PenWomanShip

That'll be Henry starting up his car.

Once the garage door has slid back down to the ground, I'll go raid the fridge. I hope he filled it last night when he came home. Yesterday there was only a half-eaten tin of sardines. I don't even like sardines, much less sardines that have sat open in the fridge for weeks.

I'm Henry's mouse. He hears me scuttle under the floorboards when he sleeps. Perhaps he wakes for a moment, wondering if I am a ghost: The ghost of Sylvia walks the old house in the deep of the night. Then he falls back asleep.

Boo!

Yes, it is an old house. Old grey stone on the outside, mellowed sloping floors on the inside. Henry installed the family grand in the drawing room. So genteel. But he doesn't play very well.

And I am Sylvia, but no, I am not a ghost. I am his wife. Make that his unappreciated wife.

Like I said, Henry's mouse.

I found the trapdoor six months ago. Henry will never find it. He's too unimaginative. But I found it when the cat went missing. I heard her meowing, then I saw the hole. Very small. In the floorboards behind the piano. But I do not suffer from lack of imagination, and I found my way in.

And when I found my way in, I saw the light. What I mean is, I saw how I could get back at Henry.

I cleaned up that room inch by inch so that I could move in. I shifted things in that I should like to keep by me. Books. A torch and a stock of batteries. And a sleeping bag and air mattress.

I did not have to take much. When Henry is out during the day, I can come out of my mouse hole and do as I please. Take a shower. Listen to Ella Fitzgerald on the stereo. Wash my clothes. Bake a cake.

The first day, Henry went hungry waiting for me to fix his tea. The second day, he called the police. I could hear them, Henry and the policeman, talking just outside my trapdoor. I noticed that Henry was very calm. I kept quiet as a mouse.

You see, women need to be noticed. When I put that extra curl in my hair, I expected a hot nudge in the night. I am a woman, after all. A lovely woman, some say.

He's still waiting for me to come home. Or waiting for bad news. He runs for the phone whenever it rings. He never used to.

I like to move things around a little when I'm up and about in the house each day. Just enough to make him scratch his head. I'll erase the messages on the Ansaphone, or turn on the bathroom light that he has turned off.

But Henry is not very imaginative. He soon forgets.

I should really like some chocolate now. Henry doesn't eat chocolate. I haven't gone to the shops yet. Maybe someone would recognize me. That could spoil my game. Maybe they wouldn't be sure. "Wasn't that Mrs Tolliver just now?" the shop assistant would ask. Of course if someone questioned me, I would just deny it.

It could be interesting.

Who would have thought that being a mouse could be so much fun?