Half life
Sharing the ache
Carole Morin
My daughter looks nothing like me,' Maddie replied, disgusted. As we were going into the surgery, she muttered, 'I don't like the look of him.' Looks are important in somebody you have to trust. When Tom's assistant made the mistake of trying to tissue off Maddie's All-Day Honey Honey lips, she leapt out of the torture chair the way she did when she vomited over Butcher Brown. Only this time it was verbal abuse that came out of her old mouth.
Later, while Dangerous Donald was cooking dinner, she confessed that Tom had given her a row last time she visited me. 'He came to the door while you were in the shower and asked me to turn down the Patsy Cline CD.' Poor Tom had been tempted to have a dance while replacing a front crown every time Crazy came on.
As she was watching John Major's resig- nation speech, I called everyone I know with decent teeth trying to get a recommendation for a good-looking dentist. Miss Thynne's name came up a couple of times. Maddie can go to her grave with toothache, I am not sharing my sparkly, soothing, NHS dentist.
`You can tell a lot about a man through his teeth,' Maddie confided. True, politi- cians tend to have their eye teeth filed to remove Draculish points. 'They should have given that nice Mr Heseltine the job in the first place.' She's hot for big beast Hezza because they both had heart attacks. `Portillo's teeth aren't bad,' she said. 'Sexy squint at the front. It's just a pity about those lips. Do you think he has collagen injections?' It's something I've never thought about. Maddie gave up voting and dentists 16 years ago but her lower left molar has been bothering her since 1988.
`Have you made the appointment for my extraction?' she demanded, when I met her at Heathrow. Everybody knows there are no decent dentists in Glasgow. The city is full of people with ugly black fillings, but Maddie's really here collecting payback for all the times she took me to Butcher Brown for check-ups when I was wee.
The pink disinfectant of dental surgeries reminds me of Salvador Dali's champagne, but I've never been able to face voting. When I was young I found the idea humiliating, and now that I'm older and more idealistic there's even less chance of me being able to do it.
Tom the dentist conveniently lives in my building, and does his drilling and filling in the basement. I made an appointment for Maddie with him. I couldn't stand the embarrassment if she vomited over my real dentist, a sun-tanned girl in Notting Hill called Miss Thynne. In happier times, Miss Thynne would have earned her Chanel assisting Dr Kildare — still getting to wear the white coat, but not having to lance gum boils.
Waiting to see smiling Tom, Maddie dug her fingertips maliciously into my arm and told me, 'You used to make me sick. Every time I took you to Butcher Brown your teeth passed the exam and I know for a fact you sucked cola cubes under the bed- clothes.' I pretended to read the British Medical Journal, praying that Tom had prepared a heavy syringe of heroin like I suggested.
`I can see the family resemblance,' Tom said when he came to fetch her. 'Shame about the hairdo,' I replied, 'a bit 80s.' Whether politics are a commitment or an entertainment, the TV generation of sophisticated voyeurs expect a good perfor- mance. Articulateness and intelligence don't automatically go together. Smart chat can be part of good presentation.
Tony Blair chimed in with his tuppence- worth and phoney grin. `Doesn't stand a chance,' Maddie said.
`If that guy smiled at me I'd take a stick to him,' Dangerous Donald said, bringing in his tiger prawn concoction — enough to tempt any toothache victim.
`Don't expect me to manage much in my condition,' Maddie said, digging into her prawns.
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