Willard (Ratman’s Notebooks) Page 7

  “Yap-yap-yap-yap” and “Snap-snap-snap-snap.”

  Woofles was driving me mad. “All right,” I shouted suddenly. “Get in if you want to.” I put the bag down on the pavement and opened it, but Woofles didn’t leap bravely in. Not a bit of him. He drew back a little and looked in—and barked more furiously than ever. I stood and watched. He got a little closer to the bag. You could hardly see the rats, all huddled in one corner, probably scared out of their wits. But all my better feelings had been lost. I made a dive and grabbed Woofles by the scruff of the neck. I shoved him into the bag with the rats. “Tear him up!” I said. “Let the best animal win.” I was quite sure it wouldn’t be Woofles. He wouldn’t know what to do, shut up in the bag, in the dark, with the rats crawling over him. I walked on a few steps feeling pleased with myself. “That’s fixed you, you little bastard,” I told him. “No more yappy-yap from you.”

  Then I began to feel sorry. Maybe Woofles wasn’t such a bad little dog after all. He’d only been doing his duty. To be torn apart by rats would be a horrible death. What would I find when I opened the bag? A half-eaten, dead dog? I put the bag down quickly. Not a sound from inside. I hoped Woofles was still all right. I opened the bag. Woofles jumped out and streaked off home. You never saw a small dog move faster, and not a yap left in him. But what about Socrates and the other rats? I peered in anxiously. All all right. I stroked Socrates for a little. Apparently nobody attacked anybody.

  I closed the bag, walked quickly down the avenue, and caught a bus which arrived at exactly the right moment. As I took my seat, I saw a police car turning into Jones’s avenue. Neat enough. Safe enough. Safe home and no more trouble.

  Mother is dying. She knows. Indeed I haven’t made any attempt to hide it from her. She wouldn’t wish me to. The doctor says she may last a week or ten days, not more. The sooner the better. If we had sensible laws, the doctor would have chloroformed her last week as soon as he knew she couldn’t recover. In this we are kinder to our animals than ourselves.

  Watching a person die is tedious. It is also interesting. Mother would like to think that her life had been worthwhile. All she leaves behind her, the only tangible evidence of her struggle with the world, is me. And she is disappointed in me. I am not the sort of person I myself would have liked to be. Something has gone wrong somewhere. But Mother would like to pretend that it hasn’t. She would like to arrive in heaven with a solid record of achievements in her hand, and the material achievements at that. “Look at my son, down there,” she’d like to be able to say, “built the business up to double what it was when his poor father died, and goes to church twice every Sunday as well. Not that his father didn’t do very well, thanks to having a good wife to look after him and comfort him when he needed it.” Of course I do go to church twice every Sunday, but once she’s dead I won’t go at all. I just go now to save argument.

  What Mother does say is this. “Well, dear. When I’m gone you won’t have me to look after you any more.” (Pretty obvious.) “You’ll have to look after yourself.” (Also pretty obvious.) “You’ll have to look round and find a nice, sensible girl. It’s nearly time you were beginning to think about getting married, but don’t be in too much of a hurry.” (You might say, if I didn’t hurry I’d be past it.) “Your father always used to say he’d never have got on without me. If it hadn’t been for me he didn’t know where he’d have been. And you’ve always been a good boy. Never any trouble. You are a good boy, aren’t you dear?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  She’s still wondering what I get up to when I go out at night, but she’s afraid to ask. If there was a woman, I’m not sure that she’d mind, so long as she didn’t know. She likes a man to be a man, as she told me once, rather surprisingly.

  “Well, dear, I suppose I’ve had a good life. A good husband and a good son. I’ve a great deal to be thankful for.”

  I say nothing. She knows she is being a lot of trouble and is rather pathetic about it. Several times I’ve been late into the office and nearly every day I have to prolong my lunch-hour, without always being able to get time to eat anything myself. Not that Mother eats. But she needs things done for her. The district nurse does some of them, but not all. In spite of not eating, she keeps vomiting—horrible brown stuff that I have to clear up.

