Rats

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.

Martyn Walker is the author of Stopcock, available on Amazon