Rats thrive in damp conditions, the pest controller told me, I tell W. Riverbanks, sewerage systems … that's why they've set up camp beside my drain, he tells me. They like to be close to water. And this whole street is very damp, it's known for it, he tells me.
There's a tunnel that runs beneath the houses. A coal tunnel – the Victoria tunnel, it's called - along which they used to send carts down to the quayside. It's part of the sewerage system now, he says. It's full of rats, the controller says. You can't imagine. They burrow down into the tunnel and out of it again, up to the houses. They come up through broken pipes, he says. They tunnel up through the mud (there are no proper foundations to keep them out).
And there's a culvert that runs under the houses, too, he told me, I tell W. A diverted river, that came up from a spring around here. It runs all the way into town. That's full of rats, too. Swarming with them. Imagine it, I tell W. Rats swimming through the culvert. Rats, sleek rats, swarming in and out of the culvert walls …
And then there are the tunnels leftover from mining, the pest controller told me. This area is riddled with them, and they're not all properly blocked up. They go down to the bowels of the earth, I tell W. I see it as Jacob saw the ladder, with the angels climbing up and down. I see rats running up and down their tunnels. Rats ascending and descending, their noses twitching. Rats with their whiskers, up, down and along in the honeycomb of tunnels beneath my flat. Rats, only rats, all the way down to the core of the earth …
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