The Man Who Lived Nowhere

Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being thirty minutes of elevated conversation, less interruptions.

Rain. Under it, a bucket catching a drip, keeping time. The theme: a small damp march that nearly gets somewhere.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents The Man Who Lived Nowhere; in which Mr Horace P. Dudgeon of Number Four-and-a-Half, Sump Lane, Drudgeford, avoids the rates so completely that he avoids the rest of the world as well, and has to be found again by the people who least wanted to look.

ACT ONE

SCENE 1 — THE PARLOUR, NO. 4½ SUMP LANE. EVENING.

SFX: the drip. A clock ticking unevenly. Coins counted into a saucer, one at a time, with long gaps.

MERCY. One. (pause) Two. (longer pause) Three. Four. (pause) And a piece of paper.

HORACE. Paper is a promissory medium, Mercy. Whole economies run on it.

MERCY. It says "I.O.U. — S. Nipper."

HORACE. Then it is a foreign medium. Put it with the fourpence.

MERCY. Fourpence and an IOU from Mr Nipper. And the rates due on Friday.

SFX: a paper notice rattled.

HORACE. (reading, with disgust) "By order of the Committee." They don't even sign it. Cowards. A man must choose, Mercy, between solvency and principle.

MERCY. You chose some time ago.

HORACE. And I have not wavered. (SFX: he crosses to the window; rain louder) Very well. Until Friday, this house is under siege. The rate-collector will come down that lane, as they always come — with a list, and a pencil, and a face — and he will look for Number Four-and-a-Half.

MERCY. He'll find it. It's between four and five.

HORACE. Not if he cannot find it. (grandly) Nobody — nobody — is to find this house before Friday.

SFX: a door creaks. Heavy, careful feet.

BILLY. (from the doorway) Right you are, Mr Dudgeon.

HORACE. Billy. Were you listening?

BILLY. I was keeping an ear on it.

HORACE. Good man.

BILLY. (slowly, thinking) How does he find a house, Mr Dudgeon? The rate man.

HORACE. By the front, Billy, like any civilised creditor. By the number.

A pause. The drip.

BILLY. (very seriously) ...Right you are.

MUSIC: short sting.

SCENE 2 — THE FRONT STEP, THEN THE HALL. LATE NIGHT.

SFX: heavy rain on a doorstep. A butter-knife in a screw-head — a long, patient squeak. Another. A small metal clink.

BILLY. (whispering) Come on, then. Come in out of the wet. (SFX: front door closes; rain muffled) There. Nobody'll find you now.

SFX: slow feet into the parlour. A lamp turned down low. HORACE's quill scratching.

BILLY. I've got it safe, Mr Dudgeon.

HORACE. (not looking up) Mm? Good. Put it somewhere nobody will think to look.

BILLY. Somewhere nobody thinks about. (thinking) ...Under the stairs. Nobody thinks about under the stairs. Not even the stairs.

HORACE. (writing) Admirable.

BILLY. And keep an eye on it?

HORACE. Both eyes, Billy.

SFX: BILLY's feet to the stairs. A little cupboard latch. The clink of the plate set down. The latch again. Then BILLY sitting down heavily on the bottom stair. A pause.

SFX: MERCY's footsteps, passing with a candle. She stops.

MERCY. ...Goodnight, Billy.

BILLY. Night, Miss Crimp. I'm on duty.

A pause. MERCY does not ask. Her footsteps go on up.

SFX: the clock strikes one. Then, some time later, two. The drip. BILLY breathing, awake, loyal.

SCENE 3 — SUMP LANE. MORNING.

SFX: lighter rain. A pigeon. Brisk footsteps, a surveying pole clanking, a tape measure whirring in and out.

EDDIE. (to himself, delighted with everything) Assistant Surveyor Tupp, Committee's New Survey of Drudgeford, Sump Lane, right-hand side, magnificent morning for it. (SFX: pole planted) Number four. Brass numeral. Door. Tick. (SFX: pencil tick) Next.

SFX: two steps. A pause. A longer pause.

EDDIE. ...Door. (pause) No number. (pause) Two little holes where a number might be, if it were a number. (thinking hard) Doors have numbers. This has no number. (the logic arriving) So it's not a door. It's a drain with a door on it. They do that down here.

SFX: two steps. Pole planted.

