Liverpool Daisy by Helen Forrester Read Free Book Online Page A

bearable would be gone; no twopence for a beer at the Ragged Bear on a Saturday night or an occasional twopence for an afternoon cinema show with Nellie; even paying for a set of teeth at a painful sixpence a week for over three years would have been out of the question on a measly allotment of eighteen shillings.
    Because her husband had, by sailing on a boat which never touched Liverpool, kept her off Parish Relief, Daisy had been able to hold her head high in a district where many of the English and Welsh inhabitants looked down upon her — they wore coats and she had only a shawl. But now she knew that though her income was still above the Public Assistance rate for one person, it was not going to be enough.
    No more bacon ends from Mrs. Donnelly’s! She would soon be as thin as Meg whose family was on relief. A fat lot of good teeth were going to be. For once, a tear of self-pity quivered inthe corner of Daisy’s deep-set blue eyes and rolled slowly down her plump face, which had been specially wiped with a wet cloth for the benefit of the dentist.
    The earnest young dentist who had made her teeth for her awaited her arrival with something approaching agony. He had been unable to forget the interview with her two weeks earlier when he had examined her mouth and taken the impression for her teeth. The fearsome smell of her and of her clothing had been bad enough, the louse which he was sure he had collected from her had been worse. When she opened her mouth, however, he had recoiled like a young soldier going over the top and facing fire for the first time. He had hastily reached for a glass of mouthwash and made her gargle and spit her way through two complete glasses full before trying again.
    This time he was prepared. The tall window nearest to him was wide open. In the cupboard rested another clean white coat, together with a large paper bag into which to thrust the one he was wearing immediately Daisy should have left. Neatly lined up by the tiny sink were two glasses of double strength mouthwash. He was ready.
    Yet, when she entered not ungracefully with an old-fashioned, respectful half-bob, her plump face beaming in spite of her worries, he felt ashamed. To square his conscience he fussed around her a little, showed her the immaculately white teeth grinning on his side table, explained to her how to keep them clean, warned her that she might feel she was going to vomit when he put them in. He made her rinse her mouth till it stung with the disinfectant.
    “Keep taking big breaths and you’ll be all right,” he advised. “In a few months you’ll forget you’ve got them in your mouth and will be able to eat meat and anything else.”
    “Humph, meat!” grunted Daisy, her stomach already begining to turn with fear of the apparatus surrounding her. The dentist, however, was treating her as a proper lady and she was enjoying that part of it, so she obediently opened her mouth.
    In went the upper and lower teeth and Daisy’s stomach began to heave.
    “Guggle-guggle,” she exclaimed, desperately looking round for the sink.
    “Hold it, hold it!” urged the dentist frantically. “Remember, big breaths.”
    Daisy gasped in the cool autumn air from the open window, and gradually the nausea eased.
    “Shlike havin’ a golf ball in your mouth,” she upbraided the dentist mournfully.
    “Smile,” he ordered her cheerfully, to take her mind off the nausea.
    Blinking miserably she forced her mouth into a cheerful half moon.
    The improvement in her looks was so great that the dentist was able to praise her appearance without stint. “Takes years off you,” he assured her. “Now don’t take them out except at night and to rinse them as necessary.”
    She nodded sad agreement. Four bloody pounds on teeth when what she was going to need was food to eat.
    She heaved herself out of the dentist’s chair, bobbed and simpered at him, said ‘thank you’ and clumped depressedly down the hollowed stone stairs and