The Rare Type

Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being thirty minutes of civic generosity, less the receipt.

A cold clear morning. A hand-bell, once, down the lane. The bucket at No. 4½ drips, keeping time.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents The Rare Type; in which Mr Horace P. Dudgeon, President for Life of No. 4½ Sump Lane, gives generously to the parish, and requires only that the parish, the realm, and posterity be told.

Interior. The kitchen. MERCY at the range. HORACE reads a damp notice aloud, grandly.

HORACE. (reading) "The winter Standing Account is open. Let every household give to the common store what it can spare, that none go short at the turn." (lowering it, moved) Mercy. The parish is in need. And a man of my standing cannot stand idly by while lesser men —

MERCY. Lesser men gave last Tuesday. Quietly. It's half full already.

HORACE. (pause) ...Half full. Who filled it?

MERCY. Nobody.

HORACE. Nobody?

MERCY. That's how it's done, Horace. You give to the store unnamed, so nobody has to know who was short and who wasn't. Nobody gives, and nobody's short. That's the whole of it.

HORACE. (appalled) Unnamed. You give — and no one knows?

MERCY. That's the grace of it.

HORACE. (rising) That is the waste of it! Mercy, what is the good of a generous act that no one can attribute to the generous man? I shall give — oh, I shall give magnificently — but I shall be SEEN to give, entered in a book, in ink, that generations of Dudgeons may point and say: there. Him. In the hard winter. He gave.

MERCY. (flat) Give what, exactly?

HORACE. (grand pause; then, smaller) ...What have we got?

MERCY. One turnip you're not having for your dinner.

HORACE. Then the realm shall have my dinner. Let it be recorded.

Interior. The store-room. CUTHBERT SNIPE, apothecary, frail, keeps the Register that year and is thrilled by any event whatsoever. HORACE enters bearing a single turnip on a cushion.

SNIPE. (delighted) Ooh, Mr Dudgeon. A giver. And what do we — (peering) — is that on a cushion?

HORACE. A gift of this magnitude does not travel loose, Mr Snipe. (placing it reverently) One turnip. My own dinner. Freely given. (beat) You'll want to write that down.

SNIPE. We don't, though, as a rule. It goes in unnamed —

HORACE. I insist on the book, Snipe. And a receipt. And, if there is a form of words, a few words. Something for the plaque.

SNIPE. (flustered, wanting him gone, reaching for a phrase) Well — well I never had a giver ask to be named before. In forty years. You're — (searching) — you're a rare type, Mr Dudgeon. Very rare.

A silence. A profound and terrible dawning.

HORACE. (barely breathing) ...Rare.

SNIPE. (oblivious) Ooh, exceptionally. Never seen one like it.

HORACE. (slowly, growing) A rare type. Of course. I have always sensed it, Snipe, and now the parish record confirms it under the hand of a qualified man. I am not a common giver. I am a rare type — one of nature's aristocrats — and my gift is accordingly of a rare and precious stock, to be —

SNIPE. — it's a turnip, Mr Dudgeon.

HORACE. — to be husbanded. Snipe, if my type is as rare as your Register attests, then I am a civic asset. I cannot go about spending myself on common labour. I cannot risk the rare stock hauling drains and clearing ditches like — like a plentiful man. I must be preserved.

SNIPE. (uncertain) Preserved.

HORACE. For the winter, and for the realm. (sweeping out) You may keep the cushion.

Interior. The Hand and Reed, later. SOL NIPPER, who can hear an opportunity through a stone wall, has already heard this one.

SOL. Horace. Word is you're a rare type.

HORACE. (loftily) The Register confirms it, Sol. Under a qualified hand.

SOL. Only I've been thinking. A rare type wants certifying, don't he. Official. (produces card) "This is to certify that the bearer is of a Rare and Superior Civic Type, not to be spent on ordinary labour." Sign there. Two shillings. Frame extra.

HORACE. (signing eagerly) At last, a man who understands scale. (beat) Make me three. One for the parlour, one for Aunt Euphemia, and one for the drain, so the drain knows.

SOL. (pocketing the money, to the room) Rare-type certificates, one and six, going quick, on account of how rare they are —

Interior. The kitchen. Evening. MERCY has the Register open on the table.

MERCY. Horace. Sit down. I got the Register off Snipe.

HORACE. (preening) Ah. Come to read my entry. It's the only name in the book of Named Givers, I shouldn't wonder.

MERCY. (flat) It is, Horace. That's the thing. It's the only name in the book of Named Givers.

HORACE. (swelling) — the only one worthy of —

MERCY. Because it's the only book nobody uses. (turning pages) The store's full, Horace. Chock full. Salt pork, three sacks of King Edwards, Widow Rush's whole cheese, somebody's winter coat. Given unnamed, all of it. More than you'll give in your life. Your "rare type" — (gently) — Snipe meant you're the only soul in forty years vain enough to want his name in the book. That's the rarity. Not the turnip. The wanting-to-be-seen.

A very long pause. The drip.

HORACE. (small) ...Ah.

MERCY. They all gave more. And none of them can be thanked, because none of them can be found. That's the aristocracy of it, Horace. Not being seen to give. Being able to bear not being.

HORACE. (quietly) ...The certificates.

MERCY. Sol sold nine.

Interior. The store-room. Deep night. A latch lifts, very softly. SNIPE, unable to sleep and thrilled by everything, is already there in the dark, and holds his tongue.

SFX: a heavy sack set down, carefully. Then another. Then, after a hesitation, the small sound of a coat being laid on top.

HORACE. (a whisper, to no one, to the dark) ...Not to be recorded.

He goes. The latch falls. A pause.

SNIPE. (to himself, softly, wondering) ...Ooh. Now he's a rare type.

Interior. The kitchen. Morning. The bucket drips. HORACE at breakfast, subdued, a man one turnip lighter and something else the heavier.

MERCY. (setting down his plate; not unkind) No turnip this morning. Somebody gave it away.

HORACE. (a flicker of the old fire, then letting it go) ...So he did. (beat) Foolish man. Rare type, and all.

MERCY. (the ghost of a smile) Getting rarer.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented The Rare Type. The winter Standing Account is full, and closed, and none went short at the turn. The list of who gave has been carefully not kept. Mr Nipper's certificates are available, while rare, from the Hand and Reed.

The hand-bell, once, far off. The drip keeps time.

— end —