Love and Hate on the Island

At the limestone quarry we gaze into the mouths of caves, dark against the white stone. ‘They served as latrines,’ says the guide.  Her tones are strident, but I still wish she was using a microphone. On the other buses I see guides with microphones. Someone has told our guide that she doesn’t need one. But she does. We are towards the back of the bus and we cannot catch every word. We get the gist, though. Prisoners forced to labour for hours under the punishing sun. No hats and precious little water. Shitting in the shadows offered a brief moment for communication which was otherwise strictly forbidden. The passing on of vital snippets of news about the world outside – the world happening just across the bay. Even the possession of a scrap of newspaper was a punishable offence.

Decades later the place still oozes brutality. The landscape offers no relief from the harsh conditions endured by exiles, lepers, the mentally insane and finally the militant opponents of apartheid. We were surprised to find that the Irish also occupied the island for a time, evidenced by a tumble of gravestones and a Celtic cross.

We stop briefly for a photo opportunity with the iconic Table Mountain in the distance then back on board. Passengers are starting to feel cheated. The half hour sea crossing stuffed into an airless cabin and now a hot and dusty bus ride is not what we were expecting. ‘What about the prisons?’ murmurs one. ‘Aren’t we getting out?’

One couple has already disembarked in shame. They were young with a whimpering baby. As the bus pulled away from the harbour, the frustrated mother stood up to haul the little one into a front-loading sling carrier. She hurtled him into the air and banged his head with a loud thud on the overhanging luggage rack. There was a collective gasp of shock as we watched the infant’s face contort in pain. A screech followed that no microphone could cover. The father berated the mother and then hurriedly gathered up the child and the buggy demanding to be set down at the roadside. The driver was reluctant – idlers were not to be allowed to wander at will, but the man was insistent. As we drove off, we watched the little family walk forlornly back down the hill. We did not see them again. The passengers were relieved. We judged and tutted. No one wants a crying baby on the tourist trail. Like the generations of jailers who trod these roads before us, we had left our compassion and tolerance back at the landing stage.

Just as we are running out of breathable air, one of the women on the bus begins to sing. There are five of them and we had noticed them queuing to board the ferry. They are dressed to be noticed - ostensibly in the pristine white of a religious sect but bejeweled to the nines with designer handbags and heels to match. Their buxom figures are tauntingly on display in plunging necklines and buttock-hugging mini dresses. They look like girls on a hen do yet they are clearly pledged to a Higher Power. They announce that they have travelled from beyond the Cape, and I get the impression that, like me, they are Robben Island virgins – but with makeup and lace.

As we disembark, they burst into song:

The Holy Spirit must come down,
And Africa will be saved.

African women sing like no others – loud, confident and in full harmony. They segue into the national anthem:

Nkosi sikelel’ Afrika.

We instantly forgive them their sexual brashness, follow behind their sashaying hips and join in the tune, if not the words. We know neither Xhosa nor Afrikaans. 

 
As we approach the actual prison buildings, a holy hush descends and the singing fades. An old black man is waiting to conduct this part of the tour. He is wearing a metal cross and has the weakened arm of someone who has suffered a stroke. I ask him who he is.  He says he will answer questions all in good time. First we are free to wander through the cell block and prison kitchen; there are stories to read and straw palliasses and a wooden rack used for torturous punishment to marvel over.

                                                                            

We proceed in respectful silence to the section where hardline maximum security political prisoners were housed.  We are all thinking about Nelson Mandela. To our chagrin, few among us can remember the names of any of the others.  The gentleman introduces himself. He is Tom Moses who was incarcerated in this very place and clearly bears the mental and emotional scars. In a long speech he details the prisoners’ suffering – a very personal account of isolation, deprivation and terror. The sixties were the worst, he said. Men who were convinced of the rightness of their cause living in constant fear and at the whim of cruel and vindictive guards. 

He is emotional and, at times, angry. His well-worn recital descends into diatribe directed, somewhat surprisingly, not at the Afrikaners who perpetuated apartheid, but at successive black governments who have failed to honour the collective sacrifice of political prisoners. He is scathing about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and leaders who have greedily amassed wealth without making any provision for the families of those who fought with their freedom for the privileges enjoyed by the elite. He is a sad and tormented soul whose evident pain belies talk of forgiveness. My eyes well with tears.

