cats, to be exact. One cat is perched on the windowsill (the window is slightly ajar) and it takes fright on his entering (leaping to its feet, hackles rising, hissing), then squeezes through the gap and promptly disappears. Three others – with rather more sanguine dispositions – are arranged on the worn linoleum in a polite semicircle around the edge of the bath. The fifth cat – and the boldest – is sitting on the corner of the bath itself, closest to the taps.
The bath – an old bath, long and narrow, with heavily chipped enamel – is currently full of water. Next to the bath (and the cats) is an old, metal watering can which Gene inadvertently kicks on first entering. He exclaims as his toe makes contact, but it isn’t so much the can (or his clumsiness) that he’s exclaiming at. He is exclaiming – with a mixture of surprise and consternation – at the rat.
There is a rat in the bath – a large, brown rat – doggy-paddling aimlessly around. Gene bends down and slowly adjusts the watering can, his eyes glued to the rodent.
It is huge – at least twelve inches in length (excluding the tail) – and it is plainly exhausted. As Gene quietly watches, it suddenly stops swimming and tries to stand up, but the water is too deep. It goes under for a second, panics, and then returns to the surface again, spluttering.
Gene is no great fan of rats – or of rodents, in general – yet he can’t help but feel moved by this particular one’s predicament.
‘I suppose I’d better get you out of there, eh?’ he mutters, popping the torch between his teeth, transferring the powder compact into the hand with the clipboard, reaching down and calmly grabbing its tail.
The rat is heavier than he anticipated as it exits the water. He observes (from its prodigious testicles) that it is male. ‘How long’ve you been in there, huh?’ Gene chuckles, through clenched teeth, as it jerks and swings through the air, legs scrabbling, frantic to escape.
The cats all commence padding around below it. Two rise on to their back haunches, paws tentatively raised.
‘Sod off!’ Gene knees a cat out of the way and lifts the rat higher, suddenly rather protective of it. The rat gives up its struggle, relaxes and just hangs there, limply.
‘Very sensible,’ Gene commends it. He peers around the bathroom (to check there’s nothing left in there to detain him), then slowly processes downstairs carrying the rat, gingerly, ahead of him (followed by a furry, feline train).
He pauses for a second in the hallway, unsure of what to do next. He decides (spurred on by the sound of voices) to consult with the opinionated female on this issue – presumably the home-owner – and so pads down the corridor.
It is difficult for him to knock (or to speak, for that matter, with the torch still gripped between his teeth) so he simply bangs on the door with his elbow and shoves it open with his shoulder.
He is not entirely prepared for the sight that greets him. He blinks. The room is cream-coloured – cream walls, cream blinds, imbued with an almost surgical atmosphere – and flooded with artificial light. A crouching woman with red lips and quiffed, auburn hair (tied up, forces’ sweetheart-style, in a neatly knotted, polka-dotted scarf), gasps as he enters. Another woman – dark-haired, semi-naked, her back to him (thank heaven for small mercies!) – propped up on a special, padded bench, is inspecting her own genitals in a small, hand-held mirror, as the first woman (the gasping woman) shines a tiny torch into the requisite area. The rat begins to struggle.
Gene immediately backs out of the room, horrified. The door swings shut on its hinges. He retreats down the corridor, hearing an excitable discussion taking place inside (crowned by several, muttered apologies, then rapid footsteps). The door opens. The auburn-haired woman stands before him. She is wearing a white, plastic, disposable apron and matching disposable gloves. She is still holding the torch. She seems furious, then terrified (on seeing the rat, close at hand) then furious again.
He notices that her auburn hair is quaintly pin-curled underneath the scarf (which reminds him – with a sudden, painful stab of emotion – of his beloved late grandmother, who once used to curl her hair in exactly this manner). The woman is slight but curvaceous (the kind of girl who at one time might’ve been lovingly etched on to the nose of a spitfire) with a sweet, heart-shaped face (he sees a sprinkling of light freckles under her make-up), two perfectly angular, black eyebrows and a pair of wide, dark blue eyes, the top lids of which are painstakingly liquid-linered. Her lips are a deep, poppy red, although her lipstick – he notes, fascinated – is slightly smudged at one corner.
‘Who are you?’ she demands, flapping her hands at him to move him further on down the hallway. ‘What on earth d’you think you’re doing?’
‘I’ve come to read the …’
Gene lifts the clipboard, trying not to trip up over the cats, his speech (through the torch) somewhat slurred. Both parties notice, at the same moment, that their torches are identical.
‘I should probably …’ He lifts the struggling rat.
The woman darts past him (he registers the solid sound of her heels on the tiles), yanks the door open and shoves him outside. Gene drops the rat into the tiny, paved, front garden and it immediately seeks shelter behind a group of bins.
‘I thought you were my brother!’ the woman exclaims.
Gene spits out his torch. ‘I came to read your meter,’ he stutters, ‘but the door was ajar and when I …’
A phone commences ringing in the hallway behind her. It has an old-fashioned ring. It is an old-fashioned phone: black, square, Bakelite, perched on a tall, walnut table, just along from a large aspidistra in a jardinière. Gene frowns. He has no recollection of noticing either the phone or the plant on first entering the hallway a short while earlier.
The woman turns to inspect the phone, then turns back to face him again.
‘Stay there,’ she mutters, glowering. ‘I should answer that.’
She slams the door shut.
Gene waits on the step as a brief conversation takes place inside. He glances around him, looking for the rat. He inspects his watch again. He dries his torch on his shirt-front. The door opens.
‘It was just a bit of a shock …’ the woman explains, calmer now.
‘Of course.’ Gene grimaces. ‘I really should have knocked. I just –’
‘We have the same torch,’ she interrupts him, pointing.
‘Yes.’ Gene nods.
‘Mine’s a little unreliable,’ the woman confides, flipping it on and then off again.
‘There’s this tiny spring inside the top.’ Gene points to the top of her torch, where the spring is situated. ‘I actually ended up replacing the one in mine.’
The woman studies the torch for a moment and then peers up at him, speculatively. ‘I suppose I should thank you for getting rid of the rat …’ She indicates, somewhat querulously, towards the bins. ‘I ran a bath a couple of hours ago, popped downstairs to fetch the watering can …’ She pauses (as if some kind of explanation might be in order, but then fails to provide one). ‘And when I came back …’
She shudders.
Gene struggles to expel a sudden vision in his mind of her reclining, soapily, in the tub. He clears his throat. ‘It was nothing,’ he mutters, then stares at the corner of her lip, fixedly, where her lipstick is smudged.
‘Well thanks for that, anyway,’ she says, her mouth tightening, self-consciously. He quickly adjusts his gaze and notices a light glow of perspiration on her forehead, then a subtle glint of moisture on her upper lip, a touch of shine on her chin, a further, gentle glimmer on her breastbone …
He quickly averts his gaze again.
‘I’m actually …’ She glances over her shoulder, frowning. ‘I’m actually in a bit of a fix’ – she leans forward and gently tips his clipboard