Belinda Bauer - Rubbernecker

Lexi stared at him blankly, then smiled. ‘Yes, that’s how I knew.’

‘Go on,’ said Patrick.

She looked at the ceiling again and went on. ‘So, my dad ran to the window with me.’

She was quiet for a long moment, and Patrick watched her swallow, even though she wasn’t eating.

She went on, ‘I remember everyone was looking at me, sort of excited, and I didn’t know whether to be scared or excited or what was going on. And he holds me in his arms and points outside and whispers, ‘Look! Look!’

‘What was outside?’ said Patrick. He couldn’t help himself.

‘Outside was dark, but sort of light, too, because it had been snowing all day and it was still snowing, and the streetlights made everything orange.’

‘And what was outside ?’ said Patrick impatiently.

‘And Father Christmas was going past.’

Patrick frowned. ‘But Father Christmas doesn’t exist.’

‘Yes, he does,’ said Lexi dreamily to the ceiling, ‘’cos I saw him. And it was wonderful. He was in a sleigh being pulled by a little white pony you couldn’t even hear because of the snow, so it was totally silent. And he wasn’t stopping or handing out presents; he wasn’t waving and showing off or ho-ho-ho -ing; he wasn’t somebody’s dad or uncle dressed up. It was too real and too quiet and too beautiful.’

Patrick sat on his heels and watched while a little silver river swelled out of the corner of her eye and trickled across the plain of her cheek.

She turned and looked at him and he didn’t look away.

‘It was like magic,’ she half whispered. ‘And he woke me up so I could see it.’ Then she looked back at the ceiling and wiped her eyes.

Patrick didn’t believe in Father Christmas. It didn’t make sense. And he thought that the Father Christmas that Lexi had seen had probably been somebody’s neighbour on his way to hand out presents and to ho-ho-ho at a house further along the street.

But, for some strange reason, he didn’t say any of that. For some strange reason that didn’t make sense either, Patrick said nothing and did nothing, and the silence filled the cramped, chemical-smelling little bedroom with something warm and quite wonderful.

Lexi sighed. ‘I like your room,’ she told the Artex. ‘It’s very calm.’

Patrick was not surprised; the ceiling was definitely the best part of his room.

He went to empty the bucket. A cushion of hair and fibres clogged the plughole and he plucked it out like a small, drowned animal and dropped it into the pedal bin. Then he peeled off his bleach-spattered clothes and showered until the hot water ran out.

When he returned to his room, Lexi was asleep. He carefully slid the bed back into place against the wall.

She did not wake up.

MEG STOPPED DEAD just inside the door of the dissection room, so that Scott almost knocked her over. She had to grasp the edge of Table 4 to keep from falling.

The bodies were gone.

Table 4, which had once been home to Rufus, with his curly red chest hair, was now just a clean and shiny stainless-steel surface under her hand, and Rufus’s limbs and entrails had disappeared from the shelf below it.

The room looked completely different. It had changed from white with fleshy orange outcrops, to white – with yet more white reflected in the steel table-tops. Without the cadavers, Meg wasn’t even sure at first which was Table 19. She walked over and touched it, as if she could only then be certain of the absence of a corpse.

The other students seemed to feel the same, and they milled about, apparently disorientated.

‘Where is he?’ Meg asked Dr Spicer.

‘Who?’

‘Bill.’

Dr Spicer turned and waved a vague arm and, for the first time, Meg realized that there was a row of trolleys lined up against the far wall of the room. On each was a white body bag.

‘The final week will just be a recap using prosections, if anyone needs a reminder.’

‘When will they be taken away?’

‘What?’

‘The cadavers.’

‘As and when funerals are arranged.’

Meg did a quick count. Already there were only twenty-seven.

‘You OK?’ said Rob.

She nodded slowly. ‘One day he’s here, the next he’s gone. It just feels weird.’

‘And that ,’ said Spicer with a sympathetic smile, ‘is why we don’t like students to know too much about their cadavers.’

‘Now I get it,’ she said, wishing fervently that she didn’t.

‘Anyway,’ Spicer added, ‘it’s not all doom and gloom. On Friday night we’ll all have a bit of a get-together at my place to mark the end of dissection. Sort of a wake.’

‘I’m up for that,’ said Rob, and Dilip nodded vigorously.

‘Part ay ,’ said Scott in the fake American accent he thought made him cooler.

Meg nodded but she didn’t feel like a part ay . Half of her was relieved that taking photos of Bill’s throat was now out of the question – she had no idea which bag held his body, or even whether his body was still there. But the other half of her knew it meant that she could no longer hold Patrick to his part of the bargain.

And the thought of reading Ulysses or Moby Dick while Mrs Deal’s restless finger marked erratic time made her feel queasy.

PATRICK’S DAY STARTED badly when he received a Valentine’s card. On the front was a photo of a heart made of seashells pressed into damp sand. Inside was nothing but a question mark. It confused him to the point where he had to seek clarification from Kim, who seemed disproportionately excited.

‘Jackson!’ she yelled up the stairs, ‘Patrick’s got a Valentine’s card!’

Once he knew what it was, Patrick hated everything about it – the anonymity, the concept and, most of all, the surprise. Patrick liked to be able to prepare; the unexpected was a threat and changes were bad. If he survived them, it was only because he’d taken the precaution of surrounding himself with enough that was un changed to see him through the transition. His bicycle. His sleeping bag. His book of names. These were some of the constants that allowed him – with enough preparation and planning – to pick his way through the minefield of life. His mother’s drinking, the death of his father, the move to university. These had been survivable only because of his photos of death and his alphabet plate.

So the unexpected appearance of the card filled Patrick with foreboding about the day ahead.

The doorbell rang. It was Meg.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Patrick.

‘Nothing!’ she said. ‘Well, something, but not… y’know. Nothing terrible. Can I come in?’

While Patrick was thinking about it, Jackson shouldered his way past them both, winding his scarf around his neck and glaring at Patrick.

‘Fucking Valentine’s cards,’ he hissed.

‘What’s wrong with Valentine’s cards?’ said Meg cautiously.

‘Everything,’ said Patrick, and allowed Meg to follow him into the kitchen, where she told him the bodies had gone.

Patrick reeled. Despite all his precautions, life had blown up in his face.

‘Dissection is a twenty-two-week course!’ he shouted.

‘I know,’ said Meg.

‘But we’ve only had twenty-one!’

‘Sssh,’ she said soothingly. ‘I suppose that they consider a recap week using prosections to be a valid part of the course.’

‘But it’s not ,’ said Patrick vehemently. Prosections were the chunks of abdomen, the slivers of brain, the disembodied hands. Reeking and grey with age, they were lifted, dripping with preservative, from the big white buckets in the second of the refrigerated rooms, to demonstrate what students should be looking for in the less obvious cadavers. Kidneys with renal vessels trailing like shoelaces, faces sliced like toast on a rack.