A Visit to the Isles

Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being thirty minutes of foreign travel, undertaken in a damp boat, to a fog.

A quay. Ropes, gulls, the slap of water. Rain, of course — travelling rain, which is the same as the other rain but further from home.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents A Visit to the Isles; in which Mr Horace P. Dudgeon, President for Life of No. 4½ Sump Lane, undertakes a grand expedition abroad, and arrives, after great peril, at a cousin.

Interior. The kitchen, before departure. HORACE, in a travelling cloak, packs a trunk with ceremony. MERCY watches.

HORACE. Mercy. A great man must broaden himself. He must see abroad. And the realm has but one abroad — the near Isles, off the Cold Coast — and to the Isles, therefore, I shall voyage. I shall return changed. Cosmopolitan. A man of the wider world.

MERCY. (flat) It's a two-hour row, Horace, in Loomis Skerry's boat, to a rock with your Aunt Nib's cousins on it. You've been before. You were sick off the harbour mouth.

HORACE. (loftily) That was a crossing, Mercy. This is an expedition. I have a cloak. I have a trunk. I have — (producing a booklet) — a phrase-book, for the tongue of the Isles.

MERCY. They speak the same as us, Horace. Bit slower. Bit wetter.

HORACE. (consulting booklet) "Greetings, Islander. I come in peace, from the mainland, a personage of standing." (beat) I have practised it. I shall say it on the shore, with one hand raised.

Interior. The boat. LOOMIS SKERRY rows, unbothered. Fog. HORACE, at the prow, cloak streaming, being an explorer.

HORACE. (declaiming into the fog) Onward, Skerry! Into the unknown! Beyond the edge of the known world! What lies ahead? What strange people? What strange —

LOOMIS. (flatly, rowing) Isles.

HORACE. — what customs? What dangers? Skerry, are these waters charted?

LOOMIS. (rowing) I've done 'em twice this morning. Took the post over and a cheese. (beat) Fog's the only danger and it's not dangerous, it's just wet. Sit down, you're rocking my expedition.

HORACE. (undimmed) And the Islanders — are they fierce? Are they — (dropping his voice) — foreign?

LOOMIS. They're your Aunt Nib's cousins, Horace. You were at a funeral with them. You had the ham.

Interior. The shore of the Isles. Gulls. HORACE steps out, raises one hand, declaims from the phrase-book.

HORACE. (grandly, hand aloft) GREETINGS, Islander! I come in peace, from the mainland — a personage of standing!

ISLAND VOICE. (mild, unimpressed, familiar) ...Horace? That you? Under the cloak?

HORACE. (faltering, hand still up) I — I am a personage —

ISLAND VOICE. It's Nib's boy. Under a curtain. (calling back) Ma! It's Horace off the mainland, he's come in a curtain and he's talking at us with his hand up! (to Horace, kindly) Put your hand down, love, you'll have someone's eye out. Come in. Kettle's on. You still take it strong?

HORACE. (deflating, hand descending) ...I — the phrase-book did not prepare me for — for being recognised —

ISLAND VOICE. Course we recognise you. You had the ham at Uncle Sole's funeral. Cried at the wrong bit. (warmly) Come on. We've a stew. It's the same stew as the mainland, mind. Bit wetter.

Interior. Back in the kitchen. Days later. MERCY. HORACE, home, subtly deflated, a small parcel in his hand.

MERCY. Well? Did you see abroad? Are you cosmopolitan?

HORACE. (quietly) ...The Isles, Mercy, are a rock, with the same rain, the same stew, and your Aunt Nib's cousins on them, who remembered me from a funeral and told me to put my hand down. (pause) I sailed to the edge of the known world and it was entirely known. It knew me. It knew I cried at the wrong bit.

MERCY. (fond, flat) That's the Isles for you. Same as here, only you can't get home for the fog. (beat) What's in the parcel?

HORACE. (with a flicker of genuine feeling) ...Cheese. From the cousins. For you. They said — (gruff) — they said any relation of Nib's is family, mainland or no, and to bring you cheese, because a person who darns a man's travelling cloak wants feeding. (beat) I went abroad, Mercy, to become a stranger. And the abroad turned out to be family, and sent you cheese.

MERCY. (taking the parcel, touched despite herself) ...That's a good cheese, that. Islands do a good cheese. (beat) Wasted a cloak, though.

HORACE. (the last of his grandeur, warm now) One does not waste a cloak, Mercy. One retires it. From a distinguished career. (hangs it up) ...There is no abroad. There is only further-off family, and the same rain, and a cheese for the one who stayed home. (beat) I find I am glad of it. It is a smaller world than I hoped, and a warmer one than I feared.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented A Visit to the Isles. Mr Dudgeon returned from abroad unchanged, uncosmopolitan, and bearing cheese. The Isles remain the only foreign country the realm possesses, and continue to be, on close inspection, family. The cloak has been retired with honours.

Gulls, far off. The kettle. Slow fade.

— end —