Peter Dickinson - Eva

She swung herself across to the far side of the tower and swarmed rapidly up, coming out on the platform behind Bobo, who was still watching her allies climbing the side of the tower that faced out into the studio. She knuckled across, reached up and touched him on the shoulder. He jumped several inches and spun around, his face one enormous grin with his big emergent canines gleaming in the gloom.

Eva, the moment she’d touched him, had backed off, crouched down, and begun the quick pants of submission. Bobo stared, baffled. He didn’t notice the heads of the allies appearing over the rim of the platform. They too stared for a moment, then hesitatingly swung themselves on to the platform and gave Bobo the same signal Eva was giving. Olo presented him her rump, but since she was wearing jeans this didn’t have any effect.

Bobo sat down. His grin was still huge, but his teeth were hardly showing at all now. Eva immediately crouched beside him and started grooming attentively through the fur of his neck. Nin joined on the other side, and the remaining three settled into a huddle to groom one another. The humans muttered below, a gentle, almost pleasing sound. Then the whole group tensed as someone started to climb the ladder. Bobo stirred apprehensively, though Eva did her best to calm him with comforting little clicks. As soon as Mr. Coulis’s face appeared above the edge of the platform she held up her hand toward him, fingers spread. Five minutes. The face ducked out of sight.

Jenny and Olo swung themselves across and peered over to watch Mr. Coulis going down the ladder. When they came back they looked at Eva for several seconds, and then Olo settled beside her and began to search through her nape hairs. Bobo turned, put his arm around her, and gave her the big, open-mouthed chimp kiss. He did it without thinking, of course. It was what he wanted to do. He’d always been a naturally gentle and affectionate chimp.

By the time the five minutes were up they were a group, understanding one another and fitting comfortably together. Bobo was the official boss and got the little signs of respect and submission, but he knew and so did the others that the sensible thing was to follow Eva’s lead. She was the one who’d settled things, calmed Bobo down by giving him what he wanted but didn’t know how to get, calmed the humans down too, and stopped their screeching, made the mad world sensible for a moment, and known the signal to send the dominant human back down the ladder. When eventually she rose and beckoned to them to follow, they all climbed down without a fuss. Somebody had had the sense to produce a bunch of bananas. Eva tore it in two, gave half to Bobo and shared the rest among her allies.

As soon as the first take was over—of course it didn’t go smoothly because nothing with chimps and nothing with shaper people ever did—Mr. Coulis took his chimps off out of sight to a large cage where they could be alone. Eva went back to her chair at the edge of the studio. The woman had gone, but the young man with the beard was waiting with her keyboard.

“That worked out pretty damn well,” he said. “First time in years I’ve seen my mother upstaged.”

“Uh?”

“Yeah. I don’t belong. I’m Mimi Venturi’s son. We got into an argument about whether she should have taken this assignment on. You know how it happened? Honeybear was all set to stop using chimps in their ads and go in for swanky-arty, so they hired my mother. Then you showed up, and they decided to stick with the chimps. They wanted to back out of their contract, but my mother needed the money, so they said okay, but in that case you’ve got to direct the chimps. My mother says chimps are hell, but they’re less hell than actors, and, anyway, who am I to tell her she’s wasting her talents. I say the hell with your talents, you’re wasting chimps. She says they love it. I say crap. She says come and see. Now I’ve seen.”

“They like it when people give them fruit. Otherwise, no.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“I hate it all, but the Pool needs the money.”

“Same the whole world over.”

“At least I can go home after. What’s your name?”

“Call me Grog. It’s short for Giorgio. Grog Kennedy, because my mother was married to a guy of that name when I got born. She’s had eight husbands, but I wasn’t any of theirs. I guess if you looked in the history books, you could find there’ve been worse mothers, but I haven’t met any.”

He sounded perfectly cheerful about it. In fact, it didn’t sound as if he minded anything much. You’d have taken him for a very relaxed, easygoing, pleasant young man, if it hadn’t been for the vehemence, the passion, that Eva had heard in his voice when she’d been talking to the woman about Bobo’s outburst. Eva liked him in a way she didn’t often experience nowadays with new people. There was nothing in anything he said, in tone or glance or gesture, that suggested that he didn’t find it perfectly normal to be talking to her. Even Bren (even Mom, still) couldn’t do that, quite.

“What do you think ought to happen to us?” she said.

“You chimps? You count yourself in?”

“Yes.”

“Go back to the jungle. There’s about enough left.”

“We couldn’t live in the jungle, not anymore.”

“You’re going to have to learn to live somewhere without help from us humans, and soon. We’re giving up.”

“Uh?”

“Sure. Haven’t you noticed? We’re opting out, not trying anymore, living in the past. We conquered the planet, and what has it done for us? Zilch. All we’ve got is one ruined planet. How long d’you think we’re going to go on looking after a bunch of monkeys? I tell you, Eva, you better be thinking, and thinking now, how you chimps are going to start getting a living for yourselves without us.”

He actually meant it. Eva could hear. Though his voice stayed light and level the passion was back. Eva hadn’t meant to talk at all, and even now didn’t feel like getting into a serious conversation. She could have explained about the several attempts there’d been in the old days to teach chimps from zoos and research establishments how to live wild and look after themselves, and how difficult it had been, though a few of them had managed it; but tapping out all that stuff would have taken so long, and, besides, she wasn’t sure of the details. Grog sounded like the kind of nut case who needed chapter and verse before he would accept anything.

“You better come over and talk to Dad,” she said. “He’s read all the books.”

“Like to meet him. Sure that’s okay?”

Eva grunted and told him the number to call. He wrote it down, then squatted cross-legged on the floor beside her. He seemed to understand her mood and dropped back into his amused, detached voice, telling her all about himself in a way that meant she could keep the talk going with just a grunt here and there. He was twenty-seven, older than he looked. He didn’t have a job because, he said, Mimi bust up anything he started on; she liked to have him around, he said, as a way of getting her revenge on men. Marrying them was another way. In spite of what he said Eva guessed he was actually rather fond of his mother, but having to cope with her meant that he didn’t have any spare emotions to spend on other people. Instead, his love, his passion, came out in his feeling for animals. He wasn’t too realistic about it because he hadn’t had much chance to learn what animals are actually like, but judging by the way he dealt with her, Eva felt he’d pick up anything he needed very quickly. Without thinking what she was doing, she started to groom her way up through the short gold hairs at the corner of his jaw. He accepted her touch without comment, simply adjusting his position so that she could work more easily.