I'm an ape man, I'm an ape-ape man ... Along comes Zachary, alongfrom the porter's lodge, where there's a trannie by the kettle andthe window is cracked open so that Muswell Hill calypso warms thecold Friern Barnet morning, staying with him, wreathing his headwith rapidly condensing pop breath. I'm an ape man, I'm an ape-apeman, oh I'm an ape man ... The lawns and verges are soft with dew,his arms and his legs are stiff – a rigor he associates with last night'stense posture, when I aborted the fumbled beginnings of a noncommittalcongress. While Miriam fed the baby in their bed hawsersand pipelines coiled away into milky, fartysteam – the enormous projectileretracted into the cradle of my belly and thighs ... I'm an ape man, I'm anape-ape man ... the Austin's steering wheel plastic vertebrae bentdouble, kyphotic ... had pulled at his shoulders as he wrestled the cardown from Highgate, then yanked it through East Finchley – kneesjammed uncomfortably under the dashboard – then across the NorthCircular and past the blocks of flats screening the Memorial Hospitalbefore turning right along Woodhouse Road. Under the bonnet thepistons hammered at his coccyx, the crankshaft turned his pelvisround and around, while each stop and start, each twist and turn – thevery swivel of his eyeballs in their sockets – didn't ease this stressbut screwed it still further into his frame: bitindrill, chuckinlathe,poweron ... In his already heightened state he had looked upon thecity as an inversion, seeing the parallelograms of dark woodland anddormant grass as man-made artefacts surrounded by growing brick,tarmac and concrete that ripples away to the horizon along the furrowsof suburban streets ... While his domestic situation is by no meansquiescent, nor is it settled, and the day ahead – Ach! A beige worm ofantiseptic cream wriggles into the festering crack of a bed sore ... Bitterlyhe had considered: Is my dip' psych even relevant when it comes tothis first-aiding, the sick parade of a shambling citizen militia? ... I'man ape man, I'm an ape-ape man ... The drive into work is alreadyautomatic. — Still, it's a shock that his destination is this folly with aFriends' Shop. Along comes Zachary ... Hush Puppies snaffling thegravel path that leads from the staff car park – where cooling steelticks beside floral clocks – towards the long repetition of archedwindows and arched doorways, of raised porticoes and hip-roofedturrets. Along comes Zachary ... creeping noisily up on the highcentral dome with its flanking campaniles in which no bells haveever rung, as they are only disguised ventilation shafts designed tosuck the rotten fetor from the asylum ... Along comes Zachary ... avoidingthe unseeing eyes of the tarnished bronze statue that hidesbehind some forsythia – a young man clearly hebephrenic ... his faceimmobile forever in its suffering, the folds of his clothing plausiblyheavy ... for he looks altogether weighed down by existence itself.Along comes Zachary ... chomping beside the arched windows now,and the arched doorways, and then the arched windows again. Headmits himself into this monumental piece of trompe l'œil not by thegrand main doors – which are permanently bolted – but by an inconspicuousside one – and this is only right, as it begins the end of thedelusion that he will encounter some Foscari or Pisani, whereas thereality is: a low banquette covered with dried-egg vinyl, and slumpedupon this a malefactor, his face – like those of so many of the mentallyill – a paradoxical neoplasm, the aged features just this second formedto quail behind a defensively raised shoulder. A hectoring voice says,You will be confined to your ward and receive no allowance thisweek, DO YOU UN-DER-STAND? Oh, yes, I understand wellenough ... which is why he continues apace, not wishing to see anymore of this routine meanness ... Along comes Zachary – and along ashort corridor panelled with damp chipboard, then down some stairsinto the lower corridor. Along comes Zachary – and along – he hasclutched his briefcase to his chest, unfastened it, and now pulls hiswhite coat out in stiff little billows. You'll be needing one,Busner, Whitcomb had said – a jolly arsehole, his long face a fraction:eyes divided by moustache into mouth – else the patients'll think ...Think what? Think what?! But the consultant's attention span was soshort he had lost interest in his own phrase and fallen to reaming thecharred socket of his briar with the end of a teaspoon, the fiddly taskperformed inefficiently on the knobbly tops of his knock-knees. – Whywere the staffroom chairs all too low or too high? Along comesZachary – and along ... I'm an ape man, I'm an ape-ape-man, oh I'm anape man, his splayed shoes crêping along the floor, sliding acrosspatches of lino, slapping on stone-flagged sections, their toes scrapingon the ancient bitumen – wherever that was exposed. Scrrr-aping.He wonders: Who would dream of such a thing – to floor the corridors,even the wards, of a hospital with a road surface?