‘Have you nicked my glasses cleaning cloth?’ I demanded.
‘What glasses cleaning cloth?’ my wife replied without bothering to look up from her Sudoku puzzle.
‘The one I keep on my desk. The really nice big one.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I decided to leave it. I would catch her out later, polishing her glasses when she thought I wasn’t looking. I missed having the cloth within immediate reach whenever I was working and suddenly noticed finger-marks on my glasses. It had also been particularly good for polishing computer and iPad screens.
There are certain things that need to be in the right place so that you don’t have to go looking for them and break your concentration while in full creative flow. The most important of these things is a steady supply of nuts and raisins for those moments when sudden pangs of hunger strike and there is no immediate prospect of a meal. That was why I was even more peeved a few days later to find that someone had moved some of my nuts from the open jar and secreted them in a small drawer where I keep paper and calling cards.
‘Have you been moving my nuts?’ I asked, less sure that this accusation sounded credible.
This time she thought it worth looking up. ‘Are you mad?’ she enquired in a voice that suggested she had already decided what the answer was. ‘You’ve probably got mice.’
‘If I had mice I would have seen signs of droppings,’ I replied, indignant at the very thought. ‘Why would I get mice?’
‘Because you leave your nuts lying all over the place.’
I refused to continue with the conversation and my certainty that I was being targeted in some subtle hate campaign was reinforced a few days later when someone severed the lead on my headphones and dropped the earpieces into the open jar of nuts. This, it seemed to me, was now turning into one of those movies where Michael Douglas ends up being attacked with a knife. Even my wife could see that this latest development was intriguing.
‘You must have mice,’ she said categorically. ‘I told you, you need to clean up in there.’
‘There are no droppings,’ I insisted, certain that man-the-hunter would know if he was being invaded by wild life. ‘And anyway the cat would have got them.’
‘The cat is too deaf to hear a dog in clogs coming these days,’ she pointed out. ‘You can’t rely on her.’
The following morning I came into the office to find the cat deeply asleep on my chair and an alarmingly well-nourished mouse staring at me from on top of my keyboard. Although he seemed in no hurry to leave I still failed to get him before he vanished through an impossibly small hole in the skirting board, at which point the cat deigned to wake up and stretch luxuriantly. In my search for my prey I opened drawers that hadn’t been opened for some time, revealing my favourite glasses cleaning cloth, shredded into bedding and shaped into a cosy nest.
I had been made a laughing stock and my revenge was fast and effective (thanks to B&Q), with 12 of the invaders dead within days and my nuts secured beneath a tight fitting lid. My wife kindly refrained from gloating.