The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts

by Douglas Adams

  So this particular incarnation of Earth was lucky there.

  Now he has some calls to make. What he most wants to do is locate and establish contact with Fenny, the disturbed young woman whose brother gave him a lift home last night, and who’s been exercising Arthur’s imagination ever since. But first he must deal with the mass of contradictions his return journey has precipitated. This proves less tricky than he anticipated.

  FX: Phone up, dialling.

  ARTHUR: (Slightly nervous) Ah, good morning, BBC? This is Arthur Dent. The L.E. Producer? No, really, I am. Yes. Look, just put me through to my Head of Department, would you? Thank you. Ah. Oh – hello?

  GEOFFREY: (Distorted) Yes, hallo, make it quick, the pubs are open.

  ARTHUR: Geoffrey? Arthur here. Look, sorry I haven’t been in for a while but I’ve gone mad.

  GEOFFREY: Ah. Really? We were wondering. Oh – hang on— (Yells, off) The usual for me, Richard. (Back into mouthpiece) Erm, Arthur – yeah, look, not to worry. Thought it was probably something like that. Happens here all the time. What you need is something to ease you back in. Tell you what, there’s a quiz show about wallpaper going begging. How soon can we expect you?

  ARTHUR: Erm – phooof . . . When do hedgehogs stop hibernating?

  GEOFFREY: (Distorted) Hang on . . . (Off) Maureen, when do hedgehogs stop hibernating? (Beat) No, that’s bats . . . Uh-huh. Really? Good grief— (Back into mouthpiece) Sometime in spring, we think. Probably.

  ARTHUR: Right. Well, add a few minutes for me to have a shave and I’ll be in after that.

  GEOFFREY: Great. And don’t worry, we’ll have your office cleared out and cleaned up for your return.

  ARTHUR: Gosh. Thanks.

  GEOFFREY: You’ll never know it had writers sleeping in it, really.

  FX: Phone down.

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  FX: Arthur driving car, under:

  THE VOICE: Having exhausted the hospital sections of Yellow Pages, local directories and even the police station searching for a girl he barely glimpsed – all to no avail – Arthur Dent’s good mood has ebbed away. In order to break the impasse he decides to restock with food something less than twenty weeks past its best-by date . . .

  ARTHUR: (Driving) Fenny, Fenny – it’s got to be a diminutive, but what of? Fenella . . . Fiona . . . Fenimore?

  THE VOICE: At this point in our story, Arthur’s subconscious mind has accepted that the atmosphere of the Earth has closed finally and for ever above his head.

  ARTHUR: Fenner . . . Fenwick . . . ? Phenomenal . . .

  THE VOICE: He has put behind him the tangled web of irresolutions into which his galactic travels once dragged him. He can now forget that the big, hard, oily, dirty, rainbow-hung Earth on which he lives is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot lost in the unimaginable infinity of the Universe.

  ARTHUR: Funicular? . . . Fenstermacher? . . . Phenolbarbitone?

  THE VOICE: And in drawing all these conclusions, he is completely and utterly and irrefutably wrong. The reason for this is standing at the next road junction under a small umbrella.

  ARTHUR: (Seeing her) Fenny!!!

  FX: Skid of tyres.

  FX: Arthur leaps from the car.

  ARTHUR: . . . Fenny?

  FENCHURCH: (Unsettled) How did you know my name?

  ARTHUR: I – I—

  FENCHURCH: You’re not a friend of my brother’s, are you?

  ARTHUR: No.

  FENCHURCH: Well?

  ARTHUR: Um – are you going somewhere? I can give you a lift.

  FENCHURCH: Yes, I’m going to Taunton, goodbye.

  ARTHUR: Well, that’s wonderful!

  FENCHURCH: Is it.

  ARTHUR: Well, yes – I only live a few miles away!

  FENCHURCH: I don’t live there. I’m going to the station. I live in London.

  ARTHUR: Oh . . . I can take you to London. Yes. Let me take you to London.

  FENCHURCH: Are you going to London?

  ARTHUR: (Lame) I wasn’t, but . . .

  FENCHURCH: It’s very kind of you, but I like the train. Thanks. Bye.

  ARTHUR: Fenny—

  FENCHURCH: Yes . . . how do you know my name?

  ARTHUR: Just supposing . . . just supposing that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn’t know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I’ve only just met and not crash into lorries at the same time, what would you say I should do?

