The Dish

by Stella Newman

  I keep forcing my tongue against it but it makes no headway, it’s caught right in the margin between tooth and gum. I must look like such an idiot.

  ‘Adam, could you just turn your head, this calls for some drastic action.’

  ‘Time for something stiffer . . . I’ll get us some bourbon,’ he says, heading to the bar.

  Right. Fingers in mouth. Least Audrey Hepburn-like manoeuvre ever. My forefinger reaches back into the depths and I feel the sharp, smooth tip of the shell and grab on to it between thumb and forefinger, then give it the gentlest of pulls.

  Nope. My fingers grapple with it and I’m forced to pull harder – still nothing. It’s wedged so tightly, it’s totally stuck! I should probably do this in front of a mirror but Adam’s just paying, I don’t want to make an even bigger deal of it.

  I pull once, twice and yank a third time and finally it is released! Aaah. Result! I hold the shard up in front of me. It’s big! A centimetre wide and half a centimetre high, pale cream in colour, almost an off white. Actually shouldn’t it be a little . . . greener? I bring it closer to my eye to inspect it: sharp, thin off-white disc of pea. Sharp, thin, off-white disc of pea?? Sharp thin off-white disc OF TOOTH, not pea, TOOTH!

  I put my hand over my mouth as I try not to vomit. My tongue darts back to where the tooth was and feels, instead, gum, half a tooth, and the tangy, iodine taste of blood.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ says Adam, putting the drinks down and staring at me.

  I shake my head in alarm, my hand still covering my mouth, and rush to the loo. That is the absolute most disgusting thing in the entire world . . . Oh yeah, hey, supremely gorgeous chef who I desperately fancy, I am so drunk and such a tramp – I’ve just drunkenly pulled out half my own tooth while angrily ranting about my ex mother-in-law! Now do you fancy a quickie?

  In the safety of the loo I inspect the damage. Good grief, I look like Skeletor if Skeletor’d had a deranged Salford butcher for a dentist. It’s the second molar from the back, which, up until ten minutes ago, was a shell of a tooth with a silver filling. Now what’s left is half a tooth, cracked down the middle lengthways, so that if I run my tongue against it from the inside it’s intact, but from the outside is a metal filling, then bone, blood and gum. My legs start to wobble at the sight.

  I sit on the toilet and ponder my options. My dentist works well-paid, lazy hours and certainly doesn’t work Sunday nights . . . Maybe I could call a friend and get them to pick me up from the toilet and whisk me to a hospital? Maybe I should just go medieval, pull the other half of the tooth out and be done with it? Great idea, Viz Top Tip, why not pull out all my own teeth while I’m at it – save on future dental bills? Then I won’t have to pay to eat at LuxEris again because I won’t be able to chew, and maybe Adam will fancy me even more without teeth and Amber’s right and this is all happening for a reason.

  Calm down. Go out there and tell him you have to go. On the way home call Sophie – she might know an emergency dentist. Go on! And stop sticking your tongue in the bloody gap!

  I head back to Adam, who’s sitting, looking anxiously at his phone.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this . . .’ I say, slurring out of the left hand side of my mouth. ‘But I’ve broken a tooth.’

  ‘I think we can safely blame your ex mother-in-law for that, don’t you? Are you in pain?’

  ‘A little?’ I say, gingerly.

  ‘Those damned peas! Let me see,’ he says, tilting his head to the side in an attempt to look inside my mouth. I keep my lips firmly sealed.

  ‘Laura, show me.’

  ‘Uh-uh, it’s gross.’

  ‘Just show me!’

  I gently pull down the side of my cheek and he peers at the mouth carnage in a way that’s almost impressed.

  ‘Wow, you did some damage didn’t you? Let me see if the Eastman does emergency walk-in . . .’ he says, taking out his phone.

  ‘But what about dinner?’

  ‘Let’s see what the dentist says first.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll go on my own, there’s no need . . .’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he says. ‘Hmm. No, they don’t do walk-in . . . there must be somewhere . . .’

  ‘I don’t need you to come with me,’ I say, putting my hand out to stop him. ‘I’m fine on my own. It’s gross and I feel a little embarrassed if I’m honest.’

  ‘What sort of a person would abandon you at a time like this?’

