To begin with it was mice. The house was overrun with them. She saw them out of the corner of her eye shooting across the room. Then they became bolder. Instead of running away they ran towards her, menacing her. So she set traps and laid poison. I’d come home and open a linen drawer and find a trap set in it or blue granules in a plastic tray. Then a mouse ran up her leg.
Her brother, a farmer turned smallholder, has been waging war on rats and mice all his life. He keeps abreast of the literature and advances in rat-extermination technology. He advised deafening them with plug-in sonic devices. She bought three, whose continual blue flashing aids navigation around the house after dark, saving on light bulbs. That put them off, except for this one enormous rat, who would slip in under her duvet at night and fiddle about at her feet.
Then it was strange people in the house at night, sometimes a crowd of them, who would assemble in her bedroom talking animatedly among themselves yet ignoring her as if she wasn’t there.
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