Tuesday, 7th August 2001

Inappropriate Behaviour

Take a look at the above. That’s the latest accusation to be levelled at some of the characters on Brookside. SOME? EX-CUUUUUUSE ME! Inappropriate behaviour has been the mainstay on Brookside at least since 1997. Take a walk around the Close ... There isn’t a single household where there’s ever been anything BUT inappropriate behaviour. I mean, just look at the number of people resident who have taken other people’s lives - Jimmy was responsible for Tony Dixon’s and Frank Rogers’s deaths; Mick performed the mercy killing of Gladys Charlton, Rachel’s mother killed Trevor Jordache; Max watched Susannah take a tumble down the stairs, and now Ron’s done in the patron saint of ducks.

So Mick’s departure moan, begun in this episode, is really a rant at the overall behaviour of everyone and everything living on the Close and working/living on The Parade.

And the ‘inappropriate behaviour’ doesn’t stop with just the screened storylines. It has to be extended to the Series Producer and the writers as well. Face it, folks, at the risk of calling down the wrath of the TWO self-appointed arbiters of accepted opinion, who are named after the saint of the Damascene conversion and who dominate the Brookside Newsgroup, I have to say that this episode was STRICTLY for the Level I viewing audience. Brookside is moving on in its ‘sexy’ stakes - only on Brookside, the sex has to be clean, neat and obvious. Tonight we had lots of tits - the nude male variety and the flat female variety - and a couple of arse shots - again the nude male type and the rear end of a girl in a miniskirt. Puerile and unfunny.

Max is on the phone at The Shelf (that’s the restaurant, by the way, and not a fitting in the Farnham house). He appears to be taking a booking from a client and he’s chuffed to bits. Mick appears in his chef’s disguise of checkered trousers and white hat and stands moodily nearby. When Max finishes with the call, he turns to Mick and babbles about just having taken their first Christmas booking. The client was interested in menus as well, so he and Mick would have to put their heads together to come up with something special.

The only response Mick is able to give to this happy tirade is an unintelligible grunt. Then he sulkily declares that he might not be working there by Christmas, anyway, to the great astonishment of Max.

Breakfast time at Hotel Corkhill. Even though REm (that’s Emily, not the band)declared vehemently in the previous episode that her culinary expertise should not be taken for granted by the residents thereof (after declaring before that one that she would happily cook for all and sundry resident), she appears to be doing a fry-up. Jimmy and Tim are seated at the table. Tim looks noticeably tired.

Emily remarks that she didn’t hear him return home last night. Tim explains that he was kept at Better Burgers by the manager, swabbing floors until almost midnight. Here begins a lengthy rant by Tim about said manager. Quite simply, he can’t stand the bloke ... Always on Tim’s case ... Thinks he knows everything since he returned from some special management course in Leeds.

Jimmy asks if the manager is a ‘company’ man, i.e. a real high-flyer. Tim remarks that that’s what galls him particularly. The bloke is a ‘pencil-neck’ with glasses, who’s a year younger than Tim. Emily remarks placatingly over her shoulder that Tim should just keep blanking him and the fella will get bored and stop badgering Tim.

Anyway, Emily says, as she dishes out the grub, she has to go to work. Tim’s not best pleased. It’s his day off and he hoped Emily would skive off work and stay home with him. Emily tells Tim that if she doesn’t work, she gets docked a day’s pay. (And so the rehabilitation of Emily Shadwick continues ... Wonder if the tabloids will follow suit?)

She leaves, and Tim begins his rant about his boss again. The wimp might have one over on Tim during working hours, but Tim had better not run into him outside work. He was eager to take a pop at the bloke. Jimmy, exasperated, asks Tim why he goes looking for more trouble when he’s got more than his fair share about which to worry. Instead of trying to do one on this manager, Tim should be worrying about Ron Dixon and the shotgun Tim provided for him.

Tim would soon have enough on his plate, he says, if and when the bizzies came sniffing around him about that gun. Tim says there was no problem there. Ron was going to cover for him about the gun. After all, Tim had saved the Dixons from being harrassed by the Moffatts. Ron owed him one. Jimmy reiterates that Tim should see Ron and make sure he intends to stand by his promise.

