Being a same-sex partner I have little say in the nature of Gavin’s funeral. On the third day after he dies I get the call I have been dreading. It comes at two am. I am not asleep.

“We’re going to burn him,” says Meg, Gavin’s mother, cutting short any of the usual conversational gambits.

“Gavin hated fire,” I say.

There is a pause on the end of the line, then Meg’s voice reverberates again. “Well, Gavin’s dead now, isn’t he? I want to bring the ashes back to LA. Bringing the whole coffin back would be too expensive. And on top of that there would be a mountain of paperwork. Please, don’t argue. This is a difficult enough time as it is.”

I take the phone away from my ear. I am lying naked on the sofa. In the moonlight coming through the window I can see a photograph of Gavin and me. We are standing on the top of Sydney’s harbour bridge. Gavin is posing like King Kong, a very small monster on the top of the world.

“Please,” I say into the phone. “Will you call the funeral directors? Say that it is ok for me to see the body. I just want to see him one last time.”

There is another pause. The time delay between here and LA, or something else.

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry. Gavin’s dead, you understand? You have to let go. I mean. Viewing the body, it’s simply not something we do in our family. It’s nothing personal. That’s just the way it is.”

Quietly I replace the handset. It is five past two in the morning. I get up from the sofa and walk through into the kitchen. I flick on the kettle. I don’t think I will be sleeping tonight.

On the day of the cremation I go to work. I arrive early, pull on my green gown, and descend to the steaming bowels of the hospital.

“Hey man,” says Macey, as he spies me cutting across the canteen, “what are you doing here? Isn’t today, you know, the day?”

I shrug my shoulders and tell him to grab me a coffee. Macey is from Sierra Leone and knows all about death, more than half of his family were massacred the year before he came to the UK.

“You’d better knock it back quick,” says Macey, “word is out there’s been a pile up on the motorway. We’s gunna be busy today.”

Sure enough I’ve only taken two sips when the bell from theatre number one rings and we’re called upstairs.

There are two gurneys waiting for us. Apparently they are mother and son. The son’s head is caved in on the left side, like an anti-cyclone depression, the mother’s rib cage has been cut open. It is obvious they weren’t able to save them.

“Where’ve you two bleedin’ been?” says one of the surgeons. “Get these two down to the morgue. Do you know how many we’ve got backed up out there?”

I take one of the gurneys and Macey the other. We share the lift down with an old lady who offers us both a mint.

“They think they’ve got my husband,” she says. “He went ice-fishing last weekend and hasn’t been seen since. He was ninety-three. ‘If I can’t live life now, when can I live it?’ Those were his last words to me.”

“You sure you’re ok here today?” says Macey.

“Compared to watching Gavin burn,” I say, “this is a walk in the park.”

“Strange bloody park,” says Macey and we head off into the morgue.

Macey and I don’t get a break until way after our usual time. We each grab a coffee and pull up one of the plastic seats.

“I ever tell you I hit on Gavin?” says Macey.

“Why are you telling me this?” I say.

Macey laughs. He has a laugh like a tank. “Because at that funeral they’ll be talking about Gavin. Because I’m wondering what the hell you’re doing here today.”

“I’m alright,” I say. “Let’s change the subject.”

Macey slaps his hand against his forehead. “Man, I remember now, I’ve got something to show you.”

He stands up and goes over to his locker. He comes back holding the latest edition of Fortean Times. This is his favourite magazine.

“Look,” he says, “they found these aliens in Birmingham running a pizza place. You grow up in Sierra Leone you miss things like this. You think everyone’s from the same planet.”

“Let me see that,” I say. It is not the alien story I’m interested in but another one at the bottom of the page. I read it through once and then again.

“Can I keep this?”

“Whatever,” says Macey. “But leave me the alien one.”

Carefully I tear out the article I want. Then I excuse myself from the table and go and make a few phone calls.

