The Matador

Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being thirty minutes of single combat, declined by the opponent.

The market square, cleared and roped. A cushion for the trophy. Rain. A crowd that has seen this coming for three hundred years.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents The Matador; in which Mr Horace P. Dudgeon, President for Life of No. 4½ Sump Lane, resolves to be the man who at last defeats the Haver Goose, and is defeated by its total indifference.

Interior. The kitchen, that morning. HORACE, before a mirror, holds a red tablecloth like a cape.

HORACE. Mercy. For three hundred years the Haver Goose has won every tournament in the realm, unbeaten since 1672, including — (a shudder of awe) — against itself. And in all that time, not one man has had the courage to face it in single, ceremonial combat. (swirls the cloth) Until now.

MERCY. (flat) You're going to fight the Goose.

HORACE. I am going to face it, Mercy. With honour. With ceremony. With — (swirl) — a cape. The parish will speak of this for generations. "The day Dudgeon met the Goose."

MERCY. They speak of everyone who's met the Goose. It's a short conversation. It's always "and then the Goose won."

HORACE. (magnificent) Not this time.

Interior. The square. SOL runs the book. BILLY holds Horace's spare cape and a bucket, purpose unclear.

SOL. (low) Right. Odds. Six to four the Goose. Evens the Goose. Five to one the Goose. (beat) I can't get anyone to take the other side, Horace, on account of the last three hundred years. Best I can do is a very generous "how long you last," running by the minute.

HORACE. (loftily, sizing up the roped square) Where is my adversary? Bring forth the Goose!

SFX: a gate. A single, contemptuous honk. Then... nothing. The Goose does not appear so much as permit the square to contain it.

HORACE. (dramatically, cape raised) So! We meet at last! I salute you, ancient champion! Prepare to be — (flourish) — toppled! (beat, waiting) ...I said prepare to be toppled.

Silence. A honk, directed elsewhere. The Goose examines the ground.

HORACE. (faltering) It — it isn't looking at me. (louder, cape swirling) HERE, sir! Your OPPONENT! Face me! Toro! — or whatever the — Goose! GOOSE!

BILLY. (helpfully) I don't think it knows there's a fight on, Mr Dudgeon.

HORACE. (charging, cape swishing) Then it shall LEARN! Have AT you! (swirls the cape grandly past the Goose) — olé! Did you see? I passed it! I passed the Goose! A clean pass!

SOL. (flatly) It moved because there was a worm, Horace. Not because of the cape.

HORACE. (undeterred, passing again) Olé! And again — olé! The crowd — (there is no reaction from the crowd) — the crowd is stunned into silence by the artistry —

MERCY. (arriving, dry) The crowd's gone for its tea, Horace. You've been waving a tablecloth at a goose for forty minutes and the goose has been eating.

SFX: a small bell. AUBREY VANE, adjudicating, consults the ledger with the weariness of the ages.

VANE. The contest is concluded. I must record the result.

HORACE. (breathless, hopeful) And? A draw, surely — a noble draw — I passed it four times —

VANE. (reading, formally) "The Haver Goose defeats Mr H. P. Dudgeon — by total non-acknowledgement of the opponent." (closing ledger) As it defeats them all, Mr Dudgeon. It does not fight. It does not need to. It simply declines to notice it has been challenged, and wins on the spot. Three hundred and fifty-odd years, and no one has ever got it to look up. (beat, not unkind) You lasted rather well, actually. Most give up when it won't make eye contact. You kept going a full hour.

HORACE. (hollow) ...It never even knew I was there.

VANE. No. That is the Goose's whole method. You cannot defeat a thing that will not concede you exist. (beat) There's a lesson in it somewhere, but the Goose has never bothered to learn it either, and look how it's done.

Interior. The kitchen. MERCY. HORACE, draped in his defeated cape.

HORACE. (quietly) I faced the undefeated champion of the realm, Mercy, and I was beaten not by its strength, nor its speed, but by its complete and sovereign refusal to admit I was in the square.

MERCY. (fond, flat) Welcome to the Goose. That's how it beat the Committee, the Church, and a bullock, all in the same June.

HORACE. (a flicker of rue, then rallying) ...There is, I think, a strange nobility in it. To win by wanting nothing. To triumph by not troubling to compete. (beat) ...I could never manage it. I want it far too much.

MERCY. That's why the Goose wins, Horace. And why you make a lovely afternoon of losing. (puts the kettle on) Cape off. Tea.

HORACE. (draping it over the chair like a fallen standard) ...Olé, Mercy.

MERCY. Olé.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented The Matador. The Haver Goose remains undefeated since 1672, having successfully failed to notice its three hundred and fifty-first challenger. Mr Dudgeon passed it four times, cleanly, and it never once looked up. Mr Nipper paid out on the clock, and did handsomely.

A contemptuous honk. The kettle. Slow fade.

— end —