In 2015, as part of a celebration event, I edited and published an anthology of short stories called Access All Areas, which I think is still available somewhere on the interweb. I think there's a blog post on here, actually. Have a look on the right!!
I wrote a Christmas tale for inclusion, which proved popular, so as I am currently writing something new for 2022, and it's Christmas right about now, I thought I'd share it one more time.
Merry Christmas, everyone and have a wonderful New Year
Mark xx
A
Christmas Cavity
*
Dense flakes of snow
descended from grey skies on to the car park. A white Christmas, the first for
years. Janet’s car (an Audi, second-hand, a proper workhorse), was covered in a
screed of uncontaminated white flakes. The walls surrounding the tarmac floor of
the car park had become, in the blink of an eye, the innerscape of an ice-cube.
She wondered how she was
going to get home.
And not for the first time
she wondered why she had opened her dental practice on Christmas Day.
*
She turned from the window
to her patient. Dennis. Old Dennis.
Open wide, she commanded. He
obeyed and Janet began to probe the rancid circumference of one of his seven
remaining teeth. His breath, imbued as it was with vodka and McDonalds, made
her thankful for compulsory masks.
It wasn’t always the case. She’d
spent twenty-six years of her life exploring the nuclear wasteland of mouths
like that of Dennis, who lived in hostels and on benches and sometimes, she
knew, in the car park behind her practice. She had never got used to it, the
fire and the death inside mouths like his.
You would think after nearly
a quarter of a century she would have done.
There was nothing for it.
The tooth had to go.
*
I’m sorry to tell you this,
Dennis, but you’re only going to have six teeth left after today. This one’s
pretty poorly, she said. His eyes said it all (rheumatic, milky, the nicotine
from his endless rollup invading the iris, painting it tobacco tan, like the
dead molar about to be separated from is putrefacting, crimson gums), and he
had no need to acknowledge her beyond that.
After (the tooth came out
with a satisfying pfft, almost below
the level of perception – a sound of relieved separation only a dentist would
hear), Dennis signed his initials on an NHS form and went out to sit in the
waiting room. He was the last patient of Christmas Day. Three pm. After some
form filling and post-dental comedown, Janet said goodbye to young Nigel, her nurse
of nine months, with an envelope containing ten purple twenty-pound notes and a
card (a photomontage of Finland), from a luxury multipack she picked up at
Debenhams last New Year.
Together, the two of them
had prescribed three bottles of high strength Ibuprofen for infected gums, six
bottles of antibiotics, propped up five teeth (employing the subtle dentistry
skills she trained for) and removed eight others (using the brute force the
modern realpolitick of British
dentistry forced upon her by virtue of the credit crunch).
He pecked her on the cheek
before pulling up the hood of his parka and shut the door behind him, leaving
her alone next to Big Jim, her faithful, fully equipped, eight-grand dentist’s chair.
Nigel ushered a reluctant Dennis out into the cold and locked the door from the
outside, a robust clicking sound that simultaneously filled her with relief and
with a creeping dread.
She was alone. Again. On
Christmas Day.
The fourth year in a row.
Ever since Brian left, four days after her thirty seventh birthday.
Janet’s practice,
Greensleeves, was the newest dental practice in the area – a vast, sprawling
council estate, one of the biggest in Europe and her’s was the only practice in
the City that opened on Christmas Day.
She opened every day, did Janet, for at least eight
hours, and on Tuesday and Thursday, in the evenings too. For the last four
years. She had a business partner, but he was happily married and he had gone
back to Krakow for Christmas with his wife and two kids to see family. She gave
her his blessing. Said she didn’t mind taking up the slack. At one point in the
week before Christmas, she nearly asked him if she could tag along, but she
left the unprofessional (and completely silly) impulse pass.
She supposed she was still stunned:
Brian was the love of her life and she couldn’t imagine being apart when she
was with him, and she still could not imagine life with anyone else. No-one
would ever come close. Not that there had been many options since and not that
her ex felt the same way. Brian met a receptionist at the practice in which he
worked. Twenty-two. Now, he treated the molars of the middle class in Harrogate
while the girl who took Janet’s place by his side raised his child.
*
Janet had never grieved.
When he told her that he was leaving, Janet simply affirmed what she had heard,
repeated it back, dug her fingernails into her palms and said okay.
Then she erected a
logistical schedule that had lasted four long years, an unbreakable routine, an
ironclad dam structure which she supposed was a defence against utter despair,
a breakdown from which she would never recover.
Her parents had died and
there were no children. Scottish, her few friends were all back home (and, of
course, all married with kids, which meant visiting at Christmas was awkward
and embarrassing for her, the maiden aunt in the party hat at the end of the
table, no one beside her to tug on the Christmas cracker).
She was a stranger in a
strange land here and not for the first time, as the silence embraced her in
the now immaculate, antiseptic environment of her suite, she wondered why she
was here. What it all meant, in the wider scheme of things.
As she did so, she heard
footsteps outside in the waiting room.
Padding, as if someone was
shaking snow off boots onto the welcome mat.
