Latest / Muggle Snuggle: A Boring Harry Potter Podcast to make you Sleep / My Neighbor Gets Post by Owl

Transcript

My Neighbor Gets Post by Owl · Muggle Snuggle: A Boring Harry Potter Podcast to make you Sleep

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hustle Studios. It is midnight. I am kneeling in the
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: damp grass by the eastern end of a brick wall
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that has stood between number 11 and number 13 for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: 90 years, and I am setting down a saucer of
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: milk for a house that is not there. New saucer,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: white with a blue rim, to match the shard. Bought
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: specially this afternoon from the charity shop on Martins Lane.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: where the woman behind the counter asked if it was
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: for a cat, and I said yes, because some lies
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: are load-bearing. Full milk, whole milk, the good stuff, the
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: way Mrs Elder's mother bought it. Set down by the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: yew roots, where the old bottle worked its way up
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: out of the soil, and then I stood there for
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: a moment, in the dark, with my torch off, because
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: some moments do not want torchlight, and I said, out loud,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: into the empty gap, quote, for whoever lives here when
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: it is here, end quote. The ewe said nothing. The
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: wall said nothing. A blackbird shifted in the hedge and
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: went back to sleep. I stood there a moment longer
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: than courage required, listening for anything with an opinion, and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the laying gave me nothing but a distant fox bark
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: toward the allotments. Once, twice, then quiet. And I walked
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: home past number seven, where the curtains were drawn and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the bin stood by the gate, squat and patient in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the lamplight. And I stopped in front of it, the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: way you stop in front of anything you have watched
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: eleven times. And I looked at it, and it looked back,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the way bins do. Which is to say it did
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: not look back at all. I want you to hold
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that bin in your mind, because tonight is its night,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: along with the family behind it. Stay with me. By
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the end of this hour, you will know whether the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: milk was gone by morning, what the family at number
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: seven knows, and how long they have known it, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: what Priya Patel said to me yesterday morning that made
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: me drop my keys in the gutter. Good evening, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: welcome to Muggle Snuggle. My name is Hugh. I am
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: 28 years old. I live at number four, Bamble Lane,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: and as of this week, I am a man who
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: sets down saucers for invisible houses and drops his keys
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: for visible schoolgirls, and my sister has heard about both.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And her exact words were, quote, Hugh, the saucer I understand,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: end quote. Which tells you everything about where the butter
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: knife story sits in our family history. First, as promised,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the milk. It was gone. beaded saucer, morning dew on
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the rim, and the middle of it clean as a whistle,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: not a drop left, licked or lifted or simply taken,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and laid neatly across the empty saucer, the way you
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: would lay a spoon across a finished bowl, a single
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: grey feather, barred, business-like, too neat to have blown there.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I stood in the dawn with that saucer in one
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: hand and that feather in the other, and I understood—
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the way you understand rain, that something out there has
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: table manners. The saucer goes back down tonight, refilled, per
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the plan I made on Mike. The feather goes on
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the desk, fourth object in the museum, next to the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: barn feather, the bottle and the shard. The museum grows,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the street provides. And the full story of the saucer,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the refill, and what Mrs... Baldur's said about it over
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the fence, comes later tonight, because before the sorcerer I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: owe you yesterday morning, and yesterday morning is where the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: keys come in. If you are new here, here is
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: the short version. I notice things, owls delivering post, strangers
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in long coats, lights flashing from behind drawn curtains, houses
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that develop out of hedges like photographs. I write it
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: all down in a notebook, and every evening I tell
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: you what I have found. start anywhere. The Owls do.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Every episode stands on its own, the way every house
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: on the lane stands on its own, and the notebook
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: keeps the threads between them. If you are back from
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: last time, welcome back. And yes, this is the episode
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I promised you. The Patels. Number 7. The Neighbour Getting
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Post by Owl. It took me a week of watching,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a knocked door, and a dropped set of keys to
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: earn it. And tonight, you get all of it. To
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the regulars first, because regulars first is the rule of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: this house, and by this house I mean my actual house,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: number four, which exists on all known maps and has
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: never once developed out of anything. Thank you for coming back. And,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: before we go a step further, three things that have
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: happened since last time, because the street has not been
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: idle while I have been watching. One. The Henderson's fourth dishwasher,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: different brand, blessed with tap water, has now completed nine
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: full cycles without incident, and Gary has stopped counting cycles
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and started counting days, the way you do with landmarks,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and he told me over the fence this morning, quote,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: nine days, Hugh, it has outlasted the kettle. Enter. End quote.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: With the shining eyes of a man whose appliances have
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: finally signed a treaty. He has started marking the days
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: on the kitchen calendar with a star, the way schools
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: mark attendance, and Sandra has stopped laughing about it, which
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Gary tells me is the true miracle. Greater than any
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: dishwasher had. I am happy for the Hendersons. I am
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: still watching the dishwasher, too. Mrs. Alder, over the garden fence,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: at half past seven this morning, while I was carrying
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the empty saucer home like evidence, looked at the saucer,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: looked at me, and said, quote, whole milk. Good, end quote.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Three words, no questions, no surprise. As if Dawn's saucers
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: were simply something the street does now, like bins and waves.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I said, quote, it was gone, end quote. She said, quote,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of course it was gone, end quote, and went back
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to her roses. Of course it was gone. I have
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: turned that over all day, either Mrs... Alder knows about
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the saucer ritual. which she does because she knows everything
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: within forty feet of her roses, or she knows about
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the drinker, which is a larger thought, and I have
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: given it a page of its own. I asked her,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: standing there with the empty saucer, how she knew it
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: would be gone. She dead-headed one, rose, neat as ever,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and said, quote, It is always gone, Hugh, end quote. Always,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: said the way you say anything with ninety years behind it.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I did not ask how many sources she has seen,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: some questions you save, I saved that one. Three, the cat.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: The green-eyed cat from the wall, the one that watched
