Belinda Bauer - Rubbernecker

So he just sat down with his black notebook on his lap and watched, and waited for a glimpse of death.

Mr Deal kissed Tracy Evans. It was supposed to be a thank-you-for-looking-after-my-wife kiss, but his hand lingered on her arm and his lips on her cheek just long enough for her to know that it was actually an are-you-up-for-it? kiss.

While Tracy barely had the interest or patience to interpret even the letters of the alphabet for her locked-in patients, every fibre of her being was minutely attuned to any hint of sexual intent, and it was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing Mr Deal’s crotch to let him know she was, indeed, up for it. That was for the clubs, and this was work, so she had to be smarter than that. So instead she asked him what aftershave he was wearing, and when he said ‘None’ – as she’d known he would – she fluttered her lashes and said, ‘Oh, you smell like Armani,’ even though she’d never smelled real Armani, only the knock-off stuff she used to buy at Splott market for Father’s Day.

It was just the start. Flattery was everything with men. Nice cars, large biceps, money and – of course – big cocks. Those were the things you had to play to – had to admire – if you wanted them to remember you, to choose you. Tracy didn’t know whether Mrs Deal had captured her husband that way, but she was certainly in no position to keep him that way.

Now that she had leaned into Mr Deal’s kiss and started the seduction of flattery, Tracy knew that – finally – she had the edge on the woman in the hospital bed who was slowly twisting towards oblivion.

Sarah apologized for a chicken instead of a turkey.

‘As there’s just the two of us,’ she explained, in case he’d neglected to notice that his father was dead.

Again.

At least chicken meant they could have trifle for afters without Patrick getting all alphabetical on her.

She gave him a book about the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He gave her nothing; he had no concept that giving might be reciprocal.

As they ate, Sarah asked Patrick how his studies were going and, to her surprise, he told her – haltingly at first, but then warming to his subject. He told her how difficult it was to scrape fat off muscle, of the way blood turned black and granular in embalmed arteries, and how some stomachs gave up gems such as the smooth, diminished carrot found in Number 11 or the gritty pips in Number 25 that turned out to be grape seeds.

‘There was nothing in ours,’ he added a little wistfully.

She tried not to listen, and wanted a drink. Christmas was always difficult. Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day and Easter, and her birthday and Matt’s birthday and their anniversary. Saturday nights and all day Sunday. Days with a Y in them.

It had started when Patrick was three. Her parents hardly drank – just a sherry on special occasions. If her father had a whisky, her mother started to mutter. So at first a glass of vodka and orange at critical moments had made Sarah feel independent and in control. By the time Patrick was five, she’d dispensed with the orange juice. By the time he was six, she didn’t even need the glass. But after Matt had… died, she’d stopped. Just like that. People said it was easier that way, but she couldn’t imagine it being any harder.

Now she watched her son talk – his meticulous hands describing his work of the past three months, his eyes focused on the remains of the chicken. She thought of its cold, pimpled skin, and of how she’d slid her own hand into its cavity this morning and withdrawn the giblets in a juicy plastic bag. Her stomach felt uneasy and she burped quietly – and was punished by tasting the dead bird again.

When she became aware of his words once more, Patrick was explaining how Dilip had pierced the bowels, and how the smell seemed to be the most recognizably human thing they had yet found in the stiffened cadaver.

‘Oh for God’s sake, Patrick!’ Sarah slapped the table, making the knives shiver. ‘We’re eating !’

‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’ve finished.’

Sarah wanted to smack him. She could almost taste the vodka.

She stood up and banged the table again, less successfully this time – sending a fork clattering to the floor.

‘It’s not all about you . Dinner’s not over, so we’re still eating, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘And another thing. When someone gives you a present, the least you could do is say thank you! I don’t expect anything in return from you, Patrick, but I do expect manners .’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

It wasn’t enough. ‘You’re just so selfish . All you ever do is take, take, take !’ She glared at him as if demanding an epiphany.

None came. He picked the fork up off the floor and placed it back on her plate, nudging it repeatedly until it was parallel with her knife.

Sarah gave up. What was the point? Nothing ever changed. Nothing ever would.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

He looked at the fridge. ‘What’s for pudding?’

She sighed. That was the thing about Patrick – he didn’t understand the sacrifices she made, but he also didn’t understand the anger and the resentment. It was good in a way, she supposed; maybe for both of them.

‘Trifle,’ she said, and cleared the table while he read his book. He only looked up when she put the bowl in front of him and sat down.

‘So,’ she started again over the hundreds and thousands, ‘this Scott and Meg and…?’

‘And what?’

‘Who are the other students you work with?’

‘Oh. Rob and Dilip.’

‘And Rob and Dilip. Are they your friends?’

‘Yes,’ he said through a mouthful of custard.

Sarah was glad she’d asked. This was new. Patrick had never openly acknowledged friends before – either his or those of other people – and it gave her that most resilient of emotions: hope.

Carefully she asked, ‘What’s Meg like?’

‘Nervous with a scalpel.’

‘I mean as a person.’

Patrick frowned hard and finally managed, ‘Sentimental.’

‘About what?’

‘She wants to give it a name.’

‘Give what a name?’

‘The cadaver.’

‘Oh,’ said Sarah, surprised they hadn’t done that on the very first day. ‘Is she pretty?’

‘It’s a man.’

‘No, I mean is Meg pretty?’

Patrick screwed up his face again and looked as if she’d asked him to summarize string theory.

‘ I don’t know,’ he finally managed.

She swallowed the urge to snap at him and said brightly, ‘Well, it’s nice to hear you have friends. What do you do when you all get together? Go to parties? Or to the pub?’

Patrick shrugged and ran a finger around his bowl to capture all lingering traces of raspberry jelly.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We just cut up the dead guy.’

WHARE IS MY wofe?

Tracy Evans is an idiot. God knows how she passed her nursing exams, but she has the literacy skills and attention span of a toddler on Tartrazine. How can she mistake ‘wife’ for ‘wofe’? What’s a wofe when it’s at home?

She stares at the little screen and moves her lips almost silently. ‘Whare… Ismy…’ Then she makes an unhappy face. ‘What’s a wofe?’

Exactly .

‘Do you mean wife?’

I blink.

‘Oh. She’ll be in later.’

She says it breezily, as though my wofe comes to see me all the time, but my heart just about jumps out of my chest with excitement. Alice is coming! Alice is coming to see me! Will she bring Lexi? It’s been so long! At least, it feels so long! I hope Lexi isn’t wearing make-up or anything tacky. Kids start so young nowadays – and change so fast. Has she changed? Has Alice?