The Slave
My very educated mother just showed us nine planets. My very educated mother just showed us nine planets. My, Mercury. Very, Venus. Educated, Earth. Mother, Mars. Just, Jupiter. Showed, Saturn. Us, Uranus. Nine, Neptune. Planets, Pluto. All of them, in the right order. It was brilliant. The only problem was the two Ms, Mercury and Mars. Mixing them up. Except for that, it was plain sailing. Simple. That was what I liked about it. All that complicated business straightened and tidied into one sentence. Even if the sentence itself was stupid. My very educated mother. Just showed us nine planets. Mind you, that bit is good. Because there are nine of them. So it fits and helps you remember.
And it’s about the only thing I remember learning in school. I must have learnt more, I’m not saying that. A lot more, actually. I can read, for fuck sake. I’m a two books a week man; I eat the fuckin’ things. So, yeah. But I don’t remember learning how to read. And I do remember my very educated mother. Like it was now. The first week of secondary school. And the teacher, God love her. Miss something. O’Keefe, I think it was. Something like that. Her name was on the timetable, ‘O’Whatever it was. Miss.’ We were hoping a nice bit of stuff would come walking in the door. But in marches your woman. Older than our ma’s, as ugly as our da’s. With a box of chalk. Holding it up in the air, like a cup or something, a trophy. And she waits till there’s absolute silence.
—What is this? she says, and she points at some poor cunt at the front. Me.
—A box of chalk, I say, and wait to be told I’m wrong. But—Yes, she says.—It is a box of chalk. And what type of chalk is it?
I look at the box.
—Coloured, I say, and I’m right again. Twice in a row, for the first time in my life. And the last.
—Yes, she says.—It is coloured chalk. And it is mine. She goes over to the desk. The teacher’s desk, like, the one at the front. She opens the drawer and in goes the chalk.
—I am Miss – whatever it is, she says.—And I am your geography teacher. We will meet three times a week. And three times a week I will open this drawer and I will find my chalk exactly as I left it. I have information to impart but I cannot do this to my satisfaction if I do not have my coloured chalk.
And then she says – you’ve guessed it.—Do I make myself clear?
—Yes, Miss, say the saps at the front, mise1 here included.
—A stick of coloured chalk is the geography teacher’s essential tool, she says.—The box contains ten sticks and it will contain ten sticks when we meet again on Wednesday.
‘Wed-nesday’, she called it. Some hope, the poor eejit. The other teachers took it, every fuckin’ stick. It was all gone by lunchtime.
Anyway, she took a stick of ordinary white off the tray at the bottom of the blackboard, and then she wrote my very educated mother, down the board instead of across, and the names of the planets that the words stood for beside them. And I’ve remembered it ever since, and nothing else. Precious little. The only other thing I remember clearly is the Latin teacher. I did Latin, believe it or not. And I remember none of it. But I do remember him. He went around the room every morning, putting his hand down our jumpers to make sure we were wearing vests. A Christian Brother he was, and I can remember his name. But I’ll keep it to myself. Yeah, I remember him, alright. Every morning, right through the winter. Feeling my chest. Leaving his hand there forever. Freezing. Rough palms – old cuts gone hard, years of swinging a hurley. That was my only experience of abuse. His hand. He’s still alive as well. So I’m told. I should report him, I suppose. Only, (a) I don’t think I could handle the humiliation, and (b) I’d hate anyone to know that I used to wear a vest. And it’s harmless enough when you hear about some of the other things that went on. And he did it to all of us; he wasn’t just picking on me.
But no, I can’t remember a word of Latin. And I’m not blaming the Brother, mind. Not at all. I’ve no French either, barely a word. Maths, history – tiny bits, only. 1916. 1798. Black ’47. Irish? Ah, goodnight. Oíche mhaith.2 I can hardly help the kids with their homework and the eldest left me behind years ago. No, the only thing I remember, consciously remember, is that thing, my very educated mother. But she was a clown, the teacher. We ate the poor woman after we got the hang of her.
—Is there life on Uranus, Miss?
—No, indeed.
She was fierce enough that first day, with her box of chalk. Scary. Worthy of a bit of respect. But then, I suppose it was when she said about the chalk being her essential tool, we realised then she was just a mad ol’ bitch and we made her life a misery.
