There is a pearl after all ...
A little over thirty years ago, just before her wedding, a pearl fell out of the M/M/M Wife’s economy engagement ring – it was a Ratner-type ring and those who remember what Ratner said about his products will know that the ring was of questionable quality. M (etc) Wife was a student and Our Hero was working backstage at a theatre and, therefore, expensive engagement rings were not an option.
After a dab of glue (I think it was the type that had to be baked in the oven to enable it to set) the pearl was firmly anchored for the big day: January 12th, 1980. It was a very beautiful, snow-free day – much to the surprise of the in-laws arriving from the South of England.
Thirty years later Our Hero is returning to Cold Comfort Cottage from the ‘expert’ in the not-so-exotic-and-now-very-chilly-South. He is bearing, in a little plastic tub, one of his top-front pearly whites which has been knocked out by the anaesthetist, despite Our Hero’s warning that the teeth are a little wobbly after all the chemotherapy. (Or years of dentist phobia – do you remember ‘Marathon Man’?)
There is a certain symmetry, don’t you think?
However, glue will not do the trick for the tooth.
(That yurt is coming soon. NHS dentists? Tooth Fairy – where are you?)
And how is Our Hero? Despite arriving at the airport in a wheelchair, with gap-toothed smile, and being very weak and uncomfortable, he still manages to rise to the occasion when M (etc) Wife fails to get up the track to the house - three times. The track is a lethal combination of slush and ice and The Hounds are blocking the view.
He endures some of M (etc) Wife’s excruciatingly embarrassing reversing onto the main road and then takes over for the last hundred yards. Of course he makes it, smoothly, first time. He is almost doubled over the steering wheel but, when you want to get home, a little slush and ice are not going to stop you.
Our Hero has been told that after PDT it will be worse before it is better.
That seems to be the case.
The soup is not doing the business – but it is there, bubbling, with all those vibes.
In a day or two it will be fine, Our Hero is told. The maverick surgeon is very happy with his work and the gloomy oncologist has got an email to that effect.
Oh yes – there was something about a ‘pearl’ wedding anniversary.
Who needs pearls, or indeed teeth, when The Uninvited Guest has, temporarily at least, been vanquished?
Now, where were we with the future tense in that Italian course?
PS. Fortunately, the fleas have stayed down in Yorkshire and Our Hero says the people who owned the hotel were wonderful. But he would; he never says anything unkind about anybody.
