Dumped, Actually(26)

‘No! No!’ he says to Tina, waving her away. ‘No time for tea! Oliver needs these nails taken care of . . . stat!’

Laughlin yanks me to my feet and drags me over to a large black leather chair, with an odd-shaped footrest on a metal stand in front of it. ‘Sit!’ he commands.

The chair is extremely comfortable, and I’d like to take full benefit from this comfort, but right now I’m too concerned about what’s about to happen to my feet to do so.

‘Stacy! Imogen! Bring out my personal pedicure kit! The special one I keep in the back!’ Laughlin roars, before sitting himself in a chair in front of me. ‘Right foot up, Oliver!’ he tells me, whacking the footrest.

I do as I’m told, and the instant my foot is on the rest, Laughlin is immediately bent over it, examining it so closely and with such intent that he kind of reminds me of Gollum with the One Ring.

He starts to tut under his breath and shake his head. ‘Ach, no. This is dreadful,’ he intones. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ he continues, under his breath. ‘Would you just look at the state of – oh God.’

From the same door that Tina emerged from with my tea come two other girls – Stacy and Imogen, I presume. They are both carrying a large silk roll between them. This looks frankly ridiculous. The thing is only about eight inches wide. They resemble two disciples carrying an important religious artefact over to the high priest.

Laughlin grabs the black silk roll from them and opens it out on the floor beside him.

My eyes widen as I look down at what can only be something recovered from Guantanamo Bay. There are implements in here that I don’t want to guess the use of. I don’t want to, but I’m still going to.

That thing there – the one with the scoop at one end – that must be for prising out eyeballs. The long thin one with the spike on the end is no doubt used to stick into soft places in the groin area. The less said about the thing that resembles a bird’s claw the better. I hate to think about where you’d stick that, and what would happen if you started to spin it around.

Laughlin grabs another implement, this one quite small, and with a flat scoop on the end. It’s certainly not the worst looking of the bunch, by any means. Maybe I’m going to get away without too much—

‘Bloody hell! What are you doing?!’ I screech as Laughlin gets to work on my big toe. This is the first thing I’ve actually managed to say in this entire visit so far. It’s taken an assault upon my cuticles to give me the chance to get a word in edgeways.

There is scooping going on. There is scraping going on. There is – and I can barely bring myself to say this – rootling being done upon my person.

Rootling.

Is rootling even a word?

I don’t know, but it’s what Laughlin McPurty is doing to me, of that I have no doubt.

None of it is actually painful. Not yet, anyway. But it is massively disconcerting. I feel like a small-scale, but very determined, invasion of my privacy is being undertaken.

A man’s foot is his own private kingdom, and he should not have to—

‘Uuurgggh! What’s that??!’ I exclaim, looking down at whatever it is Laughlin has just worked out from under my nail. It’s kind of brown and squidgy.

Nothing under one’s nail should be brown and squidgy.

‘That, my boy, is what happens when you don’t treat your poor feet well!’ Laughlin says, disposing of the offending article in a small bin parked by his side. He then goes back to his Gollum-like examination of the rest of my toes, peering at each one intently before carrying on with his rootling and scooping.

This goes on for another couple of minutes until he seems satisfied. Then Laughlin brings out a small electric drill and the world goes grey.

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV goes the drill.

‘Haaarruuugghhhh!’ goes Oliver Sweet.

I’ve never had a problem going to the dentist, but from this day forth the sound of a dental drill will make my toes curl in terror.

I can barely bring myself to look down at what Laughlin is doing. Through trembling fingers that cover my eyes, I can see him going to town on my big toenail. His tongue is stuck out to one side in concentration, and I haven’t seen a Scotsman’s brow this furrowed since we knocked them out of the World Cup.

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘Ah yes, here we go,’ Laughlin mutters under his breath to my toes. I’ve never had someone directly address a body part of mine without including me in the conversation before. It’s a strange experience.

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘Come on, you beauty.’

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘Get that right there, ye little bugger.’

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘You’ll no be giving us trouble any more, ye wee pernickety.’

Laughlin McPurty has now dropped into some hardcore Scottish patois that I have no chance of ever understanding. I just want this misery to be over with as quickly as possible.

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘Aye. That’s how we do it, ya little beggarin’ mincer.’

I have no idea what a beggarin’ mincer is, but I certainly don’t want it anywhere near my poor old toes.

AAAAAWWWWWVVVVVVVVVVVV.

‘Right! That’ll about do it, then!’ Laughlin eventually proclaims, stopping the drill.