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: me walk to the gap in my dressing gown like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a landlord. It has moved. It sits outside number seven now,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: on the step, facing the door, as if waiting to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: be let in. I will tell you what Mrs Patel
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: said about it later. For now, log it the way
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I locked it. One line. The cat has chosen a step.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: This show is perfect for putting on in the background
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: while you cook, or fold, or drive, or do whatever
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: your evening asks of you. I will be here either way,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: notebook in hand, doing the noticing. And if you enjoy tonight,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: do subscribe so tomorrow finds you on its own, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: do share us with the nosiest person you know. Every
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: street has one. On Glethal Valley Road in Leeds, It
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: is a woman called R with her own flask. And R,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: if you are listening, tonight's episode answers a question your
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: street has not asked yet, and I have a feeling
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it will. Now, something practical before we walk down to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that wall together, and I will be brief, because the
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: saucer only gave me one dawn, and I intend to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: spend most of it on the saucer. A few of
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: you have written to ask how best to keep this
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: show standing. There are two doors. Both linked in the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: show notes. The Supporter Club on Spreaker is the easy one.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Premium episodes right inside the app, where you already listen.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: A couple of taps and done. Patreon is the wider door,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: with early access to every episode, and extra stories you
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: will not hear anywhere else. Same street either way, same watcher.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Pick the door that suits you. Tonight, in order. The Saucer.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The keys, the knock, the window, the door, and the cat,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: waiting in the margins the way cats wait everywhere. Right,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: torch off, notebook open, saucer in hand. Let us go
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: back to yesterday morning, to the gutter, to the keys,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to the two words. First, I owe you the order
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of things, because I am telling you out of order.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and a watcher who tells you out of order should
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: say so up front. The saucer went down the night
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: before last, after the last episode went out. The saucer
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: came up empty this morning, with the feather, the way
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I just told you. But the keys happened yesterday morning,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: before any saucer, on an ordinary dawn with ordinary milk bottles.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And I am telling you yesterday, before today, because the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: notebook has dates, and the show has drama. And the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: milk went first, because I promised. So, yesterday morning, half
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: past seven, the street grey and quiet. Me walking home
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: along the gutter edge with my notebook in my pocket
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and my keys in my hand, because I had been
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to the corner postbox early. The way you go in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: sleep has given up on you. And I was nearly
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: at my own gate when a voice from the bus
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: stop said my name. Priya Patel. Number seven. School bag
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: on her shoulder. Early for the bus, the way she
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: is early for everything. She waves at me every morning
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: from that bus stop, has done for six years, and
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I wave back. And that has been the whole of
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: our arrangement, until yesterday, when she did not wave, she
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: called out, clear as print, across the empty lane, quote, Hugh,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: was it gone? End quote. Was it gone? Not good morning.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: not a wave. Four words, and the fourth one knocked
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: my keys clean out of my hand into the gutter,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: where they landed in the mud with a sound I
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: will hear in my sleep. I stared at her. She
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: stared at me. The keys lay in the mud. And
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: then she walked over, school bag bouncing, and she stood
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: in front of me, and she said the two words, quote,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: we know, end quote. We know. Two words. The way
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: you saw was two words. And I want you to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: understand what two words from Priya Patel can do. Because
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you saw, rearranged my evenings. And we know rearranged everything else.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: We know the family at number seven knows. About the window.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: About the notebook. About me. I picked up my keys. Muddy.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Still muddy now. On the desk. Fourth object in the museum.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: though by the time you hear this, there will be five,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: because the feather has joined them, and the museum is
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: filling faster than my kitchen shelves. I wiped the mud
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: off on my sleeve, the way you do when a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: schoolgirl has just ended your career as a secret watcher,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and I said, quote, Priya, what exactly do you know?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: End quote. And she told me. Standing at my gate,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: with the bus still ten minutes off, she told me,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and I am going to give you all of it,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: because this is the heart of tonight, and hearts go first.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: They know about the window. Of course they know about
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the window. It is their window. They open it. They
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: take the letter in. They close it. Every night there
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: is post, which is most nights, at ten past three,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: which is when Biscuit comes, the little brown owl. Biscuit,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: in the notebook now, Named for the colour and the reliability.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Ten past three. Nine visits out of eleven. Regular as
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the collections from the corner postbox. The family hears the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: bin rock. Three rocks. In front of the wall, that
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: is their doorbell. Whoever is on turn goes to the window,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: opens it, takes the envelope off the leg, and closes
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: it again. Under seven minutes. Bin to sky. They have
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: never timed it. They do not need to time it.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: It is simply what the night contains. the way the
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: day contains buses, they know about me. Or them, Mr Patel,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Mrs Patel, Priya. They know about the landing window, and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the armchair, and the binoculars, and the flask, Priya said. Quote,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Dad says you are the minutes, end quote, the minutes.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I asked what that meant. She said, quote, like at
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: meetings someone has to write it down, Dad says every
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: street should have minutes. End quote. Every street should have minutes.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I stood at my gate with mud on my sleeve
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and I felt something I have not felt since the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: feather landed on my doorstep. Seen. Approved. Minuted in return. Watched.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Watching the watcher and finding him, on balance, acceptable. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: they know about the show. Mrs Patel plays it while
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: she cooks. Those were Priya's exact words, quote, Mum plays
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it while she cooks, end quote. I asked, with my
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: voice doing something I did not authorise, whether her mother minded,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: being in it. Being watched, being logged. Priya shrugged, the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: magnificent shrug of a girl who has grown up with
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: owls and finds the rest of us remarkable. She said, quote,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Mum says you are polite about it, end quote. Polite
