ROGER'S CHRISTMAS GIFT

A Sequel to the dentist story, time moves on to Christmas...

A red buzzing cloud of anger filled all of the inside of Roger’s head as he looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was a magnifying mirror that made what was already bad look a great deal worse, and he was fuming inside.

He had suffered the extraction of all of his teeth by a manic dentist because his wife had asked they be whitened for him, and now his gums were raw and seeping and still hurt like mad, and it was nearly Christmas. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t drink, and all he wanted to do was die.

And he was at his lowest when his wife, Doreen, said “I wouldn’t half love one of those...”

She was fed up with Roger’s moaning and was looking at a history website at an image of a scold’s bridle. For those who may not know about them, the scold’s bridle was a metal frame that was fitted over a scolding woman’s head with an iron wedge that trapped her tongue so that she could no longer speak coherently. It was historically used as a cruel punishment if a man thought his wife was nagging him excessively.

And in her opinion Roger was nagging her excessively.

So the dentist had misunderstood her request. Maybe it was when she’d suggested that money is no object that she had possibly subconsciously suggested that his teeth be replaced by shiny white artificial ones. But somehow the wrong message had got across and Roger had found a manic heavyweight female dentist yanking out all of his teeth one by excruciating one.

And all because he had commented on the Hollywood teeth of celebrities on the television. Female celebrities at that, young and, well, you would, wouldn’t you?

“I’ll get you one,” he had thought, apropos the scold’s bridle, “I’ll get you one and see how you like it...”

Now, you can’t go online to Amazon or any other purveyor of the unusual and downright ridiculous and order a scold’s bridle. Nobody makes them any more.

But Roger knew where there was one.

There was one in the museum in town. He’d been there, he’d seen it and gazed in horror at it, at the misogynist society that considered such monstrosities acceptable and the extreme cruelty of men who had acquired them. He had even thought that rather than be kept on display such items were so rotten in their very concept that they should be melted down and forgotten about. Women, he knew, were probably more empathetic than men and should never be silenced and certainly not in that way. That was how he looked upon his lovely Doreen.

Or she had been lovely before the teeth debacle. It had been she who had secretly arranged it at the dentist’s and he didn’t for one moment believe that she’d been as shocked as he at the total removal of his perfectly good teeth. As he saw it, he might love and well-nigh worship her, but she had very different feelings about him. She must have, despite the mutterings of affectionate words they still exchanged.

Or had exchanged since the trip to the dentist.

“I’m off for a walk,” he mumbled to her, pulling his winter coat on. He could still only mumble. Anything more assertive hurt like hell.

He knew what he was going to do.

He was going to the museum, the one attached to the library, and steal that damned scold’s bridle!

He wasn’t a thief, not generally, in fact not ever since he had nicked a packet of sweets from Woolworth’s as a boy and spent the next goodness-knows how long afraid of the hand that might grab his shoulder at any moment, and the helmeted policeman’s truncheon being waved under his nose.

The museum was quiet. It always was, and security was low because it didn’t really contain anything of any financial worth. The attendant was more proud of being seen in his uniform than guarding the artefacts that told of the history of a small town before its past became totally forgotten. So there were old-fashioned domestic appliances, a really old vacuum cleaner attached by a pole to some bellows, a refrigerator that needed an operative to pump it manually, all sorts of absurdities like that. And there was the scold’s bridle.

It wasn’t even in a cabinet! It was amongst a collection of other artefacts of indeterminate use on a felt-covered table, with a little note explaining its usage in times past.

It was so easy.

Roger picked up the scold’s bridle, slipped it under his winter coat and was off. He even bade a cheery hello and goodbye to the preening attendant who was sipping coffee from a paper cup.

Once home, he wrapped the thing in Christmas wrapping paper.

If Doreen wanted one of these then she could have one! He knew that she had a fondness for the past and that she was a marvel when it came to Tudor history. What he didn’t know and couldn’t be bothered to think about was why she wanted such a strange thing. But she was going to find out just how horrible they were when she woke up on Christmas morning to find herself wearing one! That’s what he was going to do … lie awake somehow when they went to bed on Christmas Eve and when he was absolutely certain she was asleep, open the carefull packed gift and fix it onto her head, and shove the cruel tongue device into her mouth. Then, when she woke up, she’d find herself incapable of speech while he snored on. The joke, if joke it was, would be on him and he’d laugh like a drain.

Ah, the best laid plans…

Christmas Eve saw visitors and the drinks cabinet was opened and drinks were poured. Too many for Roger who found that his still painful gums were soothed by good Scottish whiskey.

After a while the visitors, cheerily, made their way out of their house and Doreen and Roger went to bed.

“You can open this in the morning, darling,” said Doreen, passing a carefully-wrapped pair of new leather gloves under his nose.

“And you can open this,” he gummed, pushing the equally carefully wrapped scold’s bridle under hers.

Then he rolled over and waited for her to go to sleep.

For some reason she wanted to hold a conversation rather than seek the instant nirvana of sleep.

“It was funny the way that dentist got everything wrong,” she whispered, and giggled, “though you’ll look splendid when your new teeth are fitted. I’m just glad you can afford it! That kind of teeth cost the Earth!”

“It still hurts,” he gummed back at her.

“There’ll be no pain before long, and then you’ll spend the rest of your life flashing your nice new teeth at all the girls!”

“I don’t flash anything at girls,” he mumbled back.

And then he rather than she fell asleep.

He later realised that the daftest part of the plan, to encase her head in an iron frame and push a rough steel plug against her tongue, was ill-conceived because it involved him staying awake until she was asleep. That almost never happened, but he hadn’t considered that.

And when he woke up it was to find her giggling softly to herself and his own head rigidly help in a painful grip of rusted iron and a huge (or so it seemed) wedge jammed into his mouth.

But that wasn’t the worst part of it.

Blood was oozing everywhere and his mouth hurt worse than ever. His gums had been opened up once again and all he wanted to do was die.

“I’m sorry, Roger,” she giggled, “and thank you very much! It’s a lovely present and I thought I’d try it out on you while you slept.

“The trouble is, I’ve got it on you but I’m blowed if I can see how to get it off again, and you are making rather a mess with all that blood!

“Anyway, Happy Christmas, darling.”

© Peter Rogerson 08.12.17