Ever think about evolution? You know, the apes to Neanderthal to Modern man bit? Brookside does. Consider Jimmy Corkhill. From petty scally thief to drug user to drug dealer to chippie man to fraudulent teacher to madman. Now he’s about to become the avuncular philosopher and philanthropist of the Close. Read on.
The next morning, Anthea is phaffing nervously and moodily about the Dixon kitchen, followed close at heel by Ron, who always seems to be right at her elbow. Ron is trying to cosset her, urging her to sit down, let him make her a cup of tea etc. Anthea is so tense, she manages to drop a plate she’s carrying to the floor with a crash. She snaps irratibly at Ron to stop following her around like a five year-old, never letting her out of his sight for a ten minutes.
Ron remarks that the way things seem to be going, he’d be out of her sight for damned sight longer than ten minutes, and she’d better get used to it. He begins to plead with her about the court case. Ron needs to know he can count on his wife.
Anthea replies sarcastically that what Ron really means is that he needs to know if she’s going to lie for him. She can’t believe Ron’s attitude. Saint Clint the Flint isn’t even cold in his grave and all Ron’s concerned with is trying to save his own neck. Correction, she amends, all he’s concerned with is ANTHEA trying to save his neck. (Well, of course he is, woman. What do you expect Ron to do? He’s already pleaded guilty. Just want him to walk meekly out of your life for the rest of his, do you?)
Ron actually asks her if she wants to see him go to prison for the rest of his life. Has she actually taken sides against him? Anthea is shocked that Ron actually expects her to perjure herself in court, to put her hand on the Bible and swear under oath and tell a lie. (That shouldn’t bother you, Anth, you’ve been lying continuously to Ron for months now and even running a master class for Rachel’s benefit, encouraging her to do likewise to Michael. What’s a little lie in court?) This isn’t about taking sides, she says, it’s about her committing perjury.
Ron looks at her in a resigned way, commenting that he expected better of her. She remarks that she expected better of him. She turns to walk away. She’s going for a walk. She needs some fresh air. Ron volunteers to accompany her. The fresh air will do them both good.
‘Can’t you take a hint?’ She snarls at Ron. She needs some time on her own, in order to decide if she’s going to lie for him.
Mr and Mrs O’Leary are preparing to leave Hotel Johnson.. Neither of them can wait to move and both are looking forward to living at Jimmy’s. Tim remarks that Mick is so tense whilst Jimmy is so laid back he’s almost horizontal. Whilst packing, Tim runs across a bag of 20 one-pound coins. He asks Emily if she’s won the lottery. Emily tells him that’s the 20 quid for Mick’s rent that she got off Jessie; only Emily went to the garage and got them to change it into 20 one-pound coins, just to do Mick’s head in when they paid him.
She tells Tim to hurry and pack so they could get away before Mick returns. ‘What?’ Exclaims Tim. ‘Leg it like a pair of kids? No way.’ He wants Mick to be there when they leave, just so they could see the look on his face when they tell him they are leaving.
The staff at Hotel Corkhill, i.e. Lindsey and Jimmy, are preparing for the arrival of their eminent guests. Suffice it to say that Lindsey isn’t exactly over the moon at the prospect of having lodgers, much less Tim and Emily. In fact, she’d actually thought Jimmy was joking when he told her they were coming to stay. She can’t believe Jimmy asked them to move in without so much as consulting her wishes. Jimmy assures her that they are good kids, really. All they needed was a break and a bit of guidance.
Anyway, according to Jimmy, Lindsey’s problem is that she’s used to the same people having lived in the Corkhill house for all these years. She should be getting used to different people being in the house. Even though she might think otherwise, Jimmy knows her dating days are far from over, whichever way she should choose to swing; and he certainly didn’t intend to spend the rest of his days as a bachelor. ‘There’s life in the old dog, yet.’
Lindsey is surprised and asks if he has anyone in particular in mind with whom to spend the rest of his days; but Jimmy assures her that there’s no one in particular at the moment. Lindsey still isn’t keen on sharing the house with an ex-jailbird and a bimbo. Jimmy upbraids her on labelling people, reminding her of what it would be like for the pair of them if the labels people had stuck to them in the past had been made to stick. He’d be a no-mark scally and she’d be the resident lezza. (Well, actually, Jim, your daughter would be a lot of other things too, but that’s water under the bridge). Anyway, Tim reminds him a lot of himself at that age; and he’s determined the lad won’t take the same route Jimmy travelled.