  Tom? Useless at the sight of blood; if I nicked my finger slicing onions on the mandolin he’d swoon like a Victorian maiden.

  ‘You’ve got an early start, Adam. Please – I’m fine.’

  ‘Hold on . . . There’s one just off Oxford Street, claims it’s twenty-four hours . . .’

  He dials the number and starts explaining the problem.

  I grab his sleeve. ‘Don’t tell them how it happened!’

  ‘It’s not like I’m taking you to A&E with a hamster stuck up your arse . . .’ he whispers. ‘Or is that why you took so long in the bathroom?’

  ‘Tell them I’ve still got the other half, can they glue it back on? Would that be cheaper?’

  ‘OK . . . Yup . . . half an hour,’ he says into the phone. ‘Oh, and how much will that be? Oh. Oh. All right then . . . see you soon.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘The good news is they can see you in half an hour.’

  ‘The bad?’

  ‘It might cost a few bob. They said they can’t quote without seeing it, but sounds like they’ll need to fit a temporary crown and you’ll have to go back for a permanent.’

  ‘A crown? Oh no, Dad had one last year and it cost seven hundred euros . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about the money. I know your salary’s . . . If you need to borrow some cash, I can put it on my credit card.’

  ‘No! That’s extremely generous, but no. Besides,’ I say, smiling weakly, ‘I still haven’t paid you back for that doughnut, I don’t have a very good credit rating . . .’

  ‘You won’t be eating any more doughnuts unless they’re through a straw if you don’t get that sorted.’ He stands behind me and puts his hands on my shoulder and gently manoeuvres me out of the pub. ‘Don’t make me push you all the way there.’

  ‘But the lasagna! You got the basil in specially . . . I could eat on the left?’

  ‘If the dentist says you can eat tomorrow, I’ll drop some in to you at work.’

  ‘I’m coming to the restaurant tomorrow night.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he says, pointing at my jaw.

  BOLLOCKS. Tuesday then. It’ll be fine by Tuesday.

  Out in the street he hails a taxi and we head towards town. ‘Adam, I need a cashpoint . . .’

  ‘In the nicest possible way I think you should stop talking, it can’t be good for your mouth.’

  We drive past King’s Cross, both staring out the window. My hangover’s kicking in prematurely and I start worrying about the cost of the crown and Tuesday’s meal, but most of all I’m worrying that Adam will wake up tomorrow with a single thought: Thank goodness I never got round to shagging that mess – she’s a nightmare, drinks too much and then will do anything for attention – pulled her own tooth out to try and impress me!

  ‘Are you OK?’ he says, as he notices both my hands now cradling my jaw.

  I nod and attempt a smile, though the taste of blood is making me feel sick.

  He shuffles closer and puts his arm around me. ‘You don’t have to be brave,’ he says, as we pull up outside a shopfront that is half dentist, half mobile phone shop. ‘I’m going to hold your hand whether you like it or not.’

  And he does. He takes my hand and places it in the comfort of his, while a dentist with fingers like knives fills my mouth with grey putty and pushes down on the root of a nerve making me gag with pain. Adam holds my hand as I’m sitting up in the chair, rinsing with green mouthwash. And even though he lets go when we walk back into reception and I take my wallet out to
pay £180 for the last half hour’s delights, he takes it back as soon as I’ve finished putting my PIN number in and pocketed my credit card. He holds my hand all the way back to my flat in the cab and kisses me gently on the knuckle of my forefinger as he says goodbye and makes me promise to call if anything goes wrong in the night.

  And as I’m standing on my street, waving to him as he drives off, I think: I had forgotten how nice it is for someone to hold your hand when you really need them to. When you’re having a hard time. I had forgotten that you don’t have to try to cope with everything on your own all the time.

  Please don’t turn out to be one of the bad ones, Adam Bayley, don’t let me down because I’m not sure my heart could take it.

  28

  ‘Parker, why do you sound like you’ve got a mouthful of cotton wool?’ says Roger, looking at me suspiciously. ‘You haven’t gone and got yourself one of those adult braces have you?’

  ‘I had a fight last night with a small green vegetable – and lost,’ I say, removing a feather boa from the chair and wrapping it around Lumley’s neck. ‘Why have you got this?’

