Down Among the Dead Men_ A Year in the Life of a Mortuary Technician - Michelle Williams [49]
As I came out of the office Steve jumped. ‘Bloody hell, Michelle, you gave me a start. What you still doing here?’ I explained about the family I had in. ‘Oh, I did think about you guys when I came on shift earlier and heard what had happened.’ Steve sighed. ‘And they’re still here?’
‘Coming up for four hours now,’ I told him. Steve was a genuine man, and was one of the charge porters when he was on shift. I’ve often seen him around the hospital pushing patients about and assisting staff, and he wasn’t afraid to come to the mortuary, often stopping for a coffee.
‘Get the kettle on then, and if they’re still here by the time I’ve finished my drink, I’ll sort them.’
As I made the drink, I wondered what Steve had in mind about asking this family to leave. I needn’t have worried. At eight fifteen, Steve followed me into the chapel, in his porter’s uniform, and announced to the family that he was in charge of the night security of the mortuary and that at eight thirty he would be locking the building up.
Slowly but surely, the chapel began to lose its visitors. Steve locked the doors then very kindly placed Mr Diggins in the body store while I cleaned up the mess left by his family. We secured the whole building and I was on the bus home by nine o’clock, after being reminded by Steve that I owed him at least four cans of beer for his trouble.
TWENTY-FIVE
I hadn’t laughed so hard for ages. It was one of those moments that would make me laugh at random times for the rest of my life. Working in the PM room that day were Ed, Graham and I. The radio was on with our local station playing the same old songs which, I am sure, they put on a loop for a month, only changing them on the first of the month. Ed and I had been gradually becoming friendlier – nothing unsavoury because Ed was committed to his wife, Anne, and Luke and I were definitely an item – but we seemed to see the world in a similar way. It made working life easy because it meant that, when Ed was around, I knew that here at least was someone I could rely on.
Not much was being said and I was concentrating hard on the job in hand, but it was a very relaxed atmosphere and Graham was busily eviscerating his body while I was halfway through doing the same to mine; Graham was waiting for Ed to finish his examination and give the organs back to him. Ed, being an experienced pathologist, never takes very long on ‘open-and-shut’ cases, which this was, but even I sensed he was taking longer than usual. As I looked up to see how he was doing, it took me a few minutes to comprehend what was actually going on; standing side on to the dissection bench, dressed fully in scrubs, hat, apron, mask, over-sleeves and double-gloved, he was having what appeared to be a very animated conversation with himself. Brain knife in hand, he was chatting away quite happily to no one; to illustrate whatever it was, he would occasionally wave the knife around, as if pointing at a diagram. I looked at Graham to see if he had noticed: his eyes were watering and his shoulders shaking, and he was obviously trying to control himself so that he wouldn’t make a noise. I couldn’t help myself any longer and burst into loud laughter.
This stopped Ed in his tracks and he threw me a look of pure daggers (although I know he didn’t really mean it). Of course, he denied the fact when questioned over coffee after, but I think I know different and will find out in time what he was discussing with himself. For the rest of the day, Graham and I only needed to catch each other’s eye and we would start laughing.
That’s the thing about pathologists; they are fundamentally mad. Not in a bad way, though, not in the I-am-psychotic-and-I-want-to-kill-you way. They are merely bonkers. Some of them are likeable, some of them are a little harder to work with, but they are all firing on less than all cylinders.
While I was walking Oscar and Harvey that night, I kept spontaneously laughing out loud whenever