That’s as may be, says Lindsey, but she doesn’t like Emily. She causes trouble wherever she goes, she warns Jimmy.
Jimmy reminds her that the girl lost her dad and her brother, and tragically. Does Lindsey remember the state she was in when Little Jimmy died? All Emily needs, really, is for someone to keep an eye on her. She has a grandmother across the road, Lindsey points out, rightly. (And a mum in Belgium, who’s in contention along with Carol Jackson of Eastenders for Neglectful Mother of the Year, for all the interest she takes in her daughters). Jimmy brushes this comment aside, saying that if he were dead and buried, Lindsey would still have Jackie; but he would rest easier in his grave, knowing that someone else in the neighbourhood might just be looking after his little girl too. (Jimmy, I have news for you. Your Lindsey could sort out the hardest villain, male or female.)
Marty Murray is washing the Murraymobile as Mick Johnson approaches the Close. He gazes thoughtfully at Marty as he walks, but Marty pays him no mind whatsoever. In fact, it appears as though he’s deliberately ignoring Mick completely. As he nears the pavement where Marty is working on the car, Marty douses the vehicle with a pail of water, almost drenching Mick.
Mick is making a concerted effort to show friendly. He laughs and points out to Marty that he almost got him. Marty doesn’t apologise, just keeps working. Mick continues to try to make small talk.. Thinking that Marty’s washing the car for a purpose, he comments that he’s done a nice job and asks what the occasion for the valetting was. Marty glances briefly at Mick and says there’s no occasion; the car’s up for sale.
Getting another? Asks Mick, chattily. No, answers Marty shortly. He’s selling it to raise cash. He can’t afford to keep it now - couldn’t afford to run it before, really. Speaking coldly, he explains to Mick that he and Diane were going for an IVF course, in hopes of having a baby. Mick is stunned, apologises (for what?) And says that he had no idea they were pursuing that.
‘Why should you?’ Asks Marty. ‘You weren’t to know. I never told you about it. After all, you were HARDLY a mate, were you?’ (Obviously a pointed reference to the recent occurences between the two men).
Marty goes on to explain that this would be the couple’s second attempt at IVF. The first one failed. It happened to get all caught up in the kerfuffle of Adele’s pregnancy. Funny, wasn’t it? One woman desperate to be a mother, and another desperate not to be one, both under the same roof. Ironic, isn’t it?, says Marty. And he turns his attention back to polishing the car, indicating silently and coldly that he’d finished with Mick.
Ron sits in the Dixon house, telephone in hand. He’s written a note to Anthea on the pad by the phone, telling her that if he’s not there when she comes home, he’s looking for her. In the meantime, he’s phoned Jacqui, seeking Anthea’s whereabouts. Has Jacqui, by any chance, seen her? Receiving a negative reply, he explains to Jacqui that the couple had had a bit of a row and she’s gone off. He was worried. Jacqui offers to come around, but Ron assures her he’s OK. But he wants her to tell Anthea he’s looking for her if he sees her.
The newlyweds are all packed and ready to go. They bounce (Tim figuratively, Emily literally) down the stairs and are surprised to find Mick sitting in the Johnson lounge. Now that they are no longer tenants, Emily doesn’t feel the need to be polite to Mick anymore; so like the spoiled brat that she is, she’s pointedly rude to him.
‘Oh,’ she grunts with surprise,’when did you sneak in?’
Mick replies that this is his house; he doesn’t need to sneak anywhere. Emily flippantly tosses the bag of pound coins at him, telling him that’s the last of the rent money. On time next time, says Mick.
Emily assumes that pig’s-arse, pursed-lip smug look that makes you want to slap her and replies haughtily: ‘Well, you see, Mick, that won’t be possible. Jimmy’s invited oos to stay at his. Mick is surprised. ‘Jimmy?’ He asks, in disbelief. ‘The very one,’ Madam replies, smiling cheekily. Tim rejoinders that Mick can stick his room. And Madam flounces off. (Do Brookside give classes in this art - Flouncing 101? Star pupils being Jennifer Ellison and Katy Lamont?)
Tim, however, lags behind a bit, before attempting to follow his wife. He’s stopped by Mick, who reminds him that since Mick was the mug who gave them a home when no one else would touch them with a barge pole, doesn’t Tim at least owe him the decency of an explanation? Tim asks, cockily, if Mick could handle the explanation he was about to render. Mick assures him that he can, and Tim begins to recite a litany of home truths.