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: about it? Six weeks of sideways watching with a crick
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: in my neck, and the verdict from number seven is polite.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I will take it. I will take polite over secret.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Polite means the code holds. Watch the post, not the people.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Record without exposing. Belong by day. The notebook has rules,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and the rules have passed their first inspection. conducted by
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a woman cooking dinner with my voice on in the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: background then i asked the question this whole episode exists
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: to answer how long how long have you known priya
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: shifted her school bag to the other shoulder the way
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you do when the answer is longer than the bus
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: weight and she said quote gran got letters when she
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was a girl end quote gran priya's grandmother i'll post
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: as a girl In her mother's house, cream paper, red wax,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the same arrangement generations back. The Patels did not discover
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the night post when they moved in eight years ago.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: They brought it with them. It runs in the family
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the way Marjorie runs in Mr Fenwick's garden. It is
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: simply what post looks like. To them. Owls instead of vans.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Ten past three instead of half past nine. A bin
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that rocks instead of a letterbox that claps. I asked
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: what the letters say. Family post, she said. Relatives. Birthdays. News.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: The ordinary business of an extraordinary family, conducted on cream
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: paper with green ink. I asked if she had ever
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: shown one to anyone outside. She looked at me the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: way Mrs. Older looks over a teacup. She said, quote,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Mum says post is private, end quote. Post is private.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Question three stands. The promise stands. Not one word read.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Not ever. Unless the street decides otherwise. Then, I asked
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: how it started. Another post? The arrangement? Eight years ago,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: new family, new street, first week in the house, what happens?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Who tells you? Priya grinned. The first grin of the morning,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: the kind that rearranges a whole face. She said that,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: on their second evening, Mrs. Alder came over the garden
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: fence with a plate of biscuits and the rules. Four rules.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Bin out light the night before. Listen for three rocks.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Take the letter in off the leg. Tell no one
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: outside the lane. Priya's mother asked why the bin had
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: to be light. Mrs. Older said, quote, every street has
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a post, end quote. Just that, every street has a post.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: As if owls were simply a utility, like water, like bins,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: like Mrs. Older herself. Her mother asked what the letters were. Mrs.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Alder said, quote, yours, end quote, and went back to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: her roses. The induction of number seven, conducted over a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: fence in under a minute, with biscuits. I have written
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: it a page of its own because inductions deserve pages. MRS.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Alder runs the induction. Of course she does. She runs
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: everything within 40 feet of her roses. The owls run
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the post. Mrs. Alder runs the street the post lands on.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Between them, nothing is ever wasted. Not knocks, not newcomers,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: not biscuits. And then, because the bus was coming, the
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: way buses come, when conversations are unfinished, I ask the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: smallest question. The one I have carried for six years
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: without knowing it. The wave. Why do you wave? Every morning.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Six years. Why? Priya picked up her school bag. She
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: looked at me. And she said, quote, you were there,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: end quote. Three words. To end a morning of twos.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: You were there. Not because of the post. Not because
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of the watching. Because I was there. At the window.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: In the mornings. The way she was there. At the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: bus stop. Six years of ordinary mornings and the wave
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: was never about the extraordinary at all. It was simply
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a girl waving at a neighbour who was there. Both.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: At once. for six years. The way the milk is
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: both milk and a message. The way the bin is
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: both a bin and a doorbell. The way I am
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: both Hugh from number four and the minutes for the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: whole lane. She ran for the bus. I stood at
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: my gate with muddy keys and a full notebook page,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and I watched the bus pull away with Priya in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: a window seat, already waving, already gone. The way the
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: owls are already gone by the time you reach for
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: your pen Six years of mornings and I had never
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: once watched her bus leave. I had always waved and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: gone inside. The watching game changes you in small ways first.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: You start watching buses. You start timing departures. You start
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: understanding that every leaving is also a pattern and patterns
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: are what I do. And here is the ruling I
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: wrote when I got inside, underlined twice, because twice is
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: for rulings that change the furniture. The watched have been watching,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: not anxiously, not angrily, fondly, the way you watch a
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: neighbour you have already decided about. The Patels decided about
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: me years ago, the way they decided about the bin,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and the decision was this, polite, there, the minutes. I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: have been carrying that ruling around all day like a
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: warm coin, and there is one more thing from that morning,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the last thing, before we get to the knock. As
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Priya climbed onto the bus, she turned in the doorway
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and she waved. Right hand. Three waggles. Standard. And I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: waved back, standing in my own gateway with mud on
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: my sleeve. And for the first time in six years,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I understood what the wave was for. It was never
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: a greeting. It was a receipt. Seen. Logged. Waved back. Both.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: At once. Always. I have added a line to the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: KEE's page since, in the margin, in pencil. Waves are repeats.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Six years to learn it, one morning to prove it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And now the bin. The wheelie bin outside number seven.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: The wobble I promised you. I've counted the rocks eleven times,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and it is always three. A slow, side-to-side rock. Three rocks,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: then still. And I told you last time I would
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: tell you why, so here it is. The whole mechanics
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: of it, learned across eleven nights, and confirmed yesterday morning
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: in four words from a schoolgirl. The beam wobbles because
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Biscuit knocks. Here is the landing. Describe the way I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: would describe a suspect. because I have watched it eleven times,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and the eleventh taught me what the first ten only
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: showed me. Biscuit comes in low over the church wall,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: silent as falling curtains, and settles on the same corner
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of the lid every time. The same corner. The lid
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: carries three pale scratches to prove it. Talon marks on
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: dark plastic, pale against the dark. Three short lines close together.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: LAND And then, and this is the part I missed
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: for ten visits, because it happens fast and my sideline
