Rats

A dozen old ladies are finishing a dance class in the activites room of the day centre next door when Dawn, the manager, comes out of her office to find a dead rat on the floor of the adjoining cafe.

The old ladies are just coming out of the room now so Dawn doesn’t have time to do anything but try to hide the dead rat by quickly putting a chair over it and standing in front of the chair.

She’s hoping the rat is dead because if it runs out from between her feet as the ladies are coming out of the room, well, best not to think about the consequences of that.

The ladies from the dance class file past her, flushed and smiling, and Dawn smiles back, thankful that it’s the end of the day so the cafe is now closed and they can’t stop for a cup of tea before moving on. One or two engage her in brief conversation but thankfully she can remain standing in front of the chair hiding the rat without her behaviour appearing odd. She follows the last of them out and locks the centre doors.

Picking up the phone in the office she calls a local exterminator. While she’s on the phone to the exterminator she heads back into the cafe and moves the chair hiding the rat. She’s looking straight at the dead rat on the floor when its head jerks up and its black pebble eyes meet hers.

“It’s alive,” she yells down the phone at the exterminator, “it’s still alive!”

She only takes her eyes off it for a second but in that moment it’s gone. After getting off the phone she searches the room, wondering where it went and finally finds it curled up against the wall, dying. She thinks. But just to be sure she stands watching it for several minutes. Eventually she’s convinced enough to give it a prod with the end of a broom handle. Yup. Definitely dead, this time.

Dawn relates this story to me in a hushed voice as we stand together at the bottom of a galvanised steel ladder proppped against the outside of the church. Up on the roof the exterminator is looking for further evidence of infestation and clues as to how the rats are getting in to the day centre, because they’ve definitely got a problem. The rat in the middle of the cafe was the final straw, she’s been finding evidence of their visits for a while now and is convinced one has died inside the wall cavity beside the air-conditioning system because there’s been an unpleasant odour developing in the therapy room for a while that has lately become ungodly.

“I think I might have solved it,” the exterminator calls down. “I’ve found a couple of dead ones up here and there are quite a few gaps they’re probably getting in from. Which is unusual, they don’t usually get in through the roof. Have you got a couple of carrier bags?” he asks.

Dawn goes inside to find some carrier bags, returns and passes them up to him.

“It explains why I’ve seen them going up and down the drainpipes,” I remark. “They’re using them like elevators. Did you see that thing in the news this week? Researchers have been teaching rats to drive cars.”

“Cars?”

“Yeah. Apparently the rats are much less stressed when they’re driving.”

“Why are they teaching rats to drive cars?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Good grief, what’s next? Aeroplanes? Nuclear weapons? The skies’ll be full of rats flying around without a care in the world, bombing the shit out of us all,” Dawn says as the exterminator reappears with the carrier bags, which now have weight to them. “Don’t throw their little bodies down to me,” she tells him, “I’m a vegan.”

As well as being a vegan and the manager of the day centre next door, Dawn is also the singer with a ska punk band and used to go out with the drummer of The Damned. Not Rat Scabies, but the guy who replaced him. It’s a very tenuous link to her current rat situation, I know, but I feel like I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t at least mention it.