The whole thing is easier to arrange than I imagined. The next day I will be off to Hamburg.

The flight leaves on the nose and lands in under a few hours in Hamburg. Gavin loved Germany. One Summer he dragged me around Berlin looking for locations from the movie Cabaret.

“I’ll be Sally Bowles,” he said, “you can be Herr Isservoo,” and he had straddled a chair in our hotel room and began singing his favourite song from the Kit Kat Klub. This memory is like a ghost inside my head clamouring to get out.

The taxi pulls to a stop outside a large brick-fronted building. I point to the address I have scribbled on the piece of paper and the taxi driver nods his head.

There are a number of brass plaques on the left-hand side of the door. Dr Weiskleiger I see is on the third floor. I push my way in and head up the stone staircase. The sound of my own footsteps echoes around me.

Dr Weiskleiger’s office is an oak panelled shell. Everywhere on the walls are certificates displayed in wooden-edged frames.

I take a seat and quickly explain my story and how I came across the article in the Fortean Times. When I have finished Dr Weiskleiger positions his arms in a triangle under his chin and leans towards me across the desk.

“This is most unusual,” he says, “usually we have a body. You say he was burnt? You saw this with your own eyes?”

Outside a large black bird flies past the window, somewhere someone shouts something and a car horn blares.

“Not with my own eyes,” I say, “but I have it on good authority.”

Dr Weiskleiger leans back. “Without a body…”

“I can get a body,” I say sharply. “That is not a problem.”

“Young man,” says Dr Weiskleiger, “I don’t think you understand what we do here. You say you have read the article?”

I nod and stand up. “I have given this a lot of thought. All I want you to do is provide the serum. You can leave the rest to me. You are a scientist, aren’t you even slightly interested to find out what is possible?”

A smile plays across Dr Weiskleiger’s lips. I see that by appealing to his scientific nature I have him hooked.

That evening, on arriving back in England, I call Macey and arrange to meet him in The Swan. This is our local pub.

When I arrive the place is packed and full of noise. Over in one corner is a large screen tv showing a game of football. I spy Macey wedged into an alcove by himself. He looks like a big piece of black cheese.

I attempt to tell Macey my plan a number of times but the each time my words are drowned out by the shouts around us. I recall now that tonight is the night England are playing Portugal in the European Cup quarter-finals.

I cup my hands together and place them over Macey’s left ear.

“MY GAVIN IS DEAD,” I shout. “I’M GOING TO BUILD MYSELF ANOTHER GAVIN AND BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE.”

My words have an immediate effect. Macey goes pale and drags me out of the pub and into the parking area. It is raining and the drops land on me and Macey like so many tiny explosions.

I explain to Macey about the article I read in the Fortean Times about the doctor who has developed a serum to bring dead people back to life.

“Wouldn’t you bring your family back if you could?” I ask.

Macey shrugs. “It’s been a long time. Their death is as real now as their lives ever were.” Then he scratches his head. “But Gavin was burnt. I don’t get how you can bring him back.”

So I explain. We work in a hospital and everyday we move dead bodies about. Each body we move we will check for similarities to Gavin’s. If a certain part of a body should resemble that of Gavin’s we will cut it off. Eventually we will have a complete body. I will inject the serum and bring it back to life.

“I’m not sure about this,” says Macey. “You’re going to steal from the dead.”

“No,” I say, “I am going to give new life.”

Macey walks away and then he walks back. “This thing you build, it won’t be Gavin. It might look like Gavin but it won’t be him.”

“It will,” I say. “You just have to believe. That’s what I think. It’s just a matter of belief.”

We set up a base of operation in a cleaning cupboard in the depths of the hospital. I have sorted out some photographs of Gavin for reference which I pin to a cork-board. I have a pointer to point at each one. Macey is sitting on a cellophane wrapped pile of toilet rolls.

“This is the nose,” I say pointing to the nose. “See how it is slightly upturned at the end.”