I try to tell Moses that I understand something about political prisoners and terrorists in government. ‘It’s not colour that corrupts,’ I say, ‘it’s power.’ I am white and he is black. I am ignorant and he has been to hell. There is no understanding.

I walk alongside a fellow visitor. His name is Roger. We search for Mandela’s actual cell. ‘It’s the one with the bucket,’ the guide has told us. And there it is – a narrow tomb with a straw bed and a lidded metal pail for waste. Deliberate, I realise. There is no shrine to the man who only spent eighteen years confined on this island when others stayed longer and were soon forgotten.

We emerge from the darkness of concrete walls and bleak despair into the brilliant white light of an African day. Summer will soon reluctantly give way but for now the sun is beating us as it has beaten generations of people for whom there was no escape. Our route off the island is clear – a downhill trek to the harbour. Our own personal ‘long walk to freedom’ quips Moses as we shake his hand. He glances at me in disappointment – clearly the woman in front of me laced his palm with rand. I did not come prepared, and I feel guilty.

I look around for Roger. He is gazing down the long road to the sea. He is never going to make it.  He is only about four and a half feet tall and severely disabled. He has managed to shuffle his way on and off the bus and through the corridors, but this is too far. I look back towards the building we have left. There were ramps inside; maybe there’s a wheelchair.  

But Roger is not looking for a chair. He is clambering up onto a huge boulder where he manages to stand. Without fuss or ceremony his friend is reversing into him and lowering his strong body so that Roger can clamber onto his back. I have only just dried my eyes and now I am weeping again. It’s a baking hot day and carrying an adult that distance is no easy feat, but this friend has obviously done it before. Many times. That verse in the Bible about greater love and laying down your life springs to mind.

At the waterside there is a delay. The ferry has not yet returned from Cape Town. We buy ice lollies and settle down to wait. I need to talk to Roger and his saviour.  They are old friends from school. Roger is very witty and makes me laugh. Adam is Jewish with a flop of black curly hair. He is now living in the UK, but he comes back to the Cape every year.  We talk about parallels with places like Auschwitz and he tells us that all of his grandfather’s family disappeared during the Holocaust. He introduces us to an American cousin found as a result of relentless searching for survivors and says that through the miracle of the internet they are still making connections across time and continents. He is looking forward to discovering more family members. 

Roger is not Jewish and not family, but the love the two young men share is that of brothers. I tell Adam that he has such a big, embracing heart. He thanks me. I want him to know that his act of selfless kindness has touched me deeply. I can feel the warmth and generosity of his spirit borne out of generational suffering. Not all horror leads to bitterness. I am glad we have met.

On the return crossing, as civilization and mountain hurtle towards us, we sit with our new friends. There is no movement of air in the cabin, and we are sweating uncomfortably.  Suddenly, one of the crew takes pity on us and invites us to sit out on deck – only a limited number. We jump up with our new friends and finish the five and a half hour round trip with the cool breeze in our hair.

                                                                            

Robben Island is a beacon of hatred and control of what could not be tolerated. Our visit would have been a cold experience without Roger and Adam – flesh and blood examples of how hope can triumph over fear and unconditional love over adversity.

I Have Come

Somewhere in my memory there was a donkey
Shambling and swaying.
I just wanted to lie down but there was nowhere for me to rest.
Go – leave here – move on
Find your papers, they said.
There is no room here, they said.

Go back where you belong.
Inside me is hope waiting to be born.

I have come in soiled swaddling and a strawy bed
In the cry of this mother and all mothers
In the bruised hands of this father and all fathers
And grandfathers, and grandmothers
To virgins, widows and children I have come.
                        ∞
Somewhere in my memory there was a boat
Surging and swishing.
I just wanted to lie down but there was nowhere for me to rest.
Go – leave here – move on
Find your papers, they said.
There is no room here, they said.
Go back where you belong.
Inside me is hope waiting to be born.

I feel like I am going to die, I said.
I am going to be born and then I am going to die, he said.

I have come, he said.
I have come in a soiled blanket on the ground
And soaked clothing.
In the cry of this woman and all women sold into brutal hands.
To parents in far-off lands waiting for news I have come.

