Belinda Bauer - Rubbernecker

Then he mentioned the Goldman Prize, given to the best anatomy student every year, causing looks and smiles to be exchanged in silent challenge. The professor ended by saying that he was sure he didn’t have to tell them to respect those who had donated their bodies to medical science – and then told them anyway.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, you may have heard stories of eyeballs in Martini glasses and skipping the Double Dutch with intestines, but those days are gone, thank God. The thirty cadavers you see before you now are the mortal remains of people who donated their bodies because they wanted to help you through your studies and into a noble and caring profession. They wanted to do that even though they didn’t know you. And even though you didn’t know them , and never will, please show your appreciation of their gift by according them the same respect that you will one day show to your living patients.’

Patrick heard little to nothing of the professor’s speech. Alone among the students, he stared openly at the cadaver closest to him – an elderly woman with withered breasts, an apron of stomach fat and neatly manicured fingernails – still with a layer of chipped varnish on them. He was eighteen, but had never seen a live woman naked, and couldn’t reconcile this one with the images he had browsed on the internet. They didn’t even look like the same species.

He reached out and pressed a finger against the upper thigh. The consistency was that of a raw roast – cold and yielding, yet solid underneath. He thought of the way his mother stabbed the lamb on special occasions, and then pushed garlic and sprigs of rosemary into the gashed flesh.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to look inside a woman.

The noise from Professor Madoc stopped, and the silence brought Patrick back to the here and now. Names were read out, and he was relieved to find himself soon standing at a table that held the body of what looked like a middle-aged man. It was hard to tell the age with the head wound in cotton strips, but even in death this body looked tighter than the old lady’s had – more muscular, the skin less folded, and the abdomen swollen by embalming fluids rather than by fat.

Four other students joined him, including the dark-haired girl, who smiled at him as if they already shared common ground.

Their table mentor was a junior doctor – a young man only a few years older than they were, and in a real white coat – who introduced himself as David Spicer. He picked up the clipboard hanging at the dead man’s feet in an incongruous echo of a patient’s hospital notes.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Everybody, meet Number 19.’

‘I don’t want a man,’ said a short Asian boy with thick glasses. ‘I’m going to be an obstetrician. Can I swap with someone else?’

‘No,’ said Spicer.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m an uptight arsehole who wants you to fail.’

The Asian boy pursed his lips and looked sulky.

‘You’ll all get proper access to a female cadaver and the relevant prosections as the need arises during the course,’ Spicer reassured him. ‘Plus you will be doing various clinical rotations in a range of medical departments, so that you get plenty of exposure to a variety of real patients and conditions, OK?’

The boy nodded and Spicer went back to reading. ‘Let’s see… Number 19 here is a Caucasian male who died aged forty-seven.’

‘Of what?’ said Patrick.

‘That would be spoiling the fun.’ Spicer smiled. ‘You should be able to diagnose cause of death during the dissection, but if you’re really stumped and you don’t mind being a big fat failure , you can go and ask Mick in the office.’ He inclined his head towards a glass-walled cubicle beside the entrance door. Inside Patrick could see the tops of filing cabinets and an appropriately cadaverous middle-aged man glaring out at them. Mick, he assumed.

He wouldn’t need to ask Mick or anybody else; he’d find out for himself.

‘What’s his name?’ said the girl, nodding at the cadaver.

‘That’s confidential,’ said Spicer. ‘The important thing to remember is that he’s Number 19.’ He flicked a rectangular metal tag that was attached to the cadaver’s wrist by a black zip-tie. In one corner was stamped the number.

‘Anything and everything you take off or out of this cadaver gets bagged and tagged so it can be put back together again at the end of the course for burial or cremation. The fat and skin – what we call “fascia” – goes in the yellow bin marked nineteen in that refrigerator over there.’ They all turned to follow his pointing blue finger to one of two big white doors in the far wall. ‘And that fascia will also be reunited with Number 19 at the end of the course for burial or cremation.’

Patrick nodded. That all made sense, and followed nice strict rules.

Spicer clapped his hands and rubbed them together like a TV presenter. ‘OK. We’re all going to be meeting here around this gentleman twice a week for the next six months, so we might as well get acquainted.’

Introductions. Patrick hated this kind of thing, but the other students looked eager to be friendly.

The would-be obstetrician was Dilip, and the tall, beefy-looking boy with ruddy cheeks and thinning blond hair was Rob, who was considering surgery.

‘Depending on how this goes,’ he added, pointing at the cadaver with a wry smile.

The dark-haired girl’s name was Meg and she was considering paediatrics.

Then there was Scott, who wanted to be a plastic surgeon.

‘Boob jobs and tummy tucks,’ he said, rubbing his finger and thumb together to denote money. ‘You can all call me Scotty,’ he added. ‘Like in Star Trek .’

Patrick was confused. Scotty fixed starships, not breasts.

He noticed that Scott had the kind of uncommitted Mohawk made of gel and therefore easy to brush out for formal occasions. Then he realized that everyone was looking at him.

‘You’re up,’ said Spicer, but Patrick felt himself closing down . Like an anemone snatching back its tentacles when touched.

‘Patrick Fort. Anatomy.’

‘Paddy,’ said Scott.

‘Patrick,’ said Patrick.

‘Just anatomy?’ said Meg.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not going to be a doctor?’ said Rob.

‘No.’

‘How about Pat?’ said Scott.

‘Patrick,’ said Patrick.

‘What are you going to be then?’ said Meg.

He frowned in confusion. ‘A graduate.’

They all waited for more, but he stared down at the corpse. He’d told them all he had to.

‘Didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition, did you, Patrick?’ said Spicer.

‘No,’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t even speak Spanish.’

Dilip and Scott laughed.

‘Neither do I,’ said Spicer. ‘Anyway, you anatomists have lots of free time and you won’t be joining us on hospital rounds, but the work you do here will be exactly the same as the med students, OK?’

Patrick nodded. The work here was all he wanted; the thought of being around real, live patients made him shiver.

‘Right then,’ continued Spicer. ‘Pleasantries over. I’m going to show you how to handle a scalpel.’ He touched the chest of the cadaver, where the curling, dark hair was going slightly grey towards the throat. As grey as it was ever going to get.

‘We’re going to make an H-incision here on the pectoral muscle to start with. When you do, imagine tracing rather than cutting, because these bastards are sharp , and if you get a bit Zorro you’ll be down to the spine before you know it.’

As the blade touched the skin and a narrow door of blood opened in the chest, Patrick felt an unaccustomed buzz of pure optimism. This was the beginning of the end. Finally he could find his answers. Here was the place where his quest might reach its conclusion – in this very room, this cathedral to science, this white gallery of death—