The Anatomy School

by Bernard Maclaverty

  ‘Ooooh … a hair raising experience.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s not quick enough to know hot from cold.’ He began to imitate a machine voice. ‘Beep-beep temperature-change temperature-change.’ Then back to his own voice again. ‘So the hairs stand up when you get into hot water.’

  ‘Clever boy.’

  They sat facing each other. Each had an elbow on the table. She was closely examining the surface of her skin. The talk of erectile tissue was making Martin worse. We could try hitting it with a cold spoon. There was a blue and steel stapler sitting on the table beside the kettle. He smiled.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing.’ He could bang a few staples into it along its length, along its changing length and that would soon shorten it. Dip it in Holy Water. Like the paschal candle on Easter night. Three times. Anoint it with ice cubes made from Holy Water.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I’m not often asked to ride shotgun while a girl takes a leak.’

  She smiled. There was a delicate crease at each side of her mouth like her smile was inside brackets.

  ‘I wasn’t going to be left on my own in this place.’ There were several freshly laundered white coats sitting on a metal filing cabinet.

  ‘Here,’ said Martin. ‘Why don’t you put on one of these? It’ll keep you warm.’ He began to unfold the coat. It crackled with starch. He broke the sleeves open and stood and held the coat in front of him, hiding his condition behind it.

  ‘Here.’ He held it open for her to get into. She inserted her arms in the sleeves and pulled the crisp coat around her, still shivering.

  ‘I’m a doctor now,’ she said. She smiled nicely at him and sat down again. He was conscious of the silence and a bit embarrassed by it.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Dr Atkins.’

  ‘First name, please?’

  ‘Cindy.’

  ‘Martin Brennan.’ He leaned forward and shook hands with her.

  ‘You’re very formal, Martin — very polite.’

  ‘That’s the way I was brought up. Shake hands, ride shotgun whenever required and in whatever circumstances.’

  ‘Back home that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.’

  ‘Even two escaped eyebrows?’

  ‘Yes — remember — the Grandmothers … What was the name?’

  ‘Granny Greybers.’

  ‘I really liked them, Martin. They were cute.’

  ‘The Fleeing Eyebrow Show.’

  ‘They were so businesslike. “We need to get somewhere very important — very soon.” ’ She made bustling motions with her arms but was restricted by the starch in the sleeves. Martin spooned coffee into two mugs and filled them with boiling water.

  ‘I’m sorry. No milk.’ He offered her Coffee-Mate but she turned up her nose. She took hers black with two sugars. She gave a little shiver and wrapped her hands around the hot mug.

  ‘It would be good if you had something a bit stronger.’

  ‘Central heating,’ said Martin.

  ‘My mother’s people were Irish, way back — McGimpseys.’

  ‘What do you drink?’

  ‘Wine. Australia makes a lotta good wine now. We used to have the image of beer-swilling rugby players. But that’s all changing …’

  ‘Now they’re wine-swilling rugby players.’

  ‘Do you play?’

  ‘No — I’m a Catholic.’ His hard had subsided. He felt relieved.

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Catholics here play soccer or Gaelic football.’

  ‘I’m Protestant.’ She jutted her chin out at him and smiled in mock aggression.

  ‘You travel light,’ he said, ‘for a Protestant.’

  ‘That’s my lesser backpack. My other one’s in Scotland.’

  ‘What’s it doing there?’

  ‘It’s where I work. I’m in a hotel in Ballachulish, up the west coast.’

  ‘What’s that like?’

  ‘It’s a real bummer.’

  ‘So what are you doing over here?’

  ‘I had a couple of days off. I wanted to see Northern Ireland for myself. Everybody said “Don’t go. You’re mad.” That always makes me want to do the thing. My dad always said don’t do this and don’t do that — so I knew what to try. I’ve never been to a war zone before.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Gimme a chance …’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘In here — yes.’

  ‘You’ve more reason to be scared out there. This country’s full of mad bastards.’ He sighed and looked at her. ‘But the Troubles aren’t all doom and gloom. It’s had its lighter moments.’

