It May Never Happen by V.S. Pritchett

Author:V.S. Pritchett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1945-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE OEDIPUS COMPLEX

“Good morning, Mr. P,” said Mr. Pollfax, rinsing and drying his hands after the last patient. “How’s Mr. P.?” I was always Mr. P. until I sat in the chair and he switched the lamp on and had my mouth open. Then I got a peerage.

“That’s fine, my lord,” said Mr. Pollfax having a look inside.

Dogged, with its slight suggestion of doggish, was the word for Mr. Pollfax. He was a short man, jaunty, hair going thin with jaunty buttocks and a sway to his walk. He had two lines, from habitual grinning, cut deep from the nostrils, and scores of lesser lines like the fine hair of a bird’s nest round his egg-blue eyes. There was something innocent, heroic and determined about Mr. Pollfax, something of the English Tommy in tin hat and full pack going up the line. He suggested in a quiet way—war.

He was the best dentist I ever had. He got you into the chair, turned on the light, tapped around a bit with a thing like a spoon and then, dropping his white-coated arm to his side, told you a story. Several more stories followed in his flat Somerset voice, when he had your mouth jacked up. And then removing the towel and with a final “Rinse that lot out”, he finished with the strangest story of all and let you go. A month or so later the bill came in. Mr. Pollfax presents his compliments and across the bottom of it, in his hand, “Be good”. I have never known a dentist like Mr. Pollfax.

“Open, my lord,” said Mr. Pollfax. Let’s see what sort of life his lordship has been leading. Still smoking that filthy pipe, I see. I shall have to do some cleaning up.”

He tapped around and then dropped his arm. A look of anxiety came on his face. “Did I tell you that one about the girl who went to the Punch and Judy show? No? Nor the one about the engine-driver who was put on sentry duty in Syria? You’re sure? When did I see you last? What was the last one I told you? That sounds like last April? Lord, you have been letting things go. Well,” said Mr. Pollfax, tipping back my head and squirting something on to a tooth, “we’ll have a go at that root at the back. It’s not doing you any good. It was like this. There was a girl sitting on the beach at Barmouth with her young man watching a Punch and Judy show …” (Closer and closer came Mr. Pollfax’s head, lower and lower went his voice.)

He took an instrument and began chipping his way through the tooth and the tale.

“Not bad, eh?” he said, stepping back with a sudden shout of laughter.

“Ah,” I mouthed.

“All right, my lord,” said Mr. Pollfax, withdrawing the instrument and relapsing into his dead professional manner. “Spit that lot out.”

He began again.

There was just that root, Mr. Pollfax was saying. It was no good there.

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