To the outcasts and the not allowed in I have come.
To the cold and the hungry, the burnt out and the washed out I have come.
To the faithful inside the cathedral
And to the wasted outside in the square, I have come.
To the old and the young, I have come.
To the anxious and afraid,
To the trafficked and traumatised,
The despairing and displaced,
To the weary and waiting, I have come.

In humility, I have come:
The Wonderful Counsellor who needs tender care
The Mighty God who snuggles and sleeps
The Everlasting Father who is a suckling son
The Prince of Peace who plays.

Angelic Advent awake!
The door of my heart is open.
I kneel at your coming.

Standing on One Leg

It’s been five days since and it’s time. I don my wellies and stride through the wet grass and up the Scrabo stone steps to my heron house, so called on account of my love for the birds that wait silently at the water’s edge without rush or rhyme.

I fumble with the keys. The door is warped after the hot and cold of the seasons. And there he is on the wall – a study in pink and cobalt oil scrapings – the paint thick and textured. The water shimmers in the background – an ice blue lake flecked with indigo shadows. The bird’s head is hunched to rest the long heavy neck, his eyes alert to movement in the nearer distance. He looks away towards the window, towards forever. Does he know his maker is dead?

I found it in his studio, on the ground leaning against the wall. ‘A heron?’ I said. ‘It’s yours,’ he said. ‘I did it for you but I wasn’t sure if it was good enough.’

It is good enough. You were good enough.

It was our last conversation. Is the heartache of the artist embedded in his art? I have been standing in front of his paintings since I heard the news looking for answers, looking for questions. In one abstract, a brown strip separates grey strokes from hues of deep marine. There are splashes of ochre and a bright red speck – a boat’s sail, a flag, a deck chair on the beach? I asked him about the painting and he hesitated. ‘You see what you want to see,’ he said, smiling mysteriously.

In another painting, we are looking out across Strangford Lough to an island. I don’t know which one; there are so many. ‘It’s from the gates of Mount Stewart,’ he said, so I go there and stand, looking for him. Can I feel his presence in this space? The beauty and texture and colour are him as much as the final moments of despair. He cannot be defined by the manner of his passing. Van Gogh’s sunflowers still scream life and beauty.

There is a wall beside the lough. I climb onto it and walk along its flat but uneven surface. The tide is slowly seeping in. A cheeky seal pops up and gives me the once over. I am nothing to him; for me it is a wild encounter. Like the heron who soars suddenly overhead and settles gracefully on the rocks below. Thank you, thank you. He gazes out to sea. Waiting. He only stirs when the spirit moves. He is standing on one leg, like in the painting.

I too am just about standing up – one spindle holds me steady, keeps me connected to mother earth. The other is curled beneath me in a crippled spasm of guilt and fear. If he cannot go on, what life is left for me? For all of us who loved him?

Some people cannot live with the 'tormented mind tormenting yet'. Hopkins lifts his eyes to the 'skies betweenpie mountains,' but sometimes the heart is just too heavy.

In my hideaway, I caress the bird’s lumpy feathers and am overwhelmed by a grief that threatens to steal my very breath. ‘Please, please don’t be dead,’ I plead. The heron is silent as the grave.

‘It’s not the sea at all,’ he said, holding the painting at arm’s length. ‘It’s a study of daylight playing on a rusting iron pole. It’s about contrast.'

I laughed. ‘No red sail, then.’

‘No red sail.’

‘It’s still a thing of beauty,’ I said.

There is only one creator, all else is imitation. If an artist can transform death and decay into roaring life and colour, so then can his God. With him, there is no ending. I rest in the transformative power of unfailing love and gently close the door of the heron house behind me.

Written in memory of my friend and fellow creative, Robert Robinson.

Sweet Caroline

It's Christmas Eve 2021 and my littlest sister, Caroline Lilian, is 61. 

Her big birthday was actually last year, but Covid-19 regulations put paid to a party. We lifted a glass shivering round the fire in her back garden - in shifts because of social distancing - gave her presents and guzzled cake, but it was all a bit low key.

Bizarrely, something similar happened on her 50th birthday.  On that occasion, a burst water pipe disrupted the planned celebrations and we all had to hurriedly help her to consume food that was going to waste. No speeches or words of appreciation.

There is a list in my head of my favourite people who have influenced my life for good along the way. Caroline is a constant - loving, forgiving and exuding the beauty of Jesus.

