The Boarders of Joy Street

0:00 The First Snow

0:04 Narrator: Entry four. Boston, Saturday, the ninth of December, nineteen fifty. I have lived at fourteen Joy Street for three days. It is a house in which everybody lowers their voice, and nobody will say why. On Thursday at nine o'clock a car came to Berkeley Street for me and went away without me. Nell was shouted at for forty minutes. She says the Captain enjoyed it.

0:29 Narrator: Mrs. Adair. Nell is at the corner of Myrtle Street. She is carrying a paper bag. Her heart is going rather fast. She has been climbing.

0:39 Adair: Then I shall put the kettle on, and you will go down the steps and take the bag from her. You are a tall young man and she is carrying oranges. Narrator: I have not been past the step since Wednesday.

0:52 Adair: Nobody sees a man on my step, or on the three feet of pavement in front of it. That is the whole point of the step. Go on. The snow will not mind you.

1:04 Harrow: Jonah. You're outside. Narrator: I was sent to take the bag.

1:09 Harrow: Were you. Narrator: Mrs. Adair says that the step is the whole point of it. I do not understand her.

1:16 Harrow: Join the club. Here. They're salting Charles Street already, but up here you're on your own. Hanover Street will keep till you can walk there; that watch has waited six years. Mulrooney says if I'm not back by morning, I'm to stay where I am and he'll assume the worst and enjoy it.

1:35 Harrow: Your step is dry. Adair: My only vanity, Miss Harrow. I cannot abide snow on my step. It looks as though somebody has walked off with it.

1:46 Harrow: Mrs. Adair, it's snowing on the whole street. Adair: Yes. I have noticed the whole street. Come in out of it, both of you.

1:56 Hattie: Mr. Jonah! There's another one. I found it under the sugar bowl.

2:01 Narrator: Good evening, Miss Greaves. Hattie: "I have gone to the pantry. I will return." I was in the pantry.

2:09 Narrator: I have found that it is better to leave a note even when nobody can be left. Hattie: I could hear you breathing, Mr. Jonah. Harrow: He's very proud of the notes. Let him have the notes.

2:22 Hattie: And your boots by the area door, Miss Harrow, next to the doctor's galoshes. The black ones, with the buckle. I'll not have wet rubber in my hall.

2:30 Harrow: I'll find them. Narrator: Mrs. Adair. Your heart is a little wrong.

2:36 Adair: Is it, dear? Which part? Narrator: It misses one beat in nine. It has done so since Thursday.

2:43 Adair: Nine. Then I've a good many Thursdays in hand yet. Don't tell Hattie.

2:48 Harrow: Mrs. Adair. Adair: Miss Harrow, it's a very old heart and it's carried a great many things. It's permitted to miss a beat. There's soup, and a stove in the room next to Jonah's, and you'll not be going anywhere tonight.

3:01 Harrow: The room next to Jonah's. Adair: It is the only one with a stove.

3:07 Supper in the Basement

3:07 Hattie: Soup, Miss Harrow, and bread, and I'll hear no remarks about the bread. It was a good loaf before it cracked. Eleven bowls, and not one of you will thank me.

3:17 Bright: Hattie. You've mended the pot lid again. Hattie: It was cracked, Samuel.

3:23 Bright: It was cracked on Tuesday, and you mended it on Tuesday, and the kettle on Wednesday. How many this week? Hattie: Four.

3:33 Bright: Four years, Hattie. Hattie: A pot lid's a cheap year. Bright: Nothing is a cheap year.

3:40 Adair: Samuel. Let her feed us. Bright: Of course. Forgive me, Hattie.

3:45 Harrow: Doctor Bright? Nell Harrow. Jonah's told me you look after the house.

3:51 Bright: Samuel, please. I keep them alive and I refuse to be paid, Miss Harrow, which makes me the worst doctor in Boston. Hattie: He was a Registry man once, Miss Harrow. Twelve years at Court Street. He walked out one Tuesday with his bag, and Cordelia took him in.

4:09 Bright: She took me in and I have never been out of her debt. Cordelia, you've not touched your soup. Adair: I'm forty years past soup, Samuel. Eat your own.

4:19 June: Jack's lying. His pulse has gone up. He's had three helpings and he says it's two.

4:25 Jack: It was two and a bit, June. June: Two and a bit and a half. Lottie: They do that all the time. They can feel each other's hearts. It's very rude.

4:36 Ruth: Lottie. Elbows. Hattie: And you'll not wash up, Mrs. Marsh. You've scrubbed their stairs on Court Street all night, every night. Sit.

4:45 Ruth: Nobody has asked me to sit in eleven years. I don't know how it's done. Lottie: Daddy can't come tomorrow. He sent word by the milkman. Nothing's moving past Roxbury.

4:57 Ruth: He'll sleep at the car shops. He'll be warmer than we are. June: Mr. Jonah, may I hold your wrist? Everyone says you've no pulse and I don't believe it.

5:06 Narrator: You may. June: ...Nothing. It's like holding a bird that isn't there.

5:12 Lottie: He's like a cellar in August. I told you. Narrator: Nell. Stand behind me.