He’s known Mick for years now, and Mick’s always appeared to be a decent-enough chap. But the past year, he’s changed almost to the point of being unrecogniseable. Tim’s watched him bully and banter and ride roughshod over everyone and everything for the past year, stepping on people to get what he wanted, showing unbearable arrogance and strutting about the Close. Now things aren’t so good for Mick, and Tim thinks he deserves EVERYTHING that’s come his way recently.
Take Sinbad, for example, says Tim. Sinbad was supposed to be Mick’s best friend; yet when Sinbad was faced with unfounded allegations of child abuse, Mick treated him like crap. Mick let him down, when Sinbad needed him the most. By the way, he continues, how long has it been since Mick’s actually heard from Sinbad? A week? A month? He wasn’t far away, just across town. Mick had literally hung Sinbad out to dry when Sinbad needed him the most.
Mick reprimands Tim, saying he has no right to speak that way to Mick; why, Tim’s not much more than a kid. Tim replies that he may not be anything but a kid, but he’s not Mick’s kid. And speaking of kids ...
What about Mick’s kids? How long since he’s seen them or talked to them? A week? A month?
Gemma, he points out, is stuck off in some school somewhere and hasn’t been home in months. (I thought she was with Josie, her mother). Leo’s off working in London, but he hasn’t returned either. Well, now he and Emily were leaving and Mick had got what he wanted all along - this big house, all to himself. Tim hopes he’s happy.
As he moves toward the front door, he pauses briefly. He asks Mick to say hello to Leo for him, when Leo happened to call ... if he happened to call.
It’s lunchtime at Hotel Corkhill and the guests, especially Emily, are on a smarm-and-charm offensive. Music blaring, they are unpacking their gear in the extension, whilst Lindsey sits at the table, eating what appears to be a bowl of cereal and looking distinctly displeased at the fact that Timily are there at all. She gets up to wash the bowl, but Emily reminds her that it’s Lindsey who’s on the lunch break, so she, Em, will wash the bowl. Lindsey’s asking Emily how Mick took the news that they were leaving. Well, Emily preens, he was surprised, to say the least. Lindsey remarks ironically that she thought Mick would have been glad of their company, hinting that she’s not, and gladder still to get their rent. Oh yes, rent - that HAD been mentioned to them? They WERE paying rent here, weren’t they?
Jimmy enters at that moment, saying of course, they were paying rent. They paid rent at Mick Johnno’s and - from what he understood - were royally ripped off. Tim asserts that Jimmy had suggested that they pay half the rent they paid Mick Johnson, and that the money would include their board as well. And that wasn’t all, Emily says. Jimmy was forking out to get the pair of them a double bed, and they were going to pay him back for it at a few quid a week. (Yeah, sure ... Like, don’t hold your breath).
Lindsey raises her eyebrows, commenting sarcastically on the generosity of Jimmy as a landlord and how lucky they were to be his tenants. And while they were all here, she continues, isn’t this the right time to lay down a few ground rules for their tenancy? Ground rules, asks Jimmy, over his shoulder, as he assumes washing-up duties from Emily. For what? Deliberately ignoring Lindsey’s subject of ‘ground rules’, Emily proceeds to tell Jimmy what a ‘loovely’ job he’s done on his house.
Oh, you know, explains Lindsey, blithely. Ground rules ... For doing the washing up or cleaning. Maybe there could be some rotas - for who does the washing up, who cleans etc. Jimmy poo-poos the idea. Rotas? Bah! They never worked. Lindsey raises her eyebrows even more. Jimmy was singing a different tune, wasn’t he? What was all that fuss a few months back about rotas? You couldn’t take a step in the Corkhill house previously without consulting a rota.
Desperate times called for desperate measures, says Jim. He explains to Tim and Em that the Corkhills had a rota system once - didn’t work at all - wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. Anyway, who needs to be told when to wash up? He asks rhetorically. Whoever thinks it’s necessary to wash up, will (in other words, he or Lindsey), the same for cleaning. They were all adults; surely they’d know when it was time to swill a brush round the bog. Do it when it’s needed, suggests Tim, and Jimmy agrees. (In other words, Lindsey will do most of the cleaning).
