Rubbernecker (24 page)

When he got home, Lexi was sitting on the couch between Kim and Jackson, even though it was really only big enough for two people. They were watching
Deal or No Deal
and Lexi was holding the remote control.

Patrick hovered in the doorway.

‘Hi,’ said Lexi. ‘What happened to you the other day?’

‘Which day?’

‘At the house. With Jackie.’

‘I left,’ he said.

‘I know
that
,’ she said, rolling her eyes at him – something he was used to. ‘But
why
?’

‘My ears were hurting.’

Lexi made a screwed-up face and Kim explained, ‘He doesn’t like loud noises, do you, Patrick?’

‘No.’

‘You missed a hell of a fight,’ said Lexi.

‘Oh,’ said Patrick. ‘Good.’

She stood up and dropped the remote in Jackson’s lap. He and Kim leaned gently into the gap where she’d been.

Patrick went upstairs and Lexi followed him.

‘Any luck?’ she said.

‘With what?’

‘Finding out who killed my dad.’

‘No. But Meg’s taking some photos of the throat, where there are wounds that could be ante-mortem.’

‘What’s ante-mortem?’

‘Before death.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Like post-mortem.’

‘Yes. But not.’

She nodded and followed him to the bathroom while he filled his bucket with water, then back to his bedroom. He shifted the bed away from the wall and started to scrub the carpet where it had been.

Lexi sat cross-legged on his bed for a while – then wriggled down inside his sleeping bag and stared at the ceiling, which was a-swirl with Artex.

‘What did you find in my dad? Apart from the peanut, I mean.’

‘Nothing.’

‘There can’t have been
nothing
.’

‘Nothing you wouldn’t expect to find.’

The carpet that had been under the bed was dusty as well as dark
brown
, and the water in the bucket was soon black and hairy.

‘It’s weird to think about you poking around inside his head when he’s dead. I wish I could have done that when he was alive.’

Patrick sat back on his heels. ‘Dissected his
brain
?’

‘Just to find out why he did some of the shit he did after my mum died. I mean,
God knows
what he was thinking half the time.’

‘I understand what you mean,’ he said, with an unexpected chink of empathy.

‘Was your dad an arse too?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t.’

‘Oh,’ said Lexi. ‘That’s nice for you.’ She played absently with the zip of the bag. It was a heavy-duty YKK that Patrick kept running smooth with WD40. He wondered if she might say something about it, but she didn’t.

‘Mine wasn’t
always
an arse,’ she said instead. ‘This one Christmas Eve when I was, like, three or four, I was asleep and he and my mum were downstairs with friends.’

‘How do you know?’ said Patrick.

‘How do I know what?’

‘How do you know they were downstairs with friends if you were asleep?’

Lexi frowned at him and said, ‘They just
were
, OK? You’re so fucking weird.’

She looked at the ceiling and Patrick pursed his lips. He didn’t like stories where he didn’t understand all the reasons why things in them happened.

‘So I’m asleep in bed and all of a sudden he grabs me out of bed, so fast I didn’t know what was going on, and he
runs
downstairs with me in his arms, and he’s so excited he’s kind of
shaking
, you know?’

Patrick nodded, even though Lexi wasn’t looking at him. Something about this story made him put his brush in the bucket and give her his full attention.

‘And he takes me through to the front room and all the lights are off, apart from the fairy lights on the Christmas tree, and all the presents are under the tree and my mum and their friends are by the window and the curtains are open—’

‘That’s how you knew,’ said Patrick. ‘Because the friends were there when you went downstairs.’

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.

42

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.

43

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.

‘You have to find Number 19,’ said Patrick firmly. ‘We made a deal.’

‘Patrick, how can I? I can’t march over to the body bags in the middle of class and unzip them all until I find him. And then take
photos
.’

‘But we made a deal.’

‘The deal’s off. I’m sorry. Really sorry.’

Patrick looked lost. ‘How will we get the proof now?’

‘I’m not sure we can,’ sighed Meg.

Patrick turned away from her and stared broodingly at the
kitchen
tap. He could see Meg reflected in the stainless steel, looking at the back of his head. He realized that it was easier to look at her this way – without having to face her. For the first time he studied her without having to avoid catching her eye. The reflection was slightly distorted, but it made him remember his mother’s question at Christmas.

Is she pretty?

Meg had dark eyebrows over brown eyes, pale skin and a curved mouth. He didn’t know if she was
pretty
because that was not something he’d ever registered in anyone in the fleeting glances that were all he could manage. But her face was even, and calming to look at, even in a tap.

For the first time in his life he wondered what
she
saw when she looked at
him
. The curved steel tap stretched his face to a narrow strip, his eyes bugging out at the top like an alien stick insect. He closed them and refocused on the struggle to connect the dots of events and motivations.

The body was no longer available. But the peanut hadn’t been with the body. Therefore the peanut was still there to be found. Somewhere. It wasn’t much, but it would be better than nothing, which was what they had now.

He opened his eyes and glanced at Meg’s shoulder. ‘Where does Scott live?’ he demanded.

‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘He could have taken the peanut.’

‘Why would
he
have taken it?’

Patrick didn’t know the answer to that. He was desperate – that was all. At least Scott had threatened to kill him, and had tried to uncover the eyes of the corpse. If it wasn’t Scott, he was lost again.

‘I think you’re clutching at straws,’ said Meg.

‘I want to speak to him,’ he said stubbornly.