5:19 Harrow: Jonah — Narrator: At the end of the table. There is no sound there. No pulse. A hole. It is the kind I cannot hear. It is one of —

5:26 Lottie: Is he going to hit Mr. Santangelo? Adair: Sit down, Jonah. That is Mr. Santangelo, who has kept his bed all week, and he is a gentleman, and he is deaf as a post. It is not at all the same thing.

5:41 Hattie: He's written: "How do you do." And underneath: "A hole. How very flattering."

5:48 Narrator: I am sorry. I took you for something much worse. Hattie: He says everybody does, for about a minute.

5:57 Harrow: What is he? Adair: The Hush. Sound dies around him, and his own hearing with it. Ten feet or so in this house; in the street it is thirty. It is the only thing I have ever been able to do for him. He reads lips, and he writes. He has not said good morning to anyone in twenty-two years, and I should take it as a kindness if nobody mentioned it. Anthony, you may put the slate down. We all know that you are charming.

6:27 Adair: Edmund, do pass Miss Harrow the bread. Harrow: Thank you. Who —

6:32 Hattie: Oh! Edmund. I put you down for a draught again.

6:36 Pike: Not at all, Miss Greaves. It is a restful condition. Harrow: Nell Harrow, Mr. Pike.

6:41 Pike: I know. I've been looking forward to it. Nobody looks forward to me, as a rule.

6:47 Adair: He is easy to forget. So I make a point of remembering him. Lottie: Nell brought oranges. The first one's for sharing. Daddy says.

6:57 Lottie: You try. You've never had one. Narrator: What is it?

7:02 Lottie: It's the nicest thing in the world. Narrator: It is loud. Harrow: Loud?

7:09 Narrator: It is a very loud colour. Bright: Cordelia. Adair: It's a very old heart, Samuel, and it's permitted to miss a beat. Sit down. Eat your soup.

7:20 Adair: Miss Harrow. Jonah. When the plates are done, I should like a word in the parlour.

7:26 The Parlour, Nine O'Clock

7:26 Adair: Sit, both of you. Not there, Jonah, that chair is older than the Republic. The one by the fire.

7:34 Adair: I'm going to tell you how it works, because you'll need to know, and because I've been told that I'm a poor hand at being brief. What I keep stays kept. A thing lost, a person looked for, a name a government wants. I take it into the house and the house takes it out of the world. Nobody finds it. Nobody remembers to look.

7:57 Harrow: And the price? Adair: There is always a price, Miss Harrow, and the keeping is paid for in the Keeper. Forty-one years ago a woman came to my door in a December like this with a baby the Overseers of the Poor were hunting, and I said yes without thinking. That child is a father of four now, in Worcester, and has never known it. I have been paying for him ever since. In instalments. On credit.

8:26 Narrator: Miss Greaves says that you have not been past the step in twelve years. Adair: A Keeper stays with what she keeps. I stand on my step and I keep the house. If I walked off it, the house would go unkept, with everyone in it. So I stay, as a sentry stays at his post.

8:44 Harrow: And Jonah? What does he cost? Adair: You are the largest thing I have ever been asked to keep, young man. Something is looking for you. It has been looking since the week you came, and since Wednesday it presses on my walls like a great patient hand. It is not unkind. It is not anything.

9:04 Adair: I kept a house in Charlestown once, in 'twenty-nine, that I could not hold. It was found. Everyone in it was forgotten. By the neighbours, by the Overseers, by each other. Nobody has been able to say the number of it since.

9:21 Narrator: Then I should go. Adair: You'll do nothing of the kind. I've never enjoyed anything more in my life. I want you to know that, and I want you to remember I said it.

9:31 Harrow: Mrs. Adair. You're ill. Adair: I'm seventy-one and I'm tired, and the two aren't the same, Miss Harrow, though everybody under sixty thinks they are. Now. A favour, and it is for Jonah, because Miss Harrow would not do it. If the house goes quiet in the night, you are not to break the parlour door.

9:52 Narrator: Why not? Adair: A Keeper's last hours are her own. I shall lock the door myself, and Hattie will weep through it, and Samuel will fuss, and Mr. Santangelo will not hear a word of it, and you will all be very cross with me in the morning. I should like to have them to myself. Promise me.

10:10 Harrow: Mrs. Adair — Adair: Miss Harrow, you would break it. That is why I am asking him.

10:17 Narrator: I promise. Adair: Thank you, my dear. You are a better young man than you know. And tomorrow, if it clears, I shall show you the roof. It is the only place in this city where I can feel the harbor, and I have not been past my step in twelve years, but nobody has ever said I cannot have a roof.

10:36 Narrator: I should like that. Adair: Go to bed, both of you. Nell. The stove in the room beside his will smoke if you touch the damper. Do not touch the damper.

10:47 Harrow: I'll leave the damper alone. Adair: Good night, then. Mind the stairs. They have opinions.

10:54 Sunday, Before Dawn

10:59 Narrator: At twenty past four on Sunday morning, a heart stopped. The snow had taken the noise out of the whole city, and for the first time since I came I could hear every heart in that house: seven asleep, and one that was slow, and then was not. One place was a hole. One I did not hear at all. I had promised not to break the door. I wrote Nell a note, because it is the third rule, and slid it under her door, and I went down the stairs and sat against the parlour door. I did not know what else a person does.

11:36 Harrow: Jonah? Narrator: I wrote you a note. Harrow: I read it. "Mrs. Adair has died. I am at her door. I promised not to open it."

