Uncle Phil.
Did I pick up? No. But what if it was an emergency? Or worse –what if he was waiting outside the morgue, about to stroll inside to see me suturing like a madwoman on one of his corpses? My gut made the decision before any logic in my brain could get in the way. I swiped to answer and pressed the phone to my ear.
‘Uncle Phil, hi! How are you?’
‘Ruth, sweetheart, good to hear you. The funeral’s done, all went well. We’re just heading back now.’
I glanced at the clock: 12.15. If they’d just left, they wouldn’t be back from St Pancras until about 12.32. Perfect. An extra two minutes that would be sorely needed to finish my work here.
‘Are you free to talk?’ he asked.
‘Urgh, yeah, of course,’ I replied.
For some reason, I thought this would make me seem less suspicious. Damn, should have told him I was on my period. Nothing ends a conversation with Uncle Phil faster than any kind of menstrual logistics.
I fumbled to put the phone on speaker, resting it on where two lips of the coffin met. I resumed stitching Percy’s chest, my hands moving faster and more rapidly now, trying not to be clumsy and make any stupid mistakes.
‘Well, first off,’ Uncle Phil said, ‘I’ve been reviewing the itinerary. I want you to check on Justin for the service at 10.30 tomorrow. Make sure he’s in tip-top condition.’
My hands froze mid thread. I’d been so careful to strip away any hint of the person he may have been; the unlucky man I’d nicknamed Percy was, it turned out, actually called Justin. What if he wasn’t the sort to lob rocks at care homes but had spent his life building schools in impoverished countries and I’d just been rooting around his chest like it was a box of bric-à-brac? Annoyingly, now I knew he was called Justin, I wouldn’t be able to refer to him as anything but.
‘Of course, Uncle Phil,’ I said, getting stuck on one of the hardened, crusty bits of Justin’s flesh with the needle. ‘May I ask why?’
‘Sorry, say that again, Ruth, sweetheart? You’re a bit echoey, it sounds like you’re in the morgue.’
My chest lurched as I tried to steady my voice, I leaned closer to the microphone, not even trying to object to his comment.
‘Why?’ I asked again.
‘Oh, well, Clive has marked him wrong, it’s actually an open casket viewing before a cremation. Just want to make sure he looks as good as possible for the family; his sister-in-law is a friend of mine.’
The heart in my own chest tumbled, then sharply plummeted. A brutal lurch of panic took hold – cold, sharp, and paralysing – like a wave of sub-zero frost spreading rapidly from within me. I felt it claw and ravage its way up my throat, choking, freezing me in place.
‘Goodness me, I hate London traffic,’ Uncle Phil groused. ‘You still there, Ruth?’
‘Uh-huh,’ was about all I could manage to say, my voice barely audible even to me. I couldn’t even think about what to say when all I was thinking was how the hell was I going to make this body presentable for an open casket in less than twenty minutes?
Desperate, I switched my phone onto airplane mode, ending the call abruptly. Uncle Phil would think the line dropped, and I wouldn’t have to explain any of the sheer terror in my voice if I continued the conversation.
But now what? I couldn’t put the heartbackin his chest – that would be impossible. Worse, I could now see that the central chest cavity was starting to collapse in on itself, the skin sinking in a way that very blatantly screamed,Error Error: critical organ missing.
I had to act. Quickly. It was now 12.20. Grabbing the surgical scissors, I rapidly undid my careful stitching. Think. Think. What could I use as a substitute?
As I worked, ripping apart the stitching, my eyes fixed upon a dark, clotty ooze which began to bloom and blossom across Justin’s crisp white shirt, as if an old fountain pen had exploded inside him. I cursed – my scissors must’ve somehow nicked the skin. Whether from dead or living bodies, blood notoriously sets fast, and it was too late to even try and wipe it clean. So, I now had asecond problem; I needed something to mop up the bloodandfill the cavity.
Henry continued to watch from the corner, scathingly.
And then it hit me.
Justin, I don’t believe your soul continues to exist after your demise, but if it does, wherever you are now, I am so, so sorry for what I did next. When this is over, I’ll bring flowers to your grave every month, but right now, maybe you should look away.
I grabbed a nearby roll and began to stuff handfuls of kitchen towel into the cavity where Justin’s heart used to be, like I was stuffing the prized turkey at Christmas.
I used nearly the entire roll, pushing more and more thick wads of kitchen towel into his chest until his shirt seemed to rise to an acceptable, anatomically correct level again. I stepped back and waited for a minute, holding my breath, watching for any small sign of it sinking back down. It seemed like it was stable, and I certainly didn’t have time to check things a third or fourth time. This would have to do, he just had to stay like this for a day, that was perfectly possible.
As fast as I could, I set to work re-suturing his skin much faster than Uncle Phil had ever taught me, the faint pierce marks from my first attempt barely visible but just enough to guide me. My hands were trembling so violently I had to force myself to focus. I distracted my mind to try and keep it calm, listing every kind of pasta shape I could name in my head: spaghetti, penne, percy,damn, tagliatelle, orecchiette.
My hand that was holding the quivering needle between my thumb and index finger spasmed from the tension and the sudden twitch sent the suture needle tumbling from my grip, rolling off Justin’s water-bloated belly before clattering to the floor.
