon lifted his head and looked full into the open, guileless, heart-shaped countenance of the beast he was in bed with.

And then he was on his feet, perhaps screaming – he could not have said because the whole world was roaring around him now. Roaring as he backed away from the bed where the beast lay, on its back, its initially brute, dull eyes now on him with awful interest, the white clearly visible, right the way round the greenest of pupils slit by hot jet irises.

He backed and tripped on an edge of rug, fell heavily against the windowsill feeling the hard shock of bone and wood that affirmed this was so – Sarah was gone and he had woken up in a bed with this beast, or ape, or something that was
so fucking big
that its limbs were arranged in a human attitude, the knees akimbo, the heels touching, the arms behind the torso now pushing up on the elbows to lift that animal mask towards him, the mouth opening, gaping to reveal teeth so large, canines so long –

“Wraaa!” Sarah shrieked, and then signed to the shaking figure slammed against the window, ‘Simon, what the fuck are you doing, stop screaming like that! “H'hoooo”!' Which Simon simply saw as the beast flexing and fiddling its hands towards him, to grasp him, with sickening speed, while it screeched, its breath whistling into carnivorous yowls. So loud! The cries whined off the glass of the window, jarring his spine and back. So loud!

“Wraar-ah! Wraar-ah! Wraar-ah!” he cried, and then with deafening unoriginality, “Hooo! H'hooo – Help!” He wanted to turn from the beast, turn from its mouth so large, its teeth, dripping with saliva, so long. He wanted to turn and see if he could get the sash up, if he could get down into the garden. Here he was thinking so inconsequentially – yet so pragmatically – that he considered the depth of the drop to the patio; and when it moved again he was caught off a guard he never had anyway.

It moved so fast – the beast. It reared up, then using its arms to effect springy leverage leapt bipedal. “Aaaaaa!” Sarah vocalised, truly scared now; Simon's muzzle was so pale and although not horripilating his fur was drenched with sweat. It hung in sopping hanks from those long, lovable arms, which a moment ago had been embracing her with infinite tenderness, and that now beat against the window, insensate with fear.

‘Simon! “Hoooo”! Point out to me, my love, what's the matter with you “huuu”?'

There was no thought of the window now, and the door had never been in the frame. The instant he had become aware of the beast in the bed Simon had gone fully,
irretrievably into shock. Like a silent sitter transfixed by a harsh flutter of wings, then the “rap-rap-rap” of beak scratching wall, scratching floor, Simon had a flying bird now in the utter confinement of his head. It was the very
embodiment
of the thing that he simply couldn't stand. The very alien
embodiment
of it. The animal was upon him.

Sarah's only thought, only instinct, was to reassure, and that meant to hold, to pluck and tweak, at that sad, lank fur, to smooth her consort's disordered limbs that knocked and shook, to steady his grappling hands which were hardly making any comprehensible signs. She moved forward to the edge of the nest, intending to hug him preparatory to an emergency grooming. “Get away! Getaway! Geddaway! G'way!” Simon sank down behind his knees, in the corner – the beast was rearing above him. He still couldn't take in much of its appearance, only its full odour which filled his nostrils, obliterating the sweat-stench of his own terror.

Why was he vocalising like that? Sarah made stunned speculations. Christ! He's had some kind of awful seizure. She thought immediately – even in the throes of this incident – could it be those fucking drugs? The ecstasy? The crap cocaine? The furlongs of Glenmorangie drunk in the depths of the Sealink Club? She hesitated, and feeling her swelling awkwardly lodged between her upper thighs, like a balloon carried by an infant in some party game, moved reflexively to shield it with one arm.

Which was just as well, for her deranged consort chose that moment to attack. “Fuuuuckoooffl” he screeched, lurching up from beneath the window and slashing at her with claws-for-hands. Sarah recoiled, bracing herself for an
impact that never came. For there was something awfully wrong with the way Simon was moving – as if his very limbs were unfamiliar to him. He had even misjudged the distance from where he was slumped to where she stood on the nest's edge. Now his hands uselessly combed the air either side of her head. She caught hold of one arm and felt at once the lack of tensility. She caught the other easily enough as well. The consorts muzzled one another across a divide that was at once two feet of gaily patterned rug, and insurmountably strange.

He was still making the guttural vocalisations that Sarah couldn't understand. She brought his flapping hands back until they were between them, and stepped down gingerly off the edge of the nest. ‘Simon, my love, Simon,' she signed on the backs of his hands, in his dear, distressed fur. ‘What is it “gru-nn”, my love “huu”? What is frightening “grnn” you so much? It's only me, me, Sarah.'

He was whimpering and keening, but in an oddly animal way, very low-pitched, growly. His pupils were rolled back exposing the whites of his eyes. His lack of horripilation disturbed her – and his febrility. His legs were concertinaing beneath him. Then, just for a moment, she felt his fingers move with something like import, and she could mark out a few signs, shaped with spiky terror. ‘Beast,' Simon signed, ‘fucking beast. ' Then he sprayed her.