11:46 Narrator: Yes. Harrow: How long ago? Narrator: Twenty past four. It is twenty-five minutes to five.

11:53 Harrow: Are you sure? Narrator: Her heart was slow, and then it was not there. I have stopped a heart, Nell. I did not listen to it. I have never listened to one stop by itself.

12:06 Harrow: Was she afraid? Narrator: No. It was slow and level, the most level that it has been. I think she was sitting. I think she had stopped waiting for anything. I did not break the door. I promised. Was that right?

12:22 Harrow: ...Yes. Narrator: I would like to be certain. I could have heard her heart stop and gone in. She would not have known.

12:32 Harrow: She'd have known. She asked you before it happened, so that she could have the room to herself. You did what she asked.

12:41 Narrator: Nell. It is not a sound. I thought that it would be a sound. It is the place where the sound was.

12:50 Harrow: That's grief, Jonah. Narrator: Then I do not like it. Harrow: You've been listening to her heart for four days.

12:59 Narrator: Yes. It missed one in nine. I would have known it among a hundred.

13:04 Harrow: I should have heard her go. Narrator: You were asleep. People are supposed to be asleep.

13:10 Harrow: Not when somebody says goodnight to them and calls it a favour. God, you're cold. Narrator: Yes. Mrs. Adair said that I was like a cellar. That was Lottie.

13:24 Harrow: Lottie says a lot of things. Narrator: Nell. The house has changed.

13:30 Harrow: Changed how? Narrator: Until twenty past four it was a place that I could not hear through. Like a room with the door shut. Now it is only a house. I can hear Charles Street. I can hear a man in a motor car across the road. He is turning the pages of a book. I can hear —

13:45 Harrow: The keeping. Narrator: It has ended. I think that it ended when she did.

13:51 Harrow: Then everyone in this house is — Narrator: Yes. Harrow: And the other thing? The hole. In the east.

13:58 Narrator: It was the size of a hand on Wednesday. Harrow: And now? Narrator: The size of a door.

14:04 Harrow: A door. Narrator: I did not say that it was one. I said that it was the size of one.

14:11 Narrator: He has not moved. He is reading. Harrow: Then he's waiting for the light. So are we. Not yet. Let them have the last hour of not knowing.

14:22 Narrator: And you? Harrow: I'll sit here. If you'll let me.

14:28 A Quarter to Six

14:27 Narrator: You may. Hattie: Mr. Jonah? Miss Harrow? What on earth are you two doing on the floor at this hour? Mrs. Adair will have your —

14:35 Narrator: Miss Greaves. Mrs. Adair died at twenty past four. Hattie: She did not.

14:42 Narrator: I am sorry. Hattie: She did not. She was well last night. I mended her on Friday. I mended her. I mended her on Friday.

14:52 Hattie: Cordelia! Cordelia, open this door! Harrow: Miss Greaves —

14:57 Bright: Hattie. Quietly, my dear. Quietly. What is it?

15:02 Hattie: She's locked in. She won't answer. Harrow: Doctor Bright. Mrs. Adair died at twenty past four. We think.

15:11 Bright: Died. June: What's happened? Jack: Is it Mrs. Adair?

15:15 Bright: Break it. Somebody break it. Harrow: ...Thank you, Mr. Santangelo.

15:21 Hattie: Oh. Oh, Cordelia. Harrow: She's in the chair, by the cold fire. Her hands are folded. There's a rug on her knees. The key's in the lock on this side. The window's latched.

15:35 Hattie: Let me. Let me, I can, it's what I'm for, I can — Bright: Hattie, no. She's gone. It isn't a thing that mends.

15:43 Hattie: Everything mends! That's what I'm for! Bright: Not the dead, my dear. Not this.

15:51 Harrow: There's a ring of keys on the table. And two envelopes. The big one says, "To the one who keeps." The small one says, "To Jonah. Not before the keeping is seated."

16:03 Bright: Leave them, Miss Harrow. Whatever they are, they're hers. Harrow: I will. They stay sealed.

16:11 Ruth: Oh, no. Oh, not her. Lottie: Is Mrs. Adair dead? Ruth: Yes, love.

16:19 Lottie: She said she'd be up first. She's always up first. Bright: Jonah. Why were you at her door?

16:27 Narrator: I heard her heart stop. Bright: From the top of the house. Narrator: Yes.

16:32 Bright: Nobody can hear a heart from the top of a house. Narrator: I can. June: He hasn't got a heart himself. I held his wrist. There's nothing there.

16:42 Jack: He came on Wednesday. And so did they. The Registry's after the little girl, isn't it? And she came with him.

16:49 Ruth: I held my daughter's hand for four days. I did not kill an old woman. Narrator: I did not harm her.

16:58 Lottie: Mama! There's a car across the road. It's got snow on its roof as thick as a cake.

17:04 Ruth: Lottie, come away from the window. Lottie: There's a man sitting in it. In a grey coat. He's looking right at us.

17:13 Harrow: Mrs. Adair's step is white.

17:17 Sunday, Half Past Six

17:16 Harrow: Nobody touches anything. Doctor, you've seen her. Now come and look out of this window.