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: is sideways, the owl hops. Twice. Land, hop, hop. Three
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: touches on the same corner. Three rocks of the bin.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: It is not the weight that rocks it. A brown
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: owl weighs nothing. It is the rhythm. The landing is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a knock. Three touches. The way the visitors knock twice
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: at number nine. Biscuit knocks thrice at number seven. Every night.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: On the lid. And the family. Upstairs in the warm,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: hears three rocks through the wall. And whoever is on
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: turn gets up and goes to the window. That is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the doorbell. That is the whole of it. Eleven visits.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Three rocks. One knock. But here is the question beneath
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the question, the one the notebook asked in red pen.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Why does the bin rock so freely? Bins are heavy things.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Bins full of rubbish sit like stones. An owl landing
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: on a full bin would make no sound at all.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And a knock nobody hears is not a knock. It
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: is a wish. So why does this bin sing? Because
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: it is light. Because the Patels put it out the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: night before with almost nothing in it, the way Mrs.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Alder told me, out the night before like everyone else.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: back by breakfast like no one else, an empty bin rocks,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: a full bin thuds. The Patels keep their bin light
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: on purpose, the way you keep a drumskin tight, and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Priya told me the sentence her father says about it,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: standing at my gate with the bus coming, and I
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: am going to give it to you exactly as she
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: gave it to me, because it is the best sentence
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: about bins ever spoken on this lane. Quote, Dad says
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: a full bin would waste the knock. End quote. A
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: full bin would waste the knock. I have written that
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: on the Amtok page and circled it once. Lightly, the
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: way you circle things that are already perfect. Eight years
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: on this street and the Patels have never once wasted
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the knock. The bin goes out light. The yawl lands thrice.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: The family hears. The window opens. Nobody wastes anything on
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Bramble Lane. Not knocks. Not milk. Not waves. I tested
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: the theory. Because theories untested are just sentences. Yesterday afternoon,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: in daylight, I went out to my own bin, which
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: was full. The way bins get when stakeouts replace housework.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: And I tapped the lid with one knuckle. Sud. Nothing. Nothing.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: A full bin swallows knocks the way the hedge swallows envelopes.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Then I lifted the lid and looked inside and did
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the arithmetic of a man facing his own rubbish, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I did not empty it, because the collection is Friday
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and I am not an animal. But the test held.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Full bins thud, light bins sing. Missive. Alder's curtain twitched
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: at the tapping, obviously, and I called out, quote, Acoustic Research. End. quote,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and the curtain stilled, the way curtains still when the
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: explanation is worse than the noise. Acoustic research. Logged. The
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: notebook has a page for smaller things. The window next,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: because the window is the heart of tonight, and I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: have held it back the way you hold back the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: centre of anything. Across eleven nights, I have watched that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: upstairs window open eleven times. Eleven opens, Eleven letters taken in.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Eleven closes. Under seven minutes every time. Bin to sky.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And here is what I can tell you about the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: hands because I watch the post and not the people
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and hands are post. Some nights the hand is large.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: A man's hand. Quick and sure. In and out like
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a mechanic. Some nights the hand is smaller. Quicker still.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: The way women do things when men are watching and
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: taking too long. And some nights, Friday nights, the hand
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: is small and careful, and the window stays open a
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: breath longer, and the letter is held up to the
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: lamplight for one second before it goes in, the way
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: you hold up anything precious. Cream paper, red wax, green
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: ink curling like ribbons. Held up to the light by
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: a girl who has waited all week for her turn.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Let me give you one night in full, because one
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: night timed is worth eleven nights remembered. Wednesday, ten past three.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Land hop-hop, three rocks. I started my watch the way
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I start everything. Pen ready, T in reach. Four minutes
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of Al non-bin facing the window. At fourteen minutes past,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the window opened. The large hand. Mr Patel's night. Out. Envelope.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Off the leg. In. The window closed. Biscuit lifted away
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: over the church wall without a sound. Total visit time.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Bin to sky. Six minutes and forty seconds. I wrote
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it down. I underlined the forty seconds, because forty seconds
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: under seven minutes is the margin the whole operation runs on. Tight. Professional.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: The way Dave's round runs two minutes ahead of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: timetable that is not on my timetable. Six weeks ago,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I was a man who had seen something odd. Now
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: I am a man who times the odd to the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: second and underlines the margins. The notebook does that to you.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It turns wonder into arithmetic and arithmetic back into wonder
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and charges you nothing for the conversion. For there is
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a rota. Of course there is a rota. There is
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a rota for everything on this street. The family takes
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the night post in turns. Monday, Mr. Patel. Tuesday, Mrs. Patel. Wednesday...
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Mr Patel. Thursday, Mrs Patel. And Friday. Because there is
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: no school the next day, Friday belongs to Priya. Her turn.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Her window. Her letter held up to the light. And
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: here is the small, sad story inside the rota, the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: one Priya told me with her school bag on her shoulder.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: and her bus hissing at the curb. Some weeks back,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: on a Friday, her turn came round, and she waited,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and the owl never came. No biscuit, no knock, no letter.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: She waited until four in the morning, in her dressing gown,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: at the window, the way I wait at mine, and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: when it was clear nothing was coming, her father made cocoa.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: At four in the morning, two mugs, and they sat
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at the kitchen table, father and daughter, drinking cocoa in
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the dark, and he told her what I am going
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to tell you, because it is the kindest sentence about
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: absence I have ever heard. Quote. The post rests some nights. Love.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Even owls get Fridays. End quote. Even owls get Fridays.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: The rota has rest days. The workforce rests. and a
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: girl who missed her turn got cocoa instead, which is
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: not post, but it is something. I have sat my
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: own empty nights, midnight to half past four, watching an
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: empty bin in an empty street, narrating the curtains to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: stay awake. I know exactly how those hours feel. Long, personal.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Like the street forgot you, and now I know that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: on at least one of those nights two windows of
