Book 1: Plainspeak

Nell, who ran a failing launderette on the bend of Farrow Row, tried to stop an installer from bolting a grey box to her shopfront; the woman explained it was 'Plainspeak', a government-style trial device that listened to a speaker's voice and broadcast the meaning underneath in their own voice half a second later, already signed off by every landlord on the street and due to be hung whether Nell agreed or not. Though supposedly inactive until Monday, the box switched on and spoke Nell's real feeling aloud — 'Please don't leave me alone with this' — proving it was live and accurate. Moments later her landlord arrived to collect three months of rent she had been covering for with lies about good trade, parking within range of the device while Nell had only a few steps to decide how to speak.

Nell walked out to meet her landlord and confessed three months of lies about trade before the box could translate her; it answered with her fear of losing the shop, then caught him admitting he had known all along. He revealed he was paid a hundred pounds a door by an unnamed caller to sign for the units, that the money was spent, and that the trial now needs a signed consent form from each tenant. He offered to mark her arrears paid in the rent book if she signs, with the form and pen laid out on the van bonnet and Dasu remarking that Leeds had forms too.

Nell read the consent form, questioned the clause binding her for the trial or any extension of it, and signed; her landlord, named as Neil, wrote the three months off as PAID in the rent book. The box then exposed that he is paid again when signed forms are handed in, which he admitted, offering Nell half if she takes a bundle of forms round the forty doors. Neighbours began coming out of their houses as he held the bundle out to her.

Nell began working the row with the bundle of consent forms and reached Winnie, an elderly neighbour who had been using her back door to avoid her box; when Winnie asked what Nell got out of it, Nell's own box named her half share aloud and the street heard it. Winnie admitted she kept her front room untouched since her husband died, and her box answered that she did not want to be made honest in her own house. Nell took out the pen but did not hand it over, and neighbours began opening windows along the row.

Nell rang the unnamed number from the launderette phone with Winnie listening; a woman calling it only 'the office' confirmed Nell's form had arrived and said collection money is paid only on completed streets, every one of the forty doors signed. When Nell carried the handset to the doorway under her box, the device spoke the caller's meaning aloud, saying Leeds was why she was careful, and the woman begged to be taken away from it and cut the line, which then rang dead. Neighbours gathered at the kerb having heard a stranger's voice off Nell's wall, and Nell went to the door with the bundle of forms.

Nell asked Winnie to sign her consent form in the open, and Winnie did, on the lid of her coal scuttle with neighbours watching, her box saying she did it so Nell would not stand out there alone; she asked in return that Nell come and sit in her front room without commenting on the chairs. An old neighbour named Perry came off his step with a tobacco tin and refused outright, saying the gap between what he thinks and what he says is all he has left, and Nell told the row that one refusal means nobody is paid. Dasu said the woman on the office phone had given one name in Leeds, Martha, and that she had known her for nine days.

At the kerb, Nell asked Dasu what happened on the tenth day in Leeds, and Dasu said a letter came to every door saying the trial had been extended with no end date, after which the street stopped speaking and passed written notes instead, and the first use of that silence was a man buying a widow's yard cheap in writing. Dasu admitted she had hung those boxes and told nobody the truth for the first three days, which is why she warns people now, and said the Leeds units are still up and lit. Winnie, hearing there may be no end to the term she signed for, demanded her freshly signed form back with the row watching.

Nell put Winnie's signed consent form back in her hand and the two of them tore it in half in front of the row, after which Winnie's box revealed she had wanted to be argued out of withdrawing. Neil arrived, showed the street the PAID page in the rent book and threatened to write Nell's three months back in, since with Winnie withdrawn and Perry refusing the street can never be completed. Perry came off his step and put the sea captain card from his tobacco tin into Nell's hand to keep, while insisting he still would not sign.