17:22 Bright: Miss Harrow, Cordelia was seventy-one and she had a failing heart. I was her doctor. I can sign the —

17:29 Harrow: Then sign it, Doctor. After you've looked at that car. Six inches on that roof and nobody's brushed it. It has snowed an inch an hour all night. That car has been sitting there six hours. Half past midnight.

17:45 June: Midnight. But she didn't die until — Harrow: And she didn't die until twenty past four. Nobody parks outside a house he can't see. Somebody told them which house.

17:56 Harrow: Did anybody in this house telephone anybody last night? Hattie: I haven't touched a telephone since the war. Bright: I did not send for anyone, Miss Harrow.

18:06 Jack: It was the new ones. The child came on Wednesday, and the Registry has been after her ever since, and — Ruth: You wicked boy.

18:13 Bright: I'm afraid it is a fair question, Miss Harrow. I'm sorry, Ruth. She does work at Court Street.

18:20 Ruth: I scrub their stairs. Nobody there has ever asked me what I heard. Harrow: Jack. Sit down.

18:28 Jack: Or Mr. Santangelo! Nobody ever hears him come or go. He could have walked to the call box and back, and none of us —

18:36 Hattie: He's written: "Quite true." And: "Nobody shall leave. Nobody shall telephone. There is no telephone in the house."

18:46 Harrow: Mr. Santangelo, thank you. That's the rule. Nobody leaves, nobody telephones, nobody opens a door. Mrs. Marsh, will you take the children to the kitchen and keep them there?

18:57 Ruth: Come on, you two. And you, Lottie. Away from the glass.

19:02 June: We're not children. Ruth: Good. Then you'll be a help.

19:07 Harrow: Doctor Bright. The door was locked from the inside, the key was in the lock, the window's latched and the snow on the sill is unbroken. The flue's narrower than a cat. How did she die?

19:19 Bright: Her heart stopped. I've listened to it for a year. It could not go on.

19:26 Harrow: Then she locked the door herself. Hattie: She never! She'd never lock herself in!

19:32 Narrator: She did. She asked me last night not to break the door, if the house went quiet. I promised.

19:39 Hattie: She told you. She told you, and you let her. Narrator: Yes.

19:45 Hattie: You sat on that floor. You sat on that floor and listened to her go, and you didn't — Harrow: Hattie. He kept his word to a dying woman. She asked him for the room.

19:55 Hattie: It wasn't his to give! Narrator: ...Thank you. Hattie: What?

20:01 Narrator: I thought that it would hurt. It is a very small pain. It was the right size.

20:08 Harrow: Jonah. Enough.

20:12 Sunday, Eight O'Clock

20:10 Narrator: Yes.

20:16 Harrow: Hattie. Sit with me a minute. Hattie: I'm not thirsty.

20:20 Narrator: Miss Greaves. You are six years older than you were at supper. Hattie: Mr. Jonah!

20:27 Harrow: Jonah. Narrator: I am sorry. The skin of your hands is different, and your hair. I thought that you would want to be told.

20:36 Hattie: Six years. It was a clock, and an old one, and the old ones are dear. Harrow: A clock.

20:43 Hattie: The kitchen clock. It's been stopped at ten past five since Wednesday, and I thought, if there's one thing in this house I can still put right. Harrow: Where were you last night, Hattie?

20:54 Hattie: In bed. I slept the whole night through. Narrator: That is not true.

20:59 Hattie: Mr. Jonah! Harrow: He can't hear what you did, Hattie. Only that it isn't so.

21:06 Hattie: I went down at midnight. To mend her. I do it every Friday, she lets me, she says it's a kindness to an old woman. But it was Saturday, and she was so grey at supper, and I thought, one more. I stood at the parlour door and I said, Cordelia, let me in.

21:23 Hattie: And she said, through the door, in that voice of hers: "No more, Hattie." Harrow: "No more, Hattie." Hattie: I stood there until the clock on the landing struck one. I could hear her. She was humming that old sailors' hymn, the one she hums when she's tired. "Eternal Father." Humming, Miss Harrow.

21:46 Narrator: Say the words. Hattie: What? Narrator: The words of the hymn. Please.

21:51 Hattie: "Eternal Father, strong to save, whose arm hath bound the restless wave." Narrator: "Who biddest the mighty ocean deep its own appointed limits keep." Harrow: Jonah.

22:05 Narrator: I did not know that I knew that. Hattie: Well, that's the first verse. You've sung it somewhere, I'd say, young man.

22:13 Harrow: Write it down, Jonah. Narrator: I shall. Harrow: The door was locked already when you came.

22:19 Hattie: Locked, and the key turned, and she was humming. Narrator: Thank you. That is all true.

22:26 Hattie: Is it? Narrator: Yes. All of it. Your heart did not jump once.

22:33 June: We've looked in on everybody like you said. Doctor Bright's in the dining room with a book he isn't reading. Jack: And Mr. Santangelo wouldn't be left. He's right behind us.

22:43 Harrow: Thank you. Both of you. When did you wake this morning?

22:48 June: Twenty past four. Both of us, together. Like somebody dropped a tray in the house. We looked at the clock.

22:56 Jack: We thought it was our own hearts. It wasn't. It was the whole house. Narrator: It was twenty past four. I heard it too.

23:04 June: Oh. Harrow: Mr. Santangelo. Did you go out last night?

