George remarked to Nimrod, who had come in to be fed, “She’s all right, but I’m not so happy about having him next door.” He put on the kettle again, preparing do the neighbourly thing and take them both some fresh tea and biscuits.
“Into the fray, Nimmy, old friend,” he said as he ventured out of the door, tray in hand.
Keith didn’t even get off the wall. “For us? Nice timing, squire,” he said without removing his cigarette. “Go right in, mate.”
“George Blackitt, from next door,” said George still holding the tray and therefore unable to offer his hand as he would have wished.
Keith shouted in a voice the whole village must have heard, “Han, are you there? Guy here with some Rosy Lea.”
George stepped gingerly into the cluttered living room. Furniture and boxes stood in disorder everywhere.
“Mr Blackitt, what a marvellous thought!” said Hannah, appearing from the kitchen. “This is so generous.”
“I’ll leave it on the piano, shall I?” said George. “There’s no hurry for the things. Tomorrow will do.”
“Please don’t rush off,” she said. “Stay and have some with us. Don’t worry, I’ve got a spare mug somewhere. That’s one thing we have unpacked.”
“Moving is a pain in the arse, ain’t it, George?” Keith’s voice said from the doorway. “Park yours on the chair, mate. Han and I don’t mind squatting on the floor.”
George took the mug Hannah handed him and sat like a throned king with slaves at his feet. Hannah offered some carrot cake that they’d brought with them. George politely declined.
“Don’t blame you,” said Keith. “Hippie food. We’ll feed it to the mice.”
“Mice?” said George.
Hannah laughed. “Don’t worry. The cottage hasn’t got mice, so far as I know. Keith has just bought this pair for breeding.”
“Caged mice?”
“I’ll show you.” Keith was on his feet and searching among the packing cases. “Here we are.” He brought out a glass tank and held it under George’s nose. “Ollie and Freda, my latest investment. Still kipping from the journey.”
George glanced into the tank with trepidation. The mice weren’t visible. They were hiding under a shelter of sawdust and shredded newspaper in one corner. It moved in tiny spasms as Keith tapped the glass.
“Here, put the tank on your knees a sec,” said Keith. Immediately he plunged his hand into the sawdust and hauled a mouse out by its tail. “It’s either Ollie or Freda. Not easy to tell.”
“Put it down, Keith,” said Hannah.
“That’s how you handle them,” said Keith with nonchalance, but he then allowed the mouse to rest in his free hand. It crouched shivering. “I’ve never been without a pet, but fancy mice are something new.”
“It looks a very fine specimen,” said George, who was also beginning to know a little about mice.
“Short-haired silver-hood.”
George felt his blood run cold. From all his conversations with Edith, short-haired silver-hoods were the only variety capable of outclassing her long-haired black and white hooded mice. And these people possessed a pair. “These... these are really rare, I believe.”
“Yeah.” Keith released the mouse into the tank. “They cost me a bomb. Well, if you’re breeding, you don’t want to use rubbish.”
“Are you interested in mice, George?” asked Hannah.
“Well, em,” George said guardedly. “A friend of mine keeps some and she and I... well, we take a passing interest.”
“So you’ll be going to the Fancy Mouse Show at Warminster, will you?” exclaimed Hannah, bringing her hands together in delight.
“Well, possibly. It’s a long time off.”
“Oh, do! It should be a hoot. We read about it in the local paper. Imagine, giving rosettes to mice.” She giggled. “If Keith wins one, he says he’s going to pin it up in the little room.”
“Yeah,” said Keith. “And if Ollie and Freda get on with it, we’ll have a totally red silk bog this time next year.”
“Cool,” said Hannah.
“Yes, cool,” said George dismally.
Two weekends later he was horrified to see Keith unloading ten glass cages from the Land Rover. They went straight into the shed at the bottom of their garden.
George slept fitfully that night. He hadn’t slept so badly since the summer of 1940, only this time it wasn’t the threat of German air-raids that kept him awake; it was the prospect of umpteen short-haired silver hooded mice in the garden shed next door. September was fast approaching and with it the culmination of Edith’s breeding programme to secure her election to the National Fancy Mouse Society. He hadn’t said a word to her about the newly-arrived competition. He knew it would break her heart.
“George, you look so downcast. I suspect that you aren’t looking after yourself properly,” she remarked in the men’s outfitters when they were buying George a new linen jacket for the occasion. “Chin up, now. Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing, Edith,” he lied.
“Come over on Saturday and I’ll cook you a pie.”
George had spent many hours watching the activity in the garden shed. Sacks of feed had gone in. And an electric cable, presumably to supply heating next winter. The shed was built on the far side of Keith and Hannah’s garden, but if George weeded his verge by the dividing fence he could just see the darkened outlines of the mouse tanks inside. And often he saw Keith in there, handling his mice.
One August morning he called out, “How’s it going, then?”
“What’s that?” said Keith.
“The breeding.”
Keith laughed. “They breed like mice, mate.”
“Could I see them?”
“Love to show you, George, but I’m on location this week. Got to fly.”
“You don’t appear to have any lids on the tanks that I can see... Not that I’ve been prying, of course.”
“George,” said Keith smugly, “they’re mice, not salamanders. They can’t climb sheer glass walls, mate. Don’t worry, none of the little beggars will get out. If they did, your old cat would have them, and who could blame him? But I keep the shed locked, so don’t lose any sleep over it.”
On the Thursday before the show, George had a stroke of luck. He had just been running Saturday’s ghastly scenario through his head when Hannah called.
“Oh, Mr Blackitt,” she said. “I hardly like to ask, but you were so kind when we moved in. I wonder if you could do us a favour. Keith is doing a night shoot at the Tower of London on Friday. With it being open for visitors, that’s the only time the cameras can get in there. I’ve never been and it’s a wonderful chance. Would you mind keeping an eye on the cottage for us? It’s just one night, but you never know.”
A spark of hope glimmered in the ashes of George’s sunken aspirations. “I’ll be only too pleased. But what about the mice? Would you like me to feed them?”
“No, they’ll be perfectly all right. Keith will feed them before we go and we’ll be back first thing on Saturday.”
“My dear, there’s no need to rush back.”
“Oh, but there is. We’ve entered for the Mouse Show, just for a laugh, as Keith says. We’ll see you there, I hope.”
Just as she turned to leave, Nimrod came in through the cat-flap. “Aren’t you beautiful?” Hannah said, stooping to stroke him. “What’s his name, Mr Blackitt?”
“Nimrod.” Usually George explained the origin of the name. This time he chose not to.