  I don’t know what to think about Jones. So far as I can hear, he hasn’t mentioned the destruction of his tires to anyone. Perhaps the police have told him to say nothing in the hope that the guilty person will give himself away. Don’t they know the damage was done by rats? Or is that something so unlikely that it has never occurred to them?

  Mother seems to be worrying about what will happen to me after she’s dead. I don’t know why. She has said several times, “I hope your uncle will do right by you in the end.” And once she mumbled, “I’m sure your uncle won’t forget his own brother’s son.” She means my uncle in Canada, who’s supposed to have all the money. He’s the only uncle I’ve got.

  I keep watching Jones and sometimes I fancy he is watching me. Does he wonder if it was I who slashed his tires? I like to think so, but of course I must give him no clue. That’s what he’s hoping for. It’s a sort of duel between us, but he doesn’t know that. He thinks I am in his power, that he can crush me at any time.

  Jones has been rather nasty about my being late and the time I have been taking for my lunch. “Can you not get a nurse?” he asks (twice already). “You can’t go on like this or your work will be getting behind.”

  “I haven’t let my work get behind,” I tell him coldly. “I’ve worked late each night till it’s done.”

  He goes off grumbling.

  She died at last I thought she was never going to. She stuck it three days longer than the doctor thought possible. I must say now that it’s over I feel proud of her. She was a tough old bird.

  The funeral was this morning. The old-fashioned kind. She didn’t want to be cremated. Had to be buried with Father. Gave me special instructions on various occasions over the last fifteen years—every time she had a weak turn or even a bad cold in the head.

  There’s something about a funeral. It gives you a sense of importance if you’re the chief mourner, as I was. Not that I was really mourning a bit. But I liked everyone paying attention to me. I don’t suppose I’ll have another chance like it. The next funeral in the family will be my own and there won’t be many at it. Surprising how many were at Mother’s. Mostly from the church, but a few business people as well, friends of Father’s. I think old people like going to funerals. The fact that they get back from the graveyard shows that they’re still alive themselves.

  Jones was there. Very solicitous and quite different from the way he is with me in the office. I think I understand him. He was satisfying his sense of propriety. Father was head of the firm. Mother was Father’s widow. By treating Mother’s funeral as important he was paying tribute to his own importance and dignity.

  That wasn’t all. He’d like to buy our house. He grew up in business feeling that Father was someone tremendous. Even if Father wasn’t making a great job of things at the end, to Jones he was like the king on his throne. Jones has always wanted to be in the same position. If he could get our house and live in it he’d feel he really had arrived. He looks on it in a funny sort of way as a usurper might look on the royal palace. Well, he’s not going to get this royal palace if I can help it.

  I didn’t even let him in after the funeral. He seemed to think we’d all go in and hear a solicitor read Mother’s will or something. But I didn’t want to let him or anyone else into the house. For one thing, I’d nothing to give them. I wasn’t going to run about making tea and I couldn’t afford drink. So I just let them all go home.

  All the same, I should have more money now. Mother must have spent some money on herself. In fact I know she did. All that, even if it isn’t very much, is bound to come to me. She hadn’t anyone else to leave it to.

  I’ll bring the rats into the house. I’ll put them
in the cellar to begin with. Except Socrates. I’ll let Socrates go wherever he likes. It will be much handier than having to go up to the shed the whole time. I’ll be able to do a lot more about their training.

  I went to see the solicitor today. I had to ask Jones to let me out, but he was quite amiable. He still hopes to get the house. I got a terrible shock. Mother had an annuity which died with her. Instead of having more money to keep up the house, I’m going to have less. In fact I don’t see how I’m going to be able to live. I wonder if Jones knew about the annuity. He may have found something among Father’s papers in the office. That would explain why he was so willing to let me out to see the solicitor.

  He didn’t say anything when I got back, but just as I was going home I ran into him in the passage. He said in a sort of casual way, “If you’re looking for a buyer for that house of your mother’s, I might be able to help you. I think I know someone who might be interested.”