  ‘Azeem obviously thought my office wasn’t sufficiently messy.’

  ‘Roger – I have a favour to ask, well two . . .’ I say, looking down at my hands as if the answer to all my problems lies at my fingertips. ‘Could we move our dinner to Tuesday so I’ll be able to chew? And can I please have Friday off to go to the dentist?’

  ‘Friday, yes – Tuesday, no – I’ll be here till late doing final sign-off. Why don’t you take a friend?’

  ‘I’d rather wait for you. I could write Wednesday night, file Thursday? Legal and subs will be free by then?’ It’s so up to the wire as to be beyond the wire, but it is, technically, do-able.

  ‘You do want to punish me.’

  I laugh, and stand to go: ‘You all set for conference? Starting in five?’

  ‘Be up in a tick,’ he says, rubbing his shoulder distractedly. ‘Just have to make a quick call.’

  ‘Right – we’re finally signed off with legal as of ten forty-three a.m. this morning, so let’s make this brief,’ says Roger. ‘I want this laid out by end of play – subs, studio, all hands on deck. First things first – pagination – the final Bechdel is running at eleven thousand words, so we’ll need two more editorial pages on current plan, bumping by four in total. Dean – put a call in to PrintPro asap, check they’ve got paper stock.’

  ‘The run will be bigger too . . .’ says Sandra.

  ‘And Jonesy, I’m sorry to break it to you, but we’re going to have to surgically remove your thumb from your arse.’

  Jonesy tips his head back in protest. ‘Can’t you trim it to one extra page of editorial and drop the crossword and some of the classifieds? You can’t expect me to get two full pages of ads this close to deadline.’

  ‘And who’s going to apologise to seventeen thousand angry subscribers whose commute we’ve ruined? I didn’t think so. Two full pages – get Fletchers. Promise them Wimbledon centre court – well, you can promise them women’s semis.’

  ‘Number of copies . . .’ says Sandra, tapping her pen irritably on the table.

  ‘Yep,’ says Roger. ‘Print run – this’ll be our biggest issue since the hacking scandal, we’ll need to box out to retailers – I’d say . . . forty per cent?’ he says, glancing briefly at Sandra.

  ‘Twenty per cent or returns will be huge.’

  ‘I’m not risking running short on a story this size – forty per cent. OK – Bechdel on the cover, I need to work out the headline with subs. Right,’ he says checking his watch. ‘Next, turkeys: copy’s legalled and subbed, just need to sign off the main image – Sandra, the spreads?’

  Sandra silently moves to the centre of the room and lays out four different images on the table, each more distressing than the last.

  ‘These were taken by the whistle-blower who’s our main source. He took them on a phone he sneaked in but it’s repro quality. So we’ve got the hatchery shot here,’ she says, pointing to a photo of a huge metal contraption with a rotating blade. ‘This shows the macerator where the live chicks are thrown when they’re “surplussed”,’ she says. ‘Then this shows the reduced living space of the female birds on the breeding farm. Then the shed birds – you can see the general state of distress.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ says Jonesy, turning to the side as if to vomit. ‘Good job you’re not doing this in December’s issue.’

  ‘And this fourth one is the abattoir – showing breaches of care in waiting time for the gassing.’

  ‘This one,’ says Roger, pointing at the picture of the shed birds, their skins torn and their wounds infected. ‘Horrific. Says everything you need to say in one image.’

  ‘You can’t run that in colour,’ says Jonesy, shaking his head. ‘Too much blood, retailers will kick up a shit storm, you’ll get delisted.’

  ‘We cannot afford to fall foul of the majors again, Roger,’ says Sandra.

  Jonesy looks at her with surprise, then he snickers. ‘Good one, Sandra.’

  ‘Good what? Oh, right, yes, “foul”, I see. The point is, Roger, there’s no point having a huge exclusive like the Bechdel if your readers can’t buy the magazine. We could change the shot to black and white?’

  ‘Play the game, Roger,’ says Jonesy.

  Roger’s face creases in annoyance. ‘Bring back the good old days when newsagents sold newspapers – and you could print the truth, without worrying about pissing off your chief client at a supermarket . . . Fine, run it mono,’ he says, throwing up his hands in resignation.