But. It has to be said. She taught me the only thing I remember. And it’s not just that I remember it now and again, when I hear one of the words, say, ‘mother’ or ‘very’, or there’s something on the telly about astronomy. I remember it every day. It’s not a memory, no more than the names of my children are. One of your kids comes running up to you with its head split open, you don’t have to think of its name. The names are always there. And it’s the same with my very educated mother.
It’s like this. Every day, I walk down to the Dart station – like I’ll do this morning. I’m on a job in town. Have been for the last six months, and there’s another year in it, I’d say. With a bit of luck. So I leave the tools in a strongbox on the job and I don’t bother with the van. I walk down to the station, and there’s a bit of a hill just before it and when I get to the top there’s the Pigeon House chimneys in front of me. God’s socks, the eldest used to call them. In the days when she used to talk to us. And every time, every time I hit the top of the hill it goes through my head, the same thing: my very educated mother. Don’t ask me why, but it’s like clockwork. I don’t expect it or anticipate it. It just pops into my head. And it stays lodged in there until I get to the station. Every morning. Rain, wind or hail.
And that was what went through my head the morning I found the rat.
I shut the kitchen door. And I leaned back against it. I had to force myself to breathe. To remember – to breathe. In, out. In, out. My heart was pounding, Jesus, like the worst hangover I’d ever had. It was sore. Really sore, now – like a heart attack. Huge in my chest. And I leaned against the kitchen door.
Just out there, out in the hall. In, out. In, out. My very educated mother. My very educated mother. And when I got the breathing together, I went back in. I went in and I had another look, to make sure I’d actually seen what I’d seen. I was half sure there’d be nothing there. It was a bit of brown paper, a wrapper or something, one of the baby’s furry toys. Or even nothing at all. A shadow. It was just about dawn, the blinds were open. Any of the things on the windowsill could have made a shadow. At that hour of the morning. I took the long way. Instead of going straight for the fridge, the direct route. I came around here, to this side of the counter. I was scared, yeah. I’m not going to not admit that. But I wanted to see, to be absolutely sure. To see it from a distance and an angle. To be absolutely positive.
And, yeah, it was there. In under the pull-out larder. A rat. A dead fuckin’ rat. A huge fucker.
Lying there.
And I still couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t – comprehend it. I was staring at the fuckin’ thing. There was nothing else, in my head, in the world, just that thing lying there, under my pull-out larder, that I installed myself – that was my own fuckin’ idea – and I couldn’t get to grips with the situation. I couldn’t just say to myself,—That’s a rat there, Terry, and you’d want to think about getting rid of it.
No. I couldn’t organise myself. I couldn’t think. I walked out and shut the door again. I was going to go back in and go through it all over again.
And then I heard him. The baby. Inside in the sitting room.
And I kind of cracked up.
It was only a few inches from my feet; did I tell you that? Yeah. Two, three inches. Making the coffee, I was. Good, strong coffee. I picked up the habit in America, in Florida, on the holliers. Orlando. Before the baby. He was conceived there, actually, now that I think of it. During a storm. Thunder, lightning. It was something else; you’d never see it here. And good music on the radio at the same time. Good seventies stuff, you know. On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair. It all seemed to fit. The music and the weather. Even though it was pissing outside and he was singing about the desert. But it was American. And we were there. Myself and herself, after all those years. And that kind of explains why we’ve one child that’s eight years younger than the others. He’s a souvenir, God love him. Him and the coffee.
Anyway, I’m making the coffee. I’ve done the plunger bit and I’ve gone to the fridge for the milk. I drop the spoon, and I’m halfway down to picking it up when I see it. The fuckin’ spoon was right beside it. It’s probably the first time I ever dropped a spoon in my life. I don’t drop things.
Anyway, I’m leaning against the kitchen door and I hear the baby chatting to himself in the sitting room. That’s when I get really upset. I’m nearly crying, I don’t mind admitting it. But I’m also thinking, and I’m straight back into the kitchen. I’m thinking, deciding.
—Terry, I’m saying, out loud for all I know.—Action stations. Let’s get rid of the cunt. Gloves and bag. Gloves and bag.