  FENCHURCH: (Laughs) I’d say . . . I’d say you should buy me a drink before my train goes.

  INT. – PUB – BUSY, LUNCHTIME

  JIM THE LANDLORD: (Handing food over) There you go, mate, tomato juice, half of bitter, two rounds of BLT. (Moving off) Next, please – yes? . . . So what’s wrong with it?

  FX: Arthur and Fenchurch take seats, under:

  ARTHUR: (To Fenchurch) There is, for some reason, something especially grim about pubs near stations, a very particular kind of grubbiness. Like the feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.

  FENCHURCH: Well, don’t eat it, then.

  ARTHUR: (Takes a bite) Mmmf . . . Even I could do better.

  FENCHURCH: Why don’t you tell me what it is you have to tell me.

  ARTHUR: Yes. Right. (Girding himself) Fenny—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Barging in, which she does throughout) I wonder if you’d like to buy some tickets for our raffle? It’s just a little one.

  ARTHUR: What?

  RAFFLE WOMAN: To raise money for Anjie, who’s retiring.

  ARTHUR: What?

  RAFFLE WOMAN: And needs a kidney machine. Only fifty pence each, so you could probably even buy two. Without breaking the bank! (She giggles at her own joke, then sighs)

  ARTHUR: (Impatiently hunting through his pockets) Er, yes, all right . . . there. Two, please.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Tears off tickets) I do hope you win. The prizes are so nice.

  ARTHUR: Yes, thank you. (To Fenchurch) So, Fenny—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (To Fenchurch) And what about you, young lady? It’s for Anjie’s kidney machine. She’s retiring, you see.

  ARTHUR: (Pulling out a banknote) Here – look, here’s a five-pound note—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Starting to laboriously tear off ten tickets) Oh, we are in the money. Down from London, are we?

  ARTHUR: No, that’s all right, really, keep the tickets.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: Oh, but you must have your tickets, or you won’t be able to claim your prize. They’re very nice prizes, you know. Very suitable. Here—

  ARTHUR: (Snatching them) Thanks. (To Fenchurch) Anyway—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (To Fenchurch) And now, dear, what about you?

  ARTHUR: (Nearly a yell) For heaven’s—! Sake . . . (Softening a bit) These tickets are for her.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: Oh, I see. How nice. Well, I do hope you—

  ARTHUR: Thank you.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Moving off) No. Thank you.

  ARTHUR: (Sighs) Where were we?

  FENCHURCH: You were calling me Fenny, and I was going to ask you not to.

  ARTHUR: Oh.

  FENCHURCH: It’s why I asked if you were a friend of my brother’s. Or half-brother, really. He’s the only one who calls me Fenny, and I’m not fond of him for it.

  ARTHUR: So what is . . . ?

  FENCHURCH: Fenchurch.

  ARTHUR: What?

  FENCHURCH: Fenchurch, and I’m watching you to see if you’re going to ask the same stupid question that everybody asks me until I scream. I shall be cross and disappointed if you do. And I shall scream. So watch it.

  ARTHUR: Fine.

  (A pause)

  FENCHURCH: All right, you can ask me. Might as well get it over with. Better than have you call me Fenny all the time.

  ARTH
UR: I’m guessing—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (She’s back) We’ve only got two tickets left, you see, and since you were so generous when I spoke to you before—

  ARTHUR: What?

  RAFFLE WOMAN: I thought I’d give the opportunity to you, because the prizes are so nice. Very tasteful. I know you’ll like them. And it is for Anjie’s retirement present you see. We want to give her—

  ARTHUR: (Grumpily pulling out a pound coin) A kidney machine, yes. Here.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Tears off tickets) There you are.

  ARTHUR: Yes we are.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Penny drops) Oh dear . . . I’m not interrupting anything, am I . . . ?

  ARTHUR: No, it’s fine. Everything that could possibly be fine, is fine. Thank you.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (With growing delight) I say . . . you two’re not . . . in love, are you?

  FENCHURCH: (Snort of laughter)

  ARTHUR: (Stern) It’s very hard to tell. We haven’t had a chance to talk yet.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Going off) I’d better let you see the prizes, then.

  FENCHURCH: Hallo? You were about to ask me a question?

  ARTHUR: Yes.

  FENCHURCH: I know what it is. We can do it together. Ready? ‘Was I found –

  ARTHUR: – in a handbag –

  BOTH: – in the Left-Luggage Office at Fenchurch Street Station?’