EDDIE. Number five. Condemned. Tick. And between four and five — (SFX: a long, tidy pencil-shading scratch) — drain. Lovely. (marching off, whistling) That's Sump Lane done before breakfast —

SFX: his pole clonks a lamp-bracket.

EDDIE. (receding) — ow. Meant that.

SFX: the pigeon lands on the door with a flutter. Coos once, at the screw-holes.

MUSIC: sting.

SCENE 4 — THE PARLOUR. THAT AFTERNOON.

SFX: the letterbox claps. An envelope drops — into a puddle. Splash.

MRS PELL. (outside) Post!

HORACE. Mercy, the post has come through damp again.

MERCY. It's Sump Lane. We're lucky it comes through horizontal.

HORACE. Official correspondence should possess dignity.

MERCY. It has arrived at the correct house, then.

SFX: envelope torn open. HORACE reads.

HORACE. "To the Occupier. Premises apparently adjacent to Drudgeford." Apparently adjacent! (SFX: a chunk of plaster drops into a teacup) "Following the Committee's New Survey, no premises are recorded between Numbers Four and Five, Sump Lane. No premises being recorded, no rates are due." (outraged) No rates are due! How dare —

A pause. The drip. Another drip.

HORACE. (slowly, quite differently) ...No rates are due.

MERCY. Horace.

HORACE. (beginning to glow) No premises. No rates. Mercy, do you understand what has happened? The siege has been lifted. By the besiegers! I have outwitted the entire Committee by —

MERCY. By what?

HORACE. (airily) By being outwitting. One doesn't examine a gift.

MERCY. (flat) And where do we live?

MUSIC: the theme, a single wrong-footed bar.

ANNOUNCER. The Man Who Lived Nowhere.

SCENE 5 — THE MUNICIPAL ROOMS.

SFX: a large echoing room. Paper. A queue shuffling. A bucket catching a much bigger drip.

VANE. Name?

HORACE. You know perfectly well who I am.

VANE. That is not a name. It is an allegation.

HORACE. Horace P. Dudgeon. Number Four-and-a-Half, Sump Lane.

VANE. No.

HORACE. No what?

VANE. No four-and-a-half. (SFX: a great map unrolled, knocking over an inkwell) The New Survey. Number four. Number five, condemned. And between them — municipal hatching.

HORACE. That hatching is my drawing room!

VANE. Then you have been entertaining in a cartographic convention.

HORACE. I came to confirm that my house does not exist.

VANE. It does not.

HORACE. Splendid. And I owe nothing?

VANE. Nothing whatever. (beat) Nor are you owed anything. A house that is not there receives no water, no post, no drainage and no Committee.

HORACE. (thrilled) No Committee!

VANE. And the occupier of no house is not, in the administrative sense, anybody at all.

HORACE. I shall appeal!

VANE. You may appeal in person. Unfortunately, you are not currently a person in the administrative sense.

MUSIC: sting.

SCENE 6 — THE STEPS OUTSIDE.

SFX: rain easing. A barrow. Umbrellas opening and shutting. SOL's warm ragged laugh approaching.

SOL. Professor! Umbrella? You look like a man who's just been told the truth by a cheaper man.

HORACE. (dazed) My house does not legally exist.

SOL. Congratulations.

HORACE. Congratulations?

SOL. No house, no rates. No rates, no rules. (warming up) Creditors can't knock on a door that isn't there. You're not in Drudgeford any more, Professor. You're next to it.

HORACE. Apparently adjacent.

SOL. Abroad.

HORACE. (the idea blooming) An autonomous territory...

SOL. With favourable duties.

HORACE. A sovereign intellectual republic!

SOL. With a gift shop.

HORACE. At last — a nation governed by intellect!

SOL. Exactly. Now which minister signs for the money?

MUSIC: a patriotic march, slightly too small for its ambition.

SCENE 7 — THE PARLOUR. THE DECLARATION.

SFX: a chair dragged. A bedsheet flapped out and pinned up.

HORACE. (on a footstool, which creaks) Citizens of Number Four-and-a-Half —

MERCY. There are three of us.

HORACE. All great nations begin with a select population. From this hour, these premises are the Independent Literary Republic of Dudgeon! I am First Citizen, Minister of Culture, and Head of State.

SOL. I'll take Trade.

MERCY. There is no trade.

SOL. Then it won't be heavy.

HORACE. Mercy — Chancellor of the Exchequer.

MERCY. The treasury contains fourpence and an IOU from the Minister for Trade.

SOL. Sound as a bell, that.

