A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer

Author:Angela Meyer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ventura Press

The oil of clove is not working. The tart, green taste is now associated with the pain and makes me retch, and then cough, and then retch some more. I am looking out the ground floor window for Bethea on the bay, but it is raining. A lone bird peeps, perhaps catching the bugs as they move to higher ground. Water in the sky makes me think about the depths of it around me, beneath me. An image of a seal rolling in the dark. I wonder if anyone has ever died here before.

I wanted to suffer, but this really is too much. The side of my face is on fire.

William brings me the telephone and dials Bethea’s number. My gut flips with shame, with bother. ‘Oh hello, Bethea, I’m so sorry to have to ask you this …’

She knows why I am calling. She will make the appointment in the nearest town. She calls back with a confirmation.

‘Got enough food?’ she asks again.

‘Yes,’ I lie.

The dentist is a young, broad-shouldered woman who immediately says something about my weight. It is too bright in the office; I struggle not to close my eyes as I am talking to her, before I lie down in the plastic-covered chair.

‘I’m on a diet,’ I say darkly, wondering if Bethea can hear the conversation in the other room. It feels strange to be away from William. I picture him standing, unmoving, in the corner of the dark lounge room. Waiting for me.

‘Maybe you are sick,’ she says, now prodding in my mouth. Her assistant lunges in with the spit-catching vacuum that always makes me feel disgusted with myself. My calves tense with the two women over me, pushing around in my mouth. What if I suddenly need to cough or vomit? The dentist tsks at the same time I feel a bolt of intense pain. I cry out.

‘This will have to come out now,’ she says.

I nod.

Of all the advances in medicine, they’ve never managed to find a better way than the ol’ numb-and-wrench for a far-gone tooth. Anaesthetic must be one of humanity’s all-time best inventions.

The assistant pricks the inside of my cheek with the numbing needle, then readies me for the dentist by pressing my shoulders down. The dentist enters my mouth with some tool and starts wrenching, her other hand on my jaw. There are flecks of blood on her gloves. I know I’ll be covered in bruises. She frowns but I can see the muscles bulging in her arm – she must be used to this action, or perhaps she lifts weights in anticipation of patients like me. People who’ve failed in the mouth.

The tooth gives with a rush of wetness, to which the vacuum is aimed. The dentist holds it like a trophy in front of my eyes: mottled brown, with a long root pinked by blood and gum. Before giving me a second to recover she tells me I’ll have more trouble because of the gum disease. That I must use an electric toothbrush, and address any underlying health problems.

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