I was impressed!
Italics and an exclamation mark; that’s because not many things impress JJ!
I was attended to by Medeea, the Romanian dentist who seems
to be growing a little tired of people mentioning Dracula, and Lucy, the young
woman with incisive eyes and partial Greek ancestry. They made quite a team. Never
in my life have I been treated with such care and thoroughness by a dentist.
Never.
‘Does it hurt a little?’ asked Medeea when I winced
(quietly.) Her expression betrayed genuine concern, which seemed, in my
experience at least, totally uncharacteristic of a dentist’s surgery. Nice,
though.
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like more anaesthetic?’
‘No; I’m not that important. Carry on.’
I was being worked on for at least half an hour, and when it
was all over I was told that I shouldn’t eat before 3.30. ‘Then you can have
lunch,’ said Lucy, adding as an afterthought (since she’s aware of my strangely
nocturnal habits) ‘or breakfast…’
And it wasn’t only excellent treatment I received at the
hands of the Romanian lady; I got some free philosophy, too. She told me I
shouldn’t be so obsessed with mortality, since I’m only thinking myself to an
early grave. I gather, however, that one of her maxims is ‘A pessimist is just
an optimist who’s well-informed.’ A note of realism, to boot.
Medeea was the consummate, caring professional, and I took
the trouble to have myself transferred to her list for future visits. Maybe Van
Helsing was onto something when he said that Mina Harker had ‘the mind of a man, but
the heart of a woman.’ (Damn; I mentioned Dracula.) Maybe dentists should all
be women. The splendid Lucy was simply as splendid as ever.
There is one thing that troubles me, though. Those Perspex
face masks that dentists wear these days lead me to the unsubstantiated, yet
nevertheless nagging, suspicion that I’m about be welded.
Fifteen minutes to breakfast.
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