Grandfer & Smoke at Midsummer

The Sogmarsh Year — Sodden Bottom, the Drownings, in the Long. A radio half-hour: being the longest evening of the year, the tale that has never once ended, and the two old friends who make sure it never does.

ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents the Drownings in the Long, and the Midsummer telling; in which Grandfer Skeel resumes, for the sixty-first year, a tale he has never once finished — and Charlie "Smoke" Rudd makes very certain he never will.

A half-deck over still flood-water, a Midsummer evening that will not go dark. The whole village gathered — on the deck, in boats tied round, children off somewhere playing a counting-game. Water lapping. The good long warmth of the year's longest light.

GRANDFER (settling in, expansive, the raconteur): Now. Where was I. Ah — so. It were the year of the Great Water. Not the Great Water you're thinking of; the other Great Water, the one afore. When my grandfer's grandfer, who were a Skeel, same as me, only more so, set out one Midsummer eve to catch the Pike of Sodden Bottom — which, in them days, were a fish the size of a —

SMOKE (city-quick, cutting straight in): — here we go.

GRANDFER: — the size of a rowing-boat, Charlie Rudd, and don't you —

SMOKE: Last year it were the size of a barn door.

GRANDFER: It grew.

SMOKE: It's a dead fish in a story, Grandfer. It don't grow. That's the one advantage of a dead fish — it stays the size it were.

GRANDFER (magnificent): It grows in the telling. That's how you know it's a good 'un.

SFX: the village settling in, delighted, this being exactly the argument they poled over to hear.

GRANDFER: So. He casts his line — a line of plaited widow's-hair, on account of nothing else'd hold it — and he waits. And he waits. And the light don't go, it being Midsummer, same as now — and at the turn of the tide, up she comes, the Pike, with an eye on her like a dinner-plate, and in that eye my grandfer's grandfer sees, reflected, the whole of the drowned chapel, clear as —

SMOKE: How's he see a chapel in a fish's eye at midnight.

GRANDFER: It weren't midnight, it were Midsummer, keep up —

SMOKE: And how's a Skeel afford plaited widow's-hair, there's no widow in the realm giving hair away by the fathom —

GRANDFER: She were a generous widow —

SMOKE: (to the crowd) — there's always a generous widow —

NOBBY SCULLS (poling up out of the dusk, a widow aboard, cheerful): — and what's wrong with a generous widow, I'd like to know? (a wink) Some of us cross the water on nothing else. Evening, missus. Mind the reed.

SFX: the village laughing; Nobby tying on to hear the rest.

GRANDFER (ploughing grandly on): — and my grandfer's grandfer, he grips the line, and he sets his heel to the stilt, and he pulls — and the Pike pulls — and for a night and a day and a night they pull, the man and the fish, up and down the whole of the Drownings, and that, that right there, is how the channels got cut that we pole to market by to this very —

SMOKE: Grandfer.

GRANDFER: — this very day, every last channel, cut by one man and one fish over one —

SMOKE: Grandfer. You've not said if he caught it.

(a beat)

GRANDFER (serene): ...Ah. Well. That's next year's, Charlie.

SMOKE (gently, the old routine, the whole point of it): You said that last year.

GRANDFER: And I'll say it next. (beat) A tale you finish is a tale that's done, Charlie Rudd. This one's not done. (quieter) I'll finish it next Midsummer, mind. You have my word.

SMOKE (a fraction too quick, covering, the way you cover): You will not. You'll get to the widow's hair and lose the thread and we'll all be back here same time next year, damp as ever, waiting on a fish. (to the crowd, brisk) Same time next year, then. Bring your own boat and a dry seat if you can find one, which you can't.

SFX: the village easy, nobody looking too hard at "next year," the light at last beginning, barely, to go.

ANNOUNCER. And the Pike of Sodden Bottom went uncaught for the sixty-first year running, as the light finally left the water and the village poled home across it in the warm last of the Long — and not one soul there wanted the tale finished, nor the fish caught, nor the evening ended; for a tale that goes on is a village that goes on, and the Drownings has decided, without once saying so, that some things are best kept exactly one year from their ending, forever. Same time next year.

SFX: the last light going. Water. A boat poling off, and another. Out.

The Late Line — after the cups come down

The same half-deck, later. The children long poled home; the counting-game gone quiet across the water. A jug going round now.

ANNOUNCER (a shade drier, the hour later): Sogmarsh Wireless keeps the line open a while, the young ones being abed; and on the half-deck at Sodden Bottom the jug comes round, and Nobby Sculls — who has poled every soul in the Drownings somewhere they'd not admit to — takes up the tale his own way.

NOBBY (settling, wicked, warm): Now, the Pike I'll grant you, Grandfer. But your grandfer's grandfer weren't out them channels a night and a day and a night after no fish.

GRANDFER (serene, unbaited): He were after the Pike, Nobby Sculls.

NOBBY: He were after the Widow Cray's back window, and the Pike were his alibi. (the deck creasing up) A night and a day and a night! No man pulls a fish that long. A man pulls a fish that long, he's got a reason to be late home, and her name weren't Pike.

SMOKE (delighted, city-quick): — and there's your channels cut, Grandfer. Not one man and one fish. One man and one very understanding widow, poling home the long way round so the wife'd not —

GRANDFER (with enormous dignity): — my grandfer's grandfer were a Skeel.

NOBBY: Aye, and the Widow Cray were grateful to the Skeels, by all account, and grateful regular. (warm, not cruel) Good luck to the pair of 'em. Cold country, the Drownings. A body wants keeping warm, and there's only so much a jug'll do.

MA SKEEL (off, flat, unanswerable, the Bett of this house): Nobby. My great-great-grandmother.

NOBBY (not missing a beat): — a saint, Ma Skeel, and a fine-looking one, if the window were worth a night and a day and a —

SFX: the jug, the deck laughing low, the water; two old men not looking at each other, and glad.

SMOKE (quieter, under it, the real thing kept light): ...Same time next year, then, you old fraud. Widow and all.

GRANDFER: Same time next year, Charlie. (beat) Bring the jug.

SFX: the last of the Long light gone. Water. A boat poling off. Out.