MERCY. The bell hasn't rung in two hundred years.

HORACE. Billy! Minister of Defence. Guard the back door.

BILLY. From which side?

HORACE. The inside.

BILLY. Right you are.

SFX: BILLY marches off. Hammering. A lot of hammering.

MERCY. What is he doing?

HORACE. Securing the border.

MERCY. He's nailing it shut.

SOL. That's foreign policy. Nobody leaves till they've bought a souvenir.

SFX: odd footsteps coming DOWN the stairs — though no one went up.

SCRIM. Passport.

HORACE. Scrim! How did you get in?

SCRIM. Before the border. I was waiting behind the next sentence.

HORACE. And who are you, in this republic?

SCRIM. Ambassador. From Next Thursday. (SFX: a rubber stamp, on the wallpaper) We recognised you years ago.

HORACE. (moved) International recognition, Mercy!

MERCY. You predicted free coal.

HORACE. Recognition is warmer.

MUSIC: act break — the march, a note short.

ACT TWO

SCENE 8 — THE REPUBLIC IN FULL OPERATION.

MUSIC: a jaunty montage bed. SFX: a crowded little house — coins, feet, a queue, rain on many umbrellas outside.

SOL. Dudgeon passports! Diplomatic immunity! Asylum from washing-up!

DOLLY. This way for the Presidential Scullery. The historic cup remains exactly where the President left it. No touching the national tea-towel.

A TOURIST. Is it ancient?

DOLLY. It will be by the time he washes it.

SFX: a beer barrel rolled over flagstones and set down with a thump.

HORACE. Mrs Grutch! You cannot open a public house in my kitchen!

MAVIS. Your country has no licensing laws.

HORACE. It has now.

MAVIS. Then you'll need a licensing authority. I'll take the job. (SFX: she sits; a chair groans) And the chair. And the navy.

HORACE. We haven't got a navy.

MAVIS. I wondered why the chair floated.

HORACE. (swept up, grand) Mercy — do you hear it? The queue goes down to the end of Sump Lane. Posterity has arrived earlier than expected.

MERCY. Posterity's tracking mud on the stairs.

SCENE 9 — THE PARLOUR. THAT NIGHT.

SFX: the crowd gone. The drip. An oil-lamp — its flame fluttering, spitting, then a thin "fsss" as it goes out. Near silence.

HORACE. (in the dark) Mercy. The lamp.

MERCY. Out of oil.

HORACE. Then send for the oil-man.

MERCY. The oil-man doesn't come to nowhere.

SFX: a match struck. A candle lit. A knock at the door; it opens on rain.

KEZIA. (unhurried, apologetic) Evening, Mr Dudgeon. Kezia. With the water.

HORACE. Excellent! Bring it in.

KEZIA. Can't. (SFX: the buckets set down outside) Can't carry water abroad. The spring's a Drudgeford spring. I'd be exporting.

MRS PELL. (arriving, out of breath) And that's your last letter, Mr Dudgeon. (SFX: letter handed over) From now on I need a boat.

HORACE. The lane is perfectly dry!

MRS PELL. (a gust of rain) It's not. And it's international.

SFX: the door shuts. Paper unfolded, several sheets.

MERCY. (reading by candle) No water. No post. No lamp-oil. The baker says he'll deliver to the border if we fetch it over. (a last sheet) And the Reading Room has cancelled your ticket.

A pause.

HORACE. (small) My Reading-Room ticket.

MERCY. "Foreign, or imaginary."

HORACE. I have been borrowing from that Reading Room for thirty years!

MERCY. Returning is what they count.

HORACE. (rallying) A temporary inconvenience. Posterity will understand.

SCRIM. (from above — upside down, somehow) It doesn't. I've asked.

SCENE 10 — THE FRONT DOOR. NEXT MORNING.

SFX: a cart creaking up the lane, overloaded, groaning. A donkey. Things sliding. POTTLE whistling tunelessly.

POTTLE. Morning, Mr President. Where would you like the eleven broken milestones?

HORACE. I would not like them.

POTTLE. That's what the Committee said. Hence the delivery.

SFX: THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

POTTLE. Milestones. Barrels. The Lost Property Office — the counter, not the office, the office is lost. Crates. Donkey.

SFX: the donkey brays.

HORACE. Why are you bringing these things into my house?

POTTLE. Nonexistent premises are ideal for things the council denies possessing.

HORACE. I deny possessing the premises!