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: waiting overlapped, me at mine. Priya at hers, both watching nothing,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: both logging absence. The rota includes me now. Not on
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the turns, I have not earned a turn, but on
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: the cocoa side of it, the waiting side. The side
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: that sits up and finds out the post rests. That counts.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: On this street, waiting counts double. I have entered it
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: on the knock page beneath her father's bin sentence. Two
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: sentences from one family never waste the knock. Even owls
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: get Fridays. If Patels ever leave this street, which they
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: will not, because the owls would follow them, I am
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: keeping their sentences. And now Dave. Because every investigation on
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: this street ends with Dave, the way every night ends
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: with milk bottles. Dave the postman. Bad knee. Good cheer.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Seventeen years on this round, and prepared statements for every occasion.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: I caught him at my gate this morning. on his
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: way down the lane with his bag, and I said, Dave, mate,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: quick question, number seven, much daytime post. He did not
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: look up from his bag. He said, quote, Bill's catalogues
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and one birthday card in March with too many stamps,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: end quote. Bill's catalogues, one birthday card, in March, with
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: too many stamps. I asked how he remembered the stamps.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: He looked at me then, over the top of his bag,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the way Mrs. Older looks over a teacup. He said, quote,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: still letterboxes, Hugh, end quote, and he walked on. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: stood at my gate turning that over. Bills, catalogues and
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: one birthday card in March with too many stamps. Dave
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: knows the daylight post of number seven the way I
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: know the night post, item by item, stamp by stamp.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: He audits the day the way I audit the dark,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: And his prepared statement is his notebook, and his notebook says, letterboxes,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the way mine says owls, two posts, two streets, one lane,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and two auditors, keeping the minutes for both, nodding at
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: each other over garden gates. Seventeen years Dave has carried
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: that bag up this lane, bad knee and all, through
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: rain that stopped my stakeouts, and mornings that stopped my sleep.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Seventeen years of letterboxes. And in all that time, as
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: far as I know, no one has ever asked him
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: what he makes of it. The daylight. The round. The
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: birthday cards with too many stamps. I asked one question
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and got a catalogue in return. There is a whole
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: archive walking up and down this lane in a uniform,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and I have been too busy watching the sky to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: interview the ground. I have added a line to the
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: open questions page. In pencil. Because pencil is for questions
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: too big for pen. What does Dave know? All of it,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I reckon. Every stamp of it. I have written Dave
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: a new page, the first he has earned. Dave knows.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: The daylight. Of course he does. He has carried it
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: for 17 years. The only question is whether he knows
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: about the night post. And I reckon he does. and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I reckon his statement covers it, and I reckon the
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: statement goes like this. Still, letterboxes, Hugh, meaning the day
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: post is his, meaning the night post is somebody else's. Meaning,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: mind the gap between them, the way you mind every
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: gap on this street. I thanked him. He was already
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: three gates down. He raised one hand without turning round,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: just raised it. No wave, no signal. Auditors acknowledging each other,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the way it is done. So that is act two,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and here is what it gives us. A knock in
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: three touches, a bin kept light on purpose, a window
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: with a rotor, a Friday with cocoa, and a postman
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: who knows every stamp. The mechanics of number seven start
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to finish, which brings us to the door, which brings
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: us to eleven seconds, which brings us finally to Mrs. Patel.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: But first a pause for the practical, because even Nightpost
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: runs on T, and my flux is empty, and the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: uncut pages do not fund themselves. You know the shape
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of it by now. Two links in the show notes.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: The supporter club on Spreaker if you like it quick.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Right where you listen. No fuss. Patreon if you want
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: early episodes and the extra pages I cannot fit into
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: hours like this one. Same knock either way. Same bin.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Same hue. Out of tea, reduced to tapping the flask
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: like a microphone. Done. Practical over. Deep breath. Slippers on.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: The door. And now, the part I have been holding
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: back all evening. The knock. The door. The eleven seconds.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I have made you wait the way the house made
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: me wait. And for the same reason. Some things land
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: harder after forty minutes. I went in daylight, on an
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: ordinary afternoon, with my notebook in my pocket and nothing
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: in my hands, because doors in this world do not
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: open for offerings. I walked down my own path, past six,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: where the net curtain gave me one twitch for the
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: road past the church wall. Up the path of number seven,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: past the hedge, past the bin, to the front step,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and there, already waiting, facing the door the way it
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: faces everything it has decided about, sat the cat, green eyes, enormous.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: It watched me come up the path without moving a whisker.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: I nodded at it, the way you nod at landlords.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It blinked back, slowly once, permission granted, and shifted one
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: pace left, clearing the boards. I stepped up, with my
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: heart doing the washing machine thing. And I stood there
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: for a moment, taking in the door furniture. Because doors
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: tell you things. Painted wood. Well kept. A brass number seven,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: dull with weather, certain of itself anyway. A letterbox at
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: knee height, polished by seventeen years of Dave. I looked
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: at that letterbox for a long moment. Bills and catalogues
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: go through there, in daylight, with stamps. Letters go through
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the upstairs window, at night, on legs. Two doors into
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: one house. Two posts. I have never respected a letterbox more.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I raised my hand. Two knocks. Measured. The number nine rhythm.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Borrowed for the afternoon. Courage and all. The door opened fast.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Faster than any door has a right to open when
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: the knock is still echoing. One moment I was standing
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: on a step with a cat, the next I was
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: looking at Mrs Patel, in her own doorway, in daylight,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: with flower on one hand and no surprise anywhere on
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: her face. And her first words, before I could say
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: a word, before I could introduce myself, before I could
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: explain the notebook in my pocket or the six years
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: of waving, were these, quote, you must be Hugh, end quote.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: You must be Hugh, She knew my name. She knew
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: my face. She had flour on her hand and my
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: name in her mouth like she had been saying it