“What’s that one?” says Macey. He points to the photograph at the bottom of the board.

“That’s his bum,” I say.

“I thought it was cleavage,” says Macey.

“Gavin didn’t have cleavage,” I say.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” says Macey.

It is hot in the cleaning cupboard, like a womb, and the ceiling is only inches above our heads.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” I ask.

Macey purses his lips. “Of course I am.” He pulls out the latest copy of the Fortean Times. “Look, Elvis has been found alive and well on the moon. Do you think he’s one of Dr Weiskleiger’s patients?”

“He could well be.”

In my pocket my pager buzzes. I take it out and see that our services are required in theatre two. There has been a small incendiary device outside the Spud-U-Like on the High Street. So far the body count is at two. Hopefully they won’t be too badly damaged.

“If they’ve been blown to bits,” says Macey. “It will save us having to do any actual cutting.”

“Now you’re coming round to my way of thinking,” I say.

I flick off the lights and Macey and I head upstairs.

For two days we find nothing suitable and then on the third day Macey comes into the cleaning cupboard clutching something in the palm of his left hand.

“I found it,” he says. “The right ear.”

Carefully I take the ear from him and hold it up to the light. Light glows through its periphery and I remember a day on the beach in Sitges when Gavin turned towards me to share a line in the book he was reading and his ear looked just like this one before me now.

I place the ear carefully on the table. Macey smiles at me and spontaneously we both clap our hands. It is a good moment.

Finding the ear seems to be like taking a thumb out of a dam. After this the parts come thick and fast.

I find an arm on a Turkish labourer who has died in a motorcycle accident, Macey finds a torso on a market gardener from Swadlingcote who got bitten by a rare bee shipped in by accident of the frond of a Rhodesian palm. Slowly, slowly the body starts to take shape.

On the second Tuesday after we start the whole project I am in the storeroom gazing at the body we have put together. It is complete except for the legs. Gavin always said that his legs were his best feature and I am being very fussy about finding an exact match.

“We could get any old legs and cover them with nice trousers,” says Macey. “Who will know the difference?”

“I will,” I say.

It is remarkable how much the body resembles Gavin and each time I see it I have to catch my breath.

“I want the legs to be as perfect and beautiful as the rest,” I say.

“You’re the boss,” says Macey and then he asks me if I would like to come out with him and some of the guys that evening.

“It’s an Afro-Caribbean disco at the local village hall.” Macey glances at the body. “Gavin would have wanted you to go out. Soon enough he’ll be around again and he can tell you so himself.”

It is the last sentence that cinches the argument.

At the party there are a lot of big black guys who look like Macey.

“That’s Himbo,” he says, “I live with him.” And he goes on. “That’s Amiri, I live with him. That’s Umberto, I live with him. That’s Ooga, I live with him.”

After about fifteen minutes of this I ask Macey to stop.

“How many people do you live with?” I say.

“Twenty-six,” says Macey. “But it’s not too bad, I only share a bedroom with eight, a bed with five.”

I am about to make some kind of comment when Macey adds, “It’s to cut down costs, me living with all these people. I send most of my money back to Sierra Leone to support the half of my family who weren’t massacred. Come on, do you want to dance?”

Britney Spears is playing so I say yes and we push into the mass of bodies. Above us lights flash off and on and the beat pounds in my ears like drums. Macey dances like a cat in a cartoon and at one point I raise my hands above my head and look up at the ceiling. It looks awfully far away.

When we go and sit down the hands on the clocks have moved on and I am covered in sweat. Sitting opposite us is Losotho. This is one of Macey’s buddies.

“Hello,” he says and then he asks us if we have heard about the crash.

“What crash?” I say, my ears pricking up.

“The football team. Apparently their coach crashed into a horsebox. There are bodies strewn all over the motorway.”

Sensing this is the chance I have been waiting for to complete the body I ask Losotho where exactly the crash was. Then I drag Macey out of the church hall.