POTTLE. Then we understand each other.

SFX: a huge sliding crash — junk avalanching indoors, rolling, settling. A little cupboard door crushed shut.

BILLY. (distant, alarmed) Not under the stairs! Not under the —

SFX: the last milestone lands. Silence. The drip.

POTTLE. (pleased) Nobody thinks about under the stairs. Good day, Mr President.

MUSIC: sting — sinking.

SCENE 11 — THE HAND AND REED. EVENING.

SFX: a warm low room. A good fire. Rain against small windows. At the big table, the regulars: mugs, laughter, a steady contented grumble.

FIRST NEIGHBOUR. — and the drain's backed up again, all down the lane —

SECOND NEIGHBOUR. — and that Dudgeon, stood at his window, shouting at the rain —

SFX: laughter. The door opens on a gust. It goes a little quieter.

HORACE. (grandly) Good evening, citizens.

MAVIS. (polite as a customs post) Evening, Mr President. (SFX: a single glass set down — away from the fire) Foreign visitors sit there.

HORACE. By the door?

MAVIS. Locals' table's for Drudgeford residents. It's on the board.

SFX: HORACE's feet crossing to the little table. A chair. He sits. The big table's grumble resumes behind him, warm and loud.

A long pause. Only the fire, the rain, and the laughter at the far end. One sip. The glass set down, very small.

FIRST NEIGHBOUR. (off, fondly) — owes Mavis for six years' beer, he does —

SECOND NEIGHBOUR. (off) — complains about the steps every Tuesday —

Laughter. Another long pause.

SCRIM. (suddenly opposite him, as if he had always been) They're talking about you.

HORACE. (quietly) I know.

SCRIM. Every night. You were never here to hear it. You were at home, being important.

HORACE. ...I thought they didn't notice me.

SCRIM. A man lives where people complain about him.

The fire settles. HORACE doesn't answer. For once, he has no speech.

ACT THREE

SCENE 12 — THE PARLOUR, NOW FULL OF JUNK.

SFX: a crammed room — creaking crates, the donkey shifting, a barrel dripping, tourists squeezing past.

HORACE. (climbing onto the table; it wobbles) Mercy. Sol. Minister of Defence. The Republic is at an end. (louder, to the doorway) Mr Vane! I demand reincorporation!

VANE. (entering, stepping over a milestone) I came about the milestones. (SFX: a long form drawn out of a coat) Application R-E-G-R-E-T. The hearing is on Thursday.

HORACE. Thursday! Then I shall be a person by Thursday.

VANE. Provided you bring two things. (precisely) A number, on your door. And a witness who will swear that you live there.

HORACE. Easy! (turning) Billy — fetch the number!

A pause.

BILLY. (slowly) ...Ah.

SCENE 13 — THE SAME. THE SEARCH.

SFX (fast): crates dragged, a lid prised, a milestone rolled. RUMMAGE. CLONK. A counter-flap slammed on a head.

HORACE. (muffled, inside the Lost Property counter) OW.

MERCY. (in a crate) Umbrellas. Umbrellas. A retired wig.

SOL. (lifting a milestone; a coin clinks into his pocket) Nothing under this one.

HORACE. (emerging) Billy. Where is the number?

BILLY. I've been keeping an eye on it, Mr Dudgeon.

HORACE. Where, Billy?

BILLY. (simply) In there.

A pause.

MERCY. In where?

BILLY. Under the stairs. Under the Lost Property Office. Under eleven milestones and a donkey.

MERCY. Then it's lost property.

HORACE. (sitting down on a barrel, defeated) No number. No witness. Nowhere.

MUSIC: a sad little bar of the theme.

SFX: night. Candles guttering. MERCY and HORACE asleep in chairs — HORACE snoring grandly. The drip. And, steady and patient under it all, the sound of someone large moving junk: a crate lifted, set down; a milestone rolled, carefully, so as not to wake anyone. Again. Again.

SFX: the clock strikes two. Four. The digging goes on.

SFX: a small door creaks open somewhere it shouldn't be. Morning birds. Rain.

SCRIM. (bright) Thursday. Room here!

SCENE 14 — THE HEARING, IN THE PARLOUR.

SFX: an overcrowded room settling. A shoe banged on a crate as a gavel.

VANE. This hearing of the Boundary, Drainage and Doubt Committee is in session. The applicant may speak.

SFX: HORACE rises. A pause. When he speaks, the grandness has gone out of his voice.