  I think I know the someone too, but he still won’t get the house if I can do anything about it.

  This evening I started making arrangements for bringing the rats into the house. There are quite a number of problems I have to consider. The rats are not prisoners and I don’t intend them to be. If they were prisoners I would have to provide all their food. I couldn’t pay for enough food to feed them for more than a day or two, and if I started stealing more than the odd vegetable from Major Robinson I would probably get caught. So they have got to be able to get out to find their own food. All that I can offer is comfortable living accommodation with a few tid-bits now and then. For the first week or two I shall feed them fully. I’ve enough money for that. Then, when they get accustomed to their new quarters, I shall gradually cut down their rations to encourage them to go out and forage for themselves.

  The cellar is not completely underground. There is a small grating at the side of the house which opens into it just above ground level. The first thing I had to do was to make an opening in this big enough for a rat to get through. The bars in the grating were each about as thick as a pencil and about the width of a pencil apart. I got a heavy iron bar from the tool shed and banged at the grating with it till at last I managed to break one of the bars. Then I thrust the heavy bar through and levered it to and fro till I had what I considered a sufficiently large aperture—that is, large enough for a full-grown rat but too small for a cat. The grating is eight feet above the floor of the cellar. The next task will be to build some sort of staircase which the rats can run up and down from the floor of the cellar to the grating and back again.

  Well, I’ve got it all fixed up. I found a plank in the tool shed. I hammered a long nail in at each side, leaving the heads of the nails sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the wood. I ran wire round the nails to the unbroken bars of the grating. That supported one end of the plank. The other end is much lower and is supported on the top of an old set of shelves at the opposite side of the cellar. We used to use the shelves for storing apples. I’ve cut bits out of them so that it will be quite easy for a rat to jump from one shelf to the next, either up or down.

  I’ve made a new house for them out of packing cases. It’s beside the shelves so that a rat can go straight into it from any of the bottom three shelves without having to come out on to the cellar floor. I am going to heat it in the same way as I did with Socrates’ house in the tool shed.

  I should get it finished tomorrow night and maybe even be able to move them in before bedtime.

  The move has been put off for the time being. I got everything done last night as planned, but I’d forgotten to lay in supplies of food. I didn’t even know how many rats I had to feed. So I tried to count the furry-tails. I’m not going to bring in the scaly-tails. They can stay outside and look after themselves. I thought there were about twenty furry-tails. When I actually started counting I found the number was more like thirty, perhaps even forty. The trouble is I don’t know them all individually, and they never stay still. They’re always appearing and disappearing. There are about sixteen I’m really trying to train. The others do get trained a bit too, but by accident.

  On thinking it over, I don’t think I should take even all the furry-tailed ones, just the top twenty. If I want more later I can probably get them all right from the shed. But I shouldn’t need to. The ones I take will breed fast enough.

  How much will twenty rats eat? A rat weighs about a pound. So twenty rats should eat about as much as one tenth of a human being. In fact I know they eat much more, but how much I have really no idea.

  Today during my lunch-hour I went into a shop that calls itself a Corn and Feed Store. I ordered a bag of wheat. “What’s it for?” the man asked.

  This seemed to me an impertinence. “I don’t see that that matters,” I answered rather stiffly.

  “It matters to the price,” he said. “If it’s for seed or feeding, and if it’s for seed what variety, and whether you want it dressed or not, and how.”

  “It’s for feeding,” I told him.

  “You keep fowl?”

  I didn’t answer this. I feel he must have been trying to make fun of me with his talk about dressing. Apparently no further information was necessary, for the fellow weighed up a bag of what I presume is wheat and demanded thirty shillings. It seemed to me a lot, but I wasn’t in a position to argue and immediately gave him the money.

  “Shall I put it in the car for you?” he enquired.

  “No. I want it delivered.” And I was proceeding to give him the address when he interrupted to say, “We don’t deliver. Maybe you’d have the car in tomorrow.”

