HEART BEAT:Bad news travels fast, but disaster is averted in the end
IT’S A bitterly cold day here in Kerry. The surrounding mountains are all snowcapped. We have been warned that more snow may be on the way. It is low tide and the Higher Authority and I have just walked the length of the beach. Apart from the occasional, quickly passing hail shower, it is a beautiful afternoon in a beautiful place.
The HA is incapable of sitting still and taking a day off from exercise. I have no such problem, although I know and believe that a modicum of daily exercise is an essential part of keeping active and healthy. Quite apart from that the HA does not let me sit still for more than 30 minutes at a time. At weekends I have another powerful motive – my exercise justifies my pint.
Shortly after our return to Dublin after Christmas, having been duly exercised and with the prospect of being fed, I was reading the Sunday newspapers suffused by a feeling of wellbeing. That as you all know is not a good thing. The phone rang and a neighbour of ours in Kerry inquired if our house was alright. He explained that it was snowing heavily and that while checking some houses he had encountered a litany of problems. I assured him that we had taken all our usual precautions before we left and that over the years we had never had weather-related troubles. This failed to convince him, he said he’d check anyway and headed out into the snow and gathering gloom.
I then had to translate this conversation to the HA, who assumed from the odd word she picked up that some natural disaster had occurred. Had I switched off the immersion heater? Had I set the central heating for background heat? Had I turned off the water? I might point out that none of these tasks ever fell to me before. I am barely qualified with the vacuum cleaner and have only a provisional licence to fill the dishwasher.
I explained patiently that no
disaster had occurred and that Paul was simply being a good neighbour. The phone rang again almost immediately and made a liar out of me. Paul told me that looking through one of the windows he could see water cascading down a light fitting into a little hallway. Where were the keys? Where were the stopcocks? All decision-making was instantly removed from my hands and the competent folk got on with it.
I was quickly assured that the problem had been dealt with in time and that damage was slight. There is a problem with perception here. The HA felt that it was clearly a flood of biblical proportions. My failure to concede this was taken as wilful stubbornness overlaid by guilt for allowing the mishap to occur at all. Some days passed and our neighbour rang to say all was in hand and that necessary repairs had been effected. He was so positive that I passed the call on to the HA so that she might be reassured. After a couple of minutes I heard her say, “You can’t be serious”. There was actually a small prayer before that remark. My antennae felt that this boded ill. She turned a tragic face to me and announced that there were “rats as big as cats” in the attic. I said a quick prayer for our good neighbour and weakly opined that it wasn’t the end of the world. That wasn’t the cleverest remark I’ve ever made.
To cut a long story short, here we are in Kerry with all repaired and not a rat in sight. However, the spectre of Leptospirosis and possibly Weil’s syndrome had been raised and had to be taken seriously. Rats can shed the causative organism in their urine for months after exposure, and quite apart from eliminating the rats it is necessary to clean everything that could be contaminated. It is rare, 100 cases or so in the US yearly, but there may be more people affected sub-clinically. It has been a severe winter and the rodents have sought warmth and shelter. Well, they can look somewhere else and not be causing me grief. If they exist here at all they have enough rat poison presented to them to clear the entire country. I am going to challenge the fates and observe that peace has been restored and that furthermore I have attained a modest degree of proficiency in scrubbing and cleaning. This wasn’t quite how I had envisaged retirement but there you are.
mneligan@irishtimes.ie