I sat on my favourite couch in the waiting room, sun warming my back through the window.  The main man appeared at the door.  “Ah, still surfing the dream” I said, noting his now seemingly favourite attire of fluorescent turquoise scrubs.

“And you’ve got a new hair cut” he said grinning.

We went ‘through’. I lay back in the chair while M checked my teeth, or rather my retainers.  “Yes, those top ones have moved in nicely, the bottom needs a bit more work.”
“Oh good!” I said.  “I hope this ‘cosmetic dentistry’ as my cousin has deemed it, isn’t the slippery slope from the tip of the iceberg?”
“Of course not!” M retorted.  “It’s not cosmetic dentistry for a start!  Your teeth were crooked and needed straightening, it’s not like you’ve had veneers put on. There’s no need to start worrying about looking like the bride of Frankenstein just yet!”

We carried on chatting and giggling as we do in my dentist appointments until looking at him I suddenly stopped.  “Have you got a beard?” I said astonished.
‘Yeah.”
“Em, why?” I asked, thinking is there no place we’re safe from them right now. “I’ve been invited to a moustache and cigar party in a weeks’ time.”
“But that’s a beard” I insisted.
“Yeah, I know but you should seen me with just the moustache – I looked totally ridiculous. Anyway what I really want is one of those whiskery moustaches, but I’m finding it difficult to get the ends to curl up.”

Georgiana quietly put some instruments down on a tray beside me as we caught each other’s eye. M went on.  “In fact I’m going to dye it.  I saw a photo of myself out the other night and I looked like a Reindeer – white teeth, white chin!” Surely there were worse looks at this time of the year, I thought.
“Please don’t dye it M.  You’ll end up looking as all men do when they dye their hair – like David Guest.”
“I don’t know who he is” he replied dismissively.

I gathered my coat and scarf, piling them on to face the chilly weather outside.  We’d warmed to the topic though and M told me how his brother’s friend in Texas had started putting curls in his beard.

Georgiana, silent throughout the discussion so far, looked up. She spoke slowly and quietly, but decisively:  “No” she said. “Don’t do that.”