Bad Teeth

A (true) story by Madhuri

Just before I boarded the train, my sister’s boyfriend – out of kindness – handed me a big plastic carry-bag full of food: mostly bread and bananas. I thanked the pair, the door closed, and I stowed my suitcase and carry-on and settled myself and other bundles in my seat.

About six hours later I disembarked in Manchester Piccadilly, careful to bring all my items: Suitcase! Carry-on! Backpack! Little cross-body bag! And now: shopping bag! Normally I count the number of things I have and just make sure I have that many: Four! But now it’s five! Awkward to carry all at once!

I managed to get everything to the lift and down to the Metro platform. I had to go several stops on the tram to Manchester Victoria for my train to Hebden Bridge, the pretty little town in the Pennines that I call home. This train-tram-train thing is always irritating, especially after a long trip! I tell myself it keeps Hebden Bridge less accessible, therefore less spoilt?

I’m on the crowded tram, bags about me. We’re wending through the streets in the city centre, tall buildings on all sides. A shop window catches my eye.

Primark. Big clothing shop. Huge photo, backdrop to a few mannequins in urban-chic/outdoorsy jackets: A couple of guys in those same jackets, chatting. One of them is smiling. His teeth are terrible! Brown, chipped, jagged, rotted; a mouthful of frank awfulness. Looks like teeth I see in England everywhere. English teeth! A dentist’s nightmare! (English dentists always oooh and ahhh over my hygiene – on every visit. Every time. Crowns, veneers, bad bite, none of this fazes them – it’s the great hygiene they can’t get over. Guess they don’t see it very often.)

My mind goes into a disconnect – a very American one, no doubt: Advertisement! Teeth are supposed to be shiny and white! Teeth are always shiny and white in advertisements! There has never been an ad with brown teeth! It makes my whole reality come loose!

And: What the fuck are they doing? What is the meaning of it? Why do they have a model with rotten teeth when they don’t have to? What are they saying? I can’t figure it out!

I look around for someone to ask. A petite woman sits nearby – a complacent little lady in neat clothing, feet placed together.

“May I ask you something?”

“Yes – ” She looks up benignly.

“Why would they have an advert in Primark showing someone with brown, bad teeth?”

She thinks for a moment. “Perhaps they just want to show that all sorts of people are okay.”

“But rotten teeth are bad for the whole body!” I protest. “Bad for the heart! Can give you Alzheimer’s!” (My sister’s boyfriend is a dentist, and we’d been discussing the subject.)

“Perhaps one day you’ll come to accept us as we are,” she says with a finality, and turns away.

We roll into Victoria Station. I gather up my bags distractedly, with a sense of collecting the usual number. I’m still fretting over the teeth, and the woman’s patronising attitude. Bad teeth are bad!

I’m standing on the platform as the tram pulls away. I look down at my bags. I look up at the tall arch-shape of the tram’s backside going off around a curve. And I know.

NOOOOO! My carry-on is still on the tram!

Before attending my sister’s group at Osho Leela in Dorset, I’d been in Corfu. And I’d written a story set in Greece. I didn’t know if it was a good story – I still don’t – fiction is not my usual forte, but who knows – but I was in love with it, and it wasn’t quite finished yet, and I was eager to get back to work on it. It was scribbled in a notebook – the only place it existed in the world. My Tachyon belt is in that bag too – my tarot cards – Colourpuncture set and diagrams, Human Design book – and much more, including quite a bit of semi-precious jewelry. It would be terrible to lose these things! All my work-stuff! I can’t even imagine being cut away from that story, just newborn! It’s called The Cave, and it has a scorpion in it, and a depressed tourist, and a peculiar talisman…

I look around for an office where I can ask for help. An employee in a hi-viz vest sends me into the station. The person at the window takes my report and says the bag might turn up in the lost-property office in a few days’ time – to keep asking. If it does, I’ll have to come back to Manchester and find that office, which is in another part of the city.

I go back out to the tram platform and accost another hi-viz person, who is pessimistic. I find a different one, and plead my case again. This one is more sympathetic. She makes a phone call. Another employee strolls over. Another phone call.

“Wait for an hour,” says one of the helpers. “That’s how long it takes for the tram to do the whole circuit. Let’s see if the bag is still there.”

I pace and pace. To the end of the platform, turn round back, down to the other end. Repeat. Inside I am talking to my Guides. Don’t worry, they say. You will get your bag back.

“But when?”

Soon.

I do not believe them. I pace and talk with the employees, and wring my hands and beg inwardly.

More than an hour passes. Trams come and go. One of the employees gets on his phone again.

A tram pulls smoothly in, slows, stops. The window in the driver’s cab opens. My carry-on appears – black, rounded on top like a duffel, two zippers. Here it is!!! The helpful person catches hold of it and puts it down on the platform.

I erupt in Oh – oh – ohs and ardent thank-yous. I’m leaping about. I kiss the helpful man on the cheek. I hug the woman. “The angels said I’d get it back!” I babble, no doubt giving them something to tell their families at dinner. I hop, I scamper, I pick up my various bundles and go off to catch a train, high as a Corfiot cloud above the sea.

It’s only now, years later, that I think I might understand that photo in the window: It was a joke. An advert, making fun of itself. Somebody’s idea of the avant-garde. Some bright spark, making fun of the American ideal.

Maybe.

Featured image by Zohaib Alam on Unsplash