by Jon McGregor
This was the same day Laura got Danny in her room for that one last hit. Which her worker had warned her about hadn’t he. Giving it all It’s so important that you stick to your script, Laura, you need to be clean when you start rehab, there’s no such thing as one last go, it doesn’t work like that, you know it doesn’t work like that. So then she was all panicking and crying and everything. After she’d kicked Danny out and after she came down off her nod she was all in a panic because she thought she’d fucked it all up again. Trying to phone her worker and explain and they kept going He’s out of the office now. Getting the hostel staff to find him, asking them to call the rehab and sort something out. Asking them to help her now. Thinking she’d blown her only chance and when she managed to speak to her worker the first thing he said was Listen, Laura, there’s always another chance. But let’s try and make this one work. And he must have made some calls because next thing was she was sat in the room with him and one of the hostel staff, what was her name, Ruth or someone, and he’s going Okay here’s the plan. They’re still going to take you, and they’re going to take you early, you can go up there tomorrow, they’ll put you on a detox before you start the course. And until then the best thing you can do is stay in your room, watch the television, don’t talk to anyone, don’t answer the door. Ruth’s going to bring you up some food, and she’s going to look after your mobile, and you’re going to sit tight until a taxi comes for you tomorrow. Do you think you can manage that? Laura crying and everything and nodding yes and then what. Climbed in the taxi with a couple of bags of clothes and drove out of town to the rehab, to the house in the country with the tall trees and the long sloping lawn. Into the, fucking, sunset and that. Easy as that. Stopped at Robert’s on the way, said her goodbyes and whatever else. And what else.
The doctor turns away from the cutting board and says Jenny, I think we’ll move on shall we? Jenny nods, and moves back to Robert’s body, to his head. She takes a new scalpel from the tray of polished tools and slices a long line across Robert’s scalp, slipping through the matted black hair and the raw reddened skin and the thin layer of flesh, the tip of the blade scraping against his skull. She takes the incision right across the crown, from ear to ear, and then peels back each segment of scalp like the skin of a bloody orange. She picks up the electric saw, and leans forward to brace her feet, and cuts a circle around Robert’s skull, the growl and grind of the saw once again filling the room. She puts the saw to one side, and she lifts off the top of Robert’s head.
We look at his brain, Robert’s brain, creamy-white and glistening, soft and heavy, fold upon fold of interconnected flesh which once fizzed with electrical code, with memories and visions and language and everything learnt in his short and thwarted life. We look at the doctor’s fingers moving around it, squeezing, prodding, tracing lines and shapes as he talks to the others, making comments, asking questions. We watch his fingers catch on something as he pushes down into the skull, and we watch him delicately work loose a dull-coloured fragment of metal the size of a fifty-pence piece. He holds it up to the light, and the photographer takes pictures, and they pass it between them, turning it over and over in their gloved palms. The doctor combs through Robert’s hair, above his ear, behind his ear, further round to the nape of his neck, and finds a faded scar, crescent-shaped, slightly ridged, about the length of a fifty-pence piece. The detective knocks on the window, and we hear his voice coming through a speaker overhead. Something interesting? he asks. I don’t know, the doctor says. Looks like it might be shrapnel of some kind. Looks old though. How old? the detective asks. Too old for you, the doctor says, and the detective goes back to his newspaper. The technician takes a long-bladed knife and slips it down into the skull to slice through the top of the spinal column. She takes Robert’s brain out of his head, places it in a plastic tray, and carries it over to the cutting board, where they weigh it and measure it and slice off samples to be stored in small plastic containers for further examination. The technician’s assistant places the fragment of metal into a plastic pouch, and the doctor dictates more notes.
Brain: normal appearance, softened by decomposition. No evidence of haemorrhage. Brown discoloration and glial scarring to small area of the surface around the lower mid-point of the left cerebral hemisphere, this appears to have been caused by the ingress and or the remaining presence of a metallic fragment whose composition and origin is unknown. Fragment sent for analysis. Medical records of subject, once identified, may provide further information. Fragment appears to correspond with a scar around the left side of the base of the subject’s skull, immediately above the hairline; possibility that this marks the original entry wound for fragment.
He backs away from the brain on the board, peeling off his outer layer of gloves and moving over to the whiteboard. He looks at the notes which have been written up, and asks his junior for any further comments. The detective’s voice comes out of the overhead speaker again, saying We’re done then are we? and the doctor says Sorry, Chris, there’s nothing criminal here. Not unless the toxicology comes back and it turns out your gentleman’s been poisoned by arsenic. In which case it’ll probably be the butler what done it. Jenny finishes labelling all the sliced samples of Robert’s organs and tissue and blood, slipping them into labelled plastic bags marked with biohazard stickers. She puts the slices of his brain into a red plastic bag lying open beside her. She packs cotton wadding into the scooped cavity of his skull, positioning the skull cap over it and pressing the two peeled-back flaps of scalp into place. She takes a needle and thread from the tray and stitches the scalp back together, stooping closely over it, taking her time. When she’s finished she carefully brushes Robert’s hair across the dotted threads, and as she stands back his head looks almost untouched. She smooths a stray hair back into place. She goes back to the cutting board, and places the rest of Robert’s organs in the red plastic bag with his brain. She puts the intestines and bowels into another bag, and nestles them both into the bare-ribbed cavity of Robert’s chest. She takes the sawn-off section of ribcage from the table and settles it back into place, and she folds the fatty flaps of flesh and skin back down together, picking up the needle and thread and stitching his body shut, working slowly and patiently while the others talk by the whiteboard, and when she’s finished there’s only a delicate Y-shaped seam to show he’s been cut apart at all.