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: for years, which, for all I know, she has. Every morning.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: At the bus stop. In storage. I will never hear,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Priya waves, Mrs Patel cooks, Mr Patel keeps minutes of
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the minutes. The whole family has had me filed since
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: before I had them filed, and I stood on their step,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: understanding the way you understand rain. As I was not
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: introducing myself, I was being recognised. Eleven seconds. That is
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: how long the door stayed open, counted afterward the way
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: I count everything. Eleven seconds from latch to latch. And
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: I am going to give you all eleven, because eleven
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: seconds past a doorway is the most I have ever
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: been given, and the notebook does not waste gifts. Past
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: her shoulder, down the hallway, warm light, the kind of
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: hallway that has been lived in for eight years and
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: loved for all of them. Wellington boots in a row
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: by the wall, four pairs, the smallest by the mat,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: school shoes beside them, lined up straight, the way Priya
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: lines up everything, coats on pegs, a school bag hanging
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: by its strap, and on the wall opposite where the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: light from the kitchen caught it full on, a cork board,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: bills pinned at the edges, takeaway menus, a school letter
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: with a red star and in the middle, pinned like
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: anything ordinary, like anything at all, a cream envelope, thick
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: cream paper. dark red wax. An address, in green ink,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: curling like ribbons, the night post, on the board, among
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: the day post, the way the bin is among the bins,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and the wave is among the waves, both, at once, always.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I looked at it for, perhaps two seconds of the eleven.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I did not read it. I could not have read it,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: upside down at twelve feet with flower in my sightline.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: But I saw it, The closest I have ever come.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Cream and wax and green, pinned to cork in daylight,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: in a hallway that smelled of cooking. The smell. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: have left the smell for its own sentence, because smells
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: are evidence too. Onions. Something with onions, frying gently, the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: way dinner starts at half past five in houses where
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: people come home hungry. Mrs Patel was cooking. Priya's words.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Confirmed by my own nose. Mum plays the show while
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: she cooks. And underneath the onions, from the kitchen behind her,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: came a voice I knew better than my own, because
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: it was my own. Mid-sentence. Something about Bramble House she
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: had the last episode on. Paused, or playing low while
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: she answered the door. I stood on her step listening
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: to myself describe a blue door, and my knees did
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: something unauthorised, and Mrs Patel caught my look, the exalte look,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and smiled the way Priya smiled at the bus stop,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: the same grin, rearranged for mothers. She said, quote, we
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: are behind by one, end quote. Behind by one. The
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: family at number seven listens to this show the way
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the rest of you do. An episode behind, over dinner.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: with flour on their hands. I am going to need
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: a moment every time I remember that for the rest
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: of my life. And there she stood, cooking dinner, with
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: flour on her hand and my name in her mouth.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: And here is what she said next, with the door
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: open and the 11 seconds running. Quote, Priya told us
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: about the keys, end quote. Priya told us about the keys,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the whole family, debriefed on my gutter incident before the
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: mud was dry. I said, quote, I am sorry about
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the gutter, end quote, which was not what I meant
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to say, but doors make me stupid, everyone knows that.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: She laughed, not unkindly. The way you laugh at neighbours,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: she said, quote, the gutter has had worse, end quote,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the gutter has had worse. Eight years on this street,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and missus, Patel knows the history of the gutter outside
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: my house. Of course she does. Everyone knows everything. The
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: only person finding things out around here is me, one
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: saucer at a time. And then the door began to close,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the way doors close when dinner is on and the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: onions will not wait and Mrs. Patel said the last thing,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: over the closing gap, with the cat winding round her
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: ankles like it lived there, which, for all I know,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: it does. Quote, mind the step, the cat sits there.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: End quote. Mind the step, the cat sits there, said
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: the way. You say anything permanent. The bin goes out light.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: The post comes at ten past three. The cat sits there,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: as if the green-eyed landlord of Bramble Lane had simply
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: always sat on that step, the way it sits on
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: every wall, as if a cat choosing a step were
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the most ordinary thing in the world, which on this
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: street it may be. The door closed. Eleven seconds. Done.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: The cat looked up at me from the step. It blinked,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: slowly once, and I walked home past the church with
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: my notebook in my hand and my keys in my pocket,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: and I felt for the first time since the barn
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: owl coughed that the application had been answered, not in full.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Doors open eleven seconds at a time, but answered, recognised, filed,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: You must be Hugh. I want to tell you what
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I did when I got home, because home is where
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: rulings get written. I sat at my desk. I looked
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: at the museum. The feather. The bottle. The shard. The keys,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: still muddy. And I opened the notebook to the door page,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: and I wrote the eleven seconds down, all of them,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: boots and board and onions and all. And then I
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: wrote the ruling beneath, underlined three times, because three is
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: for rulings that close cases. The door opened. Three words,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: three underlines. The way biscuit knocks thrice. The way the
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: bin rocks three times. Three's all the way down on
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: this street, and the newest three is a door. I
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: sat there for a while after that, with the pen
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: in my hand and the museum looking on, and I
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: turned over what eleven seconds had given me. A name. Known.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: A hallway. Glimpsed. A letter. Pinned. A cut. Assigned to
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a step. And a sentence about a gutter that has
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: had worse. Eleven. Seconds. Some episodes give you less in
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: an hour. And here is the last thing about the door,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: the thing I have been saving, because some things belong
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: at the end of acts. As I walked home past
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: number six, Mrs. Alder's curtain twitched, obviously. And I stopped
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: on the pavement, the way you stop when the week
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: has been too much, and I looked up at that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: curtain and I said out loud to no one, to
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the net, quote, she knew my name, end quote. The
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: curtain twitched again. Once. The smallest movement. The way you