23:10 Narrator: He has written: "I am always in bed. Nobody hears me leave it, which is why I stay in it." Jack: That's what he'd say.

23:19 Harrow: Jonah. Is he lying? Narrator: I cannot tell. I cannot hear him at all.

23:26 Harrow: Then I'll have to do it the way I do everything else. With my eyes. Where were you between nine and ten?

23:34 Narrator: "In the parlour with her. She asked me to sit by her, so that nobody should hear her cough." Harrow: And did she say anything?

23:43 Narrator: "She said: it is only the bill, Anthony." "She said that the keys go to whoever holds on. She said that she had found one."

23:54 Harrow: Holds on to what? Narrator: "She did not say."

23:58 Sunday, Half Past Eleven

23:57 Harrow: Right. Let's count heads. Ruth, Lottie, June, Jack, Doctor Bright, Hattie, Mr. Santangelo, Jonah and me. That's nine.

24:11 Narrator: Ten. Harrow: Nine, Jonah. Narrator: Ten. Miss Greaves laid eleven bowls at supper. One was Mrs. Adair's. That leaves ten, and I can find only nine of you.

24:25 Harrow: Who's the tenth? Pike: Excuse me. I wonder if I might have a cup of tea.

24:31 Bright: Somebody ought to make the children breakfast. They haven't eaten. Pike: Excuse me. Doctor?

24:39 Hattie: I can't, Samuel. I can't stand at that stove. Harrow: Mr. Pike.

24:46 Pike: Thank you, Miss Harrow. I've been in this room for forty-one minutes. Bright: Edmund?

24:52 Hattie: Oh, Edmund. Oh, my dear. We never — I never —

24:57 Narrator: She said his name at every meal. I took it for manners. Harrow: And now there's nobody to say it.

25:04 Pike: It is quite all right. I am used to it. I was forgotten for four years in the Army and for six in the Post Office. It was only that she remembered, and now —

25:15 Harrow: Edmund Pike. There. I'll read that every time I forget.

25:20 Pike: That is the kindest thing anyone has done for me since Thursday. Harrow: Mr. Pike. You see everything in this house, and nobody sees you. What did you see last night?

25:32 Pike: I sit in the kitchen after supper, as a rule. It is warm and nobody minds. At eleven, Doctor Bright came down in his coat and went out by the area door. He didn't see me, of course. Nobody does.

25:45 Bright: Edmund, I — Harrow: Doctor Bright. I'd like to hear Mr. Pike finish.

25:49 Pike: He came back at midnight. He had snow on his shoulders and his hat in his hand. He stood at the stove with his hands over the plate for a good while, and I think he was crying a little. I thought: there's a man who has done something he wishes he hadn't.

26:04 Narrator: Nell. I cannot hear Mr. Pike. I could not hear him at supper. I do not know why that comforts me.

26:12 Harrow: It comforts me too. Bright: I went out for air. I couldn't sleep. That's all. I was in bed by ten, and I went out for air, ten minutes, no more.

26:23 Narrator: That is not true. Harrow: Doctor. Your galoshes. The black ones with the buckle. They were dry and clean at supper; I stood my boots beside them. They've a white rim on them now.

26:35 Bright: Snow. Harrow: Salt. They salted Charles Street last night. I walked up out of it. Nobody has salted this hill since last winter. Somebody walked to the call box.

26:48 Bright: I telephoned Eliot Vance. At eleven. From the box on Charles Street. I told him Cordelia was failing. That the keeping would end soon. That the consultant was in the house. I asked him to wait for the morning and to hurt nobody. He gave me his word.

27:08 Hattie: Samuel. Bright: I told you what they have on Court Street, Hattie. A ward with a window. A nurse who sits up with you. A way to make a gift go quiet. They call it settling. No more price. No more years.

27:22 Hattie: Samuel. Bright: You mended a pot lid on Tuesday. That's a year. You've paid for this house for eleven years and you are forty-seven. I looked at your hands yesterday and I thought, she'll be dead at fifty. I could not watch it.

27:40 Narrator: They stop wanting to be found. Bright: I beg your pardon? Narrator: Miss Quill said it. She found two families for the Registry and she felt the children go quiet. She said that they had stopped wanting to be found.

27:54 Bright: Miss Quill is a sensitive woman. Harrow: Doctor. Did you know that Mrs. Adair would die last night?

28:02 Bright: I knew that she was dying. I did not know it would be last night. I swear to you. I thought that I had a week. I thought that I was only —

28:10 Hattie: I'd rather be old and mine. Bright: Hattie — Hattie: I'd rather be old, Samuel. And mine. And in this house. You had no right.

28:20 Ruth: He's written: "Eleven years of soup, Samuel." Narrator: There is a second car at the foot of the hill. A man is on the step. His pulse is slow. He is not afraid.

28:35 The Front Door, Noon

28:33 Harrow: Vance. Doctor Vance. Vance: Miss Harrow. I take it that the Keeper has died. I am sorry. I should have liked to meet her.

28:44 Harrow: Doctor Bright telephoned you. Vance: Doctor Bright telephoned me last night, because he was frightened for his patient. He is a decent man. I owe him my thanks, and I owe the rest of you a choice.