Meanwhile, chez Dixon, Ron is giving the mingeing hypocrite he married a taste of her own medicine. While Anthea is all sweetness and light to the man, as if he should take her carping behaviour as normal and accept it, Ron is blanking her totally. Anthea is organising her day, announcing to Ron that she’s got to go to the bank to deposit some cheques (presumably the Great Grannies’ profits). Ron surmises sarcastically that after going to the bank, he supposes Anthea has another ‘case conference’ planned at Bev’s Bar with Katie Rogers.

Anthea attempts to do an impersonation of a Southern belle caught in a lie - delicate hand on chest, wide-eyed look of innocent protest (‘Who, me? Why, sir, you are hah’bly mistaken!’). She protests her innocence by saying that, actually, she thought that Ron might accompany her. Then afterwards, they could have a walk in the park. (This is the woman who admitted recently that she was ashamed to be seen in public with Ron Dixon. Perhaps the walk in the park will remind her how much she’s supposed to feel ashamed and she’ll return to form). Anyway, she continues, she wishes Ron would stop trying to cast poor pitiful Katie as the enemy. For goodness sake, he’s known the girl since God was a boy. Why, Katie’s more of a victim than the enemy in all this.

Ron has Katie sussed, and he’s quite right. He points out to Anthea that, in this particular instance, Katie IS the enemy. Katie thinks he intended to kill Clint and that he KNEW the intruder was Clint. As far as Katie is concerned, Ron points out, all she wants is revenge. And she’ll keep hammering away at Anthea until she garners something that can be used in court against Ron. Anthea, he reminds her, is the chief witness for the defence, Ron’s defence.

Anthea protests again, saying that the girl was only upset and that Anthea treated her to a drink in order to calm her down. She needed someone to talk to. Yes, says Ron. And how long before Anthea becomes ‘Anthea Dixon for the prosecution’ in Regina vs Dixon? If Anthea keeps on talking to Katie, something’s sure to slip out; and then Katie wouldn’t hesitate to go to the bizzies or the Moffatt solicitors and Ron would cop it.

Anthea makes a foolish attempt to justify herself, telling Ron that she’s ALWAYS been 100% rock solid in her support of him in public. Ron retorts that he wishes she were 100% rock solid in her support of him in private.

Back at The Shelf, Max is attempting to console Mick in his sullenness. He thinks Mick is in a mood over Yvonne’s departure. Max is encouraging him, telling him how sorry he was about Vonnie leaving and that Mick would get over it. Mick accuses Max of gloating over Mick’s bad luck with Yvonne. Max is puzzled.

Mick accuses Max of having a short memory. Why, it wasn’t that long ago that Max was in a fit when he heard that Mick and Vonnie were a couple. Max had told Mick that it was too soon after Susannah’s death to begin a relationship with another woman. Indeed, he had implied it was disrespectful to Susannah’s memory. Max protests weakly that at the time he said those things, he ‘wasn’t himself’ (victim of the current Brookside Millennium madness).

Mick continues. Well, maybe Max was right. Maybe Mick did rush into another relationship too soon with Vonnie. But he didn’t do it to rubbish Susannah. In fact, Mick loved Susannah, to be honest. Perhaps he was actually hiding his true feelings for Susannah by getting involved with Yvonne. It was, after all, a troubled time for him. But of course, he says sarcastically, it was nothing like the troubled time Max endured. I mean, Susannah was the love of Max’s life, wasn’t she?

Max agrees with Mick, although he’s uncomfortable, not realising where this conversation is headed. Max maintains that not a day goes by when he doesn’t think about Susannah. She’s on his mind all the time.

‘Even when you’re in bed with Jacqui Dixon?’ Questions Mick.

Max manages to hide his shock at that question. He protests that there’s nothing between him and Jacqui. They are close friends, based on their bond as Harry’s parents. But Mick knows otherwise. He announces to Max that he saw Max and Jacqui exchange a kiss on the Farnham doorstep the previous evening, and it wasn’t just a peck on the cheek between friends. Max is left showing the camera a classic face of wide-eyed horror.