Who’s there, she shouted,
startled, getting up from atop Big Jim. There was no reply. Then she heard the
crackle of a zip-fastener – someone was taking off a coat! She reached for a
pot of dental tools and picked up a scalpel. Held it. Janet wouldn’t go down
without a fight, that was for sure.
(Once, back in Aberdeen,
someone had tried to mug her in the street after a night with the girls in the
town, an alcoholic ex-oil worker down on his luck. She’d punched him so hard in
the face, his nose cracked. When the coppers finally caught up with him, he
asked for a solicitor - not to defend himself, but to sue…).
Stealthily, she crept up to
the door. Opened it.
*
A man sat in the waiting
room reading a magazine, with one leg across the other. A big fellow, with a
red shirt and a proper pot belly hanging over his belt; a healthy, protuberant beard,
almost white, like candy floss; thick, old-school jeans and boots. She put him at sixty, but it was hard to tell
ages nowadays (the older she became), and as she stared at him, incredulously,
her scalpel in hand. Her fear abating, she realised that he had that ageless
look about him, as if he’d been there forever and would always be there, like someone’s
grandparent.
No – he looked like her own granddad. As she remembered him.
Before he died thirty years ago.
The practice is closed, she
told him, carefully and slowly.
Is it? He replied, putting
down his magazine. And I’ve got such terrible
toothache.
You don’t look like someone
with toothache, she said, lowering her scalpel.
He gave her that all-encompassing
smile again. I assure you I have, he said. I’ve got such an important day today too. Lots of work to do and I have
people expecting me, but I am afraid that this bloody toothache is getting in
the way. I was in the area and my tooth has been giving me tremendous gyp, and then
I spotted a very nice chap coming out of the pub at the bottom of the hill…
The Lamp? She interrupted.
He had a slight accent (French? German?) and his measured delivery – perfectly enunciated
– was delivered with depth and a certain huskiness.
Yes, that’s it! A fine pub! The
Lamp. Nearly stopped off for a Ploughman’s lunch and a pint of ale myself! Anyway,
I inquired after a dentist - lovely chap, slightly the worse for wear! - and he
told me that you may be open and I thought I’d pop by on the off chance. It
really would be frightfully good if you could have a look. I’ll be happy to
pay.
How did you get in? She
asked, ignoring him. The door was locked.
Was it? He said, scratching
his beard. He looked bemused, as if someone had just told him that the sky was
habitually yellow. I could have sworn it was open when I arrived.
Janet walked over to the
door. It was unlocked. Bloody Nigel! Yet
she swore that she had heard her assistant lock the door. In fact, she was
certain of it.
And now she had a decision
to make.
There was something about
him. Something familiar and reassuring. Something comforting. She didn’t feel
threatened, nor up against a wall. The way he smiled was like a big welcome
home from someone you loved and trusted. That smile was the equivalent of a generous
and expansive hug.
And his voice.
She walked back into the
waiting room. In the end, she had nothing else to do on Christmas Day.
Let’s have a look, she said.
Take a seat in there.
Oh, thank you, thank you, he
said, he said, hurrying past her. He was a big man and his belly wobbled under
his shirt, and when he sat down on Big Jim, he only just managed to fit. Like
an excited child, he looked around him at every possible novelty – her
equipment, her pot of sterile tools, the illuminating spotlights above, the
mouthwashes, the scales, the pile of blue forms the practice distributed to low-income
folk (eighty percent of her punters. No. Ninety
percent).
She scrubbed up, donned her
mask and a fresh pair of gloves. Switched on the spots and took her seat next
to the giant chair.
What’s your name? She asked.
Nicholas, he replied.
Surname?
Smith, he said. Nicholas
Smith. He winked at her and she repeated the name back to him, feeling about
seven again, sitting on her grandad’s knee. Janet hardly ever smiled nowadays.
She wasn’t miserable, or taciturn or offputting – she had simply forgotten how,
she supposed, but just being next to Nicholas Smith made her feel like
chortling. But she remained professional. Wrote down his name on the form.
Address? She asked.
I live abroad. I have my
European health pass somewhere in my jeans, he said, starting to get up with an
effort but she put up her palm.
Don’t worry about it. Let’s
have a look at that tooth, shall we.
He opened his mouth and she
leant over, altered the angles and spotlights, investigated the man’s cavernous
maw. Prodded, queried, fingered, delved,
pointed (inside and out), inquired, and did all the stuff she was trained to do
and while she did so, Nicholas ummed and aared and nodded and winced (at
appropriate points) and gestured in the air with his corpulent, meaty fingers.
She eventually spotted the problem (the beginnings of a nasty abscess) and after
she had done so (feeling proud of herself, as she always did), Janet Brown did
what she had to do.
Unfortunately, she said, there’s
not a lot I can do, Nicholas.
Oh no, he replied, looking
genuinely shocked.
You have an abscess. I
cannot do anything while it is in this inflamed condition. I’m going to have to
prescribe painkillers and anti-biotics. The latter will take a week to work,
but the painkillers will take the edge off. I have some here, actually. They
are very good.