I was only three when she was born. Our mother had three girls in three years and then a boy -  a tradition I upheld many years later.  Pauline and I thought she was our little doll with her porcelain skin, hazel eyes and blonde curls. She also had what mother called a rosebud mouth, which made her so very cute. 

Caroline, Pauline and Ruth

The adorable toddler grew up into a beautiful girl, although as a teenager she was quite naughty. She has always had a mischievous sense of fun, getting into all kinds of scrapes. On a Scripture Union trip to Tollymore Forest, she somehow thought it was a good idea to go skinny dipping in the river. The teacher had words with our father. 

With precious brother, Robert

She took her enjoyment of being in the limelight onto the stage at Movilla High School.  I loved watching her perform as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.  She was mesmerizing as she pranced and sang, winning plaudits from the great and good of Newtownards.

When Caroline left school and went to college, I was at university. She and Esther, her partner in crime, came to do work experience on the north coast and they delighted in embarrassing me by singing and dancing their way along the streets near my digs in Portstewart. 

Her first job was at Killard House where she was so beloved of the little group who called her 'mummy' that one of them, Glenna, became her flower girl when she married Clive.  I so admired her determination to study social work as a mature student and get her degree. 

Clive and Caroline

Caroline's love of and commitment to vulnerable children runs through her career like a golden thread.  Out there are hundreds of families whose lives have been enriched by her care and attention to finding homes where children can be happy.

One of Caroline's finest qualities is her non-judgmental attitude. She always gives people the benefit of the doubt and tries to see the humanity behind the social problems. If loving unconditionally is one of the qualifications for getting into heaven, Caroline's place in the angelic choir is secured. Caroline was always singing.  Our parents were singers and we sang with them. We girls were often dressed alike and we must have looked like the Von-Chestnutts.  Caroline progressed on to various choirs, finally finding her happy place in Belfast Community Gospel Choir. As part of that huge, supportive family, she delights audiences with songs of joy to the world. 

Caroline is such a lovely mother to her own children, and grandmother to four boys and her precious namesake, Lily.  She is selfless in giving her time and energy to making the world a better place for all of them, going above and beyond to support and encourage.  She sets a fine example of godly womanhood: 'Her children arise and call her blessed'. (Proverbs 31)

Caroline is beautiful, inside and out. She is a very loyal and dedicated friend to many. She is joyful in adversity, facing challenging times through the years with courage and fortitude born out of her steady faith in the God who loves her. 

This year, chef and second cousin, David Chestnutt, cooked a delicious meal for us in celebration of her six decades. We told stories, listened to Gary Barlow's Christmas album (she's a big fan) and ate her favourite cheesecake. 

Sisters Three

Caroline, I am so glad that you are my sister and that God has given us sixty+ years together. I am a better woman because you are in my life. You deserve to be loved and I hope we get to love you until  the end.

On your birthday, here's a blessing from John O' Donohue:

May you learn to see your self with the same delight, pride and expectation with which God sees you in every moment. 

                                Thank you for being you, with us. 

                                       HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Armistice: Loss is the Great Lesson

One hundred years ago today a nameless British soldier was lovingly borne from a muddy battlefield in France to Westminster Abbey where he was buried with great ceremony.  To mark the occasion, poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has written a tribute using the analogy of sleeping rough and finally coming home to lie at rest. 

On the coffin lay a wreath of red roses interwoven with bay leaves; women who lined the streets carried white chrysanthemums hoping that the body might be their husband, their son. Always flowers at a funeral to mask the horror and symbolise the life that will go on, no matter how bloody the battle.  In her poem, Poppies, Mary Oliver, writes that 'loss is the great lesson,' but that it is also an invitation to happiness which can be 'palpable and redemptive'. 

The losses we are facing in this pandemic threaten to rob us of all meaning.  My hope is that I learn whatever lessons are here for me and do not die 'none the wiser and unassuaged'. (from A Bitterness by Mary Oliver)

The Bed by Simon Armitage

Sharp winds scissor and scythe those plains.
And because you are broken and sleeping rough
in a dirt grave, we exchange the crude wooden cross

for the hilt and blade of a proven sword;

to hack through the knotted dark of the next world,

yes, but to lean on as well at a stile or gate

looking out over fens or wealds or fells or wolds.