I shut the door behind me, to make sure himself doesn’t come in and see it on the floor or me with it in my hand. I go over to the press where she keeps the plastic bags. She’s mad into the environment, dead keen. We’ve a whole house full of plastic bags. Anyway, so far, so good. I’m doing something. I’m in control. The press is over there. The one under the sink. Well away from your man on the floor. There’s no need for me to go too near him yet. I’m assuming he was a male. It’s hard to imagine that there’d be such a thing as a female rat. But that’s just me being stupid. Let’s just say it was a male; it’s easier for me. I had go past him, whatever sex he was. But I didn’t have to look at him, to get to the sink. I go straight over and I have the door open before it dawns on me that he might have friends in the vicinity. Fuckin’ hell, I nearly shat myself; I nearly fell into the press. But it was empty; it was grand. No sign of disorder, claws, droppings – it was grand. I take out four of the bags. There’s hundreds of them in there. And one of the big black bin ones. I shake out the bags and put them on the counter, one, and one, and one, and the last one. Really fast now, no procrastinating. No way. Not with the baby in the room next door.
That’s the problem, to an extent. He’s not a baby, really. Not any more. He stood up about a year ago, without bothering to crawl first. Up he gets, using the couch and my leg to hoist himself, and he’s been flying around the place ever since, except when he falls over asleep. We just call him the baby. He’ll probably be the last, so he’ll be the baby for a while yet. Even though he’s built like a shithouse and he’ll probably be shaving before the end of the year, the speed he’s growing. He’ll be the last, I’d say. She swings a bit but I’m fairly certain.
So, on with the gloves. Yellow Marigolds, way too small for me. I have to force them on but the only alternative is picking him up with my bare hands and that possibility doesn’t even occur to me. So, I’m all set. I turn to face him. But, God, I feel very exposed. I’m only in my dressing gown. This one here is new, from herself for the anniversary. Eighteen years. I got her a brooch. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s very nice.
Anyway, it wasn’t really the dressing gown. It was the feet. I was in my bare feet. I hadn’t bought these yokes here yet. The slippers. I know the rat was dead and not particularly interested in biting my toe or having a look under my dressing gown. But, still, I didn’t feel ready for battle. Even if the enemy was dead and stiff. I hated myself then. That was the lowest, really. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do what I was supposed to do. I stared down at your man on the floor. In under the pull-out. He was lying on his side. No teeth showing, no grimace, you know, nothing like agony or anger. He was just quietly dead. But I couldn’t bend down and pick him up. I just couldn’t do it. My home, my pull-out, my family, my little son next door in the sitting room, this bastard had come into my home – how is another story – and I couldn’t just bend down, pick the cunt up and throw him in a bag.
I really let myself down.
Then I did it.
Just like that. I bent down. I put my hand around him. He was stiff, solid, like wood or metal with a bit of weight on it. Or one of those Transformers toys, but heavier. And I could feel him, even with the gloves on. Cold. Cold and hard. I couldn’t feel the hair, thank God. I dropped him into the first plastic bag. And I tied it at the top. Into the next bag, and the next one, and the next, and into the black bag. Then I took him out to the shed. It was cold out there, and still a bit dark, like now. But I still did it, in my bare feet. Just to have him properly out of the way. And I came back in here.
And then – and I’m a bit proud of this – I decided to go ahead with my coffee. Mission accomplished, the worst was over. I’d just carried a dead rat from here to there. I’d sorted out the problem, done what I was supposed to do. I opened the kitchen door again, and I realised that I was still wearing the rubber gloves. So I was taking them off and deciding what to do with them when he came in looking for his breakfast.
And that, I suppose, is what really got me thinking. Really thinking. Not just reacting to the crisis, getting rid of the rat. It went beyond the rat. The rat isn’t really involved.
That’s my arse. Of course the rat’s involved. The rat’s to blame.
It’s hard to explain.
Look. I never owned a pair of slippers in my life. Now, I fuckin’ need them. I got these ones in Clery’s. They’re alright. They’re grand. But I never wanted them. I never fuckin’ wanted them. I never wanted to be a man who wore slippers. I always liked the feel of the house under my feet. Get into a pair of slippers and you’re fucked; your life is over. That’s what I’ve always felt, since I was a teenager and my father got a pair from our granny and he put them on, sat down in his chair in the corner and never got up again. I mean, he did get up. He went to work, he went into the kitchen and up to the jacks. But that was it: he was old. It got to the point where he wouldn’t say hello when he came home from work. He wouldn’t acknowledge the family, my mother, until after his feet were safe inside the slippers. We weren’t getting on at the time. A bit like me and my eldest now, actually. And everything I hated about him, about myself, about everything, I aimed at those slippers. And now here’s me, after buying my own slippers. I’ve no one to blame but myself. And the rat.
