really sorry,’ he said. ‘Your tooth's died. I'm going to have to pull it out.’
‘You can't!’ Jasmine shrieked.
‘What about her contract?’ Kayla demanded. ‘You must be able to do something.’
‘I'm touched by your faith in me,’ said Mark, knowing that sarcasm was completely wasted on these two, ‘but even I can't work miracles.’
Jasmine winced dramatically as he gave her the strongest injection he could. Her pain threshold was notoriously low, and this was a back tooth which would take a fair amount of work to get out. Mark toyed with asking Sasha for the right instruments, but as she leaned back against the sink, looking bored and playing with her nails in between taking text messages (even though he had asked her hundreds of times not to), he figured that in the time it would take to explain what he needed, he could have got it all himself. One day, God would take pity on him and send him a decent nurse.
‘I can't lose a tooth,’ Jasmine wailed. She was clearly not going to take this lying down. ‘What about my contract?’
‘I'm very sorry,’ he said. ‘But the tooth has got to come out. I'll make you a bridging unit, which I'll attach to the adjacent teeth. No one will ever know the difference.’
‘Are you sure?’ Jasmine eyed him suspiciously. ‘What if someone finds out?’
‘No one will find out,’ said Mark. ‘Your records are completely confidential.’
‘You sure about that?’ the Rottweiler jumped in, looking uncertain.
‘Yes,’ said Mark. ‘Now, I have to do something about this tooth. I can't leave it like this.’
Eventually, Jasmine agreed. Luckily, the tooth came out relatively easily, and Mark took some impressions for her crown.
‘What if someone sees the gap?’ Jasmine demanded as she got down from the chair.
‘It's pretty unlikely,’ said Mark, ‘it's a back tooth, no one is likely to be looking. You could always try not to get photographed for a bit.’
Which was as unlikely as him getting back with Sam, he realised. Jasmine was always splashed over one tabloid or another.
‘You'd better be right,’ Jasmine said, ‘or there will be trouble.’
‘I'll bear it in mind,’ Mark replied, before showing Jasmine and Kayla out to the desk, where Kerry was chatting animatedly to Tony, Jasmine's third-division footballer boyfriend. Jasmine shot Kerry a dirty look, clicked her fingers at Tony, and swept out imperiously, leaving Kayla to pay. Mark made a mental note to remind Kerry that it wasn't done to flirt with the clientele, before calling his next patient.
Great. It was Mrs O'Leary, or Granny O'Leary as the girls had christened her: an ancient crone and toothless wonder who steadfastly clung to the ill-fitting dentures that her original butcher of a dentist had given her eons ago.
Mark reflected that he must have done something really bad in a previous life to deserve Jasmine and Granny O'Leary on the same day. But he couldn't for the life of him think what.
‘You're late,’ Katie said as Charlie came through the door. She didn't mean to sound accusing, but she was worn down by a hard day coping with the kids. The boys had been really naughty at bedtime and Molly had only just gone to sleep. The kitchen was still in chaos from tea, and she hadn't even managed to get into the lounge yet to tidy up. She could feel all her good intentions to rekindle their spark leaching out of her. Her plan to cook a candlelit dinner had gone completely to pot.
‘What's for tea?’ Charlie asked, ignoring her. She hated it when he did that.
‘Beans on toast.’ Katie felt wrong-footed.
‘You used to love cooking. You'd always have dinner ready for me,’ said Charlie.
‘Well, that was before we had Molly,’ snapped Katie.
Katie would be the first to admit she was a control freak extraordinaire who wanted everything to be so perfect she made Anthea Turner look positively sluttish. She was the sort of woman who rose at six to clean out her kitchen cupboards, or iron and fold laundry. Charlie always teased her that her favourite room in the house was the large walk-in airing cupboard on the landing, where sheets, pillow cases, towels and blankets all sat neatly side by side in carefully orchestrated rows. White single sheets next to white doubles, coloured singles next to coloured doubles. Everything in its place, and everything easy to find.
It always smelled fresh and wholesome, and Katie would never admit to anyone the illicit pleasure she felt in running her hand over the smooth surfaces of freshly ironed sheets. But it was hard work maintaining such high standards with children in the house, although, by and large, till Molly had come along she had managed. Of late, Katie could feel those standards slipping. She had been so desperate for a third baby, despite Charlie's reservations. Now there were days when even she wondered why.
Charlie had touched a nerve, damn him. In the past Katie would have had the house tidy and tea on the table when Charlie walked in. To her that was part of the deal. She was the one at home, after all, it only seemed reasonable to cook the bacon for the person who provided it.
Emily had never got on with that attitude. ‘It just seems so regressive,’ she'd frequently said to Katie over a glass of wine when Charlie was away on business.
Katie had shrugged her shoulders.
‘I don't expect you to understand,’ she'd said. ‘But if you knew my mum, you would. She put her career above everything: her marriage, her family. It tore our family apart. I'm never going to do that.’
Katie had had feminism shoved down her throat from an early age, and was sufficiently her mother's daughter to buy into the career dream until she'd met and fallen for Charlie. The minute she knew she wanted to have children with him was the day Katie said goodbye to her career. She was not going to make the same mistakes as her mum. Her children and husband would always come first. The trouble was, no one had told her how hard that would be. Or that she'd feel a small part of herself dying every day, subsumed into becoming someone's wife, someone's mother. What had happened to Katie? No one really cared any more …
‘Let me know when it's ready,’ said Charlie, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘I've just got to go online and check some deals out.’
‘What now?’ Katie was dismayed. She was rather hoping that Charlie might join her in the kitchen and share a glass of wine with her as she cooked, like they used to do. She knew she should be glad about Charlie's recent promotion, as it meant more money and security, but his job was beginning to take over their life. The company seemed to be expanding at an alarming rate. Charlie's whole topic of conversation these days seemed to be about acquisitions and mergers, and he was away on business more than he was home.
‘Five minutes, tops,’ he said, already heading for the stairs.
Katie sighed. The chances were she wouldn't see him for another hour.
‘I'll just get on with the tea,