“It doesn’t seem right,” he says. “They may not even be dead yet.”

“If they’re not dead, I won’t take the legs. It stands to reason that football players are going to have nice legs. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

Macey runs a hand over the top of his head. “Man,” he says, “say we get these legs, we inject the serum, the body wakes up and it’s not Gavin.”

“It will be,” I say. “It has to be. Are you with me or not?”

Slowly, Macey nods his head.

We stop by my house for a saw and a sack and then we head to the crash scene. There are ambulances and police cars and fire trucks here as well as a big crowd of people who have stopped by to have a look.

Macey and I slip under the cordon and pause by the first body. A fireman is standing watch and two medics are kneeling over it. I recognise the player’s face from Match of the Day.

“Is he alive?” I ask.

“Barely,” says one of the medics and pulls out a large syringe from a bag.

“Can you move along please?” says the fireman. “There’s nothing to see.”

The medic pushes the syringe into a place just above the belly. The football player lets out a long low moan. Behind us a tow-truck first catches alight and then explodes in a ball of flame.

“Nothing to see,” says the fireman and makes a shooing movement with his hands.

At the third body Macey and I strike lucky. This one is dead.

“You keep an eye out,” I say, “I’ll check the legs.”

The footballer’s head is twisted at one hundred and eighty degrees to his shoulders and his left arm is missing. Blood is seeping out of the empty socket onto the tarmac.

“Hurry up,” says Macey. “They’ll be on to us soon.”

The footballer has a fancy buckle on his belt. I wonder if he knew when he bought it it would be money soon wasted. Or perhaps not wasted, because money is of little use to him now too. I undo the buckle and pull down the trousers and underpants.

I take a small flashlight out of my pocket and run it up and down the legs. The thighs are covered in a dark brown aura of hair, the calf muscle is like a rectangular box. I run my fingers along the length of a shin bone and bring my ear down so it is resting on the kneecap.

“Gavin,” I whisper, “Gavin. I miss you so much.”

“There’s someone coming,” hisses Macey. “Are these the ones or not?”

“Yes they are,” I say. I raise my head and test the sharpness of the saw blade against my finger. Then I start to cut.

Macey and I nip into a local pub and knock back a triple brandy each to calm ourselves down. After, we head back to the hospital. I have the legs in a sack over my shoulder.

Macey stands behind me while I attach the legs. Over the past weeks I have developed a fine sewing hand and even close up it is almost impossible to see the stitches.

I ask Macey to help me roll the body over so I can do the back. Then I bite off the end of the cotton and move away to examine my work.

“It’s Gavin,” I say.

“We did it,” says Macey. He breaks into a big smile and claps his hands. I clap my hands and we both jump up and down. In the heat of the moment I feel Macey’s arms around me and the next thing I know his lips are on mine. I feel myself returning the kiss, my tongue going into his mouth and then I snap away.

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” I shout.

Macey holds up his hands, palms forward. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I got carried away.”

“WE’RE ABOUT TO BRING MY FUCKING BOYFRIEND BACK TO LIFE.”

“Sorry,” says Macey.

All I can see is blue. “JUST FUCK OFF,” I shout. I go over and open the storeroom door. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

Macey tries to say something but I am not hearing him anymore.

“I’ll see you around,” says Macey and he leaves the room. I close the door and lean back against it. I can hear this roaring in my ears.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Gavin. “It didn’t mean anything. Macey is just a friend. He knows that as well as I do.”

I go to the locker and retrieve the serum that Dr Weiskleiger gave me. I pull the stopper off the end of the needle and go over to where Gavin is lying. Dr Weiskleiger said to inject the serum into the buttock so gently I roll Gavin over.

I mark a place with my fingers and insert the needle. It slips in easily, the skin barely rippling around it.

“Please work,” I say and I push down on the plunger.