  ‘What are we going to trail on Twitter?’ says Azeem. ‘Can we seed the Bechdel on social media?’

  ‘Are you not listening?’ says Sandra.

  ‘A picture of my derriere, for what it’s worth,’ says Roger.

  ‘Yeah – not sure three B-list celebs retweeting our tweets translates to a single punter walking into a bloody newsagent,’ says Jonesy, shaking his head.

  ‘Guys – I can show you the data?’ says Azeem.

  ‘I don’t care about the data, tweet the goddamn turkeys. Choose the most powerful image from the spread.’

  Sandra shakes her head again. ‘Same problem as the retailers. We need something less gory.’

  ‘Picture of a turkey escalope?’ says Jonesy.

  ‘No emotional engagement,’ says Roger.

  ‘How about the poults, the newborn chicks?’ I say, thinking back to Sophie’s Christmas lunch and the photos of little yellow balls of fluff that Rafe had shown us on his phone, just as Sophie took the cooked bird out of the oven. ‘Chicks are far more photogenic than grown-up turkeys, and the Internet goes mad for a fluffy baby animal?’

  Sandra’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Yep, that’ll work,’ says Roger.

  Azeem scribbles it down on a Post-it note, which will invariably end up on the sole of his shoe.

  ‘Do you want me to help source some shots?’ I say. ‘You’ll be snowed under.’

  ‘Lifesaver, Laura, cheers.’

  ‘Rodge?’ says Kiki. ‘The final Bechdel piece is covering the Feeding Africa charity he runs?’

  ‘Have you had a thought?’

  ‘If you wanted to kill two birds with one stone, how about your cover line is just “STUFFED” – and then you do two subheads, “Damian Bechdel and the Missing Charity Money”, plus “Behind the Scenes at SunFarms”?’

  ‘Put “DOUBLE STUFFED”!’ says Jonesy, smirking. ‘You’ll sell shitloads.’

  ‘You could even trail The Dish under that?’ says Azeem. ‘London’s Worst New Restaurant . . .?’

  ‘Yeah – “The Evisceration Issue”!’ says Kiki. ‘Corrupt philanthropists, turkeys and chefs . . .’

  ‘You cannot trail a food review on the cover,’ says Sandra, indignantly.

  Roger gives me a reassuring look. ‘It’s too tabloid, all of it. We focus on Bechdel – and keep it simple: “TRUTH AND LIES IN THE BECHDEL FAMILY”.’

  29r />
  To: Laura

  From: Sandra

  Subject: Inappropriate behaviour

  Roger is too diplomatic to say anything but may I remind you your role in conference is to take minutes, not input on picture sign-off on feature editorial – this is not magazine by committee. Thoroughly inappropriate behaviour yesterday – deeply unhelpful and sets a bad precedent.

  To: Kiki

  From: Laura

  Subject: !

  Just got an email from Sandra – subject header ‘Inappropriate behaviour’. I thought she’d discovered those photos you showed me of her licking Fergus’s neck at the pub quiz. Delete them, and delete them from your bin and your iCloud – the iCloud is not safe!

  To: Laura

  From: Roger

  Subject: URGENT

  Fuck! The housekeeper’s bottled it – call emergency meeting in one hour with core team, in the meantime find Heather – she’s not answering her phone!

  To: Roger

  From: Laura

  Subject: re: URGENT

  She’s in the loo. She says calm down – she’ll be with you in five.

  To: Laura

  From: Roger

  Call off the emergency meeting! Heather’s put in a call to the housekeeper’s lawyer, we’re back on. Jesus Christ, I’m getting too old for this game.

  To: Laura

  From: Adam

  Subject: Shane MacGowan

  Are you sure you didn’t fake the whole tooth thing just so you could get out of eating at LuxEris? Maybe go nil by mouth till Sunday? I want you to fully enjoy your shredded wheat at the Skegness Travelodge xx

  To: Adam

  From: Laura

  Subject: On the mend

  I’m still coming on Wednesday – if you’re cooking?

  To: Laura

  From: Adam

  Subject: Masochist

  I’d wait a couple of weeks if I were you. I’ll be introducing new dishes to the menu.

  To: Laura

  From: Dad

  Subject: Hello!

  Did you go back to the restaurant last night?