THE NUN'S STORY

Right from the start the room appeared claustrophobic. It made me more nervous than usual.  White ceiling. Green walls. Everything else brown. Bodies everywhere. 

I pushed myself into a space on the dark wood bench. Its high back more reminiscent of a church pew than a waiting room. It dug into my shoulder blades and the back of my head annoying the hell out of me. A dentist’s ploy to make you so uncomfortable you do not fill up his waiting room on emergency treatment only mornings.

The bench seats took up three of the four walls. Every inch filled. Two people standing in the corner near a sad looking green shrub. A messy pile of magazines on a small table near the entrance.

I was squished between a child aged about eight and an elderly gentleman who continuously cleared his throat and fiddled with his glasses. The young girl swinging her legs making her body rock with each movement. A bony shoulder pushing against mine in rhythm to each swing. Hands either side of her knees holding onto the wooden seat which gave me even less room. I did not want to sit on her fingers and squash them flat. I was now at least a stone heavier than my usual weight.

The old man’s arm irritatingly banged mine each time he shoved his glasses back up his nose. 

I had no idea where I was in the queue that Saturday morning. Was it a case of the one nearest the door going in first? Or did you have to make a mental note of who was in the room before you. I’d never been any good at remembering names or faces.

At nine thirty a nurse came out holding a file. She called out a name.

“Anderson.” She said as she looked around at the blank faces.

Eyes glanced left and right. No-one moved.

She looked at the file again. “Anderson.” She said louder.

A skinny teenager sitting in the corner by the door began to move slowly, reluctantly.

The nurse hastened her forward.

Eyes followed the girl as she entered the dentist’s surgery. Bottoms shimmied along the bench now each of us had more room to move. I studied the distorted bodies sitting opposite me. Tall and thin as if a pair of heavy bookends had forced them together.

Two minutes later the skinny teenager was back. Bottoms shuffled along again to make a slot for her slender frame. 

The nurse, carrying another file, came out behind the thin girl.

“Lee, Law, Lowee? Anyone here Chinese?”

Heads turned. No Chinese people as far as anyone could see.

“Lau?” A very English looking lady rose to her feet. “Lau. My husband is from China.”

I’m sure the nurse’s complexion reddened slightly. A couple of people hung their heads as if in shame the faux pas might be theirs. Others tried to turn away and hide their embarrassed faces.

An expanding torso or someone new instantly filled the empty spaces left by people entering the dentist’s surgery.

The surgery door opened once more. The nurse stepped forward, file in hand. She lifted her head to call a name. The skinny teenager stood up and hurried across the room toward the nurse.

“Has the dentist forgotten me?” she tried to ask, but it appeared the local anesthetic had taken hold. Her lips and tongue no longer working properly. “Ath the thenthith thorgogen ge?” 

The nurse tutted and quickly waved her into the surgery. A few soft chuckles echoed around the room. A change from having to stare at somber looking faces.

Everyone on my bench, once more, did the Saturday morning dentist shuffle. 

I began wondering whether I would be there all day and wish I’d bought a book with me. I tried to read the newspaper held by the man opposite me -RAID ON JEWELERS’ SHOP was all I could make out from that distance. I’d left my glasses at home -again. I spent the next five minutes imagining robbers with guns holding up jewelers in the town center.

The entrance door groaning as it opened a few inches interrupted my daydreaming. All heads turned as a ray of sunshine crept in and lit up the dowdy shrub in the corner. Three nuns nervously stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind them. Their long blue habits finishing just above what my mother often called ‘sensible shoes.’ Shiny and black. Not like mine that had never seen a tin of polish since the day I bought them. It always intrigued me how anyone could sit and shine their shoes to such a high degree. A boring task I gave up as soon as I left school and was no longer subjected to the daily inspection of clothes and kit.

Is it usual for nuns to visit a dentist, I pondered? It appears so on this occasion. 

One sister stood looking at the floor, her veil hiding most of her face. She was holding her chin. Her rising and falling shoulders showing hushed sobbing.  A half silent sort of -oh my gosh circumnavigated the waiting room.

People fidgeted, nervous. No-one had seen a nun in a dentist surgery before let alone three.

The tallest nun ushered the crying nun nearer the surgery door. They stood there, in the center of the square formed by the brown wooden benches. No-one offered them a seat.

Are you supposed to give up your seat for a sister or is it just pregnant women and the elderly? No-one seemed to know. No-one bothered anyway. 

The nurse came out with another patient and another file. She sighed and looked at the three nuns.

“You’ll have to come in.” The nurse beckoned with her hand. 

The three nuns disappeared into the surgery.

Behind the closed-door voices grew louder. A male voice -the dentist. A female voice arguing back -a nun. Do nuns shout or argue? I thought they were peace-loving people.

Then loud crying. The surgery door opened again.

The nuns hurried out in their long blue gowns and wide white veils. Dissatisfaction written across their faces. Excruciating pain written across the face of the smaller nun. She lifted her head and exposed the enormous lump on the side of her jaw. Her cheeks wet with tears.

I heard sympathetic gasps. Everyone aware of the agony she must be in. Glad it was someone else’s tooth and not theirs. 

The two nuns hugged the smaller one while pleading with the nurse to do something. As the surgery door opened the dentist rushed out.

“I cannot help you. I simply cannot help you. I keep telling you. Go away.” He shouted.

The nun with the lump began wailing. Everyone in the room expressed their unease at viewing such a spectacle.

A sobbing nun. An angry dentist. Maybe I’d somehow entered a parallel universe this Saturday.

My toothache seemed to have suddenly disappeared.

I stood up which left a space in which two people could easily have sat down. On the bus home I promised to make an appointment at a new surgery the following Monday.