Another Debs’s lawyer. I didn’t think it worth opening. I mean, what was it going to say?
‘ Congratulations, your last call was such a success that Ms Deborah Ross has decided to halt all formal divorce proceedings… ’
I doubted it. Scrunched the letter into a ball and launched it to the trash. My heart felt scalded but maybe it was time to move on. What’s the phrase? Oh yeah, flogging a dead horse.
A catch, I wasn’t. My career was washed up. I had a serious alcohol problem and, on top of everything else, I’d lost most of my top row of teeth. I mean, who’d rate me?
Debs deserved better, deserved to start afresh. It would take a cruel bastard to stop her. Much as I wanted to think she’d always be there, I knew I’d blown it. There may come a time I’ll be able to face her, tell her I was sorry, but it wasn’t right now. I turned to George Burns for support, he’d said: ‘Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house.’
I waited for the bus on Leith Walk. A man carrying a canoe strolled up behind me. I turned, thought about asking, then turned back. I didn’t want to know.
When the bus came the man with the canoe tried to follow on after me.
Driver said, ‘You can’t get on here!’
‘Why not?’ said the canoe guy.
‘Cos you can’t walk on a bus with a canoe.’
‘Would you prefer I paddled?’
I liked that, but the driver didn’t, got out his seat and looked ready to lamp the guy, before he took off. A man running down a busy street with a canoe is not something you see every day, even in Edinburgh.
I sat beside some geezer with a stookie on his arm. He’d a tight T-shirt, a toast-rack chest poked from beneath.
‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ he said.
This from a guy with a broken arm, I lied: ‘Car crash.’
He winked. ‘Aye sure.’
‘Excuse me.’
‘Had a bit of soapy bubble, big man?’
I tried to laugh it off. Left at the next stop. I couldn’t go around looking like part of the body count from a Steven Seagal film, so called Col’s dentist. By some kind of miracle he gave me an appointment right away.
In the waiting room I picked up an Ikea catalogue. Was full of happy couples, rosy-cheeked children and friendly-looking dogs. They all had perfect teeth. Even the dogs. For a moment, I wanted to live an Ikea life. The moment passed.
I turned to the free paper, the Metro. A picture showed a six-and-a-half-stone cyst that doctors recently removed from an obese woman. The article said the cyst weighed the same as Paris Hilton. Now, if they could cut her out, that’s a story I’d like to read.
The receptionist called out my name.
My nerves twitched.
As I sat in the chair, I felt my knackers tighten.
The dentist was called Klaus. ‘There’s quite a considerable amount of damage,’ he said. ‘How did you do this?’
For the second time in under an hour, I lied: ‘Rugby match.’
‘You should be more careful.’
‘Yeah, it’s a rough game.’
‘I mean at your age. Playing rugby. It’s suicide.’
Right now, if I got given the option of playing rugby or suicide, I knew which one I’d choose. But what got me was the ‘at your age’ bit. I’m only mid-thirties, but it struck me, maybe I look like I’m carrying a few more years on the dial.
Klaus fixed me up with a set of temporaries. Promised me a full new top row, bridgework, the lot, by the end of the month.
He handed me a mirror.
‘Wow,’ I said. They looked Ultrabrite white, arrow straight. I couldn’t believe that my mouth looked so good.
‘I could live with these.’
‘They’ll come out in a week or so, then I’ll do the bridgework proper.’
‘Great. Well, I’ll settle with you when the job’s done.’
To my shock, he bought this. Figured I’d be good for it in a week — if I lasted that long.
I had to check in with Hod, called him. ‘How goes it, man?’
‘Christ, you’re still with us, then?’
‘Oh yeah, no danger. You’ll have to try harder to edge me out the scene. How’s Amy?’
He stalled, changed subject. ‘Look, you coming round?’
‘Why, what’s up?’
‘Nothing, shit, all’s hunky dory here, compared to what you’ve… you know.’
I sensed cracks in Hod’s voice and his cover story, but I’d too much to think about right now to be delving further. ‘Right, sound. I’ll be in touch soon as… keep an eye on Amy for me.’
‘It’s done.’
‘But, not that close!’
‘Gus… c’mon, I’m on the job here.’
‘That’s definitely not what I want to hear…’
A laugh. ‘Sorry, just a slip.’
‘Make that your last. See you later.’
On the street I kept trying to catch a look at my teeth in the reflections of shop windows. Were they really mine? Well, no. But God, they looked good. With teeth like this, a bit of a tan, perhaps I could pass myself off as a regular guy.
Maybe not.
I dropped back to reality, remembered I’d things to take care of. Nadja could expect a second visit from me soon. But before that, a visit to Mac the Knife called.