“How long will it take to die?”

“I don’t know, a week?”

“No,” I said shocked, “I’m not staying here.”

He looked surprised, as though there was no problem, as if we could simply turn up the volume on the telly and lock out it’s last tragic moments, be deaf to the pain and fear and eventual desperate resignation of its fate.

I tried to cut it free, he found me late at night, kneeling on the floor, sawing through the wall at the back of the cupboard.

“I could hear it scratching furious and determined, then the noise ebbing away, hopeless barely audible only to return more desperate. Just when I thought it had weakened it rose strong and fighting for life.

“Oh no, it’s a false wall, there’s another behind it.”

I cried as I gave up.

“Come on, “ he said, “We’ll go to a hotel, call it a holiday if you like.”


Our relationship died shortly after, our first home together also our last.

But the remains of that poor creature are still there today, bones and feathers, still trapped behind the kitchen wall, a tribute to the time I mistook our love for the real thing.