Ron Dixon leaves the garage on the Parade, having bought a paper. He’s accosted by Tim, who wants a word. Ron surmises the content of Tim’s conversation before the lad’s even uttered a sentence. He calms Tim by reiterating his promise not to grass on him to the police about the shotgun. Ron reminds Tim that he’s grateful to the lad for saving Anthea and he wouldn’t drop him in it. Tim thanks him.

Max tells Mick that, actually, he’s relieved that the secret about him and Jacqui is out in the open. He and Jacqui tried for the longest time to deny their feelings for each other, but their love was bigger than the pair of them. He’d like the relationship brought out into the open, but Jacqui wanted privacy for a bit longer. There were all sorts of obstacles they wanted to overcome before proclaiming to the world that they were a couple. For a start, he explains, Susannah’s only been dead nine months. Then there was their age difference; there was Harry, who’d thought Susannah was his real mother; and finally, there was Ron and his attitude toward Max. Max is only too aware that he and Ron Dixon haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye in the past.

Max and Jacqui wanted their relationship kept quiet so it could develop at its own pace before people tried to judge them,

Mick tells Max that his relationship with Jacqui is little more than a sordid affair. Max asks Mick not to cheapen it with such remarks. Max explains that he’s been given a second chance at love, this time with a truly remarkable young woman (something that Mick doesn’t exactly need to hear in his frame of mind). Please, Max begs, would Mick keep this secret to himself? Mick looks coldly at Max and tells him that he has work to do.

Anthea is preparing to leave to go to the bank and asks Ron one more time to accompany her. Ron is still blanking her and answers coldly that he’s remaining at home in order to do the garden. But Anthea shouldn’t let that hinder her planned conversation with Katie. Anthea is exasperated at Ron’s attitude and tries once again to explain that she was only talking to Katie because Katie was so very upset. (In all fairness to the cow, she DID try to steer Katie away from slagging off Ron).

At that moment, the doorbell rings and Ron goes to answer it. When Anthea hears Jimmy’s voice, she looks extremely uncomfortable, but she manages to greet Jimmy pleasantly and leave. When she’s gone, Jimmy sits himself down on the Dixon sofa and tells Ron that this isn’t a social call. He comes right to the point. He needs to talk to Ron about the shotgun Tim O’Leary provided for him.

Ron is shocked that Jimmy knows where he got the gun. He tells Jimmy that Tim had no right to tell him about the gun, but Jimmy says what’s done is done and now he knows and is involved. He needs to know what Ron’s going to do about revealing where he got the gun. Ron isn’t facing Jimmy; he’s standing and looking out the window, only daring to look at Jim over his shoulder. Ron assures Jimmy that he won’t tell the police anything, and he’s promised Tim as much; but Jimmy tells Ron that he isn’t convinced that Ron will do that.

Max and Mick are still in the midst of their debate concerning the Farnham-Dixon romance. Max attempts to dissuade Mick from mentioning anything by saying that he and Jacqui are in love. Mick openly scoffs at that remark. In love? Didn’t Vonnie say she loved Mick? He pours scorn on Max’s relationship with Jacqui by saying that the two were as bad as each other - two liars entangled in a sordid, backstreet affair. Why, just yesterday, Jacqui maintained to him that she was single! Perhaps, Mick suggests maliciously, Ron Dixon would like to know exactly with whom his only daughter was romantically entangled? (Er, does Mick know that Anthea’s daughter, Megan, is actually Ron’s daughter too?)

Max asks Mick if he plans on telling Ron about his affair with Jacqui, but Mick taunts him by saying he hasn’t decided anything yet.

Ron and Jimmy, meanwhile, are having a pretty serious discussion of their own. Ron reiterates to Jimmy that he owes Tim not to grass on him. After all, if it hadn’t been for Tim, Anthea would be dead.

‘What do you think I am?’ He asks Jimmy, rhetorically.

‘Just a normal guy who can’t stand up to pressure from the likes of the bizzies,’ answers Jimmy, truthfully and without judgment.

