Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer Read Free Book Online Page A

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—
    Something heavy hit the back of his legs and he staggered slightly, then looked round to see Rob crumpled on the floor behind him.
    ‘Shit,’ said Spicer cheerfully. ‘So much for surgery.’

9
    I FLOAT, CALM and disconnected. I feel as though I’m on drugs and I wonder why I’ve never tried them before if they’re all this good. Mark Williams at work tried them all the time and had a ball. Until the college had to fire him, of course; then it wasn’t such fun. But this is nice. This is like drifting on musical clouds. Maybe I
am
on drugs! This is a hospital, after all.
    ‘He would just slip away,’ says a woman very quietly.
    ‘Would he be in pain?’ That’s another woman, also somewhere off to my left. They’re discussing the man in the next bed. That means he’s not dead, which is good and right. It was just a bad dream, like the giant crow and the masonry that fell on me from a crumbling building somewhere in Japan. Or Mauritius. Dreams are rarely geographically sound.
    ‘Oh no.’ The first woman again. ‘We monitor his medication very carefully. He wouldn’t know anything about it.’ She must be a doctor.
    Through my haze I feel vaguely angry for the man who wouldn’t know anything about it. How would
they
know? Maybe he’d know
all
about it; maybe he’d be scared, or in pain, down at the bottom of his own personal well.
    ‘Is that what happened to the gentleman who used to be in that bed?’
    ‘Mr Attridge? No, he died quite suddenly overnight. It happens like that sometimes.’
    Oh, he
is
dead. Shit. His name was Mr Attridge and I watched him die.
    ‘But what did he actually die of?’
    I’m all ears.
    There’s a long hesitation and I can hear the doctor being careful.
    ‘Sadly,