  ‘Like what, for instance?’

  ‘That’s called sarcasm.’

  She blew on the surface of her coffee and took a wary sip.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘All over.’

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘Irish guys are the nicest guys I’ve ever met.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s called sarcasm.’

  ‘OK, fair enough. Sounds like a bad experience. Where?’

  ‘Somewhere called Limavady.’

  ‘That figures.’ He smiled at her. ‘What kind of things did your dad tell you not to do?’

  ‘That would be telling.’ She bit her bottom lip and smiled back at him. ‘My dad’s a minister. Of religion.’ Martin shrugged. ‘He keeps bees. Do you know anything about bees?’

  ‘They sting. I hate them.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard.’

  ‘I got stung once and that was enough. No good reason for them to exist.’

  ‘Honey.’ He pretended to half turn and answer her.

  ‘Yeah? Are you addressing me?’

  She laughed at his joke. ‘That is so brilliant — like something out of “Laughter — the Best Medicine” or “Life’s like that”. I might even write that in to Reader’s Digest — they pay about five hundred smackers if they publish it.’

  ‘For a joke?’

  ‘No — for real.’

  ‘Is that coffee OK?’ She nodded.

  ‘In a hive there’s three kinds of bee — one queen, a coupla hundred drones and fifty thousand workers. The drones are males. They don’t sting. Their big job is to mate with the queen …’

  ‘Nice work if you …’

  ‘Do you know about this?’ Martin shook his head. ‘Well, wait till y’hear. When she’s ready the queen flies off on her nuptial flight and these poor bastards have to chase her. The fastest and strongest catch her up and have to do the job in mid-air …’

  ‘Oh my God …’

  ‘When they’ve finished the business and they try to pull out, their thingies are ripped off and they die and fall to earth.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What a crap ending,’ said Martin. He pulled a face. So the dying fall did happen. The fantasy they’d had at school was possible — even though it only happened to a bee. You’d just got your hole for the first time when suddenly there was this enormous pain and your whole fucking apparatus is flying on without you. It’s going horizontal and you’re going down — with a hole torn beneath your belly. A hole that used to be your cock. And the wind is howling up past you, so strongly it’s keeping the blood in. And you think ‘Was that it? Was that what I droned all my life for?’ The reward for being the biggest and best and fastest and sexiest was that he only got his hole once. But once was better than never.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Naw.’ The way he said it made it sound like there was no possibility.

  ‘A good-looking boy like you?’

  ‘Is that more sarcasm?’

  ‘No, you are — you give off something. I dunno what.’ He looked puzzled
— sniffed the air as if she was making fun of him.

  ‘B.O.?’

  ‘No. Tell me this. What’s an Orangeman?’

  ‘The Lost Tribe …’ Martin laughed. ‘He’s a sub-species of Protestant. They have this club — the Orange Order — and their only purpose in life is to pray to the Lord and march the Queen’s Highway. To join you have to pass an unintelligence test.’ He paused to see if she was taking it in. ‘Or would you have to fail it?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘He has a bowler hat and an orange sash around his neck. There’s Orangemen born who can march before they can walk. And there must be an element of causing annoyance in it. They wouldn’t thank you for letting them march around a public park — it has to be on the Queen’s Highway as it passes through Catholic areas. Up you, they’re saying, we can do whatever we like. Of course, just to complicate the issue he could be a Blackman and wear a black sash and that’d make him from the Royal Black Preceptory or whatever it’s called. And he could be both at once. Orange and black.’

  ‘Like a bee,’ she said and laughed.

  ‘True enough. I’ve often heard it said, “Ya Orange B.” Oh as if it wasn’t complicated enough there’s another crowd called the Apprentice Boys.’ He picked up the Yellow Pages. ‘Is this what you were looking for?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He flicked it open and said, ‘Eagle Tool and Equipment. Hire and Buy with Confidence. Saintfield Road. Hire — sales — service — repairs. Water pumps — Kango hammers — Rammers — contraction plates — dehumidifiers — strippers — rotovators … Next. ELITE Plant Hire. Daily Rates available. Chainsaws. Welders. Grinders. Transformers …’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Just giving you pleasure.’

