The New Neighbour

Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being thirty minutes of territorial defence, ending in a warning about a floorboard.

The kitchen. HORACE at the window, twitching the curtain, watching the empty house next door. Rain. A cart, off, arriving.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents The New Neighbour; in which Mr Horace P. Dudgeon, President for Life of No. 4½ Sump Lane, defends his sovereign territory against an incomer, and ends by saving her life over the tea.

Interior. The kitchen. HORACE, affronted, at the window. MERCY unbothered.

HORACE. Mercy. There is a cart. At No. 4. Someone is moving in. An incomer. Next door to the Republic itself. (twitching curtain) She has the look of the Hem about her — come off the edge of things, no people here, nobody to vouch for her. (gravely) This must be managed. Standing must be asserted. I shall call upon her — formally — as President of Sump Lane — and establish the order of precedence.

MERCY. (flat) Or you could take her a bit of bread and say hello. That's what folk do with a new neighbour.

HORACE. (loftily) Diplomacy first, Mercy. Bread later, once the hierarchy is settled. One does not simply hand an unvouched incomer bread. It sets a precedent.

MERCY. It sets a neighbour, Horace. That's the whole idea.

Interior. The doorstep of No. 4. HORACE, formal, hat in hand, over-grand. The NEW NEIGHBOUR — WIDOW HALE — tired, wary, mid-unpacking, wanting none of it.

HORACE. (declaiming) Madam. Permit me. Horace P. Dudgeon, President for Life of No. 4½, the house adjacent. I come to acquaint you with the — the customs and precedence of Sump Lane, that you may know your — that is, find your — place among us.

WIDOW HALE. (flat, exhausted) I've come off the Hem, Mr Dudgeon, with a cart and a bad back and no people this side of the water, and the first face the lane shows me is one telling me my place. (beginning to close the door) I know my place. It's behind this door, out of the rain. Good day.

HORACE. (flustered, precedence collapsing) I — that is not — Madam, I merely —

SFX: the door, half-closing. And then MERCY arrives, with a plate.

MERCY. (warm, ignoring Horace entirely) Don't mind him, love. Mercy Crimp, from next door. (handing over the plate) Bread, and a bit of dripping, and the good news is the whole lane's nosy but none of it's unkind. There's tea at ours whenever the unpacking gets too much, and it will, about four o'clock, it always does. (beat) Welcome to Sump Lane.

WIDOW HALE. (thrown, softening, the door opening again) ...Oh. (quietly) ...That's — thank you. That's the first — (gruff, covering) ...I'll have that tea. About four. If it's no trouble.

MERCY. No trouble at all. (to Horace, mild) That's how it's done, Horace. Bread first. Precedence never.

Interior. No. 4, later. The Widow's kitchen, still in boxes. HORACE, chastened, has come to carry a trunk, penance in his arms. He sets it down — and freezes at a sound underfoot.

HORACE. (sharply, all pomposity gone) — Madam. Stop. Don't step there.

WIDOW HALE. (halting) ...What?

HORACE. (crouching, testing the board with his hand, deadly serious now) This board. Under the window. Hear it? It doesn't knock, it — it gives. And there's damp coming up black at the edge. (rising, grave) This is the old part of the house, madam, over the culvert. That floor's rotten clean through and the drop beneath it is the drain, and the drain runs to the mire. (beat) I know this lane. I know which ground holds and which only looks it. You'd have gone through that board inside a week, in the dark, carrying a box — and there'd have been no one to hear, you being new, and no people this side of the water. (quietly) Keep off it. I'll bring a plank and a nail in the morning. Before anything else. Before the tea, even.

WIDOW HALE. (staring at him, seeing him properly for the first time) ...You came to tell me my place. And you've just — (looks at the board) — you've just saved my neck over a floorboard.

HORACE. (gruff, embarrassed by his own decency) ...The realm has one true law, madam, under all my nonsense about precedence. You do not let the newcomer stand on ground that will not hold. (beat) Even the ground of a woman who shut a door in your face, and was right to. Especially hers. (picks up his hat) ...Four o'clock. Mercy does a good tea. I shall bring the plank at first light.

Interior. The kitchen. MERCY. HORACE, quiet, a nail and a plank set ready by the door for morning.

MERCY. Heard you sorted the Widow's precedence, then.

HORACE. (quietly) ...I went to tell her her place, Mercy, and I was rightly shown my own. And then I found the rot in her floor and I — (struggles) — I found I minded, very much, that a stranger who dislikes me should not go through a rotten board in the dark with nobody to hear. (beat) It appears that under the President for Life, and the precedence, and the nonsense, there is only an ordinary fen-man who cannot bear to let a newcomer stand on ground that won't hold. (pause) It is the least grand thing I have ever discovered about myself. I find I would not trade it for the medal.

MERCY. (fond, flat, setting a fourth cup on the table) Bread first, Horace. Precedence never. You got there. (beat) Slow, mind. But you got there.

HORACE. (taking up the plank for the morning, warm) ...First light. Before the tea. (beat) A President's first duty, Mercy — I see it now — is the soundness of his neighbour's floor.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented The New Neighbour. Widow Hale is settled at No. 4, her rotten board planked and nailed by first light, and takes her tea at Mrs Crimp's at four, as is now the custom. The order of precedence in Sump Lane was never established, there being, on inspection, no call for one.

The kettle, for four. The drip. Slow fade.

— end —