again.
‘They should be here with us.’
‘Alright Fred,’ said Clara. Jacob could see she was holding herself extremely carefully. ‘For today you can say whatever you like. And I’m warning you, the rest of us can say whatever we like too.’
Fred looked at Jacob. ‘I bet he says whatever he likes all the time,’ which made Jacob smile and seeing this, Clara smiled too and murmured an apology as Carlo grabbed Fred and took him out through the kitchen door into the yard. Jacob kissed the top of Juliet’s head and stroked her cheek as he nodded to Clara, and left.
Although this was not the hospital where he worked, Carlo knew where to go. He found the back stairs down to the basement corridor, at the end of which lay the unmarked doors. He had pulled on a white coat over his clothes, as if it might help.
He was coming through the doors when the woman who ran the mortuary found him. She smiled and, nodding towards the row of fridges, said, ‘Lost someone?’
‘Yes,’ said Carlo, ‘I have.’
She looked kind and amused. ‘You’ll get used to it. Anyway, you should be too busy to care.’
‘I’m sorry?’
She looked at him more carefully. ‘There’s always one who won’t let go. Regardless of how many more you lose, and there’ll be plenty, believe me.’
‘Yes.’ Carlo stared at the ground.
‘So have you got something to say to them?’
‘Who?’
‘Your patient. I can let you have a quick look, if you don’t make a habit of following them down here.’
Carlo shook his head and the woman said, ‘In that case, you ought to get back to work,’ but Carlo went on shaking his head until the words rolled into place: ‘I have come to identify my brother.’
When he looked up, a different woman was standing in front of him. Someone had ironed her face and her hands were no longer in her pockets but clasped in front of her chest. She said something about being so sorry and if only and what was she thinking of, but Carlo wasn’t listening.
She led him into a hushed and painted world where she stopped outside a door and Carlo knew that she was about to ask whether he wanted to go into the room or look through the window.
He pre-empted her: ‘Please, leave me to it.’
She jumped back and Carlo realised how sensitised people become around the relatives of the newly dead. Of course. Anything. Absolutely.
Carlo had been shown the Chapel of Rest in his hospital, with its abstract stained glass, modest arrangements of plastic flowers and pastel cubes of tissues. He knew its protocols, but had spent little time on that side of the fridges. He had not yet met a relative. Now he was a relative and had to go through this door.
It could have been any room, any kind of waiting room, without a body in it. A waxed blind hung in strips across the frosted window, and the chairs, floor and walls were of colours so neutralised that it would have been beyond Carlo to describe them. The room admitted just a trace of noise and daylight, and was decorated with collages representing three of the four seasons and a copper sculpture which, at the flick of a switch, became a waterfall.
There was the body, like a subject waiting to be restored to a picture. Carlo looked, looked round, looked back, looked away and the collages and waterfall were there for him to rest his eyes on. All he could think of were the stories – of the people who fainted, threw up, wet themselves; of those who howled and those who were furious; of the fights that broke out. Some stayed for five minutes, others for hours and if certain rites were to be observed, they could be there for days. People prayed, sang, whispered and raved but most were quiet and still, and some were dreadfully embarrassed.
The nurses would have wiped some of the blood from Tobias’s body, but they would not have been allowed to wash him properly. A death like this had to be treated carefully, the details preserved until they had been recorded. Carlo pulled the bedclothes back. Why did it surprise him that Tobias was naked? When had he last seen him naked? His body must have been stripped in A&E, which meant that he would have been alive when they brought him in. How alive? Had he heard and felt things still?
Carlo laid a hand on his brother’s arm and wondered what he was touching. (On their introductory tour, another student had grabbed his hand and plunged it into a body bag. ‘See? Just like cold chicken.’) Tobias’s head had been aligned and propped up, but Carlo knew that his neck was broken. He made himself take note. Evidence of extensive lacerations around the eyes. Had he seen what was coming? The air splintering and rushing towards him and then himself rushing, to collide with the abruptly unmoving world. Had he screamed? Carlo noted his brother’s snapped wrists, crushed pelvis, smashed legs and unrecognisable foot. He knew that despite all this damage, it was what had happened inside that had killed him.
The next day, Tobias’s post-mortem would be performed. The fridge would be opened from the other side, and his body would be unzipped from its bag and laid upon a porcelain table. There would be a cradle for his head and a block would be placed in the small of his back to arch his spine. Beside the table would be a steel tray containing scalpels, knives, pincers and an electrical circular saw.
Let whoever is going to do this be loving, Carlo prayed as he sat beside his brother, holding his broken hand. This body was loved. Love this body.
Will you make the first cut behind the right or the left ear? Think about it, and don’t think about anything other than what you are doing as you draw the blade down one side of the throat and then the other. And if you’re not alone, don’t make conversation; don’t speak as you open this body down to the groin.
Part my brother’s flesh with tenderness and crack each rib in a swift and certain style. When you lift out his bowels, wash them softly, and as you reach for the heart, the liver, kidneys and lungs, think how precious this man was, how full. As you examine and weigh each organ, I hope you see that these are unlike any other you may have beheld. As you note each compaction, inflammation, haemorrhage and perforation, contemplate my brother’s pain but also acknowledge that these were once the good strong parts of someone.
When you arc your blade over the head, loosing the scalp, you might want to kiss my brother’s lips as his face folds itself away. Do not do this. Your touch must not disturb.
Is it your habit to tap the skull with a knife? If it is fractured it will sound dull, like a cracked plate but don’t think of a cracked plate, or an egg, or of anything other than this as yet human head, and as you saw into the skull, do so with confidence and artistry, remembering to tilt the curve down towards each ear so that when the crown is returned, it fits neatly.
Lift up my brother’s brain as if you were about to lift the whole of him to safety, adjusting your stance to the weight, which will always surprise. Take your time in locating the dark pools among all the pale containment and make sure that you know what each of them means.
And when you have finished, put a finger on my brother’s throat, here, as I am now, to know for certain that he is dead.
Tobias died because the traffic stopped because there might have been another bomb. Perhaps also because, and Carlo wasn’t ready to consider this,