Ron repeats to Jimmy the planned story about getting the shotgun off an unknown bloke in a pub; but Jimmy reminds Ron that the bizzies are absolutely paranoid about guns, especially illegal guns on the streets of Liverpool. Ron brushes Jimmy verbally aside, by telling him that he’s as bad as his solicitor - always ‘banging’ (bad pun) on about that damned gun.

Jimmy points out to Ron that how he came by the gun just might have a bearing on his case and that his brief would probably emphasise that to Ron, if it hadn’t already been emphasised. It could actually mean the choice between serving a life sentence or grassing on Tim. Jimmy tells Ron that the story he’s concocted about getting the gun off an unnamed man in a pub is the oldest story in the book, as far as the police are concerned; and it would never wash with them.

In fact, Jimmy tells, him, both Jimmy and Tim are worried that Ron will crack under the pressure of possibly being sent down. Ron assures him that he won’t crack. He tells Jimmy that he’s meeting with his solicitor tomorrow, and Jimmy says he hopes he has a good tight story for the solicitor and that he sticks with it.

A taxi pulls onto the Close and stops outside the Hilton bungalow. Nikki Shadwick, looking well and rested (and wearing a short skirt for once in her life on the show) emerges. She enters the house, calling for her Nan; but there’s no reply. Obviously desperate for a pee, she dashes to the loo and opens the door.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! She and the viewers are treated to a lingering, gratuitous nude shot of Dr Do-A-Little’s bare bum. Nikki is shocked. (MESSAGE FROM BROOKSIDE FOR ALL THE LEVEL ONE VIEWERS - SPECIFICALLY, FEMALES AGED BETWEEN 10 AND 14: THIS IS SEXY, GIRLS. IT’S SUPPOSED TO TURN YOU ON. LEVEL TWO BROOKIE VIEWERS: YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THINK THIS IS HILARIOUSLY FUNNY. The sad thing is that the scene is neither sexy nor funny. It also serves to tell the more experienced Brookside [and soap] viewer, that it’s a pretty safe bet that Nikki and Do-A-Little will become THIS YEAR’S Jacqui and Nathan ... Excuse me while I yawn).

Do-A-Little recovers himself sufficiently to introduce himself as ‘Neil Kelly’, the new lodger. Nikki introduces herself, and Do-A-Little surmises that she’s ‘the granddaughter’. Now there’s something oddly UNfamiliar about Do-A-Little in the buff - It’s his accent. It’s no longer Irish, just flat, unplaceable Northern. (Perhaps he only becomes Irish when he’s wearing his clothes?)

As he relinquishes the toilet to Nikki’s needs, he welcomes her home, and she jokes that his sort of welcome makes a change. Wearing only a towel and sounding more and more North of Watford (maybe by the next episode, we can expect him to sound Scottish?), Do-A-Little asks the bathroom-bound Nikki if she’d like a cup of tea and offers to put the kettle on.

Just at that moment, Ray and Jessie enter, surprised at the scene of their lodger making tea whilst wearing only a towel and an uneasy smile. Gobsmacked, they are even moreso, when they hear Nikki call out from the loo, ‘It’s all yours, Neil.’

This is NOT funny. And I do not like the new doctor.

Max has frantically sought Jacqui, who’s putting in a rare appearance at the Health Club. Immediately he sees her, he nervously informs her that Mick saw them kissing on the Farnham doorstep the evening before; what’s more, now he’s threatening to tell Ron. Jacqui agrees with Max that they must talk to Mick and try to convince him to keep it quiet.

Simultaneously, it seems, Mick is on his way home from The Shelf. He passes Ron, who’s working in the Dixon front garden. Ron greets him with a joking question about Mick coming home to a lunch of tinned soup. Max glares at Ron with a face like thunder. Ron supposes that Mick’s obvious bad mood has something to do with Max. ‘I don’t know why you work for him,’ observes Ron. ‘Ay, ay. What’s he done this time?’ (If he only knew).