But it’s not just the rat and the slippers. Not really. Look it, I’m forty-two. I don’t mind. I was forty-one last year, I’ll be forty-three next year. I’m not the worst-looking man in the world. There are lads that work with me ten years younger, and they’re in bits. I’m Leonardo DiCaprio standing beside some of those cunts.
And I read. I’m interested in the world. I still get excited about things. I still love watching her brushing her teeth, for example. I still want to go over and clean her mouth out with my tongue, just like I wanted to, and did, from day one. And she still knows it. And other things too.
But I’m forty-two. I’m middle-aged. That’s a mathematical fact. In fact, more than half my life is over. So my eldest told me, which was fuckin’ charming. The last time she said anything to me. Something about statistics they were doing in school. But, really, it was because I won’t let her watch Trainspotting. It’s a good film but she’s still too young. That was what I told her. Next year, probably. Which I thought was reasonable. It’s a good film, like I said. But there’s too much in it that’s not – okay, suitable. Unfortunately, that was the word I used. ‘Suitable.’ Her face, Jesus. It hurt. Maybe I’m just being stupid; I don’t know. She’s nearly seventeen. Anyway, that was when she informed me that my life was more than half over.
But that’s not the point. Middle age. The midlife crisis. Whatever you want to call it. I was forty-two when I saw the rat. I’d still be forty-two if I’d never seen it. Okay, I’m after getting myself a pair of slippers but I don’t believe that they have evil powers. They haven’t made me grow old all of the sudden.
No.
What has really rattled me, what has changed my life, to the extent that it’ll probably never be the same again, is the question that came into my head when the little lad came into the kitchen wanting his breakfast.
—Cry-babies, he says.
That’s what he calls Rice Krispies. It’d break your heart. Bright as a button.
—Cry-babies, Dada.
And me trying to take off the rubber gloves.
What if?
That was it.
What if. What if he’d been the first one to come into the kitchen? What if he’d picked it up? What if it hadn’t been dead? It goes on and on, backwards and forwards, right through everything. There’s no end to it. It won’t go away and it’s not going to go away, and I don’t know if I can cope.
 
I’ve never been a great sleeper. I don’t know about when I was a kid. I don’t remember. I suppose I was normal. But since then, especially in the last few years, I’ve got by on very little. Even in the days when I drank a bit, I still got up early, even when my head was hopping. I never liked lying in bed. I’d go down to the kitchen and stick my mouth under the cold tap until I could feel the water negotiating with the hangover. That was as much of a cure as I needed, until a few years ago and I began to feel it a bit more. I’ve always managed on four or five hours’ sleep. And I rarely feel the lack.
I don’t drink at all now. I gave up a couple of years back. I just gave up; nothing dramatic. I’d no real taste for it any more. Not that I was a big drinker. Just the three or four pints. That was what I settled down to after I got married and the kids started arriving. Not every night either; a couple of times a week. Then once a week. And then I stopped going altogether. I got lazy. I’d go down to the local and the lads I knew, the ones I really liked, wouldn’t be there. They’d gotten lazy like me, I suppose, and there was one of them died. The hangovers, with the kids and that, they just weren’t worth it any more. Especially when the lads stopped coming down – after Frankie died, really. Enough was enough. If we go out for a meal, me and her, I’ll have a glass of wine but I’m just as happy with a 7-UP.
But back to the sleep thing. The night after I found the rat, I slept as much and as well as I usually do. I just slept. I didn’t dream about rats, as far as I know, and I didn’t wake up screaming. I just woke up. As usual. I felt a bit robbed, as usual, with the feeling that I could have done with an extra half-hour. I grabbed the book from beside the bed and got up. I went through the whole routine, exactly as I’d done the morning before and every morning before that, going back years.
But it was different. There was the world of difference. I turned on the lights as I came down, which I usually wouldn’t have done. But you’d expect that, after the shock I’d had the day before. I gave the door over there an almighty clatter before I came in. Again, that’s only to be expected. Even though I knew there were no more rats. The pest control lads had given the place a good going-over the day before. I’d had to go to work but she told me all about it when I got home and when I’d phoned her earlier during the day.
—They’re up in the attic, looking for droppings, she says when I phoned her the first time.—Nice enough fellas.
