Wednesday, 27th October 1999

It's a new day (a Saturday, if you're interested) and Margi's up early, gathering together Greg's belongings.

"Mum, what are you doing?" asks Nikki.

"Getting rid of his things" comes the reply. "*She* can have them."

"*Don't* give her the satisfaction of seeing you lose it again," advises Nikki.

Margi doesn't intend to. She's in full control, she insists.

Margi's obviously been thinking again and this time has come to the conclusion that Jessie must have known what had been going on. She resolves to have it out with her later. "She's got some explaining to do," Margi predicts.

Next door, Susannah spells out once more to Max the fact that she'll not be letting him stay over for a second night. It was a one-off and the danger has now passed, she tells him. According to Susannah, Max is looking to worm his way back in before the end of next week and this plan of his is *not* going to work.

Margi, having bundled Greg's clothes in a suitcase, decides to tip them on to Susannah's front step.

"What are you gawping at?" she asks Niamh who happens to be watching as she unlocks her own front door.

Max opens the door to Number Seven. "You stop this nonsense or I'll call the police."

"Oh, call the police, see if I care," shrieks Margi before turning her attention back to Niamh who is trying to offer some sympathy.

Sympathy is the last thing that Margi's after, and she goes into one:

"...and my son is dead," she shouts. "I didn't have him long and you, you've still got three of them. I'd rather spend a week with mine than a whole lifetime with any of yours."

Nikki is watching from the bungalow and she tries to diffuse the situation: "Come on Mum, you've made your point."

But Margi continues at full volume: "No. I can hold my head up anywhere I go, 'cos I've done nothing to be ashamed of," she declares to the whole Close. Looking at Niamh, she adds: "But you, your son is a rapist."

"Your daughter was mistaken," suggests Niamh; a comment which merely results in Margi's now empty suitcase flying in her direction.

Darren, Nathan and Alec look on in amazement from the front garden of Number Nine where Alec is doing his Great Grannies gardening bit and Nathan and Darren are in the throes of moving in.

Soon after this performance ends, Emily walks past Susannah's house and is convinced that it's her father's clothes which are littering the doorstep. Once in the bungalow, she tries to ask what's going on but fails to get a straight answer.

Margi is running around like a blue-arsed fly ostensibly "having a clearout" whilst still insisting that she's "in full control" (yeah, right!) which leaves Nikki to be the one to tell Emily the truth.

Margi has now made her way back to Susannah's house and is posting Greg's toiletries through the letterbox.

"She's unhinged, you know" says Max as he and Susannah sit on the stairs watching the 'delivery'. "I'm not leaving you in this house on your own."

From outside come the words "I can hear you, y'know" followed by "and there's plenty more where that comes from" as the flow of items through the letter box comes to a halt.

Elsewhere on the Close, Nathan persuades Darren that they should have a housewarming party to celebrate their move into Number Nine. Oh yes, and much to Darren's displeasure, he wants to invite Vic and Mark too. So, Darren says that he'll invite Charlotte.... and Nathan invites Jacqui....

Emily and Tinhead appear to be getting along rather well and Tim tries to summon up the courage to ask her out.

Niamh's heard a rumour that they property developers are planning to demolish the garage and build a block of flats in it's place. She's obviously concerned about the impact this will have on Joey's job. Err, that's not a hard one to answer, is it? He won't have a job. Mind you, I can't see Joey getting *too* stressed about, that.

In the city centre, Jimmy, Sinbad and Kylie pay a visit to an art exhibition following which Jimmy suggests to Sinbad that maybe he (Sin) should try his hand at painting, what with his deafness - just look at Van Gogh! LOL!

Then he recommends that Sin calls into the 'social' to see what 'deaf money' he might be entitled to. In fact, Jimmy's doing a lot of talking today, or more accurately a lot of ranting. Wandering around some of the city's landmarks he bemoans the fact that when he was a teacher he had a voice and could influence people. Now he's no longer working, he's back to not having a say again and it's getting him down.

"Why don't you do something about it?" says Sin, probably more half-heartedly than seriously, hoping that Jim might take the hint and shut up for a while.

Jim doesn't. "Yeah, well, maybe I will," he says mysteriously. This is presumably some sort of precursor to a new story for Jim but as to what it might be, I haven't got the foggiest.

Back on the Close, Jessie turns up and is immediately challenged by Margi over whether she knew about Greg and the affair. She nods and insists that they decamp to the bungalow and talk (is she expecting a civilised conversation?!) about it there.

Once inside the bungalow, however, Jessie decides that first, she ought to go back outside and collect up Greg's clothes from Susannah's doorstep.

"Before I do anything else, I'm going out there to pick up my son's underwear," she declares.

"Let *her* pick them up," retorts Margi. "She pulled them down often enough." LOL!

Margi works out that Jessie discovered what Greg and Susannah were up to several months back and that was why she suddenly stopped the cleaning job. She berates Jessie for not having said anything.

Nikki jumps in and suggests that Margi should be having a go at Greg, not Jessie, but this only brings a response of:

"*He's* not here, you stupid cow."

Then Emily realises that it was Nikki who dragged Susannah out of the Club on the night that the bomb went off and thus saved Susannah's life.

Margi, who only a couple of minutes ago had called Nikki a "stupid cow", now springs to her eldest daughter's defence.

"When Nikki found out, it was too late. She couldn't do anything about it," she tells Emily. Turning to Jessie, she continues: "But *you*, you could have put a stop to it."

Now it's Nikki's turn to defend her Nan: "What could she have done?"

"She could have *told* me," Margi shrieks, hysterically.

"Oh, yeah and would me Dad and Jason still have been alive then?"

"Well, your Dad *certainly* wouldn't have."

Margi and Jessie have a shouting and screaming session which culminates in Margi collapsing into Jessie's arms whining that she wants to know if *all* of her married life was a lie or just the last few months.

Hmm, so Margi's *still* in full control, then!