The half-life of songs

The villagers were waiting for us in The Dog.

‘Bernice, Alan,’ they called out with breathless excitement.

Nora, a delicate, bony woman with tiny hooves for feet, stepped forward. ‘So nice to see you both. Reg, at the post office told us your names. This is Miles, the landlord. He is looking forward to Mr Coulthard becoming one of The Dog barflies. But first of all, about your bijou housewarming the other night; next time you host a social gathering at Glebe cottage don’t forget to give Miles a little notice. He has his events to plan.’

I looked at Nora’s shiny gold slippers and ochre, wrinkly skin like a overdone chicken’s.

‘Events?’

‘Quiz nights, hot pot suppers, sometimes a modern comedian. It all happens here. Imagine: karaoke booked, but all the villagers chez Coulthard chomping down on Bernice’s exquisite vol-au-vents. No-one in the boozer, and I will survive belting into an empty room. This place, Bernice,’ she pressed Bernice’s arm, as if testing for ripeness, discovering her environment the way beasts do, ‘is the hub of it all.’

Drinks in hand, we set off towards an alcove, but Nora leapt in front of us. ‘You can’t go off on your own like that, Bernice and Alan.’ She looked as if she was about to faint. ‘No, no, no. Mr Coulthard must stand with the men.’ She nodded to a herd of check and gabardine figures, laughing conspiratorially. ‘And you, my dear, will sit with us girls. Come.’

A man from a farm told me about a brand of sheep-dip that glowed in the dark, about the use of un-taxable red diesel, and about the ram with one testicle who was the best inseminator in the valley, Then he clapped his broad hands together and called out, ‘Way, hay, hay, karaoke.’

Nora handed out the song list, explaining that the people who had Glebe cottage before us did "Avenues and Alleyways" and "Stand By Your Man". What would our songs be? They’d heard we were modern.

I chose "Blowing in the Wind", appropriately quiet, and requiring no elaborate stage business, and standing there crooning, with the whole room singing along, I thought about how the villagers would react the following morning to the PowerPoint slide illustrating the thousands of spent rods we would bury beneath their floors, half a mile under the surface of the earth. They would understand. People who sing together have a positive attitude to change. You learn to listen, and adjust your tone to the tones around you. You breathe as a group. It’s mainly about breathing.

Celia’s mum’s rat

I was alone, away from home, and bored, so I lay on the hotel bed and scrolled through the names in my mobile phone. It was then I came across the strange entry. Celia’s mum’s rat.

I had no idea Celia’s mother owned a rat. And if Celia’s mother owned a rat, why had she felt the need to buy it a mobile phone? And why had I at some point needed the rat’s number, and needed it frequently enough to enter it into the phone’s memory? Or, rather, felt a need to know that if the rat called, I would know who it was. Maybe at some point I had decided to avoid the rat’s calls or at least wanted time to prepare an excuse as to why I wouldn’t be able to assist the rat. Yet surely, if Celia’s mum’s rat were important enough to own its own phone, the rat would have a name? After all, we didn’t call Celia’s mum’s boyfriend, Celia’s mum’s boyfriend. We called him Raymond.

I imagined the sleek, smug-faced rodent lying on a miniature chaise longue, the mobile clamped to its ear, squeaking away to other rats with similar luxurious accessories. Budgies have mirrors, hamsters have wheels, what do rats have? Phones. Was there a computerised system to translate the rat’s squeaks into rudimentary requests? Like food, bedding, water? Handling maybe?

I looked about me at the bleak hotel room. The clock said 11.30. Celia’s mum’s rat might feel a sudden desire to be handled at any time. Celia’s mum and Raymond might be out. My phone would ring and the robot voice would say I WANT YOU TO HANDLE ME NOW, PLEASE.

It was a chilling thought. I turned off my phone and tried to sleep, but the idea of the rat was adhesive. The phone would ring, the demand would be made, and I would drop everything. To assist Celia’s mum’s rat was my purpose in life.