HORACE. I have been told a great many times this week that I don't exist. I rather enjoyed it, at first. (beat) But I ask — what makes a man belong? Is a town only streets and drains, numbers on doors? No. It is memory. It is shared hardship. It is knowing which baker cheats you, and going back, because the other baker cheats you worse.

SFX: a murmur. A cough. The drip.

HORACE. Drudgeford has ignored me, insulted me, underheated me, and sat me by the door. But it is my town. I have complained about it too long to live anywhere else.

A pause.

VANE. (entirely unmoved) A moving statement. Eloquence is not a residence. (beat) Number?

Silence.

VANE. Witness?

Silence. The drip — once, twice, three times — into the bucket. Nobody moves.

SCENE 15 — THE WITNESSES.

SFX: a chair scraped back, hard.

MAVIS. (cross about it) Oh, for goodness' sake. (standing) He's owed me for beer six years. He lives there.

SFX: a murmur. The front door opens on rain; two buckets set down.

KEZIA. I've carried his water up them steps every Tuesday for eleven years. He complains about the steps every Tuesday. (beat) He lives there.

MRS PELL. (a hand going up, a satchel rustling) Sends his post back for being damp. Every week. As if I make the rain. (beat) He lives there.

SFX: chairs scraping, one after another — the regulars, standing.

FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Shouts at the weather out of that window.

SECOND NEIGHBOUR. Every morning. You can set your clock by it.

FIRST NEIGHBOUR. He lives there.

A pause. Everyone looks to MERCY. SFX: a pea pod split. Peas into a bowl.

MERCY. (not looking up) I live with him. (beat) Nobody would choose to, if he didn't exist.

A long silence. HORACE tries to speak and can't.

SOL. (low, to a neighbour) Seat's a penny if you want to keep standing.

VANE. (after a moment, dry) Witnesses... adequate. (beat) And the number?

SFX: CRASH — the window thrown open, glass rattling, somebody enormous climbing through, wheezing, dust falling.

BILLY. (out of breath, triumphant) Here, Mr Dudgeon.

SFX: a small enamel plate set down on the crate with a clear clink.

HORACE. (barely) Billy... where did you —

BILLY. You said keep an eye on it. (beat) So I did. All night.

VANE. (SFX: examining it) Original municipal enamel. Four-and-a-half. (the shoe-gavel) The number is produced. The witnesses are adequate. Number Four-and-a-Half, Sump Lane, is hereby reinstated. The Republic of Dudgeon is dissolved.

HORACE. (an enormous breath) I exist!

VANE. Provisionally. (SFX: a thick bill, unrolled) And liable. The rates are due on Friday.

HORACE. Sol — the treasury!

SFX: a window creaking. A moneybox rattling.

SOL. (already half out of it) Abroad, Professor!

SFX: SOL's laugh, receding down the lane.

HORACE. That's the gratitude of a marsh!

SCENE 16 — CODA. THE PARLOUR. EVENING.

SFX: quieter. Rain. The drip. The donkey chewing. Outside, footsteps passing, and neighbours' voices going home.

FIRST NEIGHBOUR. (passing, outside) — back on the map, then —

SECOND NEIGHBOUR. (passing) — good. Somebody's got to shout at the rain.

Their voices fade. A pause.

HORACE. (quietly, pleased) Did you hear that, Mercy?

MERCY. I heard it.

HORACE. They missed me.

MERCY. They missed complaining about you.

HORACE. (content) It amounts to the same thing, in Drudgeford.

SFX: paper rustled — the bill.

MERCY. And the rates?

HORACE. (the grandness returning, gathering) The rates. The rates. Mercy, fetch my black cloak. A man who has been a nation does not go quietly back to being a ratepayer. I hereby declare war on Drudgeford!

MERCY. (not looking up) Wartime supplement.

A pause. The drip.

HORACE. I surrender unconditionally.

MUSIC: full closing theme, one note short.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented The Man Who Lived Nowhere. Number Four-and-a-Half is back between four and five, where the Committee has since shaded it in a slightly different direction. The rates were paid on Friday, in fourpence, and an IOU. Mr Dudgeon now takes his glass at the locals' table, and is complained about to his face, which he finds a great improvement. The number plate is screwed on very tightly. Billy keeps an eye on it.

SFX: under the music, the donkey brays in time. On the last note — a rubber stamp.

SCRIM. Visa refused.

— end —