The poet William Henry Davis famously wrote: ‘What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare….
Every evening of late, just after dusk, the ‘boys’ Pinot and Rufus take up their positions; P sitting alert on the threshold of the front porch, gazing upwards in fixed concentration. R, being shorter, yet twice as feisty, having got as high as he can – onto the gallery table or sideboard – adopts the same posture. In the silence the tension is palpable. No theatre audience ever sat in such wrapt anticipation of the curtain rising. Gypsy begs to come inside – she knows this show, gets easily bored and prefers a belly-rub.
Then the show starts. Mister or probably Missus Rat on the concrete ring-beam pokes his or her nose round the corner of the wall – a full 9 or 10 feet above the floor. The ‘boys’ start to go crazy; keening, barking, prancing and Rufus jumping clear into the air. Rat’s nose comes and goes a few times peeking and retreating behind the wall, adrenaline rising – then he’s off ! – making a serpentine traverse the length of the ring-beam – snaking down and around each rafter, claw-hanging onto each hurricane clip – like any of the great bare-handed rock-climbers, with the dogs in excited anticipatory pursuit below; until at last she reaches the other corner and disappears from sight into the night.
The show is over. The dogs settle down immediately – with their questions; “where’s the remote?” and “who’s got the peanuts?”
My question is, “Why doesn’t the head of that rat family go quietly ‘across’ the roof each evening instead of journeying precariously ‘under’ it?”
The Hitchins gardener in Trinidad once told the mistress of the house, “Mistress, your friends, Mr and Mrs Rat just arrived.”
“No Isaiah,” she said, “it’s not RAT; it’s pronounced Mr and Mrs RAH.”
Sometime later he came again to the lady of the house;
“Mistress, you should know; plenty RAHs in de chicken-house.”