Nikki and Jessie are seated at the dining room table at the Hiltons’. Jessie is wearing a new dress, more stylish than her usual dowdy fare, and sports a new shorter haircut. She’s also acting as skittish as a colt. (Could it have something to do with Do-A-Little? OH NO! PLEASE DON’T TELL US WE ARE GOING TO HAVE NIKKI ATTRACTED TO DO-A-LITTLE AND JESSIE ATTRACTED TO DO-A-LITTLE AS WELL? I MEAN, WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS PRODUCER AND KINKY THREESOMES?!)

Nikki compliments Jess on her new dress and hairstyle, saying it makes her look much younger (which is the effect Jessie wanted, I daresay) and asks her grandmother if she minds Nikki staying at the bungalow. Jess doesn’t mind at all. In fact, she’d already got Emily to shift Nikki’s things from the Johnsons’. But Nikki teases her grandmother by saying that she might have let her know that she and Ray had taken a lodger. Ray makes a tongue-in-cheek remark about that being an ‘impulsive action’ on the part of Jessie. Jessie is quick to remind Nikki that she could have knocked on the loo door before entering.

At that moment, Do-A-Little appears, fully dressed and still sounding Northern. He asks Ray how he and Jessie found Fairbrooks House, whilst Jessie explains to Nikki that Ray is being forced to put Kitty in a nursing home for full-time care.

Ray says he was disgusted with Fairbrook House. Not only was it filthy, they wanted a payment of £380 per week for Kitty’s care. He thought it grossly unfair that his mother would have to use all her savings to purchase daily care for her in her final days, and the National Health could offer nothing. (Less to leave for you to spend, eh, Raymundo?) Do-A-Little helpfully (not) reminds Ray that ‘the Social’ would take over and pay Kitty’s keep at the home when her funds ran out.

Nikki, meanwhile, makes to excuse herself, telling Jessie that she wants to check by the Bar to confirm with Bev that her bar job was still safe. Jessie tells her that Bev had left - gone on a spur-of-the-moment world cruise some weeks ago ... Left ‘that Leanne one’ in charge. Nikki is more than shocked, she’s flabbergasted. LEANNE? She questions in horror.

Max and Jacqui have now adjourned to the Farnham house to discuss their dilemma. Max is baffled by Mick’s behaviour. He tells Jacqui that Mick seemed so totally wound up by the knowledge that they were a couple - in fact, his reaction was almost as if he wanted to punish the pair of them. At first, Max attempts to try to downplay the situation, telling Jacqui that maybe it would be best if they just let Mick go ahead and ‘do his work’ (i.e. snitch to Ron and all-and-sundry). Max wants their relationship revealed, but Jacqui is alarmed and vetoes the idea. It’s not a good idea at the moment for Ron to find out about them, she reasons.

Max asks her if she’s ashamed of him, but Jacqui denies this. Perhaps she’s worried about their 20-year age difference? (Rant Alert: STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! I CAN’T STAND ANYMORE INCONSISTENCY! THERE IS NOT A 20-YEAR AGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAX AND JACQUI!!! LAST YEAR MAX WAS 40 YEARS OLD WHEN HE WAS CHASING KATRINA. AT THE TIME OF SUSANNAH’S DEATH, MAX TOLD SUSANNAH THAT HE WAS 42!!! MAX SHOULD BE ROUGHLY AT MOST 18 YEARS’ JACQUI’S SENIOR OR AT LEAST 15 YEARS’ HER SENIOR. HE IS NOT 44 AND HE IS NOT NOT NOT 45!!!!!)

Jacqui IS worried, but not about their ages. She tells Max that he was still married to Susannah when Jacqui had Harry. Oh, she realises the circumstances of Harry’s birth, but other people might not, when they realise that she and Max are a couple. It LOOKS wrong, she explains, especially coming so soon after Susannah’s death. She laments the fact that all she wanted was for the two of them to have a few private months together in their relationship, but all that was forfeited by one careless moment of passion on the Farnham doorstep. Now their secret was about to be forced out into the open.