That sword, drawn from a king’s sheath,

fits a commoner’s hand, and is yours to keep.

And because frost plucks at the threads

of your nerves, and your bones stew in the rain,

bedclothes of zinc and oak are trimmed

and tailored to fit. Sandbags are drafted in,

for bolstering limbs and pillowing dreams,

and we throw in a fistful of battlefield soil:

an inch of the earth, your share of the spoils.

The heavy sheet of stone is Belgian marble

buffed to a high black gloss, the blanket

a flag that served as an altar cloth. Darkness

files past, through until morning, its head bowed.

Molten bullets embroider incised words.

Among drowsing poets and dozing saints

the tall white candles are vigilant sentries

presenting arms with stiff yellow flames;

so nobody treads on the counterpane,

but tiptoeing royal brides in satin slippers

will dress and crown you with luminous flowers.

All this for a soul

without name or rank or age or home, because you

are the son we lost, and your rest is ours.

Farewell to Raymond

Easter seems like a long time ago, but I have included a lovely painting by Sebastian in South Africa in this the final chapter of Rattus Runs Amok.  Also featured is our wonderful Easter Bunny aka Uncle Stephen. The original rat came to a soggy end in our garden...I wonder if Raymond will survive? Thanks for reading. 😃

Chapter Ten: Raymond Meets the Easter Bunny
Raymond could not have moved even if he’d wanted to; he was frozen with fear. The buzzard was hanging low in the sky and had spotted him with its beady eyes. Raymond braced himself for the attack and when it came he felt a talon clutching his soft fur and hoisting him into the air. Below them, the field was getting smaller and smaller.

So this is what it feels like to fly, thought Raymond. They were right over the garden now when suddenly the unthinkable happened: the buzzard dropped him and swooped down, picking up a baby rabbit, that had hopped out of the bushes, instead. It was all over in seconds: the rabbit was flying away and he was falling, falling…

He plummeted through a gentle broom bush and did a belly flop on top of something very soft and spongy. It was Orange Cat who was settling down for the night. She was not best pleased.

‘Get off me,’ she mewed. ‘I’m the one who’s supposed to have nine lives.’

Raymond lay there breathing in the scent of coconut as delicate yellow petals drifted round him like snowflakes. He crawled back to his nest and licked a puncture wound in his side. As he fell asleep he thought how glad he was to be alive.
In his dream Raymond was being held down by something heavy and a hooked beak was about to dismember him. He struggled awake. It was late morning and Smudge was frolicking around excitedly.

‘I was having a nightmare,’ said Raymond. ‘What did I miss?’
‘I think it’s Easter,’ said Smudge. Something else Raymond did not know about.
‘Himself has just put a sign on the gate and Missus Daisy is out in her boots carrying a basket of eggs.’
‘Let’s go and see,’ said Raymond. They set up a lookout post in a gnarled elder shrub, concealed by luscious black berries.
‘This place smells,’ said Raymond.
‘God’s stinking tree,’ said Smudge and then he puffed out his chest and recited:

Bour tree, bour tree: crooked rung 

Never straight and never strong; 

Ever bush and never tree 

Since our Lord was nailed to thee. 

‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ said Raymond, confused, ‘but it sounds depressing.’
‘It’s a poem,’ said Smudge, ‘about Easter and the elder. I think the story turns out all right in the end, though.’
‘I don’t understand how you know things,’ said Raymond, ‘and what have eggs got to do with it?’
‘Now that I don’t know,’ said Smudge, ‘but they’re fun to find.’

Missus Daisy was wandering round carefully hiding colourful eggs behind clumps of daffodils, under thick hedges and shoulder high in trees.
‘She makes it too easy,’ said Smudge. ‘Look, she’s putting out little signposts to show the way.’
‘But why is she doing this for us?
‘It’s not for us, silly. It’s for them.’

Two cars were pulling into the driveway spilling small children from doors right and left. At the same time, the visitors tumbled out of the house with shrill shouts of welcome.
‘Oh no, not him,’ said Raymond as he watched Georgie carefully lifting something out of the boot of the car and carrying it into the garage. It was some kind of complicated wooden contraption with a platform, a lever and a pulley.
‘I wonder what he’s up to?’ said Raymond.

