She sat alone on the tube. She was a thirty-something, well dressed. Her beautifully cut long bob, normally dark-brown and shiny, was stuck to her face with grief. Her tears causing comedy panda eyes with the mascara she’d so carefully applied that morning.
Who’d be a Rhesus monkey? Almost invariably born into a life of experimentation – social, developmental, medical or otherwise. Year after year scientists have used our primate cousins to give us a greater understanding of ourselves. Year after year we’ve chosen to ignore it. Which begs the question – who’d be a Rhesus monkey?
He was young, gifted and black. He hung from one of the old dangly knobs on the tube, the rhythm of the train in perfect disharmony with the contents of his stomach and his head. If he kept his eyes closed he could keep the nausea at bay.
It was rush hour. The train was packed with commuters of all shapes and sizes all united in two common goals – to get to the office on time and to have as little contact with other members of the human race in doing so. She pulled a hanky out of her Prada bag. Her purse fell out spilling its contents of credit cards and family photos onto the floor of the train. As one, the commuters ebbed away as if any contact with the flotsam and jetsam of this woman’s life would contaminate them.
Opponents of his experiments said that Harlow "kept this going to the point where it was clear to many people that the work was really violating ordinary sensibilities, that anybody with respect for life or people would find this offensive.” Yet his experiments in the 1950’s and ‘60’s were seen as groundbreaking and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the behaviour of abused children.
Jesus Christ! How much had he had to drink last night? What had started off as a fine party had ended in him waking up behind a sofa with a puddle of his own drool in his ear. One of the guys had produced some Ganja, as they’d called it – what a laugh. They’d said it was 95% pure with no artificial additives or colourings. Just close your eyes and you’ll be fine.
Ineffectually she tried to rub the combination of make-up, hair, tears and snot from her face. She accidentally nudged the dark suited man to her left as she did so. She smiled an apology as he looked away.
What was more important, Harlow must have asked himself one day, food or comfort? Bowlby had argued that the mother was seen as most important to the infant because she was the primary supplier of food, essential for survival. How to measure that though – that was a tough question.
He reached inside the deep pockets of his coat. He fingered the knife handle and immediately felt secure. Fuck, mum would bollock him for wearing another hole in his coat though. Maybe he should have some kind of sheath? That might make his reactions too slow though. “Hang on a minute mate – I’ve just got to get me knife out – no, don’t stab me, I’ll be there in a tick…”
She looked around at the other passengers. She was one of them. She’d been one of them for years. She recognised some of the other folk on the carriage but in all those years they never exchanged a word, a smile or a glance.
So Harlow, in his quest for absolute knowledge, separated groups of rhesus monkeys from their mothers. He replaced their mothers with surrogates he’d made himself. Some were made from soft cotton towelling and provided no food, whilst others were fashioned from wire. The wire mothers provided the young monkeys with food.
He looked through the crowd of commuters at the bowed head of the weeping woman. She was like them only different. He had so rarely experienced this strange disconnected world, this world void of feelings and empathy.
She watched as the stations passed – Holborn, St Pauls, Temple – London’s financial square mile. The suits decanted themselves, racing to find their first caffeine hit at Starbucks, Costa’s or café Nero, every one keen to demonstrate that they were more important, more busy and in a greater rush than those around them.
When Harlow, or one of his colleagues, introduced a frightening stimulus into the monkeys’ cage, those with a towelling mother would race to her for protection. Those with a wire mother did not. They would only seek out the wire mother when she provided food.
Strange, he thought, she hadn’t got off the train. Tears aside, he would have figured her to be one of them. Well dressed, she was certainly one of the beautiful people. And now, and now she sat alone in her misery. He allowed himself a little snort of irony. She’d been alone before – but within the crowd it had seemed less obvious. Now though it was screamingly apparent. She’d been abandoned by her pack to suffer what the world had to throw her. Alone. Alone and vulnerable. He could almost hear the rasp of his skin as he rubbed the blade with his thumb.
Her stop had come and gone. She’d watched helplessly as the others had left her. Rendered torpid in her sadness, she’d been unable to join them, to meet even the most simple of challenges. She felt lost. And then she saw him.
When placed in unfamiliar surroundings, the young rhesus monkeys would seek comfort in their towelling mothers. They would hold on to her until they felt it was safe to explore their new world. Those placed in unfamiliar surroundings alone, or with only their wire mother, froze in fear and sucked their thumbs as they cried and screamed with fear.
Fuck, she’d seen him. He’d been staring right at her in the otherwise empty carriage and she’d seen him. Oxford Circus. His eyes darted towards the doors and then back to her. No-one had come on. It was still too early for tourists. Ok, he thought, he’d have a couple of minutes before the next stop. Opportunities like this don’t come around every day. With his eyes locked on hers he strode confidently towards her.
How could she have been so stupid? She’d been so lost in her pathetic emotion she hadn’t stopped for one moment to consider the risk she’d put herself in. If only she’d shown her face at the office. She could have told her boss what had happened, listened to a few platitudes and then gone home early. Passively she watched her assailant as he came ever closer.
Harlow had overthrown the zeitgeist that emotions were of little value, that children bonded with their mothers because of the connection with food. In his experiments, he claimed that children craved physical contact and comfort and that they were every bit as important as nourishment.
With his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets and his eyes never leaving hers he arrived on her side of the coach. His heart was pounding as his thumb rasped again and again over the blade.
Her tears flowed easily as she looked up at the black youth standing before her. He was dressed in a baggy coat, wearing what she would have called a ‘beanie’ hat. His lips were slightly parted – he appeared anxious, his breathing was rapid. She felt strangely relaxed.
He stood looking down at her for what seemed an age. She was slightly younger than his mum. She looked a mess. In one swift movement he squatted as he removed his hands from his pockets, “Are you alright?” he looked at her earnestly as he reached out and touched her shoulders.
She was tired and defeated, “No, no I’m not alright,” her tears welled and flowed with renewed passion as, at last, she allowed herself to cry hard.
“Hey, hey…” he embraced her, pulling her sad head closer to him.
She closed her eyes as she welcomed the kindness, the softness and the compassion.
“Sshh now, sshh now,” he whispered as he felt her body convulse in anguish, “It’s gonna be alright…you’ll see…you’re gonna be alright.”