A Solitary Confinement by Robin Sheppard

Author:Robin Sheppard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Panoma Press Ltd

- CHAPTER EIGHTEEN -

The Sap Rises

Getting set for bed involves a certain routine. I need a series of exercises to be completed on my limbs – a ritual Suzi completes religiously as her last act before setting off home, while occasionally leaving my teeth to the night staff. Changing clothes and teeth brushing are tasks I remain incapable of doing. It’s a very strange sensation when someone else enters your mouth with an electric toothbrush and a heaviness of touch guaranteed to make your gums bleed. It shouldn’t register as one of Britain’s best loved spectator sports yet somehow we manage to make a very real case for issuing tickets and charging for admission.

It’s not easy to offer advice to someone cleaning your teeth when your mouth is full of their fingers and your toothbrush – particularly if you can’t project your voice. However, when any new protagonist is deputed with responsibility for cleaning my pearlies I always want confirmation they’ll only turn the brush on once it’s inside my mouth. Failure to do this projects toothpaste across the teeth cleaner, and, on a couple of occasions, covers patients in the beds either side. Some nurses want your advice, others don’t, considering my attempts to instruct them patronising. It either makes the person doing the brushing feel cross, or prone to the wobbly chin giggles. The evening performances vary in terms of audience size but the record crowd is seven.

And that gives me the excuse for a joke: How many nurses does it take to clean a patient’s teeth? Seven: one to carry out the exercise, one to write the notes and one to supervise, along with one to write the health and safety report, and one to clean up afterwards. Then there’s one to initiate the training exercise, one to review performance against government targets and one to share the experience. Of course, if you’re counting, you’ll realise that makes eight – another reason the NHS finances are in such a mess.

It’s all very well having the attention but teeth cleaning becomes even harder when one particular nurse, Sarah, explains she has recently installed a computer at home, and as she’s worried about fluctuating electricity supply, has invested in a surge protector. To my simple mind this sounds like a character from a film combining the best and worst of ‘Allo ‘Allo and Inspector Clouseau. “It is I, Serge!” “Serge who?” “Serge Protecteur, you Fuhl.” All pronounced in an absurdly French accent, of course. It isn’t that funny but it takes a full half an hour to stop giggling, and three weeks before we can talk about anything else.

It’s all rather pertinent. I’ve actually been trying to improve my French by listening to language refresher courses on CD. I’m also trying to pick up Italian and Spanish phrases by talking to the staff. For some reason the Spanish latch on to me as someone who can help them improve their English and want to know who has the most quintessentially English voice.

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