As calm as anything. It annoyed me a bit. The thing didn’t get to her the same way it got to me. Mind you, to be fair to her, she never saw the fuckin’ thing. And, to be fair to me, I did. Anyway, by the time I got home she was an expert on rats and mice. The world’s foremost fuckin’ expert. No, that’s not fair.
Anyway.
—They’re neophobic, she says after I said I’d go up the attic to see if the poison had been touched yet.—They’re scared of anything new, she says, even though I could have worked it out myself.—So there’s no point going up. They won’t touch it for a few days, until they’re used to it being there.
All I’d wanted to do was prove that I wasn’t too scared to go up. I just wanted to do something useful, after running off to work earlier and leaving her flicking through the Golden Pages.
—Did they take the rat with them? I said.
—What rat? she says.
—The rat, I said.—The fuckin’ rat I found this morning.
—Oh, she said.—No.
So that’s what I did. I got rid of the rat. I went for a walk. With the black bag. No bother. I went looking for a skip. And there was one just up the road. So, into the skip with the fucker in the black bag. I shoved it down under some of the rubble, to make sure no kids pulled it out and started messing with it. I could feel it under the layers of plastic and I didn’t mind a bit.
But that’s not the point. The point is – I don’t know, exactly. What I used to take for granted, I can’t take for granted any more. I used to be able to walk across the floor here without giving it a moment’s thought. And now I can’t. I have to think about it. I have to prepare myself. I have to casually search the floor. I have to get down on my knees and check under the presses, knowing I’ll find nothing. My mornings are ruined. It’s as simple as that.
But there’s more to it than that. It’s the ‘what if’ thing. That’s the real point. What if it had been Sunday morning, early, and Match of the Day had been on. I’d have sat down to have a look because I hardly ever watch it on Saturday nights any more. It’s hard to get worked up about millionaires half your age. Not that I begrudge them the money. Anyway, I’d have sat down and the little lad would have strolled on into the kitchen. It doesn’t bear thinking about. But I’ve thought about nothing else. And it goes way beyond that. Everything. Fuckin’ everything is polluted by it.
I wait up every night when the eldest goes out, till she comes home. And I was just getting used to it. I was capable of falling asleep before she came home. I’d wake up when I’d hear her key in the latch, but I’d be back in bed, not an embarrassment to her, before I’d hear her feet on the stairs. Now, Jesus. Last Saturday I sat on the stairs, in the dark. I know – like any normal father. But it isn’t. It’s desperate. I had to nail myself to the stairs to stop from going out to the street or driving to the disco, or whatever it’s called – the club she said she was going to. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I don’t. But I do, if that makes sense.
It makes perfect sense. I trust her. I’m happy, was happy to let her out, to have her own key and the rest of it. And I’m absolutely positive she abuses that trust. She drinks. I know. She might even be doing the Ecstasy and that. And, yeah, sex, I suppose. And I really don’t mind because that’s part of the package as well. Part of the contract, giving her a longer leash. And as long as she doesn’t stroll into the house with a smell of drink on her and say, ‘Sorry I’m late, I was riding a chap with a car and a ponytail,’ I don’t mind. What isn’t said didn’t happen. She knows; we know. She’s finding her feet. We’re here if she needs us.
But now, fuck. I’m on the verge of giving out to her because she looks good. As if she’s to blame for being an attractive young one, as if it’s anything to blame anyone for. I was never like that. I was always proud of her, always. But now I’m terrified. I remember the first time we let her go down to the shops by herself. It was a real event, that day. She was so proud of herself, you know. She was just eight. I’ve always loved that, giving them the opportunity to be proud of themselves. If it was now though, I wouldn’t let it happen.
Anyway.
She – my wife. Jackie. She’s worried about me. Which is about the only thing going for me at the moment. It proves something – I don’t know what. Love, I suppose. I see her looking at me and I want to shout at her to leave me alone but I’m grateful for it as well.
I don’t know anything any more. I don’t seem to. I’m getting pains in my chest. And my arms are stiff when I wake up. Numb. I remember in a film I saw when I was a kid, The Birdman of Alcatraz, the warden, your man from The Streets of San Francisco – not Michael Douglas, the other one. Your man with the nose. Karl something. He had a pain in his arm – Karl Malden – and Burt Lancaster, the birdman, knew that he was going to have a heart attack. I remember being fascinated by that, that a pain in your arm was a sign that there was something wrong with your heart. It was great. And my father, of course, he wanted to know if a pain in your arse meant you were going to have a brain haemorrhage. This was before he got the slippers. But anyway. What do two numb arms mean? Two heart attacks?