The two little girls, Ruthie and Rose, were dressed alike in pink frocks and pretty bonnets. Rose was waving a stick with ribbons attached, twirling round and round. Someone was blowing bubbles and Ruthie was spinning too trying to catch them.

Joy and Bastian were conspiring together in a corner, trying to pull a long worm out of the grass while Nate and Teddy chased a beautiful butterfly.
‘What a cheerful scene!’ said Raymond.

Adults were calling the children indoors for lunch and through an open window Raymond and Smudge could hear the clatter of cutlery, the scraping of chairs and the laughter of family.
‘Now!’ said Smudge, scampering across the grass. Raymond followed him into the dense undergrowth in the far corner. They double checked they could not be seen from the house, then they located the first of the eggs. Smudge unwrapped it with his tiny paws, cracked it against his teeth and handed Raymond a piece of the shell. Raymond sniffed it.

‘Chocolate?’ he said. ‘You didn’t say the eggs were chocolate.’
Raymond loved chocolate but he couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty about stealing the children’s treats.
‘We won’t eat them all,’ said Smudge, tucking into a second egg and licking his lips.
The partners in crime found and gobbled ten or more eggs and were starting to feel rather sick.
‘I think we’ve had enough,’ said Raymond.

‘Indeed you have,’ sounded a deep voice.
Lolloping across the lawn came the biggest rabbit Raymond had ever seen. It was whiter than white with fluffy pink ears, big teeth and a wide mouth.

 

As usual, Smudge leapt into a tree leaving Raymond to face the music.
Raymond was perched on the lower branches of a magnificent pink magnolia whose velvety flowers were budding into crescents reaching for the sky. He had gorged on milky chocolate and did not really want to run away…again.

He took off round the side of the house with the white rabbit in hot pursuit, literally. He seemed to be struggling to breathe and Raymond could smell the sweat. When he looked back, the rabbit was bent double groaning with the exertion. ‘It’s the Easter Bunny!’ squealed Joy. The children came running out of the house to embrace their furry friend.

Smudge was nowhere to be seen so when Raymond came out of hiding he made his way back to the oil tank alone. All in all it had been a good day: he had escaped death, made a safe landing, learned about Easter, stuffed his stomach with chocolate and outwitted Himself once again.
‘He’s not in great shape,’ said Himself, shaking his head. ‘One beer too many, I fear.’
‘No,’ gasped the white rabbit, ‘there was a…’
‘Never mind,' said Himself, ‘let’s get on with the Easter egg hunt.’

Missus Daisy was distributing little plastic buckets to the girls while the boys ran on ahead, searching for the sign that read START HERE.
He passed by the front of the open garage and something yummy caught his eye. Georgie had placed a square of peanut chocolate on the little platform of his wooden toy. A peace offering?

Maybe I have misjudged him, thought Raymond. He’s a kind boy, after all. I think I have room for just one more nibble before bedtime...                                                                           
THE END

Chapter Nine: Raymond Finds Food

Raymond’s nostrils were filling with water and he felt as if he had no strength left. A torrent was still pouring from the tap and he was getting hotter by the minute. His body was swirling in a little whirlpool, round and round, and all he wanted to do was to give up and sink to the bottom. Suddenly, something hit him on the head. What now? he thought.

He couldn’t see anyone in the room but objects were flying into the bath from above: a metal tank which disappeared below the surface; a yellow rubber duck; a toy soldier and…happy days... a green plastic yacht! Raymond could not believe his luck. He struggled across to the boat. It was also turning in the swell of water and it was difficult to make it stay still. It was this or the end so Raymond summoned his last bit of energy and managed to haul himself in over the side. He fell face down and coughed water from his lungs. He was not safe yet. Things were still raining down on him and he could now see a little child’s hand chucking toys for all he was worth.

The boat smacked against the side of the tub just below the taps. Raymond spied a hanging chain. He quickly reached out and grabbed it. He was not sure if it would take his weight but he had to try. With a struggle he pulled himself out of the boat and clambered up the few inches to the rim of the bath. On the other side all he could see was a gorgeous mop of blonde curls.

‘Teddy! Teddy! What on earth are you doing in there?’ shouted Missus Daisy.