Still continuing the smarm, Emily informs Lindsey that she and Tim would be going to the market for Jimmy later that day. Was there anything she wanted? They’d be glad to fetch it.
Ron is still looking for Anthea, and he walks away from the Close. He pauses to pass a few words with Marty Murray, who’s loading some stuff into the boot of his Murraymobile. Ron jokes that if Marty’s planning on doing a runner, he’ll go with him. Marty laughs and explains that he’s taking the car on a last run to the dump with some rubbish, as he’ll be selling it soon.
Ron asks if he’s seen Anthea by any chance. Marty says that he saw her leave the house that morning. Ron says she hasn’t been back. He’s been on the phone all morning looking around for her - shudders to think what his phone bill would be. Marty winces and asks Ron not to mention phone bills - he has three kids and a wife who could talk for England. (Haven’t these people heard of some of the deals BT’s offering?) Marty promises Ron that if he sees Anthea, he’ll tell her to get home right away as Ron was looking for her. Ron suggests that he not do that, as Anthea was ... well, hormonal, at the moment.
Marty understands. He’ll run for cover if he sees her, he jokes. As Ron walks away, Marty suddenly calls after him, suggesting that he try the salon. Perhaps Anthea went there. Ron thinks that’s a good idea.
The TIMILY pair are seated on a Corkhill chair, engaged in a massively happy snog. Lindsey remarks sarcastically, in a low voice to Jimmy, that all thoughts of the market appear to have fled. She tells Jimmy that she is not happy at all about this arrangement. What happens when Wills and Kylie are there? (Kylie’s not there? What a surprise! Where is she, pray tell? With Jackie?)
Jimmy isn’t worried. He has no reason to believe that they’d hurt the children. Lindsey was over-reacting. Lindsey reminds him that Wills is up at the crack of dawn, and somehow, she reckons, that’s about the time they’d be getting to bed. They certainly wouldn’t be up that early. What if they started shouting at the kids when they were making noise? Lindsey informs Jimmy that she’s standing for no nonsense, and wouldn’t be taking any crap off them. Turning to the snogging pair, Jimmy reminds them that they were supposed to be going to the market.
Anxious to keep on his good side, the two immediately jump to their feet, but before they depart, Lindsey has a few other things to say to them. Just for their information, she says, she wants them to know that SHE won’t be cooking for everyone all of the time. Emily immediately volunteers their services. THEY will cook for everyone, she says. Well, says Tim, Emily would. He couldn’t cook.
There was no need for that, Lindsey says. They could cook for themselves and themselves only, making it patently clear that the O’Learys were NOT to partake of the Corhills’ repas. But they were to understand that Lindsey would have priority in the kitchen, and that Lindsey would cook the children’s tea before anyone else had a meal. Tim and Emily agree.
Mick sits across the street, alone in his house. He suddenly hears noises outside, which he recognises to be Tim and Em. Moving to the window and parting the curtains, he watches them noisily and happily leave the Corkhill house. Then he moves silently back to his sofa and sits down, all alone.
Later, Jimmy steps out onto his doorstep to put some empty milk bottles out for the milkman. As he does so, he spies Anthea in front of the Dixon house. She’s knocking (what happened to the doorbell?) and calling through the letterbox for Ron, but there appears to be no one at home, as there’s no reply. He watches her continue knocking on the door and calls out to her to see if anything is the matter.
Anthea turns and greets him. She’s managed to lock herself out, she explains. She made sure Ron was at home when she left that morning and thought he might be there now. (Does she think Ron does nothing but stay around the house, waiting for her? He’s hardly been made to feel welcome in his home recently, has he?) It’s odd, she says, at this time of day, with as many people who live at the Dixons’, you’d think somebody would be at home.
Jimmy offers the services of his ladder and asks if it’s possible that one of the back windows might be open. Anthea looks at him dubiously, and, remembering the happenings chez Dixon for the past few months, Jimmy realises that that’s a pretty stupid remark to make. In order to make amends, he suggests that Anthea wait at the Corkhills’ until someone turns up. He was about to make a pot of tea.
As they enter the house, Lindsey - hearing a woman’s voice - bounces (literally) down the stairs. She admits to Anthea that she thought perhaps her mum had come to call, but Jim explains that Anthea’s locked herself out and is going to wait there until one of the Dixons comes home. Lindsey is on her way to work anyway, but she promises Anthea that if she sees one of her clan, she’ll tell them where to find her.