Christy Murray sits in an empty bar, mobile phone pasted to his ear. He’s involved in a high-level discussion with another rogue about the sale of garden furniture. (Funny, before I went on holiday, there was a spate of garden furniture theft in my neighbourhood. I wonder ...) Nikki Shadwick enters the bar, and - at the sight of her - Christy interrupts his conversation to give her his undivided attention. Nikki, however, needs to see Leanne and asks Christy if she’s around. Christy responds that Leanne is in her office and the camera provides us with a lingering view of Nikki’s bum, clad unusually in a miniskirt - as she walks away from Christy. The camera then pans to Christy, and we see him ogling Nikki’s bum as she walks away. (If this is Paul Marquess’s idea inspired by Frank Capra’s scene from Platinum Blonde (1932, Jean Harlow) where the camera follows Harlow’s bum down a lengthy hallway, it certainly doesn’t work on Brookside. Suffice it to say that the director, sadly, is NO Capra).

Christy and the cameraman aren’t the only people ogling Nikki’s backside, however; RLeanne’s capturing the moment on her very own CCTV set in ‘her’ office. She clocks Christy’s undivided attention to Nikki’s posterior portion with her face even more screwed into its parody of a malicious expression, as she watches Nikki approach her office door. When she hears Nikki knock, Leanne positions herself in Bev’s ‘executive’ chair, whilst slowly counting to six, before telling Nikki to enter. She pretends to be engrossed in a magazine, but has to turn the publication hastily upright, when it becomes obvious that she was looking at the pictures upside down.

Nikki enters nervously. From the very beginning, to say Leanne was extremely sarcastic would be an understatement. So ... Nikki’s been a month in Belgium? Well, she wanted Nikki to know that because of that abrupt departure, the bar was left short-staffed, and no one enjoyed having to cover Nikki’s shifts. So ... She supposes Nikki wants her old job back? After Nikki’s fella made a show of her in front of the whole place and then NIKKI swans off without telling anyone, does Nikki seriously think that she can have her job back?

Nikki promises that that won’t happen again.

‘Too right, it won’t,’ says Leanne. ‘Because you’re sacked!’

Nikki retorts by asking Leanne if Bev told Leanne to sack her. Bev? Exclaims Leanne in disbelief. Bev? Forget Bev! LEANNE’S in charge. Nikki tells Leanne to stuff the job and storms out.

As she leaves, Christy enters the office. He rightly surmises what has happened and tells Leanne that he can’t believe she’d even consider sacking a girl like Nikki. Instantly suspicious of his motives, Leanne asks Christy if he fancies Nikki. Christy quickly denies what is obvious to Leanne and cites the reasons it would be to Leanne’s advantage were Nikki kept on staff. First of all, Nikki was a class act ... like Leanne, he hastily adds, as the eyebrows of she who must be obeyed instantly knit together in a frown. A girl like that was always good behind the bar. Not that Leanne wasn’t good, herself, but managing the place always meant that Leanne was too busy to flirt and socialise. Someone like Nikki would bring in the punters. Face it, he says, Lance might fancy some of the punters, but the punters don’t fancy Lance. Leanne should reconsider sacking Nikki.

Anthea has returned home from her banking venture, without stopping to talk to the prosecution in Ron’s case. She finds Ron on his own. Curious, she asks Ron what Jimmy had wanted. Ron lies and spins her some yarn about Jimmy wanting to start some silly petition, but Ron said he wanted none of the involvement.

Anthea remarks that, even though she realises Jimmy was responsible for Tony Dixon’s death, she thought he seemed O.K. as a person. In fact, she thought he was a nice guy. Ron wants to know why Anthea suddenly has become an expert on the Corkhills. Anyway, Jimmy Corkhill got away with killing Tony Dixon and he was drugged up and behind the wheel of a car. No one ever mentioned putting him away for life, even when it was obvious he never meant to kill Tony. Ron, getting increasingly agitated, confesses that he never meant to pull the trigger of that gun; he wished he’d never done it. He’d have to live with that now the rest of his life.

Now he felt he’d have to live with losing the support of his wife as well. He felt that Anthea couldn’t love him after he’d made such a mistake. Anthea confesses that she loves him in spite of what he did. (HA! Pull the other one; it’s got bells on.)

