One of the cats caught a mouse. I couldn't be sure which of them it was, I'd opened the door and they'd come tumbling in in a scurry of fur and excitement. It was only when I went to pull the door across to close it (only to open it again five minutes later and then close it and then open it and then close it for that is our routine now in the evenings) that I noticed the mouse in a foetal curl on the bristle mat, its tail an eroteme.
Oh look! I said to Andrew. A present! We're supposed to congratulate them, you know!
And I, for my part, was genuinely delighted.
Andrew got the dustpan.
Wait! I said. I want to take a photo! I took two, on my phone. Later, after the mouse had been dustpanned into a plastic bag, knotted and dumped in the garden bin, I sat down on the couch, cropped the better of the photos and tried to find an Instagram filter that would hide the yellow of its teeth.