Someone else comes in, and we move closer to the table where he lies. We light more candles, rest our hands upon his body, and wonder what more we can say. Someone asks about the funeral arrangements. Mike says Eh now there’s something you should see. I think youse had all best come and look at this. We look at each other, and we stand and follow him out through the door, out into the cold cracked dawn, walking along the empty streets and looking into alleyways and open garages, railway arches, tunnels, derelict buildings, the backyards of offices and pubs, the basements of multi-storey carparks, the locked rooms of hostels, the squatted flats above shops, the wasteground by the Miller’s Arms. And Mike says, There you go, there’s Danny. Slumped on the piss-wet floor of the phonebox. Einstein barking and yelping and hurling herself against the door. The bloody pin still in his hand, and his lips turning white, and his fingers folding over into claws. Curled up on the floor of the phonebox like a dog in a basket. Going over. Which we’ve all come close to doing before. Come close to that edge which is like no edge at all just a falling away of the ground. Always trying to get close to that, back to that peaceful place. To that, fucking, heaven. To be lifted, and held. Keep taking more and more to get back to that, to get past just feeling well again and all the way back to that peaceful place, and the more and more only takes us closer to going over. Which is like. What. Like, fucking, what was it, take the best orgasm you’ve ever had and multiply it by a hundred. And multiply it by a hundred again, and again, and it don’t stop, and you keep coming and coming until you can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t see or feel or hear nothing and your life goes pound
ing out of you in these great awful ecstatic thumps. And like, fucking, you’re still nowhere near.
And Mike says Eh keep up now I got some other place to be. And we follow him back down the hill. Past the Parkside flats and under the motorway bridge to the canal, across the lockgates and along the towpath and over a brick wall and up to a flat above a boarded-up shop. And we see Steve. Laid out on the mattress in his tidy, whitewashed room. His bare feet pointing to the ceiling. His boots placed neatly side by side, and his socks laid out to dry. One arm folded over his chest, the other arm hanging off the side of the mattress, his once filthy hand licked clean. H lying on the floor with his head on his front paws, waiting.
And we see Ant. Stretched out on the floor nearby, his works arranged carefully on a square of black cloth between them. His body stiffening and slackening again even while we watch. The flies already arriving to lay their eggs, in his mouth, in his eyes, in the weeping needle holes up and down his arms.
And Mike strides off again, turning to beckon us on and muttering Will you come on now then will you, and we follow him further along the canal, past the arches, up to the train station and the bus station and the multi-storey carpark where we clatter down the concrete stairs to the basement. Did you think there would be answers. Did you think there would be reasons given. We hurry along the rippled concrete floor, past the glass-walled booth where the staff take their breaks and watch the cctv, down to the far end and the goods lift and the heavy-wheeled bins. Did you think anyone would know all these things or be able to explain. And Mike stands there and waits and then we see Ben. Curled up on the floor like he’s just gone to sleep. Like he’s tried to put himself in the recovery position but not quite managed. A puddle of sick beside his stone-cold face. The empty pin flung away. This is all just a coincidence, is it. All these. In this short little span of time. Come looking for reasons if you want but there’s nothing to it. This was always going to happen some time and it don’t mean nothing now.
And we keep walking through the empty streets, and we get to another whitewashed room where no guests are allowed, with the long white curtains blowing in across the bed and a carrier bag of shopping on the floor. We stand in the kitchen area at one end of the room, and we see another bag of shopping on the worktop. Toast crumbs spread across a board. A postcard and a magazine. A cold cup of tea, the surface bubbling with mould while we watch. And we see Heather and we turn away. The rot set in and the awful smell of death. Kneeling stiff by the side of the bed, her face sinking into the mattress. Her hands, black with blood, hanging heavy by her sides. That’s everyone then, is it. That’s all of us accounted for.
And Mike says Eh now then la I’ll be off. I got some things I need to do. I got a bus to catch. And we turn and watch, and we see Mike, still talking into his phone, his long coat flapping around his knees, striding out into the middle of the road. We see the bus coming, slowing but not stopping and Mike turning with his arms outstretched going I feel much better now thanks. The look on the driver’s face. We see an ambulance, and a police car, and a hospital bed. We see Mike going Eh now pal will you come and look at this, will you come and see the things I’ve seen. Got a bus to catch. Couldn’t even get that right.
