Battle Lines

Battle Lines
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published: Saturday April 18, 2015

I am no longer the coolly self-possessed mistress of my kitchen. The ants I tried to befriend at Christmas have become zealots. I practice my domestic sciences in an atmosphere of fear and ambuscades. A bagel crumb left languishing beside the toaster becomes besieged within hours. With military precision, the ants blockade the west bank of my benchtop. Each day they emerge from a different crack. Despite my obsessive cleaning, I am under renewed siege.

At 6am, newly awake, I steel myself for what awaits me in the kitchen. I pad noiselessly across the cork floor and cast a bleary eye towards the sink. No ants. A small thud of relief. I reach for a teabag from Mr Twining. The red box remains pleasingly inviolate. I wait for the kettle to regain consciousness while I split a Hot Cross Bun and jam the halves into the toaster. I reach for the butter cloche and lift the lid.

It’s an ambush! My butter is a black and seething mass. Now I notice ants are pouring from a crack in the wall. They charge down the splashback and into the dish. I am suddenly alert and incensed. Sensing my presence (and recognising the Domestic Tyrant looming murderously over them), the ants race in all directions.

I snatch up the yellow slab with one hand, flick the hot tap and douse the butter. The black army’s front line charges up my arm. A suicide squad leaps into the oily whirlpool below. I hold the butter under the hot water trying not to flinch. A dozen ants try to hide in the nook of my elbow but I brush them to their deaths in the swirling sink. The pluckier ones take refuge on the underside of the butter pat but their footholds dissolve and they plummet to the plughole.

My hand is a greasy scald and three dollars worth of Watsonia has melted down the sink but I don’t care. With a wet paper towel, I mop up the stragglers. All but a thin black trail has now vanished into a pin-hole in the splashback. I march to the bathroom and grab the baby powder. Raining talc upon their blue-tiled bunker, I watch the rearguard flounder in white snow. (There will be but one queen today).

It’s a hollow victory. I awake next morning to find my entire kitchen is occupied territory. The ants have brought in fresh battalions. My sink is crawling with enemy formations. Two black columns, one advancing, one withdrawing, run the length my benchtop. This morning’s ants march over yesterday’s fallen comrades. The Axis of Evil extends to the dishwasher. I am newly enraged.

I cannot plan my retribution without a cup of tea. I flip open the Twinings box. Ants swarm out from under the tea bags. I feel queasy at the sight of so many crawling creatures. Panicking, I seize the box and bolt outside, flinging the anty tea bags onto the grass.

Hatred boils inside my brain. Yet again, I will waste an hour swiping and sterilising the kitchen. Walking inside with one salvaged teabag, I catch teenage son carving up a loaf of bread on the bench. “Use a board!” I shriek. “There can be no crumbs! The ants! No crumbs!”

“Calm your farm,” he says. With a sweep of his hand, he rains breadcrumbs onto the floor.

“Arrgh” I wail. “Clean it up! The ants! They’re taking over.”

Sleepy husband wanders into the kitchen. He squints and adjusts the crotch of his plaid pyjama trousers like a modern-day George Roper to my Mildred.

“What’s all the fuss?”

Teenage son smirks: “Mum thinks the ants are winning.”

“Hasn’t she heard of bug spray?” laughs my husband, as though I’m invisible.

“Yes, I have,” I interject. “But I’m not using spray in the kitchen. Unless you want me to poison your breakfast?”

Husband shrugs and slots a coffee pod into the machine. He leans against the bench while it gurgles to life. I admire his tartan panache as he absentmindedly squashes an ant with the whorl of his fingerprint.

Watching the ant-slayer, I feel suddenly protective of my tiny foe. We’ve been through much together, those ants and I. Over and over, we hear the same tiresome mantra from our nests: “What’s for dinner?” Perhaps we should share the spoils of my kitchen, crumb by crumb?

Next morning, my magnolias are drinking a soft rain. I wander into the kitchen and wake the kettle. I note the sink is still pristine; the benchtop a pure slab of white. I lift up the toaster, check behind the butter dish, peer into the tea box. Not a single ant. Not the next morning, either. A week later we remain ant free. I never dreamt I’d say this, but I kinda miss them.