Almost at that instant, Ron returns home and de-activates the alarm. He walks to the telephone, with a worried look on his face, and picks up the note pad next to it, as if he’s trying to think of more people to phone re Anthea’s whereabouts.
Meanwhile, Jimmy has made the tea and is looking for some biscuits, whilst making small talk with Anthea. How’s Mike and how’s his physiotherapy going? Fine, replies Anthea. And the rest of the family, doing all right, are they? Yes, replies Anhea, automatically, everyone’s doing very well, considering. Suddenly, she pauses.
‘Who am I kidding?’ She says. The Dixons are anything but well, but she thinks that if she repeats this mantra enough times, she’ll believe it in the end. In fact, she says, they are all to pieces:- Jacqui’s lost the best friend she’s ever had; Rachel is being forced to relive the trauma of what happened to her mother and sister all over again; and Mike is angrily spouting dogma about how Clint deserved everything he got and thinks that Ron should be feted as a hero.
Jimmy approaches her with the tea, ignoring her previous rant, and asks quietly how RON is (considering the fact that Anthea has neglected to mention him in her soliloquy).
Anthea admits that Ron’s fraught as well. Oh, he does a good job of masquerading the fact, but he’s all cut up. She realises that it might seem as though he’s acting normal to other people, but he’s not. He’s frightened. But the most difficult thing she finds with which to cope, is going out with Ron in public - to the supermarket, to have a drink. People recognise him from his picture having been in the papers and stare at him as though he’s some sort of freak show. (Is Anthea showing her true colours here? Is she ashsmed to be with Ron? The pious bitch.)
Jimmy looks at her, knowingly, and she averts his gaze. At the same time, through the net curtains in back of Anthea, he sees Ron trudge sadly across the Close, away from the Dixon house.
She continues. Oh, she knows that Ron’s a decent man, she says, sounding more and more as though she’s trying to convince herself of a fact that Jimmy Corkhill and many of the Close residents already know. You couldn’t ask for a more decent man, really. And he was a wonderful husband. She couldn’t pretend to agree with a lot of his ideas, mind you; but he genuinely loves his family and thinks the world of his kids.
And of you, Jimmy reminds her.
But Anthea can’t help wondering what exactly Ron was thinking when he shot Clint.
Jimmy tells her bluntly that he was thinking about protecting his family. But Anthea shakes her head and says that a jury won’t see it like that. They’ll simply see that he killed a person.
Jimmy remarks ruefully everyone knows the family had been through the wringer lately and that Ron was at his wits’ end. When a person finds he has a shotgun in his hand, he almost has to pull the trigger. He tried to warn Ron off getting a gun.
Anthea remarks spitefully that no one could warn Ron off anything once he gets an idea in his head. (Er, Anthea, would you believe that your husband had the gun forced on him? That he didn’t ask for the gun? Hasn’t even paid for it? Would you believe that? Thought not. Because you are determined to believe the worst about Ron, no matter what.) As if she realises the way that remark must sound to outsiders, she tries to make amends by saying that she was too stressed out by the whole situation. But she still couldn’t get her mind around the fact that Ron had actually killed someone. What kind of person would do something like that? She asks, rhetorically (practically begging for someone to second her opinion of the depravity of her husband).
Jimmy replies that the sort of person who would do what Ron did was the sort of person who would do anything to protect his family. That was why it was important for Ron and Anthea to support each other fully at this difficult time.
‘You mean "cover" for each other, don’t you?’ Asks Anthea, sarcastically. She begins to say that Ron actually expected her to go into a courtroom and ... Suddenly realising what she’s about to disclose, she stops.
Jimmy susses that she may be worried about appearing in Court, and Anthea agrees. He asks if she’s actually told Ron about how she feels? She admits that she hasn’t. Ron is so fragile at the moment, it was taking all his strength to hold himself together. She’s afraid if she broached the subject, he might go to pieces.
She explains that she’s confused by the turn of events. Sometimes, she’s able to justify the course of action Ron took; other times, she’s appalled. A young lad’s been killed, she tells Jimmy. He was only 23 years old. He’d just got engaged. He had his whole life ahead of him. What Ron did had wrecked so many lives, and she finds it difficult to accept that he committed the act solely for her protection. (And what the Moffatts were doing wasn’t wrecking lives?)
Jimmy offers her more tea, but she declines, saying she’s too wound up for anymore caffeine. Then Jim suggests a stronger drink - whiskey - for medicinal purposes. He pours her a dram and toasts ‘To better days’.
