AGAINST THE ODDS:A crumbling molar means a date at the surgery of Dunfermline-loving dentist and fellow denizen of Foley's, Jane Tankerville Chisholm

WHEN IT came to life’s little pleasures, spreading the sports pages of the Sunday papers on the kitchen table over a second, heavily-sweetened, brew was top of Vinny Fitzpatrick’s bus.

It was the more enjoyable on those rare mornings when all was still in Mount Prospect Avenue, as was the case on the weekend Capricorn handed over to Aquarius as Angie had taken the twins to “Blanch” before meeting her sister Debs for lunch.

With Emma and her Goths clan in Edinburgh, Vinny had the run of the house, and it showed.

The morning dishes, stained with egg, grease and brown sauce, were stacked in the sink; he was unshaven, had yet to shower and his fat, hairy trotters, were visible under his dressing gown – Angie also insisted he wear his pjs.

After Everton’s failure to beat Blackburn the previous day, Vinny had good cause to feel off kilter, but events just 20 miles from Goodison Park, had plastered a smile on his jowly cheeks.

A modest €10 accumulator at Haydock Park had yielded a bounty of €350 as his four selections, Cinders And Ashes (8 to 13), Our Mick (6 to 4), Reindeer Dippin (4 to 1) and Real Milan (4 to 5) had scooted in.

All were trained by Donald McCain and ridden by Jason Maguire, a partnership Vinny felt was as effective as Paul Nicholls and Ruby Walsh, or Nicky Henderson and Barry Geraghty.

On their home Haydock hearth, they were almost invincible.

“Four winners. Can you Adam and Eve it?” he thought to himself as he spread a dollop of butter on his fourth slice of toast and reached out for the marmalade.

A part of him was annoyed he hadn’t stuck on a score, or gone the whole hog with a nifty-fifty but gluttony and gambling were constant bedfellows and Vinny knew to be thankful for what he had in his pocket.

“Even God can’t change the past,” he said aloud.

As he bit down hard on the corner of a slice of overdone toast, Vinny felt something crack inside his mouth. Instinctively, he sent his fleshy tongue to the danger zone to assess the damage – the picture it painted wasn’t encouraging.

As far as he could ascertain, there was a large hole in one of his rear lower teeth. Vinny imagined the gash was huge and the tooth was hanging on by the roots.

Instantly, his mood changed and a sense of foreboding crept over him. His tooth needed looking at and that meant one thing – a date with a dentist.

At that, Vinny’s blood turned cold and goose pimples suddenly danced up and down his curvy spine.

While he was a regular twice-a-day man, he had used the same soft toothbrush for years and suspected it didn’t boldly go where others did.

He comforted himself his teeth seemed in similar nick to the lads, and were certainly better than gummy Shanghai, but recent signs of bleeding, especially at night-time, were a pointer that something was amiss.

If he stopped to think for a minute, the constant shovelling of alcohol, tea, salty snacks, chocolate biscuits and cornflakes, had to have had an effect on his dental landscape.

Despite enamel being the hardest part of the human body, there was only so much protection it could provide.

Vinny had been running scared of dentists for decades, to the point he refused the annual check-up provided free by Dublin Bus.

He once confided in Fran and Macker about a childhood experience at the hands of old Doc Whitehead. Known as the “Butcher of the Bull”, Whitehead used to pull first and ask questions later.

“The Butcher” had moved on to the great cavity in the sky but Clontarf had a new dentist, one Vinny knew to nod to in Foley’s over a jar, but had never been so close to he could look up her nostrils from the operating chair. That was about to change.

With trembling paws, he picked up the phone and dialled the land line of Jane Tankerville Chisholm.

An hour later, Vinny found himself at the foot of Vernon Avenue, around the corner from Foleys. “Plain Jane” had, against the odds, agreed to see him at her surgery.

“You’re lucky. I’ve nothing on this morning and it’s best to look at these things right away. As a favour, I’ll even charge you the OAP rate,” she joked.

Vinny had been mildly put out at that remark but said nothing, firstly not to annoy Plain Jane and secondly because he was saving himself €20, enough for five of Foley’s finest later.

As he climbed the stairs to the reception, Vinny felt himself puffing slightly – it was a reminder he was already behind in his New Year revolutions, as he called them.

The door was ajar and Vinny tapped gently before popping his potato-shaped head through.

“Hello? Jane, it’s me, Vinny,” he said.

“C’mon through,” said a voice hewn straight from Fife, which was Plain Jane’s home country – she was a Dunfermline fan who claimed to have been taken by her father as a toddler to see Alex Ferguson play his final game for The Pars in 1967.

Plain Jane was in her late 40s, a single, sexy, red-head with dazzling green eyes who was, the lads admitted, drop dead gorgeous. She was anything but plain.

“Well, well,’ she said seductively. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to get you into my lair, Vinny Fitzpatrick, and suddenly, here you are. Sit up there in front of me and let’s have a look at what you’ve got, shall we?”

Plain Jane was wearing jeans, black boots and a crisp white shirt – in her hand was a large needle, for a petrified Vinny it might as well have been a claymore.

“Best to give you a little jab, methinks. That way it’s easier to have a wee poke around,” she said, as she straddled her long legs either side of Vinny’s flabby knees and thrust her pointer into his lower jaw.

Vinny was shaking like a leaf. He wanted to close his eyes but he felt that would betray weakness; by keeping them open he was distracted by Plain Jane’s chest, which was bearing down on him.

He needed a distraction so he focused on the ceiling and began to recite the 130 bus timetables to himself, as if they were a decade of the rosary.

As the needle buried itself into his jaw, he had a vision of it emerging through his skin, complete with bone and blood, flesh and fang. He felt his toes turn skywards and he began to twitch and shudder involuntarily.

He was aware of Plain Jane pressing herself against him, poking and rooting as she went about her business. He half heard her whisper “my, it’s a big one, but it’s got to come out” and then, mercifully, he heard nothing at all.

He wasn’t conked out for long, less than 10 minutes according to Plain Jane. In that time he lost what was left of a long-suffering molar, the broken remains of which were in a little dish.

After coming to, he felt as if his mouth was gagged with gunge, prompting several gargles with the rinser.

As Plain Jane tidied up, Vinny risked running his tongue in the direction of the missing molar – he couldn’t feel a thing.

“Wha’ da’ damage, Jane?” he said in a voice he hardly recognised.

“For a magnificent molar like that, I’d nearly give you a free one Vinny but business is business,” grinned the Fife firebrand. “Let’s call it €30 and a drink some night soon in Foley’s so I can check up on my handiwork, is that okay?”

Even though he was groggy, Vinny knew a chat-up line when he heard one and felt himself blush. At 54, overweight and with a face only a mother could love, he could still turn the occasional head, even a dinger like Jane.

“I wonder what odds you’d get on that? Better than the 35 to 1 that I got on my tenner yesterday, I’ll bet,” he chuckled to himself as he crossed Vernon Avenue and headed for Foley’s.

Bets of the Week

1pt each-way Lee Westwood in Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship (13/1, Boylesports)

1pt win Seabass in Thyestes Chase (8/1, Ladbrokes)

Vinny’s Bismarck

2pt Lay Liverpool to win League Cup (4/6 Skybet, liability 3pts)