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cotton wool, you would never have known any
different.
    Clive went on to tell me about a family that he once had to show the stitching to on a deceased’s head, as they did not believe that he had had a post-mortem. ‘The secret is to cut
low around the back of the head, Michelle; that way, when they are laid out on the pillow, the stitching is concealed underneath the head, and with the knots behind the ears, see?’ I was not
about to tell him that Graham had already told me this, and just nodded. ‘Then, Bob’s your uncle; nobody but us need know the difference.’ He finished this sentence off with a
wink.
    He then said, ‘I think you should have a go at reconstruction.’ With that, Clive handed me a large shiny silver needle that was curved at the end. This was threaded with what looked
liked carpet twine and, as it turned out, it was. ‘Start from the pelvis up, over and under, over and under,’ he said, leaving me a little foxed. To Clive it was second nature; to me it
was piercing someone’s skin and sewing them up with carpet twine.
    I had no idea at that time that I would soon get into such a flow, but I actually found it quite easy to reconstruct and my initial fear of piercing a body with a huge needle soon faded. Clive
reminded me to stop three-quarters of the way up, as we still had to replace the organs in the body after they had been examined by the pathologist.
    Clive next told me that I needed to stay in the post-mortem room because, having worked with the body, I was now contaminated, and that Dr Burberry would be arriving shortly. He then left and so
I sat in the PM room alone with the little old lady, listening to the radio and awaiting the pathologist. Within ten minutes, the door from the consultants’ changing room opened, and Dr Ed
Burberry entered the PM room. ‘Good morning, Michelle,’ he said with a smile. ‘How are you?’ He must have seen that I was as nervous as hell. I was convinced he was going to
ask me a medical question that I had no idea about, and that I would probably forget everything that Clive had told me I had to tell him about the patient in front of me.
    I nodded at him and squeaked rather inanely, ‘Yes, thank you, Dr Burberry.’
    I should not have worried about striking up a conversation with Ed. It turned out we got on like a house on fire. We spoke freely about each other’s interests and I began to relax in his
company. He let me in on a few secrets about Clive and Graham, as he had worked alongside them for so long; he knew how they liked to work and what routines they had. He gave me tips on how to stay
ahead of the pathologist during an evisceration and what they expected from their technician while in the PM room.
    I finished my first post-mortem session full of knowledge, but the best thing was the feeling that I had done something a step up from cleaning down. I was now, sort of and after a fashion, able
to do what Clive and Graham did, and I could now properly help towards the running of the mortuary. And he might be a consultant pathologist, but I was sure I had found a friend in Ed.
    When I got home that evening, the first thing I did, after letting Harvey and Oscar out, was phone my parents to tell them I was a fully fledged mortician. I thought about ringing Gramp, but
after the conversation we had had when I got the job, I thought it would be better to tell him when we visited him at the weekend.
     
    NINE
    On Wednesday the following week, Ed Burberry did the post-mortem of Samuel Chandler who had come into the hospital for an elective operation to remove his gall bladder. Before
that he had been reasonably fit; he had had the odd touch of chronic bronchitis in winter, a hernia operation three years earlier, occasional gout and mild hypertension, or raised blood pressure.
He had been married for forty-nine years and was a retired local government officer. It had been a ‘keyhole operation’ and had apparently gone well in that