Nell handed the whole bundle of consent forms back to Neil in the street and told him to knock the doors himself, giving up her half share; Neil's box exposed that he does not want to be the one who closes her down. Rather than knock, he set the bundle on Perry's step with Nell's rent book on top of it and told her to fetch it down if she wanted her arrears written back in now, or leave it and face him on Friday. Nell started walking up the row toward the step with Perry's sea captain card still in her fist.

Nell fetched the rent book down from Perry's step and, standing under his box, heard her own meaning broadcast: that she is keeping his sea captain card so he has to come to her for it. Perry told her about his brother Walter, lost in a submarine, and sent her down to Neil, who wrote the three months back into the book in the open and announced he will serve written notice on Friday, with eviction at the end of the month unless she produces the full sum in cash. Perry then picked the abandoned bundle of forty consent forms off his step and took it indoors, saying Neil can come and ask him for it.

Nell knocked Perry's door and asked for the bundle of forty consent forms; standing under his box, her own voice announced she wanted them so she could write the neighbours' names in herself, and the row heard it. Perry stepped back indoors out of range so his own meaning stayed private, then showed her that every form carries a printed collector box on the back with her name and the launderette address, typed before Neil ever offered her the job. He handed her the bundle anyway, saying he would watch from his window, and Nell was left on the pavement holding forty copies of her printed name.

Nell carried one consent form to Dasu's van at the bend and demanded to know who typed her name into the printed collector box; Dasu admitted that every installer fills a survey sheet ending with a question about who the street goes to, and that she had written down the launderette in January, which is how the office found Nell. She also admitted she had answered the same question in Leeds with the widow at number nine, who became the collector there and was the only name left to blame after the tenth day. Nell took hold of Dasu's sleeve and asked her to come and say it again by the launderette door, where the box is lit.

Nell took the printed form to Neil at his van and demanded to know what her typed name was worth; he said nothing to him, because the office pays collection money only to the named collector, so the half he once offered was never his to give. Drawn into range of her box, Neil's meaning revealed he had told the office Nell was collecting before he ever asked her. He warned that on Friday he would tell the street there is money sitting with her name on it that she has chosen not to collect.

Nell called the row out from her doorway and promised, under her own live box, that the collection money would be split forty equal ways including those who refuse to sign; her box answered that she wanted the weight of her name off her. Winnie brought out a letter delivered to every door that evening, thanking the street for continued participation and announcing the trial extended with no end date, though Winnie had torn her form up; Neil admitted he had asked the office about the end date weeks before and been refused. A further letter addressed to Nell by name with Collector typed beneath it lay unopened on the launderette mat with the street watching.

Nell opened the letter addressed to her as Collector and read it aloud under her box, which announced she wants the office to come and be seen; the letter said the collection fee is handed over in person on completion, and enclosed a freshly printed consent form with Winnie's name already typed on it. Neil claimed a place at Nell's elbow when the money is handed over and she refused him anything but a fortieth; Dasu recognised the signature at the foot of the letter as Martha, the same name on every Leeds letter. Perry again refused to sign, and Winnie put her hand out for the reprinted form.

Nell put the reprinted consent form in Winnie's hand, and Winnie turned it over and demanded Nell's printed name be replaced with hers in the collector box. Winnie stepped deliberately onto the launderette step into the box's range and let it broadcast that she wanted the office obliged to knock at her door; Dasu argued against it, citing what the Leeds collector lost, and Neil insisted the office pays only the typed name. The chapter ended with Winnie holding the form flat against the shutter and Nell standing with the uncapped pen an inch from her own name.

Nell crossed out her own printed name in the collector box and wrote Winnie's full name in it, overrunning the ruled line, while Neil insisted the office pays only the typed name and Perry refused again. A woman in a wet mac came round the bend on foot, stopped in the middle of the road where no box could reach her, declined to give a name beyond 'the office', and said there was a difficulty with the street's collector box. She asked Nell for ten minutes indoors, promising to say the rest of it in the open afterwards, leaving Nell standing between the lit step and the launderette door with the row listening.

