Alasdair Gray

presents a short

story, taken from

Ten Tales Tall

And True, to be

published on

Thursday by

Bloomsbury

COME in, come in, Mrs Chigwell. Sit down. My partner is sorry he

cannot attend to you, as arranged, but there will be no complications.

His wife was unexpectedly struck down by something this morning and

though (thank goodness) she is not exactly at death's door he would find

it hard to concentrate on your (thank goodness) smaller problem. His

mind might wander, his hand tremble, so you are safer with me. His

X-rays indicate two fillings, one of them a wee toaty tiddler of a job,

and I am so sure of my skill that I promise you will feel no pain if I

work without anaesthetic. But maybe you are nervous and want it, even

so? No? Splendid. I am starting the motor -- which lowers and tilts the

chair -- so easily and smoothly that your heart and semi-circular canals

have suffered no shock or disturbance. The Trendelenburg Position --

that is what we call the position you are in, Mrs Chigwell. This chair

gets you into it, and out of it, in a manner which ensures you cannot

possibly faint. I wonder who Trendelenburg is.

Or was. Rinse your mouth. Let me -- keek -- inside. Oho! And if you

want to sneeze, gargle, hiccup or blow your nose just raise a finger of

your left hand and I will stop what I am doing almost at once, but here

goes. Chigwell. Chigwell. An English name. Yes, there are a lot of your

kind in Scotland nowadays, but you'll never hear me complain. Do I

bother you, talking away like this? No? Good. You probably realise I do

it to stop your imagination wandering, as it would tend to do if I

worked in perfect silence. There is, let us face it, something

inherently sinister in lying absolutely passive while a stranger in a

white coat -- no matter how highly qualified -- does things you cannot

see to this hole in your head -- between your jaw and your brain; inside

this wee toaty cavity -- I am opening -- in a bone of your skull. Even

the presence of Miss Mackenzie, my assistant here, might not stop your

subconscious mind cooking up weird fantasies if we dentists, like

barbers, had not a professional tendency to gossip. Which reminds me of

a cartoon I saw in a bound volume of old Punch magazines: a barber says,

''How would you like your hair cut sir?'' to a bored looking

aristocratic type slumped in his chair who says, ''In a silence broken

only by the busy snipsnap of the scissors.'' Sometimes I hear myself

saying ridiculous things, utterly absurd things, just to avoid that

deathly silence, but if you prefer silence just raise two fingers of

your right hand and silent I will be.

No, my worst enemy could never accuse me of being a Scottish

Nationalist. I don't approve of Scotland or Ireland, both Irelands, or

England, Argentina, Pakistan, Bosnia et cetera. In my opinion nations,

like religions and polical institutions, have been rendered obsolete by

modern technology. As Margaret Thatcher once so wisely said, ''There is

no such thing as society,'' and what is a nation but a great big example

of our non-existent society? Margaret had the right idea --

DENATIONALISE! PRIVATISE! When all our national institutions are

privatised the British Isles will no longer be a political entity, and

good riddance say I. The USSR has vanished. I hope the USA and the UK

follow its example. Last week (a little wider please) a man said to me,

''If you refuse to call yourself a Scot -- or a Briton -- or a Tory --

or a socialist -- or a Christian what DO you call yourself? What do you

believe in?''

''I am a Partick Thistle supporter,'' I told him, ''and I believe in

Virtual Reality.''

Do you know about Partick Thistle? It is a non-sectarian Glasgow

football club. Rangers FC is overwhelmingly managed and supported by

Protestant zealots, Celtic FC by Catholics, but the Partick Thistle

supporters anthem goes like this:

We hate Roman Catholics,

We hate Protestants too,

We hate Jews and Muslims,

Partick Thistle we love

you . . .

My friend Miss Mackenzie is looking distinctly disapproving. I suspect

that Miss Mackenzie dislikes my singing voice. Or maybe she's religious.

Fine, rinse your mouth. Second filling coming up and I insist on

giving you a wee jag, but you won't feel it. Did you feel it? Of course

not.

My wife disagrees with me. She's a Scottish Nationalist and a

socialist. Can you imagine a more ridiculous combination? She's a

worrier that woman. She's worried about over-population, industrial

pollution, nuclear waste, rising unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse,

crime, the sea level, the hole in the ozone layer.

''Only a democratic government responsible to the will of the majority

can tackle these problems,'' she says.

''How will it do that?'' say I.

''By seizing the big companies who are polluting and impoverishing and

unemploying us,'' says shem ''and using the profits on public work,

education and health care.''

