Not many people's favourite animal are rats, and so it seems to Tom.
After slinking away unseen the other night, I have just found a small dead rat
near to the step of the caravan. I presume it was he who left it and although
it appears to have no marks on it I don't think it had a cardiac arrest as it
was passing the caravan. I like to think that he brought it to me as a gift for helping him out, and although not
a particularly nice one for humans, I suppose his gift range is a little
limited. I expect it was more likely though that he dropped it as he caught
sight of me as he was making good his escape. He will probably return for it
when it gets dark. Rats hold a singular
place in my affections. When I was but a young chap with only the acquisition
of girlfriends, money and a decent left foot on the pitch to stretch my mind, I
was working on the construction of a new brewery maltings. Like most young men, I probably had an over inflated opinion
of my own abilities and one day after saying that I could work quite easily on
my own, I found myself in a labyrinth of concrete lined dark tunnels with
flickering lights every ten meters or so which felt like I was on one of those
scary video games. Near every light there was a steel joist that held up the
concrete slabbed roof.
"Just wrap the stainless steel mesh around each one, tie angle
beads on the edges and render them with three coats," said my dad with a
smile that knew my ego would not let me utter any grievance about being given this god forsaken job. He knew as
well as I, that it meant carrying trestles and planks, as well as barrowing the
sand and cement and wire etc, underground along long, cold corridors, with my
footsteps the only sound to accompany me. After a couple of days with no
daylight, I was beginning to feel like Jack Nicholson stalking those corridors in
The Shining, when pushing the wheelbarrow along to where my trestles were set
up, I heard a funny kind of rustling, scratching noise that seemed to be
getting closer. Picking up my speed a little that had lapsed into a plod, I
gripped the handles tighter and broke into a trot, which isn't easy when your
barrow is full to the hilt. With the noise getting closer and more sinister I
stopped and turned and shouted out that whoever was there to stop mucking
about, or words to that effect. But in the dimness I still couldn't see
anything until in the glow of the last light behind me I saw a mass of rats
running my way with god knows what aim in mind. Leaving the barrow where it
was, I took off, reaching my top speed in a time that I had rarely achieved on
the football pitch, but even so was surprised when I approached the trestles
and leapt onto the planks before the rats reached me. Feeling like a builder's
version of Indiana Jones, and I do believe he was a carpenter once, I looked
back to see fat rats, bloated on Barley, run under the trestles and off into
the darkness with barely a squeak in my direction. Where they were going and in
such a hurry I never found out. In the
three months it took me to do what seemed like endless beams, the rats came
again on three more occasions, but by then I was almost used to it. It's getting dark now and I am beginning to
wish I had moved the rat further away, but if it is there in the morning I
suppose it means that it was meant for me.
Still on my own, and with the villages and towns full of smiling
tourists, it all feels a little hollow to me. Maybe that's why I started this
blog, but does anybody actually read them anyway? I have been thinking about
not bothering to write anymore when I met Tom. When I say met, I mean I heard a
faint gurgling meow kind of noise in the old lime tree that grows over the roof
of the caravan. To be honest I am not even sure he's male, but when I looked in
the dense foliage about an hour ago, I finally spotted what looked like the
Cheshire cat grinning down at me. He seemed to be just happily sitting there,
his ginger and white fur a good
camouflage amongst the shadowy leaves, but after a couple of minutes and me
opening a carton of milk and pouring him some out into a bowl, I felt something
was wrong. Fetching my ladder, thinking he had bitten off more than he could
chew, I leaned it on the branch he was on and tried to coax him down. Still he
did not move. So slowly climbing the rungs, I decided to attempt a rescue.
Halfway up, I noticed some grubby floral fabric near his head which on closer
inspection I found was a long makeshift collar that he had entangled in the
branch until it held his neck tight to it. His Cheshire cat grin was of slow
suffocation. He didn't move, I expect through exhaustion at the struggle to free
himself, as I tried to release him, but the fabric was strong so I went back
down to fetch my Stanley knife. Gently sawing at the fabric and with soothing
words I cut through it and was surprised when he still sat there. Backing down
the ladder, I pulled up my plastic chair and watched as he opened his mouth a
few times and moved down the branch a little. Nudging the bowl of milk a little
closer to the base of the tree, I was glad for the first time since being here
that I was on my own, as the sight of me crouched down talking in a high
pitched voice, tool belt dragging on the floor must have looked a picture.
Eventually he made his way down on to the roof of the caravan before tentatively
dropping down and under the caravan. He is still there now, still shy of
venturing out, but it has given time to think abut what idiot what make a
collar for a cat with a piece of fabric over a meter long and knotted round his
neck. Surely not Jean Pierre? He seems so common sense like, but there is no
one else here for over half a mile! Oh well, we will see what happens, and
hopefully he will still be about when the kids get here as they have always
wanted a dog or cat. That's if I can coax him out from under the caravan.
I don't know what it is about rivers that make me feel a little thoughtful. If anyone tells me its because they are reflective I will throw something at them. No, maybe it's the way the water flows non stop like life itself, supporting a whole host of life forms as it makes its way to the sea. Sitting this afternoon on a small pebble beach after giving up trying to work in this heat, I was taken by the dragonflies in huge groups flitting over the surface of the water, landing on the smallest scraps of plant life, their only thoughts I suppose, procreation and food. A bit like Danny. After walking some way upstream in the shallows, I then hopped on to one of the large rubber rings I bought for the kids. With my hands and feet trailing in the cool water and my bum stuck in the middle so the water crept up to my chest, I floated silently back round the bend in the river towards where I left my towel and bag. A couple of vibrant blue dragonflies landed on my knee and through half closed eyes watched as other birds and fish came close, my motionless sprawl giving them confidence. Its funny when at times like these, with no other person in sight or sound, the trickling of the water the only background to the screeing call of the buzzards, where your mind takes you. Transported maybe thirty years, I thought of the rushing dark waters of the river Trent, and my brother and I, leaning against an old wall that divided the garden of a manor house we were working on in Nottinghamshire from the small lane that led to it. We were lime rendering the old outside walls, and as we finished an elevation in a day so as to have no joints, it meant a long day and it was about seven o'clock and we needed a break before the last push. The wall was only chest high, so we sat, chewing the fat about what we were going to do with our lives and sipping form a coke bottle whilst flicking stones into the river, when we heard the noise of a lorry roaring closer before pulling up nearby. Surprised that a lorry would even drive down this small lane off the beaten track, we decided that we didn't want our break interrupted by a lost driver asking for directions, so kept our heads down, certain he would ask at the manor. Both of us jumped though when a loud clattering sound followed by excitable voices and the crunching of boots on gravel made us more than curious. when the voices came so close that they were on the other side of the wall where we sat, I thought it time to take a peek. Standing up; I came face to face with a grinning miner, who with many of his colleagues was peeing up the wall. "Alright mate," he smiled before zipping up and turning towards the lorry. I stammered something which seemed to make many of the miners laugh as they made there way back, some with pick axe handles in their hands. These were the days of the miners strike, and I mused later on this group of men, who looked for all intents and purposes that they were on a jolly day out somewhere, mates together, instead of being embroiled in industrial strife.
Walking back home down the track, over shadowed with maize growing each side I noticed that the rubber ring started to deflate. Should I repair or replace it? Oh well, I have a few days to decide before the kids get here.