Nell refused the ten minutes indoors and walked the woman from the office up onto the lit launderette step, where the box broadcast that she had come to get Nell's name put back in the collector box or nobody would be paid. The woman confirmed the altered form will be binned, then produced an installer's survey sheet with the third question blank and offered Nell a fee handed over in the open, on the spot, for naming another street; her box also said she wanted to be refused in front of everyone. Dasu broke her silence to name the question, refused the woman's greeting, and Winnie asked aloud whose money Nell had promised to split forty ways, leaving Nell with the sheet against the shutter and the pen in her hand.

Nell wrote FARROW ROW in capitals on the blank third line of the survey sheet; Martha told the street that a sheet on a live street is a fitting, meaning units on the yards, back doors and the ginnel, and then counted the fee into Nell's hand in the open and gave her name. Perry came to his gate, said there would be nowhere left to stand, and shut his door without answering. Nell was left on the lit step with the cash, Neil's hand half out for the arrears and Winnie holding her to the forty-way promise.

Nell handed Martha's entire fee to Neil on the lit step for her arrears; he counted it, said it was short, and confirmed Friday still stands, while the box exposed that he would have taken anything rather than go home with nothing. Challenged by Winnie, Nell announced aloud that the forty-way split was off, and the box added that she had wanted the money out of her hands before anyone could ask; Winnie demanded her share anyway, made Nell close an empty hand on hers in front of the row, and walked off with the altered form. Martha left for the bend, and Neil waited with the rent book open for Nell to mark the part payment.

Nell emptied the launderette till — coins, notes, a button and a safety pin — into Winnie's hands on the pavement, leaving herself no float and no change for the machines; her box said aloud that it was not a share and never would be, only that she could not watch Winnie walk off with nothing. Neil claimed the money as rent but stepped off the lit step before refusing it, and agreed to enter part payment in the rent book. Winnie took the money while naming it a handout, then held out the altered consent form and gave Nell the choice of writing her own name back into the collector box or letting them both have nothing.

Nell took the reprinted consent form back from Winnie, struck out Winnie's biro name in the collector box and wrote her own in over it, tearing the damp paper; her box said she did it to keep a stranger from knocking at Winnie's door. Winnie returned the button out of the till money, said she was keeping her signature as the last thing on the street nobody had typed her name on, and walked off refusing to promise how she would be in the morning. Neil, standing clear of the box, pointed out that without the tenant's signature on the front the form is logged and unpaid; the form lay wet against the shutter with its front blank.

In the ginnel at first light, Winnie handed Nell's till money back over her gate as the launderette's float, on condition Nell wrote it in the shop book as owed to the launderette with no Winnie on the line; Nell did, with Perry reading over her shoulder and Neil's shortfall entered beneath it in her own name. Dasu apologised in the open for putting boxes over doors nobody asked for and loaded the ladder and units back into her van, saying the backs wait on Winnie's word, while Winnie's front box chimed unanswered and Winnie told Dasu to leave it to her. The shutter went up with the book open on the counter, which Winnie and Perry both read, and the posted unsigned form is not yet written in it.

In Winnie's front room, Martha read an office notice ordering the fuse-pulled front box restored or certified faulty by Dasu today; Dasu refused to sign a working box faulty and left the fuse to Winnie. Winnie had Martha pencil her answer unsigned on the back of the notice, and a neighbouring box broadcast that she would let Dasu lose her van sooner than put the fuse back, calling it tea; Winnie then sat Dasu down with her good cup and said she would decide when the cup was empty. Martha zipped the notice away and said she would tell the office the box was refused, said here with Dasu listening.

An office letter asked Nell, as Collector, to countersign Winnie's dark front box as faulty by noon or Dasu would be struck off; Winnie pushed the fuse back in with her own hand, Perry watching, and Nell recorded it in the shop book, but the light stayed dark. When an office clerk arrived, Dasu's meaning was broadcast that she was glad of the dark because it put the fault on Winnie's fuse and not her sheet, and she owned it. Nell tore the letter across unsigned in front of the clerk, Dasu laid her fitting sheet on the counter as Winnie's, and Winnie took it unread, with noon still to come.