  Of course I had to admit that I have no car. It then turned out that he was able to arrange delivery perfectly well through some delivery service. But for that he wanted another five shillings, if you please. Of course I had to give it to him. I had no choice in the matter. It’s dreadful how you can find yourself at the mercy of these people. I’m sure the questions about the car were just intended to humiliate me in the first place. He knew very well I hadn’t a car and he recognized that I was the sort of person who normally would have been expected to have one. If you don’t have a car these days you are a sort of second-class citizen. This is very unpleasant, particularly if one has been brought up to regard oneself as rather superior, certainly very much superior to persons such as Jones.

  I did what turns out to have been a rather clever thing some time ago. The local council delivered to our house a brand new bin all silvery and shiny. Obviously they intended to take away the old one, which was undoubtedly worn-out, the next time their refuse lorry was at the house. But I didn’t like to think of this magnificent new bin being filled with garbage. So I quietly rescued it and hid it in the attic. The dustmen continued to use the old bin, but in another six months or so another new bin arrived. This time I didn’t dare to save it. The next day the refuse men carted away the old bin and I was forced to use the newest bin of all. I did so with a feeling almost as if I was committing some sort of violation. But of course I wasn’t going to give up the bin I had rescued previously to wet tea-leaves, cinders, and cabbage-stalks.

  When I got home last night I found the bag of wheat on the door-step. I immediately thought of the bin in the attic. I brought it down to the cellar and emptied the bag of wheat into it. Then I had another brilliant idea. I got an old screwdriver and using it as a cold chisel cut out five holes round the bottom of the bin, just above the bottom rim. A little wheat flowed out through each of these holes on to the floor, but not very much. When you pick up what flowed out, more flows out to take its place. Two or three rats will easily be able to feed at each hole at any one time. I have thus devised a feed hopper for my rats which will keep their food in constant supply—so long as I keep the bin full—and at the same time keep it clean. Their water supply I had already arranged with drinking bowls which they can fill themselves. I used a ball-cock from which I removed the ball. In its place I put a small platform counterbalanced by a spring. When a rat jumps on to
the platform the platform will sink, and with it of course the lever of the ball-cock. The tap will open and the water flow into a little drinking trough below.

  The water supply arrangement is not quite satisfactory because rats do not always get off the platform immediately there is sufficient water in the trough, and it then flows over the floor. As well, some of the young rats are playful and like to jump on to the platform when an older rat is drinking, with the result that the water pours down on to the drinker’s head. Socrates got caught this way last week and was very cross about it. I thought he would have killed the young one at first, but he just rolled him over and gave him a few admonitory nips. The young one did not attempt to fight back. All of which shows that rats are very like human beings even in their sense of humour.

  The rats have been in the cellar a fortnight now and the main snag is just the reverse of what I expected. I thought I would have difficulty in keeping the rats in the cellar. I can’t get them to leave it. Why should they? It is warm and comfortable and there is food and water in abundance.

  Last night I thought I would make them leave it. I blocked all the holes in the feed bin with bits of rolled-up newspaper and laid a thin trail of wheat up the shelves and along the plank to the grating. I thought this would make them run up the plank and out through the grating. Not a bit of it. When I came back tonight I found they had pulled the newspaper stoppers out of the bin and were feeding as usual. They hadn’t bothered about the wheat on the plank or shelves. This won't do. I can’t go on feeding them forever. They’ll have to go out and forage for themselves. I must think of something.

  I look forward to going home in the evenings now far more than I ever did when Mother was alive. I open the front door with my latch-key and close it carefully behind me. I hang up my coat and hat. I go to the cellar door, open it a little, and peep in. There is Socrates waiting for me on the top step. “Out you come,” I say, and out he does come into the hall. I close the door after him. None of the other rats is allowed into the house. They have the choice of staying in the cellar or going out through the grating into the garden. They stay in the cellar. Nothing I can do will persuade them to go out. I keep buying wheat. I can’t afford it, but so long as I can actually lay my hands on money I haven’t the strength of mind to drive them out by starvation.