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Back Bad Apples Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
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  65. Acknowledgements

Tobias walks in and pulls some kind of rubber sheet over my damaged tooth.

‘It’s a barrier,’ he says. ‘To isolate the molar.’

Julia moves the suction tube slightly and for the briefest of moments it gets stuck on my lip and she lets out a little giggle and moves it and says, ‘Sorry.’

‘Music?’ says Tobias.

I say, ‘No,’ but it’s just a noise.

He says, ‘Excellent.’

He uses his phone and then the music begins.

Wagner.

‘Ride of the Valkyries’.

‘It’s called “Ride of the Valkyries”,’ he says.

I know what it’s called.

He washes his gloved hands once again.

And then he starts up his drill.

57

The sound is head-splittingly shrill.

I usually remove or turn off my hearing aids for dental work. In public, I only really take them out for swimming, concentrating in the office – and dentist visits.

I can’t feel the pain but I can sense it through that grinding noise and I can taste it in the chemicals on my tongue, and I can see it in the one oversize eye of this imitation dentist. His face is so close to mine I can smell him. His breath is filtered through his face mask but I can still smell it. The faint mintiness. And I can feel it washing over my lips and my chin in waves.

Is he getting a thrill out of this?

The drilling intensifies. I scrunch up my eyes and the noise softens a little and moves away.

‘Is it your hearing aids?’ says Tobias, removing the drill. ‘I’m sorry, I should have thought of that before. Would you like me to remove them until the procedure is over?’

I stare at him, my jaw clamped open. I hate being horizontal like this. Locked down. The vulnerability makes me furious and I have no way of releasing that fury. I try to eject the hooked-on suction tube from inside my teeth but I can’t do it. I try to shake my head and the duct tape allows a small shake. A tiny movement from side to side.

‘Yes?’ he says. ‘Okay. Nurse, would you help me with that, please.’

He waits there, drill in hand. I can’t move my head so my eyes swing from right – to keep a look on him – to left, to see her. She probes my ears. She pulls the earpiece from my inner ear and I want to bite her hands off. How dare she touch my aid. They are more personal to me than she could ever understand. She moves around the back of me and I roll my eyes up to try to keep her in my vision, but she goes. Then she’s with Tobias. She removes my right aid and the world turns silent.

Burst in. Now. Do it. Police, dogs barking, highly trained people with guns drawn. Do it now.

Nothing happens.

I can’t move or hear or speak.