I don’t know if I expect an immediate effect but the effect is immediate. The toes start to move, then the ankles flex, then the knees vibrate, then the thigh muscles spasm.

I wrap my arms around myself and hug tightly. “Come on,” I say.

I am expecting the movement to move up the body but as yet the stomach is still, the chest is silent.

“Come on,” I say again.

The thighs are still spasming and the movement is becoming more and more violent. I don’t know whether I should make an attempt at restraining the legs or whether I should slap the upper part of the body to try and bring some life to it like they do on hospital dramas. I am undecided when I hear a ripping noise and I see the stitches I have most recently sewed have come out and the legs have become detached from the body.

For a second the legs are still, as if surprised, then they flip to the left and fall onto the floor with a whump. They are out of sight and I move around the table to get a view of them again. It is to my amazement that I see they are still full of life. I watch breathless as they get themselves upright and begin shuffling around the room.

“Gavin,” I say. “Gavin.” And this is all I can say.

The next day I call Dr Weiskleiger.

“The legs are fully automative?” he says.

“They have been walking all night,” I say.

“Walking where?” says Dr Weiskleiger.

I feel we are going around in circles, like the legs in the room. “Is there anything I can do?” I ask. “Reattach the legs. Inject more serum. Find more body parts.”

“I’m afraid the case sounds hopeless,” says Dr Weiskleiger. “This was always a possibility.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?” I say.

Dr Weiskleiger speaks curtly. “When you are operating on the cusp of known knowledge then uncertainties are likely to surface at every opportunity.”

I twist the phone cord around my left wrist and stand up from the sofa. Across the room I can see the picture of Gavin on the top of Sydney harbour bridge. What hurts the most is that I never got to say goodbye, not properly.

“So what can I do?” I say into the phone.

There is a pause, then the voice comes through louder than ever, like a surge of electricity.

“This may be hard for you to understand but without sustenance the legs will die again. Of course, being legs, they have no way of taking on sustenance. My advice to you would be to make the legs comfortable. Give them a happy time. Some legs die only once. To die twice must surely be a blessing?”

I replace the handset of the phone and sit back down on the sofa. I put my head in my hands and think. Dr Weiskleiger’s words have some sense in them.

After an hour I call Macey and arrange to meet him at the hospital.

We find the legs shuffling around the room, like they have somewhere to go but are not sure of the way. I ask Macey to hold them while I put on the clothes I have brought from home.

I slip on the underpants, Gavin’s favourites, they have a picture of a frog on them, then a pair of jeans, then socks, then trainers. Once complete I hold the bag open and Macey slides the legs inside.

“What are you going to do with that?” Macey nods to where the top half of the body is lies on the table.

“I’m not sure. You know I said it was all a matter of belief? It is. I don’t believe that that’s Gavin anymore. Gavin is in these legs. That’s what I feel.”

Outside the hospital I holler a taxi and ask it to take us to the station.

“Shall I get a ticket for the legs?” says Macey.

“What do you think?” I say.

Macey nods his head and goes to join the queue.

The train is not busy and the legs have a seat to themselves. I watch the countryside go past outside, flying by as if it doesn’t care. The legs don’t move, perhaps sensing that at last they are going somewhere.

“About the other day,” I say to Macey, “I’m sorry I got angry.”

“I’m sorry too,” says Macey. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I was happy, you know, that we’d done it. It got me thinking about my own family. The ones that got killed back home. It comes up on you sometimes and you want to hold on.”

We get off the train at Matlock. A small woman in a red hat sits on a bench clutching tightly onto a Chihuahua barking excitedly.

I lead Macey through the town, past the chip shops, men on motorbikes, and down a path to the river. It is a hot day. Yellow and white butterflies bounce on the rooftops of grass.

The legs have stuck close by us all the way through the town but once Macey and I sit down they start to carefully explore by themselves. They work outwards in increasing concentric circles until finally they find themselves by the river.