  Still she shook her head in confusion.

  ‘My accent.’ Then she remembered what she’d said about his voice and laughed.

  ‘Oh yeah. I thought you’d gone bananas. You make it sound like the dog’s bollicks.’

  On their way back to the lab she stopped and said, ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘The library. But there’s no books in it.’

  ‘What’s in it then?’

  ‘Stuff. Specimens.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  ‘There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Is it locked?’

  ‘No.’ She ran up the couple of steps and tried the handle of the door. It screeched open. Martin said, ‘If you fancy seeing some old bones this is the place for you.’ He followed her up the steps and found the light switch. A whole battery of fluorescent lights raggedly blinked on. She looked all around at the dark library furniture — at the glass cupboards which lined the walls.

  ‘Spooky place number two. No, number three. Spooky place number three,’ she said. She wandered into the big room touching table tops on either side of her with her fingertips. He followed her in.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said. He took down a jar with a foetus in it. It had been treated so that all its tissues were clear, except the bones which had been stained scarlet with alizarin.

  ‘What is it?’

  Martin switched on one of several X-ray viewing boxes on the wall and held the jar up to the opalescent light.

  ‘Jee-sus,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that cute.’ She kept staring at it and touching the glass with her fingers. It was as if she was trying to touch the embryo but the glass was getting in the way. ‘Some mother’s son.’ She moved on, looking about her, touching.

  ‘What’s this?’ She bent over and stared at a specimen in a flat jar.

  ‘A lung.’ She made a face. ‘A smoker’s lung. See all that black stuff.’

  ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘I did at school. But then they told me what it did to you — in here.’

  ‘There’s so much bloody starch in this coat I can’t even get my hands into the pockets.’ Martin leaned towards her and tore the pockets open with a dry ripping sound.

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘Thanks, Martin.’ She put both hands in both her pockets and leaned forward from the waist to look at the display around The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp. Now when her hair fell in her eyes she blew it away, creating an up-draught by a twist of her bottom lip. She became interested in the modern print. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  ‘Not very good at all,’ she said. ‘That’s the kind of mark I’d have got at kindy.’

  ‘Kindy?’

  ‘Primary school. I was useless at art. Six outa twenty mighta been too good for me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  She pointed to the bottom of the print. On it was scrawled in pencil — 6/20.

  He laughed and explained that this was a numbered print run and not a mark given by a teacher. She made an embarrassed face by turning her mouth down at the corners and rolling her eyes at the same time. Then she laughed out loud with him at her mistake.

  ‘I thought it was a mark.’

  ‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘Imagine the first print of a run of 100 and everybody saying it’s no good but you wanna see 99/100. It’s brilliant.’ When she stopped laughing she put her hand out and touched the model head.

  ‘I like the cut of his jib?’ They sidled round the shelves laughing. Suddenly she stopped.

  ‘Oooooooohh,’ she said. It was like a noise made to frighten a child. She was staring into the corner at a complete skeleton which hung from a hook through the top of its skull.

  ‘What?’ said Martin. She pointed. For a moment Martin couldn’t work out what was going on. He was so used to looking at skeletons he’d forgotten that they were supposed to be scary. She moved closer and put her hand on his upper arm and held on and peeked around him.

  ‘You’re only taking the piss,’ Martin said.

  ‘No, I’m not. I don’t like seeing things like that.’

  He laughed and put his arm around her starchy shoulder. He gave her a squeeze. She moved away from him towards the door.

  ‘The beginning and the end,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘De baby bones and de dead bones.’

  When they reached the junction of the corridors the sound of the jazz became more obvious. It was a version of the ‘St Louis Blues.’ Cindy began to wiggle and walk funny inside the coat. She strutted and sassed along the central runner of the lino in the half-light. Then turned to face him and launched into a kind of twist or jive step. The white coat was open and she was moving inside it, like a clapper inside a bell.