Anthea continues, saying that whenever the Dixons seem to get their heads above water and everything seems to be going well, something happens to drag them under again. (It’s called ‘life’, honey. Happens to us all). She knows it sounds silly, but all she’s ever wanted, she says, is a roof over her head, food in the cupboards, enough money to pay her bills and some left over for a rainy day. (Basically, material creature comforts - but NOT the love of a partner, notice. Selfish.) Everything was going fine for the Dixons and then this had to happen. (Well, er, no, Anth. Everything was NOT going fine for your family. You were being repeatedly harassed and burgled, your step-daughter was trying to extricate herself from an abusive and manipulative relationship, and your stepson was severely disabled in an accident, which was partly the fault of the Moffatts. Everything was NOT fine.)
As Jimmy listens to the recitation of Anthea’s woes, he begins to muse about all the things his own family have been through in recent years. Anthea suddenly recalls that Jimmy, too, has lost a son. (But she doesn’t remember that another person far closer to her has sufferd the same sort of loss. Read on.)
Jimmy admits to the loss of the bullet-headed Little Jimmy (a son of which any mother would have been proud ... Not). He died when he was 24, Jim says.
Anthea keeps thinking of Ma Moffatt. (Go on, that’s what the woman wants you to do, Anth. You’re buying it, girl).
She keeps remembering the look of pain on Ma Moffatt’s face that day she first saw her in Court. Jimmy knows exactly what sort of look that is. He describes it as if a light had gone out in the eyes of the person grieving. He saw that same look in Jackie’s face, when Little Jimmy died. In fact, he tells Anthea, he saw that look for the first time in Ron’s face.
‘When Tony Dixon died?’ Anthea asks, disbelievingly, unable to fathom what Ron might have felt at the death of his youngest child..
Jimmy nods. Tony’s death, he says, all but crushed Ron. And he, Jimmy, was responsible. That would live with Jimmy for the rest of his days. He says that, just as he thinks of Little Jimmy every day, so he also thinks of Tony Dixon as well. He’s absolutely certain that Ron does as well. In fact, he knows he does. (This is a brilliantly subtle way of Jimmy trying to explain to this incredibly facile woman that Ron is hurting over the death of Clint and that the guilt of that death will remain with him until the end of his days.). He knows Ron especially misses Tony at Christmas and on his birthday, just as he misses Little Jimmy on those days.
Sometimes, he sits and wonders what Tony and Little Jimmy would be like if they were alive now. Maybe they’d have families of their own, but maybe they’d also be terrors. There’s no way anyone would ever know what they’d be like now.
Anthea rises to go, thanking him for his time. She asks that Jimmy not say anything to Ron about her waiting there. Jimmy finishes her thought for her, with sublime irony - consorting with the man who killed his son - knowing that that’s what she’s thinking, but also knowing that, again, she’s totally misreading Ron.
Anthea muses that maybe Ron needs more than she was prepared to give him, someone who would give him unquestioning loyalty. Jimmy reminds Anthea that he knew someone just like that, someone who was unbelieveably loyal to the people she loved ... Jackie. Jimmy was terrible to her, put her through the wringer. Lied to her, cheated on her, got in trouble, got nicked, went to prison. And everytime, Jackie was there for him. Everytime she took him back with open arms. He thought perhaps she was too good for him. She certainly deserved someone far better than he.
In the end, it was Jimmy who ended their relationship, probably because he realised that she was too good for him. And did Anthea know that, if he said the word, Jackie would still have him back. In fact, Jackie would do anything for her family. A person like that, he says, is invaluable. But it was Jimmy who found that he was unworthy of her, that he couldn’t take anymore of her love and loyalty, because he was undeserving.
Anthea tells Jimmy that she and Ron had been through so much - being together as a couple when they were young, then going their separate ways, only to meet again illicitly years later, and finally marrying. She thought she would be so happy that they were finally together as a couple; but she suddenly wonders if this were the breaking point for her and Ron. Perhaps she couldn’t take anymore. Perhaps she was incapable of giving him her total support. She starts to cry and Jimmy puts his arms around her comfortingly.
The first admission of truth from Mrs Materiality. She doesn’t love Ron. She loves the comfort and attention he can give her, but she doesn’t love the man. The shallowness of yet another Brookside woman is revealed.
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001