I don’t give a fuck about anything any more. I really don’t. I’m reading this one here. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. It’s good, you know. It’s very good. And I couldn’t care less. I’m reading it because it’s what I do. I’m just doing it. But I don’t care. She used to like that about me, the opposite, you know. She always said it. My enthusiasm. She loved the way I listened to music. I leaned into it. I really listened. I never noticed, but she did. And it was the same with books, and everything really. There was once she made me read in bed, out loud, while she got on top of me, and I read right up to the second before I came. It wasn’t easy, hanging on to the right page. It wasn’t a hardback, thank Jesus. The Slave, by Isaac Bashevis Singer. What a book that was. I’d never read anything like it before. Or since. It made me regret that I wasn’t a Jew, because of the way the main lad, Jacob, struggled to hold on to his Jewishness all through the book. He was the slave in the title. The peasants were trying to get him to eat pork, to do everything that was against his beliefs. She noticed how excited I was getting, sitting up in the bed, and she asked me what was so good about it. So I read her a bit. About a party up in the mountains. Poland, this was, four hundred years ago. Jacob was sent up there in the summer months to look after the cattle, find them grass among the rocks, and the only other people there with him were the village freaks, the products of brothers riding the sisters and the rest of it. Granted, the writer expressed it a bit better than I can, but you get my drift. So I read her a bit. I can’t quote it exactly but they were all rolling around in the muck, grunting like pigs, barking like dogs, howling, pissing on the fire, hugging the trees, stretched out on the rocks, vomiting, screaming, roaring.
—It’s just like our wedding, she said.—What’s it about besides that bit?
—Well, it’s a love story, I said.—It’s fantastic.
—Find us a different bit, she said.
So I did. Where he describes Wanda, this peasant girl that Jacob loves. And that’s when it happened. I got through a page and a half, which wasn’t too bad because it was very small print and long paragraphs. Anyway, I came and she collapsed on me.
—Ah look it, I said.—I’ve lost me page.
She laughed and cried, you know the way, and kissed me.
—That’s the one, she said, into my ear.
Meaning, she’d be pregnant. She took the book out from between us and looked at the cover, at the writer’s name.
—We’ll call him Isaac, if it’s a boy, she said.
It wasn’t anything, actually. Not that time. But that’s how important it was to me, reading, music, even the job. I loved tiles. Holding them, lining them up. The word ‘grout’. Everything.
She gave me the job of naming the kids. She knew I’d give them names that meant something. That had a bit of magic in them. So the eldest is Sarah. That’s the name Wanda changed her name to after she ran off with Jacob, in The Slave. She read the book last year, the eldest did, and I think she was pleased, even though it’s very sad in places and Sarah has a hard time of it. She said nothing, but I think she liked it, the link there, you know. Then there’s Oskar, from The Tin Drum. She wasn’t too keen on him being named after a dwarf but I persuaded her that if our lad got up to half the things that Oskar does in the book then we’d never be bored. Then there’s Mary, from Strumpet City. She’s a great fighter, Mary in that book. And we thought we’d go for something a bit more Irish, even though it’s not strictly an Irish name. But, anyway, she’s Mary. And the little lad is Chili, after Chili Palmer in Get Shorty. He’s actually named after me, Terence, because we knew he’d more than likely be the last and she said we should name him after me and my father. I didn’t mind. I quite liked it, actually. Even though I’ve been reading books all my life and I’ve never come across a hero or even a baddie called Terence. But, anyway, we usually call him Chili. And that’s Chili in the book, not John Travolta in the film, good and all as he was.
Anyway, the point is, I haven’t always been the miserable poor shite you’re looking at. And, really, it wasn’t too bad until recently. I’m just so tired, you know. And then this thing.
How it happened was, we got up together one Saturday morning and found the kitchen flooded. Water all over the shop. But we couldn’t see where it was coming from. I turned it off at the mains and we found it, the source of the leak. There’s a rubber pipe that runs from the cold tap to a tap outside on the wall. A mouse had eaten into it. The plumber, a pal of mine, showed it to us when he was replacing it. The teeth marks.
—These things are supposed to be rodent-proof, he says.
