Free Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer

cutting his penis in two, but we did that last week,’ said Dilip mildly.
    ‘He hit me! You all saw it.’ Scott glared at Patrick. ‘Weirdo.’
    Meg said, ‘Shut up, Scott,’ but Patrick ignored him. He’d been called worse.
    Spicer was suddenly among them again.
    ‘Handbags at dawn?’ he joked.
    None of them spoke and then Spicer noticed the partially exposed head. His smile disappeared in an instant.
    ‘Cover that up,’ he snapped.
    Patrick started to wind the cloth slowly around the cadaver’s face again. The others looked at each other uncomfortably.
    ‘It was my idea, Dr Spicer,’ said Meg. ‘I wanted to see his face so we could give him a name.’
    ‘The ID is on the tags. That’s
all
. And you will proceed with this dissection in the correct order and at the proper pace, under
my
direction, do you understand?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Meg, and the others nodded. Except for Patrick.
    ‘What’s the difference?’ he said.
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘If we see his face now or later?’ Patrick shrugged.
    ‘What’s your name again?’
    ‘Patrick Fort.’
    ‘Right,’ said Spicer angrily, and walked out of the room.
    The others watched him until he disappeared.
    ‘Jesus,’ said Rob. ‘That’s not like him to go off on one.’
    Patrick said nothing. He carefully slid his scalpel under what he thought was either the
pronator teres
or the
flexor carpi
.
    ‘You think we’re in trouble?’ said Dilip.
    ‘No, I think
he
’s in trouble,’ said Scott, and jabbed a finger at Patrick. ‘You ever touch me again, I’ll take your fucking head off.’
    ‘Oh, don’t be a melodramatic twat,’ snorted Rob.
    Scott slapped his book shut and walked out, ripping off his gloves as he went.
    ‘Too late,’ said Meg quietly, and Rob and Dilip laughed.
    ‘
Pronator teres
,’ Patrick concluded.
    It was six o’clock and already close to dark when Patrick unlocked his bike from the railings on the ramp outside the dissecting room. Students hurried past in the slow October drizzle, unaware that they were a slim brick wall away from thirty bloated bodies that looked as though bombs had gone off in their chest cavities.
    As he wheeled his bike on to Park Place, Meg fell in beside him.
    ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Scott’s not bad really. I think you just gave him a fright.’
    Patrick was puzzled. Why was she walking with him? Why was she saying anything to him? Maybe she was just talking for her, not for him – the way his mother did.
    His silence was no deterrent.
    ‘So, why don’t you want to be a doctor?’
    Patrick had often noticed that the less he said, the more people wanted him to speak. But he had no idea what she wanted him to
say
. Meg wasn’t his mother or the med school interviewing panel, so why was she interested in what he did or did not do?
    ‘I’m just curious,’ she said, as if she had read his mind. ‘I mean, you’re clever enough, so why not?’
    She kept asking; he was going to have to answer her.
    ‘Not interested,’ he said.
    ‘Not interested in what?’
    Patrick was taken aback that she had a follow-up question – and so
fast
!
    ‘What aren’t you interested in?’ said Meg, as if he hadn’t understood her the first time.
    ‘In making people better,’ he said, and put a foot in his toeclip to show he was finished talking.
    Meg wasn’t finished. ‘So what’s the point of just doing anatomy?’
    She frowned and Patrick thought she was angry but wasn’t sure. He’d never been able to understand what people meant just from their faces. It was hard enough guessing from their words. She obviously wasn’t going to leave him alone until he answered, so finally he did.
    ‘I want to see what makes people work,’ he said.
    Meg wrinkled her forehead some more. ‘But you don’t want to fix them or help them work
better
?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘But you have such a great bedside manner.’
    ‘No I don’t,’ Patrick said, and then saw she was grinning. ‘Oh, you’re