“Gavin and I used to come here,” I say. “It was his favourite place. We came a week before he died. We went skinny-dipping in the river. A couple with children saw us and called the police on their mobile phone. ‘We’re just naked,’ said Gavin, ‘that’s all’. I heard the mother repeat this later to the policeman as if it was an important piece of information.”

I see that the legs are no longer by the river but have scooted over to a tree and are rubbing themselves frantically against it.

“I think they want the clothes off,” says Macey.

“It’s history repeating itself,” I say.

Macey holds the legs and I remove the clothes. They stand still while I am doing this but as the last sock is removed they are off towards the water like a shot.

“How do they know where they are going?” says Macey. “I mean not having any eyes.”

“Tell me,” I say, “how did your family die exactly?”

Macey folds his feet under his buttocks. “I don’t know exactly. It was my uncle who found them. They were clam gatherers. Every day they’d wade out into shallows of the mangrove swamps. When they didn’t come home my uncle went out to look. The bodies were blue, hanging there in the water. The heads had been cut off. We had to bury them like that. It didn’t seem right.”

The legs are splashing in the water. As they go deeper in the penis floats on the surface of the water. It looks like a snake, or something else. I want to hold it one last time so I ask Macey to leave me for a while. He nods his head ok and I walk down to the river.

When Macey comes back it is almost dark. I am sitting on the river bank and I have the legs across my own. They are not moving.

“You ok?” says Macey.

“They’d had enough,” I say. “They’re gone. Will you help me bury them?”

“Sure,” says Macey.

I’ve brought two small trowels with me. We take one each and choose a spot beneath a large tree. The soil is soft here and comes up easily but still after fifteen minutes I am sweating.

“We want it deep,” says Macey. “We don’t want a dog digging them up.”

“No we don’t,” I say.

It is late by the time we finish. The hole is as deep as a grave but about half as long.

“I think I want to bury him in his frog underpants,” I say.

“You’re the boss,” said Macey.

I slip the underpants over the ankles, the thighs. The penis is still warm. I look at it for a last time and say a silent goodbye and then Macey and I lift the legs together and place them carefully into the hole.

“It’s a nice spot,” says Macey. “Would you like to say a few words?”

“Actually, I have prepared something.” I pull a piece of paper out of my pocket and begin to read.

“Dear Gavin, we were together for five years. Sometimes you were difficult and sometimes you were nice but I always loved you. I used to hate it when you woke me up at half past five in the morning to go to the gym and then decided you wouldn’t go but instead lay chatting to me so I was tired for the whole of the day.

“When I was with you sometimes I just wished that you were gone, that I was single again and I could spend all my time doing what I really wanted to do, watching the football, not changing out of my pyjamas for the whole day or days, not going into the garden either to water it or to cut the grass.

“I know sometimes you were tempted by other people and sometimes you gave in to those temptations and I would hate you then and I would stand naked in front of the mirror and wonder what was wrong with me. I even packed my bag once and decided enough was enough. I was leaving.

“But now you are gone I can’t say how much I want you back. I just wish that you were with me here again and I am not sure how I will ever live without you in my life. You had something and I don’t know what it was. Is that what love is, a constant state of unknowing, of not being sure? I am not sure.

“I hope that you will be happy here in your place by the water and I am sorry that your mother burnt the other you. I am glad that I managed to bring you back so we could end things like this. We may be different but that doesn’t mean what we feel is any less true. Let’s hope things change in the big world one day. I believe that they will. Goodbye.”

I fold up the piece of paper and put it back in my pocket.

“Would you like to say something?” I say to Macey.

“No,” he says, “that was nice.”

“Come on then,” I say, “let’s go and get the train. You haven’t lost the tickets, have you?”

Macey shakes his head and we head away from the grave back towards the station. Behind us is the sound of the water flowing, down towards the sea, out into the ocean, that big wide space where we can swim with everyone.

 

© 2005 Drew Gummerson - Contributor's Bio