  ‘Come on. This’ll warm us up,’ she said raising her arms above her head. Just for a laugh he started to dance opposite her, mimicking her movements.

  ‘OK. You’re going well.’

  But the music was so distant they could hear their own movements, the dry movement of their own clothes, the squeaking and shuffling of their feet. She reached out and they touched hands and she did a slow spin, used him as a lever to turn to the distant rhythm. Martin strayed off the lino and drummed the locker doors with his hands.

  ‘Yeah, go for it,’ she shouted. It was a bit embarrassing the way she said it — like a Girl Guide or a Blue Peter presenter snapping her fingers. Trying hard but not succeeding. The music stopped.

  ‘There you go,’ said Martin. ‘Just my luck.’

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘There’s gotta be more.’

  They moved down the corridor nearer to the stair head, listening to where the music had risen from. They were just outside the Dissecting Room when it began again. A slow blues sound very different to the number they had just danced to.

  ‘That’s “St James Infirmary”,’ he said. ‘Just right for where we are.’ He half sang, half spoke the words in an American drawl ‘Saw ma baby there — laid out on a long white table, so white, so cold, so bare.’

  ‘Oh don’t. Why can’t I see in?’ she nodded to the Dissecting Room.

  ‘It’s not a zoo,’ Martin said. ‘It’s sort of disrespect. We had a Prof here who used
to raise his hat every time he went past.’ She saw that the doors had an old-fashioned turnkey lock and knelt down to try and to peep through the keyhole.

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘Honouring the dead.’

  ‘Bunches of flowers — yeah. Lifting your hat? No thanks. I can’t see a bloody thing.’

  ‘Get up.’ She got up off her knee and moved closed to him.

  ‘Come on, Martin — just a look. Just once. I promise.’

  ‘It’s nearly dark. If I turn on the light at this time Security will be over like a shot.’

  ‘A torch?’

  ‘That would bring them over even quicker — the thought of catching a burglar.’

  He began to move back towards the lab.

  ‘Come on, pussycat,’ she said. She held her arms out to him as if she was joking. He took her hand in his, slipped his other hand around her waist inside the coat. She felt firm and hard even beneath the material of her T-shirt. They were stepping slowly to the slow music.

  ‘My dad taught me how to stroke bees,’ she said: ‘stroke their fur so’s they go into a trance. Sends them into a kinda ecstasy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a way of hypnotising them. They love it — like putting a hen’s beak to a white line.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Thingies.’

  ‘If you talk I can’t hear the music. Then I lose the beat.’

  ‘To hell with the beat.’ She put both her hands on his shoulders, then around his neck. He felt her join her hands at the nape hair of his neck — the way he had seen old women join their hands in prayer with fingers interlocked. They danced as if she was instructing him in the steps, his body still some distance from hers. He put his hands on her arms. He was aware of the way the hair on her forearms tingled. Electric — almost like static just above her skin. She was dee-dah-ing the words of the music, rocking her head this way and that. She shortened her arms and pulled his head close. The tops of their heads touched. He kicked against her shoe.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No worries.’ She began to laugh. ‘Never look down at your feet when you’re dancing.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m looking at yours.’

  He wondered if he should attempt to kiss her. Was it too early? Would she just burst out laughing? Or worse? A slap in the face, which happened in the movies. In Belfast it was a dig in the bake. Nora Rice was a local, good-looking psychopath who was supposed to deal out this kind of retaliation. Plenty of guys had screwed her and boasted openly of it. But if the wrong guy tried he got a thump in the mouth, a dig in the bake. So the rumour had it. That was the price. That was the prize. That would be what was in store for him if his face did not fit. But this Australian girl had said earlier he was a good looking boy. And she wasn’t exactly backing away from him at this very moment. There was a sweet and beautiful aroma coming off her. He would compromise. Lay his head on her shoulder and see how she reacted.