‘Nothing new, no. That front lower might need another support and there’s the usual … dozen fillings. No. Nothing new. You’ve just got crummy teeth, that’s all. Fillings don’t stay filled. Stay off the hard foods, won’t you. Don’t try any carrots or apples. Particularly no apples.’
‘But isn’t an apple a day supposed to —’
‘That’s all balls. A ginger-beer every other year will keep me away just as effectively as far as vitamins are concerned, and as for hardening them up, you’re past all that.’
‘Fascinating.’
‘Watch the steaks, too. And don’t get any ideas about chewing-gum, unless you want it to turn crunchy.’
‘When I’m twenty-five,’ I said, ‘I’ll be living off soup.’
‘You’ll be fed through a straw.’
‘Or intravenously.’
‘They’ll stop decaying soon, though. You just wait till your gums recede.’
‘Don’t even talk about it.’
We laughed. He sat on a stool by the washbasin and flicked his cigarette out of the window. ‘Don’t you mind?’
‘Not much. Not in the end. Do most people mind much?’
‘Yes, and in a solemn kind of way. That’s why you make a change. You get tired of telling these trenchy old girls that their mouths are apple-pie when they know as well as you do that the quicker they switch to chompers the better for all concerned. Especially better for me.” He went over to the desk and took out his prescription pad. ‘Mandrax?’
‘Please.’
‘Thirty?’
‘If that’s okay. And could you fit me in early for those fillings? Just do the more gaping ones. The rest can wait, can’t they?’
‘It’s your mouth.’
‘Yes. Well, I’ve got Oxford Entrance next month.’
‘Oh? Watch the Mandrax, in that case. Tell Judy about the appointments. You’ll need two, for the time being. Seen the doc about the asthma and things recently?’
‘Yes, a couple of hours ago.’ We exchanged shrugs. Dr Budrys had simply listened to me breathing, chucked my balls, got me to hawk on to a slide, and delivered a verdict rich in dotard optimism. I never believed him, anyway.
‘Nothing spectacular. He winced now and again when he was stethoscoping me. He writes to my mother about it. I think he thinks I’m still about nine.’
Irrelevantly I thought of the time I came down to London for a dental appointment just after I started wearing long trousers. I delayed the visit as long as possible because I thought I would no longer be able to cry there – which I had invariably done, without feeling incongruous, when I wore shorts. I had cried, all the same.
‘I’m twenty quite soon. Perhaps he’ll level with me then.’
Alistair opened the door for me. That’ll be nice,’ he said.
Twenty past: ‘Celia shits’ (the Dean of St Patrick’s)
Charles looks at the clock out of the corner of his eye. Things start happening faster now.
‘Hello? Western 2814? Hello? Is anyone there? Who is this?’
I hung up and redialled.
‘937 2814. Hello? Hello. If this—’
I hung up and redialled.
‘Hello? Gordon…’
‘Now look here. I don’t care —’
I hung up and redialled.
‘If you—’
I hung up and redialled. Engaged. I hung up and redialled.
This is the operator. We —’
I hung up.
‘Well, thank you, Mrs Seth-Smith. And how are you ?’
‘Very well. Why don’t you go on upstairs ? Rachel is in her room.’
‘Thank you. I shall.’
And on the way there I wondered how Rachel’s mother contrived to take so little trouble with her appearance and yet exude so much vanity. The old black party-dresses she always wore looked as though they had been showered in fag ash and dabbed with powder-puffs. Her hair was like my father’s in his I’m-not-going-bald period. And what stopped her shaving off that handle-bar moustache? It couldn’t possibly have got that way without patient husbandry: pruning, clipping, waxing the ends. Perhaps she thought she was being foreign (hence the equatorial armpits), or perhaps Harry made her do it as a foil to his paunching-gigolo good looks.
Rachel wasn’t in her room. I sat on the bed, in between all the crappy gonks and teddy-bears and dolls arrayed there. I had to pretend I liked them, and especially liked Rachel for liking them, so I took the welcome opportunity of doing them over now. ‘How’s Wollidog den?’ I said. ‘Where’s your mummy, Winstonchester? How would your fwend Munchy like his fucking face—’