  FENCHURCH: And the answer is no.

  ARTHUR: Ah. Fine.

  FENCHURCH: I was conceived there.

  ARTHUR: In the Left-Luggage Office?!

  FENCHURCH: Don’t be daft. What would my parents be doing in the Left-Luggage Office?

  ARTHUR: Well, I don’t know—

  FENCHURCH: It was in the ticket queue.

  ARTHUR: The . . .

  FENCHURCH: The ticket queue. Or so they claim. They said you wouldn’t believe how bored it is possible to get in the ticket queue at Fenchurch Street Station.

  ARTHUR: Riiiight . . .

  FENCHURCH: Look, I’m going to have to go in a minute or two, and you haven’t begun to tell me whatever this incredible thing is you are so keen to get off your chest.

  ARTHUR: Uhh – Please let me drive you to London. It’s Saturday, I’ve got nothing particular to do, I’d—

  FENCHURCH: No. Thank you, it’s kind of you, but no. I need to be by myself for a couple of days.

  ARTHUR: But—

  FENCHURCH: (Clicking ballpoint) Tell you what. Got something to write on? I’ll give you my number. Here, one of those will do . . . (She writes number down) Here – now we can relax.

  ARTHUR: (Beyond happy) Ahhh. Yes.

  FENCHURCH: (Looking up, amused) Oh, hallo again.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (She’s back) A box of cherry liqueurs, and also, and I know you’ll like this, a CD of Scottish bagpipe music. And I—

  ARTHUR: Yes, thank you, very nice.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: I just thought I’d let you have a look at them as you’re down from London.

  ARTHUR: Yes. I can see that they are indeed a box of cherry liqueurs and a CD of bagpipe music. That is what they are.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: I’ll let you have your drink in peace now. (Going off) But I knew you’d like to see.

  FENCHURCH: (Finishing her drink) Whoops. Have to go.

  ARTHUR: Ohhh . . .

  FENCHURCH: Don’t worry. We’ll talk again. (Gets up, gathering stuff, pauses) Perhaps it wouldn’t have gone so well if it wasn’t for her.

  ARTHUR: (After a deep breath) Yes. I think that is probably perfectly true.

  FX: In background, raffle tickets are being drawn.

  FENCHURCH: (Leaving pub) Don’t see me off. Call me tomorrow.

  ARTHUR: Of course.

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Off) Yoo hoo!

  ARTHUR: (Sudden thought) Fenchurch—

  RAFFLE WOMAN: (Close) Yoo hoo!

  FX: Pub door shuts – Fenchurch is gone.

  ARTHUR: (Sighs, to Raffle Woman) Yes?

  RAFFLE WOMAN: Have you got ticket number 37?

  INT. – PUB – THAT NIGHT

  FX: Phone ringing. Very busy background atmos. Jukebox.

  BARMAID: Railway Inn – Hallo? Yes? You’ll ’ave to speak up. What?? Can you ask your friend to stop playing the bagpipes, I can’t – that’s better . . . No, I only do the bar in the evenings. It’s Yvonne who does lunch, and Jim, the landlord. No, I wasn’t on. What? . . . You’ll have to speak up. No, don’t know anything about no raffle. What? ’Old on, I’ll ask. (Yells) Jim! Bloke on the phone reckons he’s won a raffle. Keeps on saying it’s ticket 37 and he’s won.

  JIM: (Off, harassed) No, it was a guy in the pub here won.

  BARMAID: (Yells) He says ’ave we got the ticket?

  JIM: Well how can he think he’s won if he hasn’t even got a ticket?

  BARMAID: (Into phone) Jim says ’ow can you think you’ve won if you . . . What? (Yells) Jim, ’e keeps effing and blinding. Says there’s a number on the ticket.

  JIM: Course there was a number on the ticket, it was a bloody raffle ticket, wasn’t it?

  BARMAID: ’E says ’e means it’s a telephone number on the ticket.

  JIM: Put the phone down and serve the bloody customers, will you?

  FX: Phone down.

  EXT. – SPACE – WHICH IS LOTS OF SUB-BASS RUMBLE, OF COURSE

  FX: Escape pod whooshes past us.

  SPEAKING CLOCK: (Distorted, very distant and echoey) At the third stroke the time will be one . . . thirty-three . . . and twenty seconds . . .

