I just want the creatures of the forest to fear me. Is that too much to ask?
Tim Dowling: me and the squirrel, it's war
Early on Monday morning, a damp autumn chill greets me when I open the garden door. I make my way down the little brick path to my office shed, coffee in one hand, keys in the other, and walk straight through a spider’s web.
The elaborate web has been constructed overnight; as I move forwards, it wraps itself around my head, trapping the large and agitated spider at its centre against my lips. Generally speaking, I don’t have a problem with spiders, but I do have a problem with this. To anyone watching from a window, it would look as if I were trying, and failing, to defend myself against an invisible assailant, coffee flying everywhere.
At some point in the middle of September, the local wildlife made a bid to reclaim the space between my office door and the kitchen. There are half a dozen fresh spiders’ webs in place every morning. By Wednesday, I’ve learned to windmill my arms as I walk across the lawn, but I’ve stopped pulling the spiders’ webs from my clothes. On Thursday morning, I step on a slug the size of a banana.
Then there’s the squirrel, who has suddenly decided that my presence constitutes no hindrance to his autumn business. One afternoon, I look up from my work to see the squirrel sitting on my office step, watching me through the open door, and eating a cherry tomato with both hands.
“That is my tomato,” I say.
He looks at me as if to say: come and get it.
The next day, I watch him sneak up on the cat, which is crouched under a bush, watching a pigeon. The squirrel approaches from behind until it’s within two feet of the cat’s back, and then does a taunting dance with its tail.
“Hey!” I shout. By the time the cat’s head has turned, the squirrel is gone.
“What is the point of having pets if they don’t keep wildlife at bay?” I say, walking into the kitchen.
“What are you talking about?” my wife says.
“The bold squirrel,” I say.
“Oh, that one,” she says. “He really doesn’t give a shit.”
“He runs around on the roof of my shed,” I say. “He decimates my crops right in front of me.”
“You’re covered in spiders’ webs,” my wife says, brushing the back of my jumper.
“I know,” I say. “I feel like Miss Havisham.”
“They’re in your hair,” she says.
“I just want the creatures of the forest to fear me,” I say. “Is that too much to ask?”
The next morning, it’s raining when I open the back door. I find the tortoise sitting under the garden table, wearing an expression that says: I don’t like it out here any more.
“Fair enough,” I say. I pick him up and take him back to the kitchen, where he crawls under the dog’s bed – a sure sign that summer is over.
On the way back to my office, I notice a dense wigwam of runner bean plants rustling in the wind, except there is no wind. When I get closer, the whole assembly begins to shake violently, as if it means to rip itself from the ground. Then the squirrel pokes his head out from between the leaves and looks at me.
“You,” I say.
The squirrel cocks his head as if to say: that’s right, me.
A few days later, the sun comes out and autumn is put on hold once more. I am sitting in my office with the door wide open, my eyes fixed on a point in space midway between my nose and my computer screen.
My wife appears, giving me a jump. “Your squirrel just ran through the house,” she says.
“What?” I say.
“He got into some kind of standoff with the dog,” she says. “And the dog chased him into the kitchen, down the hall and out the front door.”
“Why was the front door even open?” I ask.
“I was taking out the recycling,” she says. “They both shot past me on my way back in.”
“What if it hadn’t been open?” I say. “He’d be in there now, watching Netflix.”
“He is bold,” she says.
“This is not over,” I say.