Christy Murray rings the Hilton doorbell; Nikki answers it. Christy needs to talk to Nikki about what happened between her and Leanne. Christy wants Nikki to know that Leanne’s reconsidered her position re the sacking of Nikki. She realises she’s made a mistake and wants Nikki to come back to work. Nikki asks Christy shortly why his girlfriend couldn’t come and tell her, herself; and Christy admits that Leanne is too embarrassed. He tells the girl that Leanne realises the ASSETS (the word emphasised) that Nikki would bring to the premises, and upon the utterance of that word, the camera follows Christy’s eyes to the region of Nikki’s boobs (a 32A, I would venture to guess). Nikki is aware of his gaze and noticeably shudders. So, Christy concludes, would she do him a favour and come back to work? Glaring at him in disgust, Nikki says she’ll be back tomorrow and shuts the door abruptly.

Max and Jacqui are at The Shelf, about to confront Mick concerning what he saw the previous evening. Jacqui comes straight to the point. Why, exactly, is Mick threatening to tell Ron about her relationship with Max?

Mick explains that he doesn’t approve of the way she and Max are conducting their affair. Susannah, he reminds her, hasn’t been dead a year. It looks to him like the couple think that just because they have Harry in common, they have an automatic right to be together. Max retorts that it isn’t as though he and Jacqui had just met; they’d known each other for years, before they fell in love.

Sounding like a disapproving old biddy, Mick points out that their current behaviour is in appropriate. (Now, THAT’S funny!) In fact, they are nothing less than hypocrites.

At that remark, Jacqui’s temper is lost for good and she lets fly. Mick’s a fine one to talk about hypocrites, she says. What about the hairdresser who worked for her at the salon a few years back? She reminds him that Mick not only bedded her, but he bedded her daughter as well. In fact, Jacqui seems to recall, Mick had batter from the chip shop thrown all over him in the middle of The Parade when the mum found out what he’d been up to with the daughter. And how long after Susannah’s death did Mick wait before he got a leg over ‘that schoolteacher friend’ of his? Seems to Jacqui as though it was a matter of weeks, instead of months.

Mick ventures a lame excuse that his situation with Yvonne was different.

It was exactly the same, says Jacqui viciously. The plain truth was that Mick was jealous and lonely. He had no one and he couldn’t stand to see anyone else happy. No wonder Vonnie had joined the rest of his exes and run a mile from him.

Upon hearing this tirade, Mick looks absolutely gutted. As a matter of fact, he looks near tears. Seeing his reaction, Jacqui immediately and sincerely apologises, but Mick swiftly recovers his bad mood and tells her to stuff her apology, before storming off (Flouncing 101 alumnus?).

Tim enters Hotel Corkhill to find Jimmy on his own. He’s got some good news for Jimmy, he says. He saw Ron Dikko again, just like Jimmy suggested, and Ron repeated the promise not to grass on Tim to the police. Well, Jimmy replies, he wouldn’t be so cock-sure of that support, were he Tim. Jimmy informs him that he also saw Ron Dixon and was left with a different impression.

Jimmy doubted Ron’s ability to withstand pressure from the bizzies re the identity of the person who sold him the gun. In fact, Jimmy reminded Ron of the police’s extreme interest in tracing the person who provided the gun, as well as the bearing such knowledge would have on Ron’s court case. (Nice one, Jim.)

Tim protests vainly that Ron wouldn’t do that, reminding Jimmy, yet again, that he, Tim, had saved the Dixons from harassment by the Moffatts. Jimmy reiterates that Ron, at the moment, seemed dead wobbly in his support.

Mick Johnson, meanwhile, rings the Dixon doorbell, himself, hoping to see Ron. Instead, Anthea answers. Mick asks if Ron’s about, but Anthea tells him he’d gone to bowls at the Legion. He should be back later. Perhaps Mick would call around then, unless there’s a message Anthea can pass for him.

As a matter of fact, says Mick, there is. He saw Ron earlier and had thought to mention it to him at the time. He tells Anthea that he thinks Ron would be less than pleased to know what his daughter was up to in her spare time. Anthea gives him a puzzled look. Mick tells her, in no uncertain terms, that Jacqui was romantically involved with Max Farnham.

‘Is she now?’ Queries Anthea, with obvious concern, as the camera pans onto her face.