—Tell that to the fuckin’ mouse, she says.
And that was that, really. No real damage done. I got some poison, the blue stuff – I can’t remember its name – and I put it up in the attic. And I got a couple of new traps for in here. No problem, end of story. Then I found your man and we realised that it was a rat all the time and he’d had the run of the house for God knows how long.
So. I suppose, on top of everything else, my tiredness, the rows with the eldest – I suppose I’m just getting old. The rat was the icing on the cake, so to speak. Not the first time I’ve seen a rat, of course. I see them all the time on the job, and when I was a kid we used to hunt them. But before, when I saw a rat, it was always doing the decent thing, running off in the opposite direction. This guy, though. Granted, he was dead. But how long had he been in the house? Mice stick to one little patch of the house, but not rats. They have the run of the place. He came into the kitchen here through a hole in the plaster, where it was drenched by the flooding and fell away from the wall. He died two feet from the hole. But what about before that? How did he get in before the plaster fell away? Down the stairs? It’s shattering, thinking about it.
But.
Here it is. Here’s why I’m here. I’m taking the house back. I’m repossessing it. I’m staying here like this until it becomes natural again. Until I’m actually reading, and not listening out for noise or remembering our dead pal on the floor every time I go over to the kettle.
I’m not guarding the house. I don’t think that there are more rats inside. Or mice. And, to be honest with you, the mice are fuckin’ welcome. I’ll get in some extra cheese for them. No, I’m getting over that bit. That’s only a matter of time. The rat’s gone.
But. In a way, I am guarding the house. Not against a rat or rats or anything else that shouldn’t be in the house. I’m guarding it against nature. The only reason life can go on in this house is because we managed to keep nature out. And it’s the same with every house. And nature isn’t lambs and bunnies and David Attenborough – that’s only a tiny part of it. It’s a lot rougher than that. Life is a fight between us – the humans, like – and nature. We’ve been winning but we haven’t won. And we never will. The rats, for instance. They’re under us. Three feet, about. A bit more, a bit less. They’re under there. Fine. But give them a chance and they’ll be back. They haven’t lost and they never will. We need the walls and the foundations to keep them out, to let them know – because they’re not thick – we’re brighter than them and we’re stronger than them. We have to mark off our space, the same as the other animals do.
And it’s not just the animals. It’s ourselves. We used to be cannibals. It’s only natural, when you think about it. We’re only meat. What could be more natural, for fuck sake? We probably taste quite good as well, the fitter, younger ones. But we sorted out the cannibalism years ago. It’s not an issue any more, it’s not a choice. Take the house away, though, take the farms and the roads and all the organisation that goes into human life and it will be a question of choice again. If nature gets the upper hand again, we’ll soon be eating each other. Or, at the very least, we’ll be deciding whether or not to. And then there’s sex. We’re only a couple of generations away from the poor freaks in The Slave. Brothers with sisters, fathers with daughters. It goes on anyway, sometimes. We all know that. It’s disgusting, but we have to admit it. It’s nothing new. I’ve always known it. Only, I’ve never had to think about it. And that’s what the rat did when it decided to die on the floor over there.
I recognise what’s going on in my head, what’s been going on for a while, actually, on and off. It’s middle age. I know that. It’s getting older, slower, tired, bored, useless. It’s death becoming something real. The old neighbours from my childhood dying. And even people my own age. Cancer, mostly.
But you can still hang on. And I’d been doing alright. There’s little Chili. He’s been like a new battery. Just picking him up strips the years off me. I feel as young and as happy as I did when Sarah was born. And there’s Jackie. We get on great. We have sex, although it always seems to be on Fridays. Which I don’t like, that kind of routine. Because I’m a bastard for routines. The slightest excuse, everything becomes a routine, and I’ve always tried to fight it. But anyway. I love her. Yeah, I do.
She makes me laugh. She knows I’m struggling, and she’s sympathetic. She gets a bit impatient with me, but who wouldn’t be.
I’d been coping okay. Enjoying life. The world was a straightforward, decent place that could be simplified into a line of words running down a blackboard. My very educated mother just showed us nine planets.
And so it is. Only, it has to be protected. If you find a rat in your kitchen the world stops being a straightforward, decent place for a while. You have to take it back. And that’s what I’m doing. Taking it back.
And I’m getting there. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, and I don’t care. Fuck the rat. And fuck nature.
It’s a matter of time.