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.
The chimps came back for the next take in a jumpy mood, but as soon as Eva knuckled down to meet them they crowded around her, panting and touching. Even Bobo half forgot his dignity and tried to greet her as though she’d been boss. They needed the reassurance of her presence, the understanding that nothing unpredictable or ugly would happen to them while she was around. Very much to her surprise, Eva found that she actually enjoyed the sense of power and respect she got from them. She’d never been a leader in the old days, always more of a tagger-along and seer-what-happened. Now, though, she had to lead. Jenny was a natural tease, with a knack of spoiling any setup just as it was all ready to go. When she noticed this was about to happen Eva would prod Bobo and point, and Bobo would bush his fur out and snarl at Jenny, who would immediately cower and behave. Bobo himself as the day went on became more and more fretful, but the others understood the importance of keeping him happy. Belinda half-accidentally organized a sort of rotation so that Bobo always had a couple of females paying attention to him. By the end of the day Belinda was also trying to copy some of the grunts and gestures that she’d seen Eva using to control the threatening swarm of humans.
The whole thing ended with the shoot-out. It was mostly done by tricks and cameras. Bobo had a gun taped to his hand, and of course he just waved it about and tried to shake it free and pull it off, but by piecing tiny pieces of that together they were going to make it look as if he’d drawn it from his holster. Eva’s gun was a trick banana. She drew it and pulled the trigger; the skin split open and the banana shot across the saloon, finishing in Bobo’s mouth (more tricks). It all ended with his sitting down and munching away, which he happened actually to do the first time, with exactly the right look of having decided he was tired of being a baddy and was now going to become a model citizen. Pure accident, of course, but all the humans laughed and cheered, as much with the relief of having gotten the assignment over as with real amusement. The studio echoed with their baying cackle. Coming from a Public Area with humans gawking at them all day long, Mr. Coulis’s chimps were used to the noise and paid no attention, but Eva felt her whole skin prickle with fright and rage. The urge to get away was overpowering. She saw a couple of studio assistants coming her way, their kids’ autograph books open and ready. Normally she’d have done what they wanted, but today she swung away and scampered across to where she’d left her keyboard by her chair. Grog was still standing there, staring at the scene with a look of real hatred.
“Don’t forget,” she said. “Call Dad.”
“Will do.”
She grunted and knuckled away to her dressing room.
MONTH EIGHT,
DAYS FOUR AND SIX
Living—just living.
What for?
The apes in the iron grove, waiting, purposeless . . .
The people cramming the pavements, cramming the travelers, their faces all fret, purposeless . . .
Eva, between . . .
What for?
Grog hit it off fabulously with Mom—with Dad, too, in a different way. He even managed it with both together. When he had Dad to himself he let Dad do all the talking, just asking the odd question to nudge the conversation on. At the same time, Eva noticed, he gave Dad little signals of deference while still managing to seem quite free and independent. With Mom he talked gossip, mostly. Tagging along with Mimi he’d met shaper stars, artists, billionaires, and they fell naturally into the talk. He had a story about them or knew what they were really like, and told her. If Dad had been listening he’d have felt a need to compete with famous people he’d met, and then get huffy because they weren’t as famous as Grog’s. And Grog listened. He remembered what Mom told him—the names and doings of people she tried to help in her job, and he laughed or sympathized with their stories, and so on. It seemed perfectly genuine. Eva decided he was just interested in people, in his rather detached way, because they were people, not because they were famous. She said so one day and he shook his head.
“Sure, I’m interested,” he said. “What you mean is I’m not impressed—just like I’m not impressed by money. I’m interested though, because money’s useful. How’s old Beth doing?”
Eva gave him the chimp gossip—he was interested in that too. Only later did she wonder whether he’d brought Beth up so as to stop her from asking what he was going to use his famous friends for—he didn’t need anything or seem to want anything. She began to watch him with different eyes, noticing, for instance, how when he had Mom and Dad together he would usually side with Mom in an argument, somehow without actually contradicting Dad, and how in these arguments, if they had anything to do with chimps or conservation, Grog seemed better informed each time he came. He must have been reading a lot and watching tapes, but he never said so.
Cormac had a toothache. He was pretending he didn’t but Mom, typically, got him to admit it and then insisted on driving him off to find a dentist while Eva was in the Reserve, though the chances of getting emergency treatment in less than six hours were roughly nil. They weren’t back by the time Eva came out, so she hid on a wide shelf above some garbage cans that were housed in a shed by the parking lot. The bricks had gaps between them so that the air stayed fresh around the cans, which allowed Eva to watch the entrance for Mom’s car. Eva had never really believed that anyone would want to kidnap her, but Dad did, and Honeybear had put it into the contract that she had to have a bodyguard, so there was a good chance Cormac would have been fired if she’d been spotted hanging around alone.