Extract from "Listening in the Loose Grass," by Jennie Erdal. Forthcoming in The Book of Iona: an Anthology, edited by Robert Crawford. (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2016)
It started with woodworm.
Ruth is perched on the loft ladder, fourth rung from the top, head poking through the hatch, awaiting the verdict. The man from Rentokil crouches at the far end of the attic, legs straddling the joists. Anobium punctatum, he says, elongating both words, as if to a simpleton, each syllable a tiny vocalized missile, launched across the roof space. That’s what the experts say, those of us in the trade. He pauses, long enough for expertise to be noted. – People who’re not in the trade, they call it woodworm. They’re wrong of course. It’s not even a worm. With a knowing smile he pulls himself up off his haunches. It’s actually a beetle, he says, jubilant now, body arched under the coom, crawling towards her, a creature out of Kafka. – That’s the anobium part. He reaches the hatch, his head level now with hers. – In Latin, that is.
Ruth is treated to a treatise on the life cycle of the beast. There are evidently four stages. He delineates each one. She has that confined feeling, the kind she used to get in the front row of the theatre, too near the action, too immediate. There is pupating, there is hatching, there are chambers and tunnels, eggs and exit holes. He says the beetles breed like nobody’s business, and he purses his lips, pushing a thumb into a honeycombed joist. – It’s a vicious cycle, you see. Circle, she wants to say, vicious circle. But she stops herself. This is a man who loves his job. He wipes his large hand over the dust and presents an outstretched palm to her face. And these are the faeces, he says, millions of faeces. He pronounces it fishes, which throws her for a moment. She wants this to be over. She is weary, short on sleep. – Can you fix it?
There is a long pause, as if her question might be the wrong one. She wonders for a moment if she has shown the wrong man into her attic. Fix it? he says at last, kneading the faeces into his trousers. Just you say the word, my dear, and I’ll be back like a shot. We can’t have the house falling about your ears, can we?
On account of the infestation Ruth took a lodger. The expense of drafting in professionals from the mainland – structural checks, replacement of timbers, the treatment itself – called for extreme measures. Most crofters did bed and breakfast to eke out their living. Diversification they called it. She had done it too at one time, but only to please her father. With him gone these past two years and her taking sole charge there was no longer the time or the inclination. In any case expectations were different now – ong sweet being the latest. Was the room ong sweet, people always asked. As if it were normal to have a bathroom in the bedroom, to pee in the place that was for sleeping.
Ruth is perched on the loft ladder, fourth rung from the top, head poking through the hatch, awaiting the verdict. The man from Rentokil crouches at the far end of the attic, legs straddling the joists. Anobium punctatum, he says, elongating both words, as if to a simpleton, each syllable a tiny vocalized missile, launched across the roof space. That’s what the experts say, those of us in the trade. He pauses, long enough for expertise to be noted. – People who’re not in the trade, they call it woodworm. They’re wrong of course. It’s not even a worm. With a knowing smile he pulls himself up off his haunches. It’s actually a beetle, he says, jubilant now, body arched under the coom, crawling towards her, a creature out of Kafka. – That’s the anobium part. He reaches the hatch, his head level now with hers. – In Latin, that is.
Ruth is treated to a treatise on the life cycle of the beast. There are evidently four stages. He delineates each one. She has that confined feeling, the kind she used to get in the front row of the theatre, too near the action, too immediate. There is pupating, there is hatching, there are chambers and tunnels, eggs and exit holes. He says the beetles breed like nobody’s business, and he purses his lips, pushing a thumb into a honeycombed joist. – It’s a vicious cycle, you see. Circle, she wants to say, vicious circle. But she stops herself. This is a man who loves his job. He wipes his large hand over the dust and presents an outstretched palm to her face. And these are the faeces, he says, millions of faeces. He pronounces it fishes, which throws her for a moment. She wants this to be over. She is weary, short on sleep. – Can you fix it?
There is a long pause, as if her question might be the wrong one. She wonders for a moment if she has shown the wrong man into her attic. Fix it? he says at last, kneading the faeces into his trousers. Just you say the word, my dear, and I’ll be back like a shot. We can’t have the house falling about your ears, can we?
On account of the infestation Ruth took a lodger. The expense of drafting in professionals from the mainland – structural checks, replacement of timbers, the treatment itself – called for extreme measures. Most crofters did bed and breakfast to eke out their living. Diversification they called it. She had done it too at one time, but only to please her father. With him gone these past two years and her taking sole charge there was no longer the time or the inclination. In any case expectations were different now – ong sweet being the latest. Was the room ong sweet, people always asked. As if it were normal to have a bathroom in the bedroom, to pee in the place that was for sleeping.