Even the greatest of shocks can be negotiated by the mind, which is, after all, a homoeostatic device, constantly labouring towards equalisation – a steady state. So it was that Simon Dykes, the artist, in a suitable pose: recumbent, covered in his own shit, slowly came round, slowly
admitted the fact of where he was and what had happened, just in time for it to happen again.

The crash team's ambulance drew up in the elbow of Margravine Road and disgorged five chimps in the bright blue jackets of paramedics. Paul, the doctor, vaulted the iron gate and nonchalantly knuckle-walked up the tiled path. He noted the careful arrangement of pot plants – herbs to the right, flowers to the left – and the tattered Greenpeace sticker in the front window. Saving the whale while smoking comfrey, he mused – looks like it could well be a drug thing.

Before he had rung the bell the front door swung open, smearing the features of the young female behind it across the panes of toughened glass. Paul consulted the call sheet in his hand. ‘ “Huuu” Sarah Peasenhulme?' he signed.

‘ “U-h'-u-h'-u-h'-u-h”' that's right. ' Her fingers shook as she replied. She was, Paul not so much noted as boggled, in full oestrus, her swelling a beautiful nacreous pink, the folds of moist flesh delightfully defined, scraggy at the perineum in just the way he liked.

‘Where's the consort then “huu”?'

‘ “U-h'-u-h'-u-h”' He's in the bedroom.'

‘And what's his name “huu”?'

‘Simon “u-h'-u-h'-u-h'” Simon Dykes.'

Paul moved to push by her, and she cowered in the awkward vestibule. Cowered and half presented her swelling to him, but in such a way that it was apparent that she was doing it involuntarily. Paul hesitated; while not strictly against the regulations to mate when on an emergency call-out, it was felt at the department – and in
particular by Dr Whatley – to be somewhat at variance with the image the crash team was seeking to promote.

This went through Paul's mind as he shouldered his way past the submissive female, bestowing a reassuring pat and kiss on the top of her blonde head. A rather old shire lap pony was trotting up and down the corridor behind the inner door to the flat. The poor beast was whinnying pathetically and drooling. In his scut Paul heard the female patting it, reassuring it, while making gentle lip smacks and soothing pants.

On the brink of the bedroom he stopped, cocking an ear. All he could see through the half-open door was one of the wooden poles supporting the tipping mirror on top of the dressing table. This was festooned with strings of beads and silk scarves. The table itself was covered with a dusty collection of porcelain figurines, ornamental boxes and other feminine knick-knacks. In the noonday heat the temporary quiet of the flat was oppressive, as were its odours of pony, excrement, perfume and mating. He paused, hearing a whimper from behind the door. The dispatcher had said the chimp was weak – did that mean not dangerous? Best not to take any chances.

Belinda had come up behind Paul, and he turned to see that she was accompanied by the hard chimp of the outfit, Al, who was carrying a set of restraints. ‘Have you got the tranks “huu”?' Paul inparted softly on Belinda's forearm.

‘Yes,' she replied. Paul pushed the door gently open.

‘ “Huuu”? Simon, my name is –'

“Wraaaaa!” The chimp's scream ripped through Paul's soft vocalisation and gentle signing. Simon was bipedal on the heap of disordered covers mantling the nest. His fur
wasn't erect, but his shoulders hunched aggressively and all his teeth were showing as he continued to scream, “Wraaa!Wraaa!Wraaa!” He grabbed hold of a sheet in one hand and a pillow in the other and waved them in Paul's direction. The psychiatrist took a step back so that he was partly hidden by the door. He'd handled enough psychotic chimps to know that this display could turn violent if he breached the invisible forcefield surrounding Simon Dykes.

‘ “Hooo” Jesus Christ!' Al inparted on Paul's back. ‘I thought this one was meant to be harmless – do you want the tranks “huu”?'

“HooGrnnn,” Paul vocalised, then gestured to Simon, ‘Now, Simon, we're not going to hurt you –'

‘ “Wraaa”! Keep away from me, you fucking ape! Keep away, keep away, keep away!' He threw his soft missiles at Paul – they fell short, doubly harmless. Simon advanced to the brink of the nest. Paul came out from behind the door, hoping that this would push the maddened male back again, but instead Simon attacked, using the bounce of the bed to leap feet-first at the dead centre of the psychiatrist's chest. Paul took a step backwards, but too late to prevent the chimp crashing into him, knocking him and Al to the floor. Simon's hands were on Paul's throat, the nails clawing deep in his fur, signing nothing but panicide. The hands were – Paul realised with a shock – like an infant's hands. Or rather, they had only the strength of an infant's.

Paul recovered himself instantly and aimed a short jab to his attacker's belly. With a harsh clack of his teeth, Simon rolled off Paul retching and coughing. ‘ “Waaa”! What the
fuck are you playing at!' Paul had the ape by his scruff and delivered a couple of sharp cuffs to his muzzle. Simon began to whimper with fear and pain. ‘What's up with you, chimp “h'huuu”? Been at the cocaine, have we “huu”?' Paul gave the scruff, which was on the long side, a few more tugs before registering that there was no resistance at all. The chimp's head was lolling against the psychiatrist's belly. The eyes were rolled back in their sockets, showing only the whites. The clenched hands didn't so much drum as pat at Paul's belly fur, where his tunic had bunched up.