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: would nod. We understand each other, Mrs Alder and I.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: She watches people. I watch everything else. And this week,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: for eleven seconds, we both watched the same door. At
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: my own gate I stopped and looked what backed down
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: the lane. Number seven. Curtains drawn, bin by the gate,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: cat on the step. The most watched house on the lane,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: after nine. And the most welcoming. Eleven seconds had rearranged
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it completely. It was never a case to be cracked.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: It was neighbours to be met. The way the wave
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: was never a greeting. The way the bin was never
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: just a bin. Everything on this street is one thing
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: standing slightly to the left of itself, and the notebook
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: is how I measure the distance. So, that is act three,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and that is the whole of number seven as it stands.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: A knock in daylight. A name. Known, eleven seconds of hallway.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: A letter on a board. Four pairs of boots. Onions.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And a cat on a step, blinking like a landlord.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Three acts. One family. And a watcher who came to
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: investigate a house and was given, instead, a receipt for
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: six years of waving. Features time, and tonight the notebook
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: comes first because the number seven pages deserve to be
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: read aloud in full the way evidence deserves daylight. From
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: my notebook, four pages, written across two days, abbreviations expanded
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: for the listeners. Page one, headed S-A-U-C. Set down midnight,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: eastern end of the wall, whole milk, new saucer white
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: with blue rim. Check dawn, gone, clean as a whistle.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Grey feather laid across, barred, businesslike, ruling, one, underline, something
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: drank the milk. Refill tonight, per the plan. Mrs. Alder
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: over the fence. UNPROMPTED WHOLE MILK GOOD OF COURSE IT
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: WAS GONE SECOND RULING PENCIL SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE DRINKER
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: PAGE 2 HEADED KEYS YESTERDAY MORNING HALF PAST SEVEN GUTTER
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: EDGE BUS DOCK PRIYA CALLED OUT WAS IT GONE Keys
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: dropped in mud. Two words. We know. Family knows. Window. Notebook. Me.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Dad says you are the minutes. Mum plays show while cooking.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Polite about it. Gran got letters as a girl. Post
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: is private. Wave explained. You were there. Ruling. Two underlines.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: The watched have been watching. Page three. Headed cock. Eleven visits.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Three rocks every time. Landing decoded. Land, hop, hop, same corner.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Three scratches, bin kept light. Out night before, back by breakfast.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Dad says, a full bin would waste the knock. Window rotor.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Monday dad. Tuesday mum. Wednesday dad. Thursday mum. Friday, Priya. Friday,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: missed weeks back. Coco at four. Dave. Bills. Catalogs. Birthday card.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: March too many stamps. Still letterboxes. Ruling. One underline. Two posts.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Two auditors. Page four. Headed door. Daylight knock two. Borrowed rhythm.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Opened fast. Mrs Patel. Flower. You must be Hugh. Eleven seconds. Hallway.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Warm light. Four pairs boots. Smallest by Matt. Corkboard. Bills. Menus.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: School letter red star. Cream envelope middle. Wax red. Ink green.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Closest ever. Two seconds. Twelve feet. Upside down. Unread. Onions frying.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Priya told us about the keys. Gutter has had worse.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Closing line. Mind the step. The cat sits there. Ruling.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: Three underlines. The door opened. That is the whole of it.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Four pages. Two days and a case. I opened expecting
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: a house and closed, holding a receipt. Four pages that
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: changed the furniture. The source approved the street answers. The
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: keys proved the street approves. The knock proved the street
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: runs to standards. The door proved the street knows my name.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I came to number seven to investigate a house. I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: am leaving at minitude, filed and waved at from a bus.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: And now, Owl of the Week, regular show edition. And
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: I will give the ceremony its full honours. Because this
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: week belongs to the birds the way the bin belongs
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: to the knock. The rules for the new listeners. One owl.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Finest of the past seven days. Full reasoning. No favouritism.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Marjorie present in every comparison the way she is present
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: in every night. This week's shortlist. The grey one. For
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: holding the garden wall through a whole delivery without moving
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a feather, for the guitar case weeks ago, hold silent
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: over thirty sleeping houses. For the ten-second stare through my
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: landing window, head tilted, the way my Auntie Carol tilts hers.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: For quitting that wall empty-legged on Friday without a backward glance,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: supervision concluded, nothing to supervise. Chairman of the Belfry for
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: holding the high post through every delivery this week, facing
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: number seven at ten past three with the rest of us,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: watching the watcher's watch, the only audience member with a
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: better seat than mine. And Marjorie. Marjorie the Barn Owl.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Forty visits and counting. The feather on the doorstep. Our
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: reigning regular showholder, and the benchmark against which all strangeness
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: is measured, present in every comparison and gracious in every defeat.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Three candidates. No easy choice. The grey one had the week.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Chairman had the height. Marjorie had the history. But the award,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: this week, goes to the bird that supervised the round
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: and found it good. The grey one. Owl of the week.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: For the wall. For the stair. For the guitar case.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: For seniority without portfolio. May its walls be straight and
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: its rounds be punctual. And Marjorie. Wherever you are roosting tonight,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you remain the measure of all things. Even the grey
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: one knows it. It looked at me the way you
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: look at everyone. That is the highest praise this notebook
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: can pay. One more piece of post before we close,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: because the ledger grows whether I am ready or not.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Thing from Manchester joined the file this week as entry four,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: and now a fourth listener. Letter, this one from Sheffield.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: from a woman who signs herself S, which seats her
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: next to R and T and M in the file.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: And I've seated all four together on purpose, because the
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: watchers are finding each other, and the file should reflect it.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Think writes that her street has no owls that she
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: can see, and no foxes, and no knocks. And for
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: weeks she felt left out of the watching game, sitting
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: up with her own flask and seeing nothing but doorsteps.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Until last month, when parcels started appearing. Brown paper. String.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Never tape. No sender. No labels. No courier seen or heard.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Three of them now, sitting on her sideboard in a row,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: addressed to no one, from no one. And S writes
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: that she has not opened them. Not one. They sit there,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: brown and string-tied and patient, and her whole street has
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: started leaving its curtains open at night, watching for the deliverer.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: and nobody has seen a thing. She ends her letter
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: with the sentence I have been turning over ever since. Quote, Hugh,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: if a parcel comes with no sender, who do you thank?
