Belinda Bauer - Rubbernecker

Patrick had pushed his little finger carefully into the dark spot, and felt it travel easily through the skin and flesh. ‘It hasn’t healed.’

‘Fucking gross !’ Scott had laughed, and Spicer had given him a look that shut him up.

Now the hole had disappeared, along with most of the skin from the torso, and the body on the white table lay opened like a butterfly chicken in an Italian restaurant. In late October they had gone through the ribs with saws bearing the brand name TUFF®. They were tentative at first, but increasingly sweaty and workmanlike, with goggles to keep the bone dust and shreds of flesh from going in their eyes. They had allowed Scott to take the lead, and he’d proved as gleeful with a saw as Patrick was devoted to bagging and tagging every tiny fragment of Number 19 spat out by the metal teeth. Theirs was the cleanest dissection area in the whole room.

Table 22 became the first to establish a cause of death.

‘They could hardly miss it,’ said Scott sourly. ‘The guy’s heart is bigger than his head.’

Five others found signs of cardiac or vascular disease that enabled them to make similar diagnoses, and each was confirmed by Mick, who ticked them off his closely guarded list.

Patrick was not here for the cause of death, but he was still annoyed that they hadn’t got there first, and now put his money on a brain tumour. He imagined finding the pink lump nestled in the grey matter, like a pearl in an oyster.

Meg stared down at the still-wrapped head of the dead man, as if she were thinking the very same thing.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘in Thailand medical students bring flowers to their cadavers as a gesture of gratitude and respect.’

‘OK,’ said Rob. ‘You call Interflora, we’ll all chip in.’

‘I’m not chipping in,’ said Patrick quickly. He only had twenty pounds a week for groceries.

‘Duh,’ said Scott.

Rob hadn’t fainted since the first day, and now he dug the handle of a spoon under one thick cord running from the wrist up the forearm, and levered it up. The cadaver’s fingers curled in towards the palm. ‘Look at that!’

‘ Flexor digitorum superficialis ,’ said Patrick, without looking at Essential Clinical Anatomy , which lay open on the table behind him.

‘I think we should give him a name,’ said Meg.

‘Who?’ said Dilip.

‘Number 19.’

Patrick frowned. ‘It’s a corpse; it doesn’t have a name.’

‘Call him Stinky,’ said Scott. ‘He reeks.’

‘ You reek,’ said Meg. ‘This whole place reeks.’

It did. The strange sweetness of the dissecting room hung in the air and clung to their very persons. Patrick could smell a classmate five places away in the cafeteria line; he could smell it on his own T-shirt when he pulled it over his head at night and when he opened his drawer to get clean clothes; he could still smell it on his own skin as he stepped out of the shower every morning, red from scrubbing.

‘Formaldehyde,’ said Dilip.

‘Nah,’ said Rob. ‘It’s glycerol, I think.’

‘It’s dead flowers over shit,’ Patrick informed them.

They all looked at him, then at each other – and screwed up their faces in fresh disgust.

Dilip said, ‘You’re right.’

Patrick didn’t answer obvious statements.

‘So Mr Shit it is then,’ said Scott.

‘No,’ said Meg firmly. ‘That’s horrible. Table 11 called their lady Faith. That’s nice. Something like that.’

Patrick sighed. He had solved the problem of the smell for them and wanted to move on. He pointed at a cord of pink muscle. ‘ Palmaris longus .’

‘That’s a lousy name,’ said Scott, weaving his forceps between the muscles and tendons of the other forearm. ‘Even for a corpse.’

‘Cadaver,’ corrected Meg. Then, ‘It’s hard to think of a name without seeing his face.’

‘So look at his face,’ shrugged Dilip.

Meg didn’t move. She glanced around: nobody else had yet unwrapped their cadaver’s head. Dr Spicer was several tables away, talking to Dr Clarke.

Meg looked at the calluses on the palm of Number 19. Soon they’d be gone, along with the rest of the skin there. ‘Maybe he’s a builder.’

‘More like a boxer!’ said Scott, manipulating the tendons so that the hand curled into a fist.

‘ Flexor digitorum profundis ,’ Patrick pointed out.

Scott repeatedly raised and released the tendons.

‘Or a professional lemon squeezer,’ laughed Rob.

‘Ssh,’ said Meg softly.

‘Ssh yourself,’ said Scott and pulled the right tendons to make Number 19 give Meg the finger.

They all laughed, apart from Patrick, who had started to unwind the strips of cloth around the cadaver’s head.

‘What are you doing?’ said Meg sharply, although it was obvious, so he said nothing.

They watched in silence as the man’s head started to emerge, throat first – exposing a short, faded scar – then his chin, badly shaven.

‘Don’t,’ said Meg nervously.

‘OK,’ said Patrick, and stopped.

‘No, go on,’ said Scott, and Meg said nothing else, so he went on.

The man’s lips were parted over a slightly open mouth, as if the corpse was surprised by its sudden unveiling. The tips of the teeth were visible – reasonably white but a little uneven.

The nose was straight and short, with narrow nostrils and a few dark hairs.

Patrick felt suddenly nervous. He’d thought he’d started unwrapping the head of their cadaver because he’d wanted to put an end to the chatter and get on with the dissection. Now he wasn’t sure why he’d done it or what he wanted. He paused, the cotton strip draped over the bridge of the nose, feeling strangely shaky inside.

‘Tease!’ said Rob, and Dilip laughed.

‘Let’s see his eyes then,’ said Scott and leaned in to push the cloth aside. Patrick knocked his hand away. ‘Don’t!’

‘Hey, man, if I want to look at his eyes, I will! Don’t fucking hit me!’

Patrick hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t even realized he was going to until Scott’s hand had been right there over the man’s face.

‘Don’t fight. It’s not respectful,’ said Rob.

‘Neither is cutting his penis in two, but we did that last week,’ said Dilip mildly.

‘He hit me! You all saw it.’ Scott glared at Patrick. ‘Weirdo.’

Meg said, ‘Shut up, Scott,’ but Patrick ignored him. He’d been called worse.

Spicer was suddenly among them again.

‘Handbags at dawn?’ he joked.

None of them spoke and then Spicer noticed the partially exposed head. His smile disappeared in an instant.

‘Cover that up,’ he snapped.

Patrick started to wind the cloth slowly around the cadaver’s face again. The others looked at each other uncomfortably.

‘It was my idea, Dr Spicer,’ said Meg. ‘I wanted to see his face so we could give him a name.’

‘The ID is on the tags. That’s all . And you will proceed with this dissection in the correct order and at the proper pace, under my direction, do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ said Meg, and the others nodded. Except for Patrick.

‘What’s the difference?’ he said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘If we see his face now or later?’ Patrick shrugged.

‘What’s your name again?’

‘Patrick Fort.’

‘Right,’ said Spicer angrily, and walked out of the room.

The others watched him until he disappeared.

‘Jesus,’ said Rob. ‘That’s not like him to go off on one.’

Patrick said nothing. He carefully slid his scalpel under what he thought was either the pronator teres or the flexor carpi .

‘You think we’re in trouble?’ said Dilip.