Pops, if you tell me—
Whish-a-whish-a-whish—
What it is then—
Whish-a-whish-a-whish—
I can help you—
Feck it anyway. It’s gone, he says, straightening up. He’s breathing heavily, panting. He won’t meet my eye. It was a little lamb. It’s lambing season you know.
Yeah, I saw them all the way down.
Must have wandered off from its mother, came in here yesterday. I’d been feeding it and minding it, he says, wandering around and searching again, stepping in more muck. His shoes are encased in it now, mummified forever, to be unearthed thousands of years on by the next species, the orthofoot with the abzorb heel to prevent shocks to the body when walking, the celebrated shoe of mankind. It will be studied in museums by future beings, the foot of my father.
Pops, you’re getting dirty.
I didn’t leave it for a second all day. Whish-a-whish-a-whish.
One last attempt.
I swallow, feeling a rising panic in my chest, a swirling in my stomach. I hear the tremble in my voice. His behaviour is unsettling.
It probably went back to Nessie’s farm, I say. So what’s up with your car, I ask.
He stops circling the garden and looks up at me.
I couldn’t drive because of the rats. Come on, he says, with a wave of his hand as though he’s a farmer leading a herd, though Pops doesn’t have a farming bone in his body.
Rats. I follow him. First lambs, now rats. Pops, your shoes, I warn him as he treads mud into the cheap linoleum kitchen floor, all through the house and out to the front garden. He lifts the bonnet of the car and stares into it. He looks at a bunch of wires and I think I look at him the same way. Something wrong with the wiring.
Look.
I don’t know what I’m looking at.
The engine.
Well I know that.
Well then, you know more than you’re letting on. I tried to drive this and smoke came out of the engine. Gerry came over and said rats had made a nest and eaten all the wires. It’s completely gone. He can’t fix it.
Rats, I ask.
That’s what he said. They nibbled through the wires.
Does your insurance cover it.
No, they say they need proof that rats ate the wires. I told them I’d bring one in as a witness to testify to his acts, but how good are they with plea deals.
Jesus. I lean in closer. That’s disgusting. So did they do that damage overnight or were you driving around with them in there.
I don’t know. I suppose if they’d been in there when I was driving, I’d have burned them out, but there’s no dead ones in there that I can see. But it doesn’t explain what they’re doing in the piano.
There’s rats in the piano, I call after him, wide-eyed. As disgusted as I am, I’m relieved he’s not losing it after all. If Gerry was a witness to this then it means he hasn’t made it up. But it leaves the lamb open for investigation. Detective Freckles.
No, not rats, he says as I join him in the music room. I’d say these are mice. House mice.
He has a beautiful baby grand piano. Throughout my youth he taught classes here, individual classes for children and adults, hour after hour on a Saturday. I would play outside or upstairs in my room or watch TV while listening to wrong notes and slow playing while he patiently guided them. Always so patient.
He holds a finger up for me to listen.
I listen.
The room is silent, I don’t hear anything. Just a creak in the floorboards as I shift my weight.
Sshh, he says, annoyed by my disturbance.
He looks into thin air, ear cocked. Something triggers his head to move. He looks at me hopefully. Did I hear that.
I, I clear my throat, I didn’t hear anything.
He stares at the piano. Well it’s not playing right, he says.
Maybe it needs to be tuned. Play me something.
He sits down. His fingers move gently over the keys as he thinks of what to play, as they try to find their place. Mozart’s Piano Concerto number twenty-three, second movement, he says, more to himself, and he starts to play. I’ve heard him play this piece before many times. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, but haunting. He once bought me a ceramic ballet dancer that played this music when it spun around. You would have to twist it, wind it up, and it would start playing fast but then slow down. Sometimes during the night it would let out a sudden tune, giving me a fright, and as it twisted all by itself I would hide under the covers, avoiding the cold stare of the ballet dancer’s blue eyes. It’s beautiful when Pops plays it, but it always haunted me.
He plays one dud note and he bangs his hands down on the keys. Loudly, dramatically. The deep notes echo for a moment.