28:57 Vance: Mr. Crane has men at the back. They have been told that nobody is to be touched. I do not break doors, Miss Harrow. I wait.

29:06 Crane: Ma'am. Vance: Come out, all of you, and I shall see that nobody is classified without kindness. There are beds on Court Street, and a ward with windows. There is a nurse who will see that Miss Greaves sleeps. There is a place for Mr. Santangelo where nobody needs him quiet. Nine souls, Doctor Bright tells me.

29:25 Vance: There is a child in the house. A little girl of twelve, Lottie Marsh. Doctor Bright mentioned her too.

29:32 Harrow: You promised nobody would hurt her. Vance: Nobody will hurt her unkindly. I should like to be more exact, but I cannot.

29:41 Narrator: Doctor Vance. You gave Doctor Bright your word that nobody would be hurt. Vance: I did, and I keep it.

29:49 Narrator: He is crying in the kitchen. Vance: I am sorry for it. I have often wondered whether a kind man can be of any use to a frightened one. Doctor Bright is a kind man. He was frightened for Miss Greaves.

30:02 Harrow: A man who stands on a step and asks nicely isn't being kind, Doctor. He's being patient. Vance: Patience is the only kindness I have left to offer, Miss Harrow.

30:14 Harrow: The Commissioner's paper. For Jonah. Vance: Is good anywhere in the city. I am obliged to ask you for him, and to ask you nicely. I shall wait until nine tomorrow morning. Then I shall be obliged to ask less nicely, and I should so much rather not.

30:31 Harrow: You'll wait on a snowy step for twenty-one hours. Vance: I have a thermos, a very good coat, and an excellent driver. I have waited longer for less.

30:43 Vance: Her step is white. It is a very small thing. I think it is the saddest thing I have seen since I was a student.

30:51 Harrow: Good afternoon, Doctor. Jonah. That car. How many men?

30:56 Narrator: Four at the front. Three at the back. One with a thermos.

31:00 Harrow: Mrs. Marsh. I think this is for you. Ruth: It says it's for the one who keeps.

31:07 Harrow: Cordelia Adair told Mr. Santangelo that she had found one. She told Jonah and me that she'd never kept anything larger than him. And on Wednesday, in a kitchen on Northampton Street, I watched a woman hold a hand nobody else could see for four days.

31:25 Ruth: No. Lottie: Mama. Ruth: No. I've a husband. I've a child. I've a flat on Northampton Street and a pail and a mop and a job I was going back to on Tuesday. I'm not —

31:38 Hattie: He's written: "You washed my cup on Thursday without being asked. Nobody has, in twenty-two years." Pike: And I have been at your elbow for four days, Mrs. Marsh, and you gave me a clean towel every morning. Nobody looks at the woman with the mop. You looked at me.

31:57 Ruth: Give it to me. "To the one who keeps. If you are reading this, I am gone and the house is unkept, and you have until the next dawn to be seated. The keys go to whoever has held on to something for longer than was reasonable. I met such a woman on Wednesday. She held a child's hand that nobody could see for four days, and she let go of it when it was right to. That is the whole art. Ruth Marsh. The keys are yours if you will have them. They will cost you the step. I have never been so glad of a bill. C. A."

32:33 Ruth: She says I'd never leave the step. Lottie: Mama. Say yes. You only ever let go of one thing, and it was me, and you got me back.

32:46 Ruth: Show me what to do.

32:48 The Dining Room, Three O'Clock

32:52 Ruth: Tell me exactly. Nobody's to be kind about it. Hattie: He's written: "One night. Keys in her hands. The whole house under the roof. Until light."

33:05 Lottie: That's a long time to hold a bunch of keys. Ruth: And what does the holding do? Bright: It tells the house who keeps it. The way a lamp tells a room.

33:16 Hattie: "The Looking will press all night. Cordelia had forty years. Ruth has none. If she breaks, the keeping falls, and the house is open to it."

33:27 Ruth: I know I haven't. June: Can't Lottie just lose us all again? The way she lost you?

33:32 Lottie: Not ten people. Not for a night. I'd forget my own mother.

33:37 Ruth: No. Harrow: She's done enough. I won't ask her again. Jonah. You've been quiet.

33:45 Narrator: I have been listening to the hole. Harrow: And? Narrator: It is not looking for the house. It is looking for me. The house is only in the way.

33:55 Narrator: It looks for what is loud. If I make myself a hole, and the street around me with it, it will look through me, and past this house. Harrow: What does that cost?

34:05 Narrator: Warmth. Possibly all of it. Harrow: No.

34:09 Narrator: It is not your decision, Nell. Harrow: ...No. It isn't. Jonah. I'm asking. You can say no. Will you hold the night?

34:21 Narrator: Thank you for asking. Yes. Hattie: He's written, for you, Jonah: "I have been a hole for twenty-two years. Do not push the sound away. Stop making it."

34:35 Narrator: I make very little. Hattie: "Then you are halfway there." Narrator: I shall remember it. Thank you, Mr. Santangelo.

34:44 June: Then Jack and I are the thread. Harrow: The thread? Jack: We're in step. We always are. If June holds Ruth's wrist and I hold Jonah's, then I feel June, and June feels Ruth, and Jonah can hear the lot of us.

34:59 Narrator: I can hear a pulse through a wrist. If two are in step, I can hear both. That is a good plan. I did not think of it.