''You'll never get that,'' I tell her, ''because prosperous people

don't want it and poor people can't imagine it. Only a few in-betweeners

like you believe in such nonsense.'' (You have probably guessed she is a

local school teacher.) ''By the year 2000,'' I tell her, ''these

problems will have been solved by the right kind of headgear. Even a

modern hat of the broad-brimmed sort worn by Australians and Texans and

Mexicans will protect you from skin cancer. Hatters should advertise

them on television. TO HELL WITH THE OZONE LAYER -- WEAR A HAT!''

Hats, Mrs Chigwell, hats. At the start of this century everybody wore

them: toppers for upper-class and professional men, bowlers for the

middling people, cloth caps for the workers. Bare-headed folk were

almost thought as shocking as nudists because their place in the social

scale was not immediately obvious. I suspect that hats became

unfashionable because we passed through a liberty, equality, and

fraternity phase or imagined we were in one. But we're coming out of it

again, and by the end of the century everybody will have headgear. Their

sanity will depend on it. Am I boring you? Shall I change the subject?

Would you like to suggest another topic of conversation? No? Rinse your

mouth out all the same.

The hat of the future -- in my opinion -- will be a broad-brimmed

safety helmet with hinged ear-flaps and a mouthpiece which can be folded

down to work as a mobile telephone. It will also have a visor like old

suits of armour or modern welders have, but when pulled down over your

face the inside works as a telly screen. The energy needed to drive

these sets could be tapped straight from the action of the viewer's

heart -- it would use up less energy than walking down a flight of

stairs. The difference between one hat and another will be the number of

channels you can afford. The wealthy will have no limit to them, but the

homeless and unemployed will benefit too. I am not one of these

heartless people who despise the unemployed for watching television all

day. Without some entertainment they would turn to drugs, crime and

suicide even more than we get nowadays from these old-fashioned box TVs

which to my eyes already look prehistoric -- relics of the wood and

glass age -- BVR -- Before Virtual Reality.

YOU'VE HEARD about virtual reality? Yes? No? It's a helmet of the sort

I've just described. You wear it with a kind of overall suit equipped

with electronic pressure pads so that you not only see and hear, but

feel you're inside the television world you are watching. Miss Mackenzie

is pulling faces at me because she knows what I am going to say and

thinks it may shock you since it refers to sex. But I promise that not

one bad word will pass my lips. These helmet suits not only give

sensations of life and movement in beautiful exciting surroundings. They

also, if you desire it, give the visual and sensual experience of an

amorous encounter with the partner of your choice. Perhaps Clint

Eastwood in your case, Mrs Chigwell. Anna Magnani in mine, although it

shows how old I am. Any professional person who remembers Anna Magnani

in Bitter Rice is obviously on the verge of retirement. Or senility. And

so, I am afraid, is she. Not that I ever saw her in Bitter Rice -- a

film for Adults Only. I only encountered the first love of my life

through her posters and publicity photos. I wonder what Anna Magnani

looks like nowadays?

Excuse me while I wash my hands. We are on the verge of completion.

You're still quite comfortable? Good. Here we go again and remember I am

talking nonsense, nothing but nonsense.

The hat of tomorrow -- an audio visual helmet with or without the suit

-- will not only release you into an exciting world of your own choice;

it will shut out the dirty, unpleasant future my wife keeps worrying

about. It will give marijuana or heavy drug sensations without damaging

the health. Of course intelligent people like you and I, Mrs Chigwell,

will use it for more than escapist entertainment. We will use it to talk

to friends, and educate ourselves. Children of four will be fitted with

helmets giving them the experience of a spacious, friendly classroom

where beautiful, wise, playful adults teach them everything their

parents want them to know. Schools will become things of the past, and

teachers too, since a few hundred well-scripted actors will be able to

educate the entire planet. And think of the saving in transport! When

the lesson stopped they could take the helmet off and bingo -- they're

home again. Unless the parents switch them on to a babysitter channel.

''All right!'' says my wife after hearing me thus far, ''What about

homelessness? Your helmets can't shut out foul weather and poisoned

air.''

''They can if combined with the right overalls,'' I tell her. ''In

tropical countries, like India, homeless people live and sleep quite

comfortably in the streets. Now, it is a widely known fact that our

armed forces have warehouses stacked with suits and respirators designed

to help them survive on planet Earth after the last great nuclear war

has made everybody homeless. But the last great nuclear war has been

indefinitely postponed. Why not add Virtual Reality visors and pressure

pads to these suits and give them to our paupers? Tune them into a

channel of warm Samoan beach under the stars with the partner of their

choice and they'll happily pass a rainy night among the rubble of a

burnt-out housing scheme and please rinse your mouth out. Don't chew

anything hard for another couple of hours. The chair -- is now restoring

you -- to a less prone position.

Bye-bye, Mrs Chigwell. The receptionist will give you the bill, and it

might be wise to arrange an appointment in -- perhaps six months from

now.

Whatever the future of the human race it is not likely to dispense

with dentists.