Noon passed with the line blank and Dasu, struck off, counted her van's forty-one units, nine brackets and ladder onto the docket of the new installer, Gordie Pask, with Nell writing the count in the shop book and Winnie standing by as witness; Dasu gave Gordie the keys and left her vest on Nell's hook till Friday. Winnie handed back the fitting sheet unread and invited Dasu to tea on Friday; as Dasu walked off on foot, Winnie's box clicked once and stayed dark, and a box broadcast that Winnie was glad it hadn't lit. Nell is due at Winnie's door at dusk with the book, and Gordie, who said he heard nothing, starts on the backs at nine tomorrow.

At dusk in Winnie's front room, Gordie Pask brought his docket with Winnie's dry click logged; Winnie refused to let him swap the unit, and he wrote 'tenant, to be rung in' and promised to ring it from the bend in the morning, while Nell wrote the fuse lines into the shop book in her own hand. As Gordie left, the box clicked a second time and stayed dark, and next door's box broadcast that he was glad it was Winnie's fuse and not his hands and that every 'love' was only to get the backs hung by nine. Gordie said it would not go on his docket and left saying the backs start at nine; the docket's footer says a dark front unit is refitted on the inside of the door frame.

On the office's order, Gordie Pask took down Winnie's dead front unit, Dasu holding the ladder, and bolted a new one inside her front-room frame over the pale square, facing the pipe rack; Winnie pushed its fuse home with her own thumb and Martha wrote it by name, with Dasu listening. Gordie named only the first bolt aloud and then stayed silent while Martha repeatedly asked him whose street it is for question three. Dasu asked to come to Friday tea with plain biscuits, and the backs are now free to be hung.

In the launderette back room before the backs began, Dasu collected her vest and paid her last Register pay, forty-two pounds sixty, against Nell's arrears; Nell wrote it in the shop book under Dasu's name and Neil, keeping out of range on the yard, took it into his rent book as paid in part. A box broadcast Nell's meaning that her first thought was the float balancing Friday and that she was glad Dasu left so she needn't thank her; Nell owned it as true and Dasu left for Winnie's with a bag of Maries. Gordie Pask arrived early with the ladder and a unit for the back door, and Nell stood on the step with the pen uncapped while he lifted the docket to read the back-room line aloud.

At the bend kiosk Gordie Pask rang in that Farrow Row was not his street, Martha logged it as refused and took the word refused as her own, and Perry had his gate words recorded as his alone; when the office rang back for Gordie's own voice, the box next door broadcast that he said 'not my street' so he would never have to look at Dasu. Gordie then went back into the kiosk alone with his own coins and named Dasu as the one the street goes to, and the office logged it as said. Martha was left holding the receiver with refused in her pencil and nothing left to refuse.

Friday mid-morning at the launderette's back door, Neil handed his unsealed quit-or-pay envelope across the gate and Nell took it to her sill unopened, while Winnie blocked the doorway and demanded Gordie say plainly why he named Dasu. Gordie answered only that he said what he saw, and the box then broadcast Nell's own words, that she wants the last box lit so Neil goes and she owes one less face. Nell's pencil stays an inch above the back-room line, unsigned, with the envelope under her soap tin and Neil outside the range of the unwired bracket.

At Hebble's corner shop Perry refused to speak under the lit box or to the landlord, and a workman's wrong-wall blow cut the box's cable before he spoke, so his words went into no device. Perry then told Dasu he let noon pass and signed nothing as his own doing, bought a quarter of Maries, and Dasu put her own coins down beside his; the landlord was left outside with the rent book and no yes or no from anyone in the shop. The shop box stays dark on a cut cable, a fist-sized hole in the back wall lets in daylight, and the Maries are bought for Winnie's Friday tea.