35:07 Pike: And I shall go and look at the street. From the roof, if I may. Nobody will see me there.

35:13 Harrow: Mr. Pike? Pike: I shall tell you what they are doing, in an hour, and in another, if I may. It is the only use I have ever had, and I should like to be of it.

35:24 Harrow: Thank you, Mr. Pike. Don't lean on the parapet. Bright: And I shall sit by Ruth. I shall take her pulse every hour, and if it goes wrong I shall say so, so that somebody cleverer can do something.

35:37 Hattie: You'll sit where I can see you, Samuel. Bright: Yes, Hattie. Ruth: Dusk is at four. Everybody eat. Hattie, you'll make soup.

35:46 Hattie: I'll make soup. Lottie: There's one orange left. I'll peel it.

35:52 Narrator: It is still loud.

35:56 The Roof, Sunday Night

35:54 Harrow: Eat it all.

36:00 Narrator: Ruth sat in the hall with the keys in her lap, and Doctor Bright at her wrist, and Lottie asleep across Hattie's knees, and Mr. Santangelo in the doorway like a man holding a door shut with his back. June held Ruth's other hand. I sat on the roof, facing east, with Nell at my back and Jack at my wrist, and Mr. Pike at the parapet. I listened to the hole.

36:24 Jack: June's at seventy-two. Ruth's a bit above. They're matching. Can you hear it?

36:30 Narrator: I can hear it. Three, together. It is the only warm thing in the city.

36:36 Harrow: And the other? Narrator: It is the size of a door. It is quite still. It is patient. It is looking at the harbor, and the Navy Yard, and the whole of Charlestown. It has not looked at this house yet.

36:51 Harrow: Jonah. Don't go any further than you have to. Narrator: I shall go exactly as far as I have to.

36:58 Pike: Miss Harrow. It is ten at night. Doctor Vance went away in the second car and has come back with a man in a car-shop coat. He is standing in the road with his cap in his hands.

37:09 Harrow: Walter. Narrator: Mr. Marsh. His pulse is very fast. He is not lying. He has been told something kind.

37:18 Walter: Ruth! Ruth, love! It's Walter!

37:21 Jack: June's pulse just jumped. Ruth's gone to a hundred. She's listening.

37:26 Walter: They say it's only a month, Ruth! They say Lottie'll be looked after! The doctor says it's kind, he says nobody —

37:33 Harrow: He thinks they mean it. Narrator: They do mean it. Doctor Vance does not lie.

37:39 Walter: Ruth, I've not slept, I can't — they say you can come out, love, and nobody — Jack: A hundred and ten. She's got up out of her chair.

37:48 Narrator: Nell. I can stop him being heard. Harrow: You'd shut a man up who's only trying to bring his wife home.

37:56 Narrator: Yes. Harrow: ...Do it. I'm sorry, Walter.

38:01 Jack: The street's gone. She's sitting down. June says she's sitting down.

38:08 Pike: Miss Harrow. It is one in the morning. Harrow: Mr. Pike. What are they doing?

38:14 Pike: Mr. Crane is shouting at his men. I can see his mouth. Nothing is coming out of it. They have stopped looking at the house and they are looking at each other. One of them is crying. Mr. Marsh is sitting on the kerb with his cap in his hands, saying his wife's name, and nothing is coming out of him either. Doctor Vance has taken off his own coat and put it round his shoulders. It is much too small.

38:39 Harrow: And Vance? Pike: He is sitting beside him in his shirtsleeves. He keeps looking at the place where the house was. He looks as though he has lost a very old friend.

38:49 Narrator: Thank you, Mr. Pike. Jack: Nell. He's going cold.

38:55 Harrow: How cold? Jack: Colder than before. And slower. It's like holding a stone that's decided to be a stone.

39:04 Harrow: Jonah. Talk to me. Narrator: Cold.

39:08 Harrow: Jonah. Narrator: House. Roof. Nell.

39:13 Bright: Miss Harrow! Harrow: Doctor. What is it?

39:16 Bright: Ruth's pulse is a hundred and forty. She keeps saying his name. She says Walter is out in the road in the snow and she has shut the door on him. June says —

39:24 Jack: June's frightened. I can feel it. She's got her head down. She's going to —

39:29 Bright: If Ruth faints, the keeping drops, and he is all that stands between this house and that. I have never been without an idea before. Harrow: Doctor. Go back down. Sit where she can see you. Tell her this, word for word. Walter is on the kerb with a doctor's coat round him. He's alive, and he's warm, and he will be there at dawn. She held a hand that nobody else could see for four days. She can hold a house for one night, so that there's a door for him to come to.

39:59 Bright: And — Harrow: Tell her to breathe in time with June, and June in time with Jack, and Jack in time with the man on this roof. Tell her the whole house is breathing with her. Tell her it's Nell, and that I'm staying with Jonah, and that I'm sorry.

40:14 Bright: Yes. Harrow: I know you can hear me, Jonah. Don't answer. I'm going to read you something.

40:22 Harrow: Entry one. "I do not remember arriving. I remember the chain."

40:28 Narrator: ...Chain. Harrow: Entry two. "Candle." You wrote that one on a Thursday. You wrote it three times, in case it went again.

