Mother had a dreadful fear of mice and rats, it was one of those things that as a youngster I could never fully comprehend, like her similar but less acute fearful reaction to the noises of bonfire night. I never shivered in an air raid, otherwise I might had more sympathy when she'd cower on the 5th of November. It took me longer to empathise with her fear of rodents, mother was a robust and muscular woman whose fear of those creatures seemed incongruous but whenever she'd encounter them her audible protests would make anyone believe her the epitome of a shrieking hysterical female stereotype.
Well one day, she explained the fear to me, it was something that made me shudder. "They're an omen," she said but not in so many words. She went on to explain about the death of her mother, she was living in London at the time, one night she'd dreamt of a rat. It sounded as if she was suffering from night terrors from her recollection of the experience, she couldn't tell if was real or not. The next morning she had telegram telling her of her mothers passing.
"Just a coincidence," I said.
"Yes but it had happened before" this aroused my curiosity so I asked when? she spoke of the night before her sister, my auntie Nora, died, the same thing happened. Something that was easy to dismiss as another coincidence, then she recollected a third incident that occurred when she'd travelled home to Ebbw Vale for her mother's funeral. There was a rat in the room and it jumped on the bed or so she thought, it could've been another dream, a little later she got the word that her first husband was missing presumed killed.
"I've seen loads of mice and rats, nobody died" she looked at me with the world weary resignation that is spawned when confronted with implacable scepticism.
"It's different for me," she said then she showed me, "Look at this" I saw the birth mark on her thigh, I couldn't make it out at first, it had obviously faded with age but as examined it closer, I saw the the unmistakable outline of a rat etched onto her living flesh.
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