Carol’s Column

Of plague ... and things

"RATS give you plague and syphilis," announced my nine-year-old son.

I missed the shovel, lost my step and landed among the sprouting radishes.

"Quite right, Jamie, rats can carry plague," I answered as I got to my feet, dusted off the soil and retrieved my breath and the shovel.

"Hey, look at that radish!" I shouted tactfully, "Isn't it just the biggest one you've ever seen?"

He nodded. "So what gives you syphilis?" he asked, not distracted for a minute.

The toilet seat story went out with the ark.

Anyway, answer your kid's questions honestly, say the experts, otherwise you'll land up with a psychological misfit who thinks that babies and margarine are made by the same factory.

You'll land up with a kid who fantasies and can grow up imagining he's King Kong or Prince Charles — take your pick.

Of course my late grandmother thought fantasy a healthy pastime.

A font of wisdom, she was full of homespun truisms such as: "Don't worry, let him enjoy Santa Claus — when he's 21, he'll know it's Uncle Abie in a red dressing gown."

Or: "Don't worry — he won't wet his bed when he's 21 — and if he does, he can change the sheets himself.

Nevertheless, I reckoned, I'd sock it to him straight.

"People sometimes catch syphilis when they sleep together."

"Have you and Daddy got it?"

I lifted my eyes heavenwards and wished for him to vanish, momentarily but quickly, you understand.

Just then, in the way that often happens with small boys, he lost interest in the conversation.

He smiled engagingly, his speckled, freckled nose wrinkling, and swung a fat rat under my nose.

I screamed.

Loudly enough to wake my spouse from his Saturday slumber on the sofa.

Jamie was unperturbed.

"Think I'll catch something, Ma?" he asked hopefully, "Then I'll have to miss school.

"Jamie, just drop that rat and go wash your hands in Dettol," I shrieked.

"Ma's upset," I heard him tell his father as he passed him en route. "Her left eye's twitching and she's puffing up."

The front gate clanged and in walked my mother-in-law who took one look at the plump but stiffening rat and turned white.

The trumpet of doom, she pronounced: "When you see one, you know there are thousands more."

I phoned the rat catcher immediately.

"Madam, pour yourself a large brandy and relax," he said soothingly over the phone.

"I'll be along immediately. I'm in that area today anyway. There's a right run of rats in Parkwood right now."

"There's a right run of rats in Parkwood," I repeated to my husband as he unconcernedly re-settled his stomach into the appropriate hollows worn in the couch.

True to his word, the rat catcher arrived, armed with rat traps and bait.

He checked the garden: "Oh yes, plenty of rats here," he said, prodding my husband's organic naturally-matured compost heap. It growled back in protest.

The outbuildings: "Ah yes, quite a treasure trove, we've got plenty of the naughty little beggars here."

Naughty little beggars?

The roof: "Look at these lovely droppings, I wonder who they could belong to. Not Father Christmas hey? Ha, ha, ha."

Ha.

He looked at me.

"Don't worry, within a week — we'll have caught the little creatures."

He spread his traps upstairs, downstairs and everywhere a trap could go.

His parting words were full of hope. "Tomorrow they'll be full — you'll see.

He was right. They were full.

In less than 24 hours, we caught one white miniature maltese poodle, my husband's left foot and a soccer ball.

Happily, the rats continued to frolic, unbothered and undisturbed.

That night I couldn't sleep. Dark pictures of plague and worse, crossed my mind. I imagined furry bodies with beady eyes creeping overhead.

At 2am I jerked my husband awake.

"Listen, listen, can you hear the patter of little feet?

"Those little feet are your son's size 9's on their way to the toilet," he mumbled and he rolled over.

Next day there was great jubilation tempered by tragedy.

"We've got one but he's injured," cried Jamie, tears streaming down his face.

In the trap, was the cutest little rat you'd ever seen. There was blood at the end of his nose and his brown eyes looked at me reproachfully.

"Ma, do something," wailed the kids.

"This is ridiculous," I grumbled to the kids as I sped along Jan Smuts Avenue. "Who else would rescue a rat from a trap and take him to the vet for the kiss of life?"

"Just see you set him free at the Zoo Lake, from a boat," shouted my husband, exasperated by the whole affair.

Duly resuscitated, injected, de-flead and named Rawhide-the-rat, he moved into the hamster cage newly vacated by the sad demise of its previous owner.

Beyond the pale, his colleagues flourished.

We tried everything.

Fumigators, rat catchers, poison pellets, powder, and traps. And still the patter of little feet galloped through the house.

And then, as suddenly as they came, they vanished.

That evening I heard Jamie telling my mother in Cape Town, the sad and sorry saga: "And you know what, Ouma," he said, his voice strident and piercing down the line, "Rats give you plague and sniffles. They're terribly dangerous."

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