40:38 Narrator: ...Candle. Harrow: Yes. That's right. Entry three. "I'd rather be asked." You said I'd. You said it was a smaller word.

40:49 Narrator: I would rather be asked. Harrow: That's it. That's it. Stay there.

40:56 Narrator: Nell. The house is closing. Harrow: That's Ruth.

41:01 Narrator: Yes. I can no longer hear through it. Jack: It's gone. The cold's gone out of him.

41:09 Narrator: Not all of it. Pike: It has gone back to looking where he isn't, I think. I could hear it go. It sounds like a very large door being shut very carefully by somebody who is not angry.

41:21 Harrow: Jonah. Narrator: Yes. May I hold your hand? I am very cold.

41:27 Harrow: You may. Narrator: ...I did not leave a note. Harrow: I'm sitting right here, Jonah.

41:35 Narrator: Then it was not necessary.

41:38 Monday, Seven O'Clock

41:42 Narrator: At seven o'clock on Monday morning, Ruth Marsh opened the front door of fourteen Joy Street and looked at a street where eight men stood about in the snow and did not look at her. I stood behind her in a blanket. They looked at the house as one looks at a wall.

41:59 Harrow: Ruth. Your step is dry. Ruth: ...So it is.

42:04 Narrator: Doctor Vance has got out of the car. He is in the road. His pulse is quite level. He is looking at a place about a yard to the left of the door.

42:13 Vance: Miss Harrow. Mrs. Marsh. I cannot see you, and I am told that that is the point. I gave Doctor Bright my word that nobody would be touched, and nobody has been. I should like that to be known. Mr. Marsh has been very patient. I believe that he would like to go in.

42:32 Ruth: Walter. Walter: Ruth? Ruth: Come up. It's three steps. They're dry.

42:39 Walter: I didn't know, Ruth. They said it was kind. They said it was only a month.

42:46 Ruth: I know. You'd have been Walter. Walter: I'm no good at being anything else.

42:52 Ruth: No. Come in. Take that coat off, it isn't yours. There's soup.

42:59 Narrator: Doctor Vance is still in the road. He is looking at the step. His pulse is quite level. He is very sad.

43:07 Harrow: This is the small envelope from her table. I've kept it sealed since yesterday. It says: "To Jonah. Not before the keeping is seated."

43:17 Narrator: Will you read it, please. I do not think that I can yet. Harrow: "My dear Jonah. I told you the Looking was not unkind. I was wrong. It is not anything, and you must not try to reason with it. There is a flagstone on the roof, the third from the chimney. Under it is a thing the harbor gave back to me on the night you came. I do not know what it is. I kept it because I could. Do not open it alone. With all my love, C. A."

43:47 Narrator: She did not say what it is. Harrow: No. We'll find out. Together.

43:54 Ruth: There. I suppose that is that. Harrow: Ruth, you can't ever —

43:59 Ruth: I know what I can't, Miss Harrow. I've known it since I took the keys. Walter will go to the shops in the morning and come on Sundays, and Lottie will go to school in the daytime, and I shall stand on this step and look at the street. Mrs. Adair paid with her life. I'm told that I'm only paying with the step. I intend to be worth it.

44:20 Ruth: Doctor Bright. You'll take the attic room, and do the heavy stairs for a year, and sign Cordelia's paper, and never be trusted with a coin for the call box again. Bright: Yes, Ruth. I don't ask to be forgiven. I ask to be of use.

44:35 Ruth: Being of use isn't the same as being forgiven. Hattie: He can have his porridge in the dining room. Ruth: And Mrs. Adair is in her own bed, in her blue dress. Hattie sat with her. We bury her on Wednesday from this step, and I don't think that anyone on this street will remember afterwards what they saw.

44:55 The Kitchen, Monday

44:59 Hattie: Porridge, and the last of the bread, and I'll hear no remarks. And which of you touched the damper in the room beside Mr. Jonah's? The whole top landing is black.

45:09 Harrow: I left the damper alone. I was told to. Narrator: I touched the damper.

45:15 Harrow: You what? Narrator: The stove had gone out and you were cold. Mrs. Adair said that it was not to be touched. I did not know that both were facts.

45:25 Ruth: Edmund, will you pass the bread? June: Here, Mr. Pike. Pike: Thank you, Miss Penhallow.

45:32 Santangelo: Good morning. Hattie: Anthony. Harrow: Good morning, Mr. Santangelo.

45:40 Narrator: Mr. Santangelo has a pulse. I have never heard it before. It is slow, and it is very glad.

45:49 Daisy: Is it open? Please be open. Ruth: Daisy Quill. I thought that you might come.

45:56 Daisy: He went out at ten last night like a lighthouse in a fog, and I sat up in my chair with every lamp lit. And at five he came back on. I've been walking since six. I was so glad. And then, oh, Detective, it isn't only him.

46:12 Harrow: What is it, Daisy? Daisy: The quiet. The Registry's left the hill. They've gone down to the North End. I stood at the corner of Cooper Street for ten minutes, and I felt five houses go out, one after another, like lamps.

46:29 Daisy: The wanting's stopping, Nell. In the children. One at a time. They've stopped wanting to be found.

46:37 Narrator: Nell. Harrow: Get your coat. Both of you.

46:41 Narrator: Yes.