There was no time to lose. Raymond leapt onto the ledge, knocked over a plant and escaped out of the open window under cover of steam as shouty people entered the room:

‘They’ve filled the tub!’
‘What a waste of water!’
‘Well, let’s just bath them now.’

Outside, Raymond shook his fur like a dog and droplets spun everywhere. Keeping to the flowerbeds, he made his way back to his den. He was never, ever going back inside that house again!

------------------------------------------------------- 

After his ordeal, Raymond slept for most of the day, snuggled up in Missus Daisy’s bloomers. It was hunger that drove him back over to the seeds at the foot of the bird table. Late afternoon was a good time to eat because the birds were settling for the night and there was a whole day of pickings to be had.

‘Aren’t you tired of seeds?’ asked Smudge.  He was sitting in the tree crunching a hazel nut.
‘I had some cheese earlier, but I didn’t care for it,’ said Raymond.
‘I know where we can get something more substantial,’ said Smudge.

Himself had left a gap at the bottom of the garage door again and the pals squashed themselves under.

‘I don’t see it,’ said Raymond looking round.
‘See what?’ said Smudge.
‘The bicycle built for two.’
‘It’s just a song,’ sneered Smudge.

Raymond was annoyed that Smudge was such a know-it-all. He felt stupid sometimes, but the squirrel was his best friend, his only friend, because Orange Cat who was watching them through the window didn’t count.

‘Look here,’ said Smudge. Against the stepladder leaned a large lumpy bag.
‘What’s in it?’ asked Raymond.
‘Potatoes,’ answered Smudge. ‘The farmer brought them yesterday. Fresh as anything.’

Raymond sniffed the bag. It was made from thick layered paper. This was going to be easy.

‘We’re a team, you and me,’ said Smudge, as Raymond began to nibble a small hole, which became a medium-size hole and then a huge hole in the bottom of the bag. A single potato, round and hard, dropped out onto the cement floor. Smudge picked it up and headed to the door.

‘You chomp; I’ll carry,’ he said.

They worked quickly and before long they had built a small pile of stolen spuds beside the oil tank. 

‘That’ll last us all summer,’ said Smudge. 

Raymond did not like to admit to his friend that he did not know what a potato was, much less how it tasted. He licked soil from the surface of one and spat it out. 

‘No,’ said Smudge, ‘you have to bite into it. We’ll eat one for supper later.’ 

But just at that moment Missus Daisy was also thinking about supper for her visitors.

‘We’ve got some lovely Comber earlies,’ she announced, trundling out to the garage. You could hear the screech for miles.

‘My potatoes! Look at what that filthy rat's gone and done!’

Himself was at her side in seconds, two tan skinned boys in tow.

‘Right lads,’ he said reaching for the gardening implements, ‘we’ll flush the rascal out.’

The boys were excited.

‘They talk funny; are they foreign?’ whispered Raymond, watching them beating the life out of the budding camellias with a trowel and a gardening fork.

‘Australian, probably,’ said Smudge. ‘Now that’s an accent!’

Himself was armed with a long handled hoe. He was advancing with it thrust out in front of him like a spear and he was getting much too close for comfort.  Smudge had long since taken to the trees. So much for friendship, thought Raymond. The whole stealing potatoes thing was his idea in the first place!

‘It’s like a hunt,’ said the younger boy.

‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you elephants and lions like you’re used to,’ Himself said, ‘but this fellow is just as dangerous.’

Raymond beamed with pride. Dangerous, was he? He’d show them dangerous! The older boy must have had a sixth sense because he was creeping through the bushes towards Raymond’s nest. Instead of making his escape into the shuck, Raymond lurked among last year’s fallen leaves and waited for the boy to reach out his trowel and poke the cardboard box.

‘I’ve found something,’ shouted Bastian, ‘and here’s some potatoes.’

With that, Raymond sprang forward and sank his sharp teeth into the back of the child’s hand. Now it was the boy’s turn to wail.

‘He bit me! Something bit me!’

Raymond scurried off into the field while a mummy’s voice reassured her sobbing son and Missus Daisy ran for the antiseptic lotion.

‘Ha!’ chuckled Raymond. ‘Round two to me.’

He gave a leap of delight and was instantly sorry. Riding the thermals above him was a big brown bird, its talons spread like knives and it was looking straight at him…