29 JANUARY 1994, Page 44

The Bat

It was flapping and banging round, a huge black moth circling the light — no, amazingly, not banging, never hitting, skittering far out by walls and cupboards. Suddenly it settled on a teacloth, swung down and hid its wings. Its back was small like a baby mouse's. When I touched it didn't move, or its toes tightened imperceptibly.

Its face was blindly closed.

I saw my mother's vivid face, her nose like a greyhound's, eagerly lifted.

It could have been her soul come back to see us in the house, but light bewildered it. I carried it out into the dark and shook it free.

Edmund Prestwich