That’s something I suppose,
Nicholas said. I don’t really want to lose a tooth.
Actually, you have very good
teeth, Janet commented, pouring a glass of water and removing two Ibuprofen
(augmented, prescription stuff) from a translucent brown bottle. These will
help the pain. What is it you do?
Oh, deliveries, he said,
gulping the water and taking the tablets. Hospitals and care homes and
residential places and such. I’m a delivery driver.
What do you deliver? Janet
asked.
With a herculean effort, Nicholas
got up from the chair and stretched. He boomed with laughter. His eyes sparkled
and his cheeks flushed with life. She noticed for the first time that he had a
remarkably red nose.
Oh, all manner of wonderful things, he said. But this year, books.
Particularly books for the children.
Yes, all manner of wonderful books. Do you like books, Janet? Are you a lady
that enjoys a good read?
I do, yes. Books are
brilliant.
He boomed with laughter once
more. Yes, they are indeed. They are truly brilliant and thanks to you, Janet,
your tender touch and your magic potion, I am able to carry on my deliveries.
How can I thank you?
Nicholas reached into his
jeans pocket, but Janet lifted her palm once more. That won’t be necessary.
Merry Christmas, she said, grinning like a Cheshire cat on laughing gas for the
first time in four years.
It’s inclement outside,
Janet, so I’d best get wrapped up snug and toasty. Can’t catch a cold, now can
I? Nicholas zipped up his giant red parka, still chortling. Then, he reached
into one of his pockets, which seemed impossibly deep to her. Time stopped still
as he searched inside, muttering to himself, querying (oh where is it? That’’s it…got it…oooh, not…ah! There it is), as he
did so. He pulled out a box, no bigger than a matchbox, wrapped in Tyrian
purple tissue paper. He handed it to her.
I would like you to have
this, Janet, as a token of my appreciation. You have brought me pleasure today
– my toothache is leaving already – and this little token will bring you great
joy too.
I can’t accept...Janet, ever
professional, tried to say, but she never finished. A wave of calm and peace
washed over her and she held out her hand. Nicholas passed over the box. Thank
you, she said simply, accepting the gift.
Now, I really must be going,
he said, pulling up his hood. Lots and lots of people to see today. Thank you,
Janet. I bid you adieu and goodbye.
Goodbye, Nicholas, she said,
trying to remember whether she had introduced herself earlier, as he shut the
door behind him, flakes of crystal snow landing on the doormat.
She looked at her gift box.
Though small, it was deceptively heavy, with a proper heft, significant mass,
like a cube of lead. She wondered what was inside. Then, as she did so, out of
the corner of her eye, she noticed a large hold-all on a waiting room chair in
the corner. A black leather holdall with two big leather straps and gold press-stud
pockets.
Nicholas must have left it
behind, she thought. It may be important! She ran over, picked up the bag,
raced for the door, hoping she might catch him, but outside, there was nothing.
No sign. The roads were empty
and it was getting dark. She felt like calling his name into the wind and the
driving snow as the light faded, but something stopped her – a sense of
futility, perhaps - or even the strange sense of contentment she now felt.
Safe, out of the snow, a
tremble and a shiver underneath her whites, Janet opened the hold-all on the
table in her suite. She pulled back the zip and the bag opened neatly.
*
Inside, treasure. Paperback
books. Hardback books. Anthologies. Novels. Histories. Magazines. Graphic
novels. Comics, piles of comics. Children’s activity books. All new. All
pristine. Photo-covers, painted covers. All manners of colour, all the colours
of the rainbow. It was a treasure trove of books and for the size of the
holdall, there seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of them. Big books. Small
books. Tall books. Short books. Thin books. Thick books. Blue books. Red books.
Hundreds and hundreds of books. How did they
all fit inside? she wondered. It was surely impossible!
She began to remove the
books and as she did so, trapped beneath a Roald Dahl and a Phillip Pullman,
Janet discovered a blank envelope, sealed.
Clearly a Christmas
Card.
On impulse, and not knowing
what else to do, she carefully opened it, taking it apart at the top using her
scalpel as a letter opener. The paper sliced easily and swiftly.
She removed the card and
stared at it.
Stared at it some more.
On that Christmas card was a
photograph of Greensleeves, her dental practice.
With a Happy Christmas
inlaid in gold underneath.
And it was snowing.
It hadn’t snowed on
Christmas Day in years.
*
After doing what she had to
do with the books, and then in her suite, Janet turned off the light. Picked up
her coat and put it on, along with boots and scarf. It was cold out there, but
inside, she was warm.
She hadn’t felt as warm as
this in years.
Just before she left for
home, she took the purple package from her pocket and assessed it once more.
She would open that at home, by the fire, with a glass of malt whisky and a mince
pie.
And she knew that her life,
stalled as it was, hollow and dead, would begin again.
Her Christmas present safely
in her pocket, Janet locked the door to her practice and made her way through
the winter’s day to her snow-covered car.
xx
____________________________________________________________________
All images are free copyright.
Originally published in:
Access All Areas