They wash him again, and comb his hair, and slide him on to a long metal trolley. They cover his body with a thin cotton shroud, tying it at the neck and the wrists, and they wrap him in a long white sheet. They wheel him back into the other room, and put him away behind one of the heavy steel doors. They sign more forms. The technician’s assistant takes the trolley of bagged and packaged samples – slices of Robert’s brain, heart, liver, kidney and lungs, the clippings of his hair and nails, vials of his blackened blood – and pushes it out along the corridor to a table by a hatch in the wall, to be collected and sent on to the labs. And then they all disrobe, peeling off their gloves and sleeve protectors and aprons and scrubbing their hands for a long time at the deep stainless-steel sinks. They go to the shower rooms next door, and we hear the pound of steaming water, shouted conversations, the flap of clean white towels. And while the others are still getting dressed, the doctor comes out into his office and begins to write up his notes. We look over his shoulder, but we have trouble reading his writing, and trouble understanding what we can read. He looks up through the window at the comments on the whiteboard, and carries on filling in forms. We look through the window at the empty steel table, clean again now, with its coiled hose and drainage channels and silenced extraction fans. The doctor stops writing, and puts away the file, and goes upstairs to join the others for lunch.
We wait, days and weeks in that lifeless room with Robert behind the heavy steel door. The reports come back from the labs, and we stand over the doctor while he fills out the blanks in his reports. We should go now. There should be something more we can do. We hear more footsteps in the long corridor outside. Keys, voices, the door being unlocked. They open the steel door and slide Robert out on to another trolley, folding back the white cloth so that only his face can be seen. They wheel him into another room. We go with them. The lights are turned low. There are thick curtains, and comfortable chairs against one wall, and a box of tissues beside the chairs. They lay a heavy embroidered cloth across his body. It hangs down and touches the floor. What is this. They step outside, and step back in, and we see Laura, and a policeman, the younger policeman from the flat. They stand at the far side of the room, talking. And Laura comes forward, and we move aside to let them pass. Is she ready for this. She sees him and she stops and she moves closer and she looks and she nods and says something. She says something to the policeman and he thanks her and steps back. We all step away. We leave Laura there beside him. She looks at his cold blank face. She glances along the length of his body. She reaches out her hands, and they hover above him. She says something. She lifts a hand and holds it in the air and she says something. One of the men standing by the door glances at the policeman and gestures with his eyes. The policeman moves forward and touches her arm and she turns away. And then they’re gone, the door closing behind them with a quiet click. And Robert lies alone on the trolley, the room echoing with the small movements of her hands, her staggered breaths, the whisper of her voice saying Yes, that’s him.
five
They carry his body to the edge of town and throw him into the fire.
What do we do now.
We go with them and we stay with Robert and when someone fetches the doctor’s report we follow to see where they go. And we come to an empty room. Push our way in and sit at the back. What is this place. Long and narrow. Rows of soft blue chairs. A raised platform at the other end of the room with a panelled desk and a heavy carved chair and some coat of arms like a lion and unicorn. A table on one side with a tape machine and a pad of paper. A large wilting spider plant and some spare chairs in the corner. Another table in front of the platform with another pad of paper and a box of tissues. One tissue sticking out ready. A clock on the wall behind us. We shift on our seats. Someone comes in through a door at one side with a jug of water and some plastic beakers and a stack of papers. She arranges the jug and the beakers on the table with the tape machine and she lays the papers out across the panelled desk. Light pours in through the arched windows down one side of the room. Striped by the slanting blinds. Buses rattle past along the main road outside. We hear voices and the door opens and the same woman comes back with the policeman who first found Robert. She shows him where to sit and she leaves. He looks around. He holds a notebook in his lap and crosses his legs. The door opens again and the woman comes in with Laura and shows her where to sit. And she says All rise for the coroner, will the court please rise.
coroner: Thank you. Please be seated.
Before beginning this morning, I’d like to give you some explanation of the inquest process, and of my role as coroner.
This is not a criminal court: no one is on trial today, and no one will be found to be nor accused of being responsible for Mr Robert Radcliffe’s deat
h.
We are here to investigate the facts, and to record them, and to answer four questions which I am legally required to ask: who the deceased person was, where he came by his death, when he came by his death, and how he came by his death. The answers to these questions will constitute the verdict of this inquest. In the course of reaching that verdict I shall be asking witnesses to come to the stand and answer any questions I may have about the circumstances surrounding Mr Radcliffe’s death. The law also allows me to invite what are known as Properly Interested Persons to ask their own questions of those witnesses, should they so wish. For our purposes today Laura Radcliffe will be recognised, as a relative of the deceased, as a Properly Interested Person.
Are there any questions at this stage?
What do we do now. Where do we go. Did any of us think it would be like this. When we started. When Laura started did she think this would. Did she think it would end up here. When she started. When she would try anything. What was it. When she thought she could do anything just to prove that her mum and Paul couldn’t say. When they said We’ve got your best intentions at heart. And all that. But what was it was it that. Takes more than that. Easy to find blame some place but it don’t mean nothing now.