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interest after that. I kept seeing Toby’s twin, in a glass jar on a shelf. Why can’t he see how horrible that is?
At the end of the lecture, Dr Brodie offered us a way out. Dissection was not for everybody, he said. Women, in particular, found the long hours of standing difficult. Any young lady who discovered she’d been mistaken in her aptitudes should come to him at once – there’d be no disgrace in this, mind, none whatsoever – and he’d arrange for her to transfer to a more suitable course: biology or chemistry or – his face brightened – botany.
Ah, yes. Girls and flowers.
I don’t know what effect it had on the others, but it made me more determined to stick it out, no matter how hard it is. Anyway, by this time tomorrow, we’ll know what we’re in for. Toby says I’ll enjoy it, but I can’t see how that’s possible.
Well, I’m off to bed – an hour early! – hoping not to receive any visits from Daft Jamie and his ruined face.
     
    Next day, in the changing room, the smells were of wet wool, hair and rubber. A cold wind was blowing: everybody’s eyelids and nose were a bright, unbecoming pink. One girl stifled a yawn and immediately an epidemic of yawns spread around the room. There was a good deal of nervous giggling as they helped each other tuck strands of hair inside the green rubber caps that were obviously designed to be worn by men. Rubber boots, gloves and aprons completed the garb. They looked and smelled unfamiliar to themselves. Every time they moved they either rustled or squeaked.
    ‘Hurry up, ladies,’ said a bored male voice from behind the door. ‘We haven’t got all day.’
    Miss Cunningham, whom Elinor had spoken to briefly the previous day, looked around to check that everyone was ready, then pushed open the door. They filed into a long room where white-sheeted cadavers seemed to float like huge, dead fish in the subaqueous light. A fluttering sound was just perceptible above the squeaking of rubber-soled boots on the tiles. Elinor raised her eyes to the ceiling and saw that a small, colourless moth had become trapped inside the skylight and was fumbling against the glass, no doubt mistaking a watery sun for the moon.
    Lowering her gaze, she saw that a thin young man had appeared in front of them. His name, he said, was Smailes, and it was his job to guide them through the process of dissection. He didn’t seem to be looking forward to it much. In fact, he sounded thoroughly bored and fed up. He kept scratching at a red patch on one side of his chin, pimples or a shaving rash or eczema, perhaps. Elinor was briefly curious about this yawning male presence, but nothing could distract her for long from what lay underneath the sheets.
    She was directed, along with four other students, to the nearest cadaver. Miss Duffy and Miss Cunningham, who seemed to be friends, faced each other across the shoulders. Two other girls took up positions on either side of the torso. Elinor, in this, as in so much else, the odd one out, stood alone by the feet.
    ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ Miss Duffy said.
    ‘Don’t you
dare
,’ Miss Cunningham replied.
    She sounded so fierce that the other girls immediately put all thoughts of fainting out of their heads, though the smell of formaldehyde and disinfectant – and another, nameless, smell – lay heavy on their stomachs.
    ‘All right,’ Mr Smailes continued. ‘Let’s unwrap the parcel.’
    Miss Duffy and Miss Cunningham glanced at each other and then, with the determined calm of housemaids dealing with an unexpected death in the family, removed the sheet.
    Mantegna’s
Dead Christ
. From where Elinor stood at the foot of the slab, the feet appeared huge, out of all proportion to the body. His face was dark, the eyes shuttered; nobody could have mistaken this stillness for sleep. Freed from the apprehension of an answering gaze, she let her eyes slide down, across the soaring chancel arch of his ribcage, along the flat nave of his