There were closed doors on either side of the hall. Some of them said ‘DDS,’ some of them said ‘Clinic,’ some of them said ‘X-Ray.’ One of them, looking wholesome and friendly and somehow most comprehensible, said ‘Ladies.’ Then she turned to the left and found a door with the name on the card and she opened it and went in. There was a nurse sitting behind a glass window, almost as in a bank, and potted palms in tubs in the corners of the waiting-room, and new magazines and comfortable chairs. The nurse behind the glass window said, ‘Yes?’ as though you had overdrawn your account with the dentist and were two teeth in arrears.

She handed her slip of paper through the glass window and the nurse looked at it and said, ‘Lower molar, yes. They called about you. Will you come right in, please? Through the door to your left.’

Into the vault? she almost said, and then silently opened the door and went in. Another nurse was waiting, and she smiled and turned, expecting to be followed, with no visible doubt about her right to lead.

There was another X-ray, and the nurse told another nurse: ‘Lower molar,’ and the other nurse said, ‘Come this way, please.’

There were labyrinths and passages, seeming to lead into the heart of the office building, and she was put, finally, in a cubicle where there was a couch with a pillow and a wash-basin and a chair.

‘Wait here,’ the nurse said. ‘Relax if you can.’

‘I’ll probably go to sleep,’ she said.

‘Fine,’ the nurse said. ‘You won’t have to wait long.’

She waited, probably for over an hour, although she spent the time half-sleeping, waking only when someone passed the door; occasionally the nurse looked in and smiled, once she said, ‘Won’t have to wait much longer.’ Then, suddenly, the nurse was back, no longer smiling, no longer the good hostess, but efficient and hurried. ‘Come along,’ she said, and moved purposefully out of the little room into the hallways again.

Then, quickly, more quickly than she was able to see, she was sitting in the chair and there was a towel around her head and a towel under her chin and the nurse was leaning a hand on her shoulder.

‘Will it hurt?’ she asked.

‘No,’ the nurse said, smiling. ‘You know it won’t hurt, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

The dentist came in and smiled down on her from over her head. ‘Well,’ he said.

‘Will it hurt?’ she said.