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: End quote. Think, my dear watcher. Your street is entered
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: into the National Ledger as entry number five, and your
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: question about thanking is going on the open questions page
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: beneath question two, because the night post runs on gratitude
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: the way it runs on rotas, and someone, somewhere, deserves
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: thanks for three parcels in Sheffield. As for who delivers them,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I have no ruling yet, only a notion offered cheaply
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: and with feeling. Perhaps some streets get owls you can see,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: perhaps some get arrangements you cannot. Perhaps Sheffield gets the
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: parcels and Bramble Lane gets the birds and the thanks
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: in the end go to the same place. And S,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: about the unopened parcels, keep one closed. Whatever the others
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: turn out to be, keep one closed. On the sideboard,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: in the row. Some post is for opening, some post
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: is for keeping. The keeping kind holds a street together
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: the way the feather holds my desk together. Proof that
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: something out there knows your address. Keep watching. Keep the
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: flask full. Log the parcels. Count the strings. And S.R.T.M.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: if any of you ever meet, and I have a
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: feeling you might. Tell each other. Shu says hello. The
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: watchers are finding each other. It was only a matter
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: of time. So here we are, at the end of
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: our third evening together, and I want to tell you
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: what number seven has taught me, because it completes a set,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: and sets matter to men with notebooks. The owls taught
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: me that the street keeps secrets until I am ready.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: The house taught me that watching might be participation, that
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: some things stand because someone stands looking. And number seven
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: has taught me the third lesson, the one I needed most.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: And it is this. The watched were never worried. While
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I crept about with binoculars and logs feeling like an
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: intruder with a flask, the family at number seven had
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: already decided I was the minutes. Polite? There. Every street
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: should have them. I came here to watch. I appear
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: to have been minuted in return. And if that is true,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: if Bramble Lane has been keeping minutes of its minutes-taker
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: all along, then this show is not my application letter anymore.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: It is the record, kept by me, read by everyone,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: filed under H, for hue, for hallway, for held up
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: to the light. Every street should have minutes. Ours has me.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: And I have never been prouder to be paperwork. Before
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I go, the usual three things, plus a fourth, because
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: number seven earned it. First, thank you. For tonight, for
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: last time, for the messages, for R in Leeds, for
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: T in Bristol, for S in Sheffield, for every listener
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: who has checked their own street since this show began
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and found it, I hope slightly less ordinary than before.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: Do subscribe so tomorrow finds you, and do share us
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: with the nosiest person you know. The way siblings wait, patiently,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: with better sleep schedules than mine. Third, the practical. Last
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: time tonight, brief as ever. Links in the show notes.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Supporter Club on Spreaker for quick. Patreon for early and extra.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Same doorstep, same hue menuted and filed. And fourth, the
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: open questions page, updated. Question 1. Who lives at number 9? Unchanged.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: 11 owls, 17 callers, 1 brass number, 0 answers, and
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: 1 banana bread, eaten standing up, entered as evidence. Question 2.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Who runs the owl post? advanced. The family rota. The
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: knock in three touches. Eight years of arrangement. Gran before that.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Coco on missed Fridays. And S from Sheffield asking who
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: to thank. The operation has edges now. I can see
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: where it touches daylight. But who runs it? Who writes
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the rota? Who rests the birds? Still open. Still the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: biggest question on the page, with a pencil line beneath it,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: in my own hand from this morning. What does Dave know?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Question three. What do the letters say closest ever? Two seconds.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: Twelve feet. Upside down. Pinned to cork. Still unread. The
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: promise stands. Before this show is done, I will read
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: an owl letter with my own eyes. Or I will
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: find out exactly why I cannot. Question four. Who else
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: is watching? Answered in part and growing. Mrs Glover behind
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: her curtains. The Patels watching back with approval. R and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: T and M and now Ace. Four watches in four cities.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: The Dodds silent through our hours. A chairman on a belfry.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: A grey one on a wall. and a cat on
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: a step which brings me to the end of the list.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: Question five. What is coming? Closer, I reckon. Closer every night,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the flashes broke, the curtain moved, the saucer came back empty.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Long nights ahead. Question six. What is Bramble House? Waiting.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: Not where, not when. What? First data point in. Something
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: drinks milk. Something with table manners. Question 7. Will the
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: milk be gone by morning? Answered. Gone. Clean. Feather across.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Question 7 retires, the first question on this page to close,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: and I have drawn a line under it, the way
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: you do with finished business. And in its place. Question 8.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Written in capitals with the date. W.H.O. drank the milk.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: And what does the grey feather me? Because a saucer
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: does not lick itself clean. Because feathers do not lay
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: themselves like spoons, because Mrs Alder said of course it
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: was gone, and knowing looks have to come from somewhere.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: The saucer goes back down tonight, refilled, same wall, same milk,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: same hour. And in the morning I will look again.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: That is the rota now. Milk down at midnight. check
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: at dawn. Real at dusk, the way Biscuit keeps ten
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: past three, the way Dave keeps his round, the watcher
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: keeps the saucer. Watch this space, watch the milk. And now,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: the reason you must come back tomorrow. Because while I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: have been telling you about doors and knocks and minutes,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: something else has been happening in the margins, something small
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and green-eyed and patient. The cat, Mrs Patel said. Mind
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: the step. The cat sits there. She did not say
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: what it does there. Last night, writing up the door
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: page at my desk which faces the garden, I felt
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: the back of my neck go cold the way it
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: goes when Mrs Alder's curtain moves. Watched, I turned round,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: and there on the garden wall behind me, framed in
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: my own window, lit by my own desk lamp, sat
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: the cat. Green eyes, wide open, not on me, past me.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: On the desk, on the notebook, on the page I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: was writing, reading over my shoulder, I closed the notebook, slowly,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: the way you close anything being read. The cat blinked
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: at me, once the way it blinks at everything, and
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: dropped off the wall into the dark like a comma
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: falling off a sentence. I sat there for a full minute.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Then I reopened the notebook and checked the page. It was,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: as I had left it, obviously. Cats cannot read, everyone
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: knows that, Everyone, except the cat. Tomorrow evening, same time,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: I am going to tell you about the cat that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: reads over shoulders. Sleep well. Keep one eye on your
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: own street, and Hugh will see you at eight. Hustles.