  FX: Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .

  FORD PREFECT: (Also whizzing by . . . laughing . . .)

  INT. – THE BOOK AMBIENCE

  THE VOICE: Lost in misery, contemplating the beautiful and mysterious grey glass bowl left by persons unknown on his bedside table bearing the words ‘So Long, and Thanks . . .’, Arthur Dent’s subconscious mind reaches out to make sense of this new Earth and the frustrations of living upon it. Closing his eyes, he can feel like a tingle on distant nerve ends the flood of a far river, the roll of invisible hills, the knot of heavy rain clouds parked over a transport cafe somewhere away to the south. He feels the presence of countless other minds, some wakeful, some sleeping, one fractured. One fractured. He knows instinctively that it is Fenny. He knows that he wants to find her, and again, feels the fracture, lying before him across the days of the Earth, bisecting time. Beyond this chasm is another land, another time, an older world. And as Arthur looks at the conjunction of two Earths, one no longer existing, he awakes from the doze to find himself about eighteen inches above the rose bushes of one of his neighbours. Idly he wonders what he is doing above them and what is holding him there; and when he discovers that nothing is holding him there—

  FX: Arthur crashes into rose bushes.

  ARTHUR: Oww! (Getting up painfully) That’s one trick I’d forgotten I’d developed . . . Didn’t realize I could fly in my sleep, though . . .

  FX: Distant phone ringing, foreground Arthur trapped in bush:

  ARTHUR: Oh, for goodness’ . . . (Extricates himself) Trouble is, now I want to fly, I can’t distract myself enough to do it . . . How many thorns – ooh! – ow! – yipe! (Yells) I’m coming!

  FX: His feet running across grass.

  ARTHUR: (Off, yelling) I’m coming! I’m coming!

  FX: Distant cottage door opened.

  ARTHUR: (At door, well off) I’m here—

  FX: Phone stops ringing.

  ARTHUR: (Off as above) Oh, you utter—!

  FX: Cottage door shuts, cutting him off.

  INT. – TRANSPORT CAFE

  FX: Cafeteria atmos. Wet traffic outside.

  FX: Tea, sugar stirred etc./food eaten, under . . .

  ROB McKENNA: It’s the drizzle that makes me really morose.

  ARTHUR: (Monumentally bored) Please shut up about the drizzle.

  ROB McKENNA: I would shut up if it would shut up drizzling.

  ARTHUR: Look, it’s very nice seeing you again, Rob, and this is a very snug little transport cafe, but I’m act
ually looking for a girl. I last met her there, over the road, by the motorway junction, and if she comes back I don’t want to miss her.

  ROB McKENNA: (Pause) Do you know what it’ll do when it stops drizzling, do you?

  ARTHUR: No.

  ROB McKENNA: Blatter.

  ARTHUR: What?

  ROB McKENNA: It will blatter.

  ARTHUR: I curse myself for bothering to say this, but actually I don’t think the rain will blatter. I think it will ease off.

  ROB McKENNA: Ha! It never eases off!

  ARTHUR: Of course it does.

  ROB McKENNA: (Thumping the table to punctuate, crockery leaping) It rains . . . all . . . the time.

  ARTHUR: Didn’t rain yesterday.

  ROB McKENNA: Did in Darlington.

  ARTHUR: (Bored) Really.

  ROB McKENNA: You going to ask me where I was yesterday? Eh?

  ARTHUR: No.

  ROB McKENNA: But I expect you can guess. Begins with a D.

  ARTHUR: Does it.

  ROB McKENNA: And it was stair-rods there, I can tell you.

  ARTHUR: I expect you added ‘stair-rods’ to your list.

  ROB McKENNA: Oh, there’s more than the list. I have a diary – goes back fifteen years. Shows every single place I’ve ever been. And what the weather was like. And it was horrible. All over England, Scotland, Wales I been. All round the Continent, back and forth to Denmark. It’s all marked in and charted. Even when I went to visit my brother in Seattle!

  ARTHUR: (Getting up) Well, perhaps you’d better show it to someone.

  ROB McKENNA: I will.

  ARTHUR: Goodbye, Mr McKenna. Oh, and thank you for achieving the impossible.

  ROB McKENNA: I’m sorry?

  ARTHUR: I thought living alone in a cave in prehistoric Islington was the most tedious experience I would ever undergo. (Exiting) You, however, have proved me wrong.