Brookside have a secret weapon. It’s called a laundry basket, and it can be potentially lethal. For example, ladies, when a man ignores you, just effect to smack him upside his head with a passing basket of laundry. Pay attention ...
After having been told that Ron actually knew the identity of the person who supplied him with the gun and that he had lied about that identity to the police and his solicitor, Anthea is (once again) giving Ron the cold shoulder.
Ron, meanwhile, is trying to explain to his capricious wife exactly why it wasn’t mete for him to grass on Tim. He reminds her that Tim had actually saved her life one time. Anthea is having none of this, as she tries to do the Dixon laundry. And as if to emphasise her point, as she passes Ron, she manages to smack the laundry basket she’s carrying upside his head, before muttering an apology.
Anyway, she begins, it’s not the fact that he lied that annoys her so much, it’s the fact that he never told her any of this - kept her in the dark, didn’t trust her. (This is hilarious, considering the lies Anthea has told Ron over the past few months, especially concerning her sympathy for Katie and the Moffatts - as well as the secrets she’s kept from him regarding this and the active encouragement she’s given dim Rachel in behaving exactly the same way toward Mike).
She reminds Ron that she’s willing to perjure herself in order to keep him out of prison, and so therefore, she demands the truth from him. (Go figure this argument, especially coming from Anthea).
Jacqui Dixon is sitting in the Farnham living room, her face in her hands in an attitude of distress. Max is trying to comfort her. He tries to tell her not to fret about Ron’s attitude toward the couple. He understands how she feels about potentially not having her father with her on her wedding day; he wishes there were something he could do. Jacqui should try not to let the situation get to her, he lamely suggests.
Jacqui moans that she’s tried everything in trying to convince Ron of their sincerity. Max tells her she may have to admit to herself that Ron is Ron, and they will just have to accept the way he is.
‘Pigheaded and stubborn?’ Suggests Jacqui.
Max advises Jacqui to let the situation go. At the end of the day, only two people matter on 14th September - Max and Jacqui. Perhaps Ron will have a change of heart before then. But Jacqui is doubtful.
Ron and Anthea are still barneying. Ron pleads with Anthea to hear his side of the story once again. By not telling her about Tim, he was only trying to protect her, doing his best for her, yet again.
Anthea reminds him that a marriage is about teamwork. There should be no secrets between married couples. (What a canting hypocrite! Does she listen to herself? Obviously not. How many secrets have YOU kept from Ron since the shooting, Anth?)
Once again, Anthea complains, Ron’s gone into a situation feet-first and left Muggins to pick up the pieces. She walks toward the front door, saying she’s going out to clear her head.
Another episode of that show within a show, the Murray sitcom, begins. Adele and the Antichrist are in the kitchen, Ant perusing a book at the sitcom table, and Adele standing at the sitcom kitchen counter. Marty Murray enters, in an exaggerated version of sneaking, bearing a square-shaped gift-wrapped box. It’s Adele’s birthday! (When Adele arrived in March 2000, she was thirteen. Later that same year, she turned fifteen. Now a year later, she’s turning sixteen. Brookside never was good at maths, especially with ages.)
Adele asks if she can open the present now, but Marty urges her to wait until Dire returns from work. Adele shows her father the necklace Michelle has bought her. Anxious to deflect any undeserving attention from Adele, the Antichrist smugly condescends to glance at his sister over his shoulder, remarking that he hoped she wasn’t expecting anything from him.
Adele admits that she wasn’t. Good, he replies, because then she wouldn’t be disappointed. Adele doesn’t reply to that, but he continues to stare superciliously at her. (WHY, oh WHY doesn’t someone smack the shit out of this kid? I certainly don’t tolerate such behaviour between my three, but I suppose Marty is just a wimp.)
Marty does interject, silencing Ant by reminding the pair that Dire requires peace and quiet in order to conceive for the bargain price of a grand. The family had promised her, Marty says, not to bicker with one another.
‘Does that mean you’ll be apologising to me Nin?’ Asks the insufferable, little prick sarcastically.
Marty warns the devil’s spawn that if he continues to open his mouth in that manner, he’ll be spending the rest of the day in his room.
At that moment, the doorbell rings and Adele goes to answer it. When she leaves, Marty sits at the sitcom table with the incubus that has replaced his son. He asks Ant sincerely to try to make an effort to get along with Adele, but the little shit won’t even respect his father enough to look at him, pointedly staring in the other direction.
Adele reappears at the kitchen door with Brigid in tow. Brigid apologetically states that she’s only dropped by to give Adele her present. Adele thanks her grandmother and says that she’ll open it later. But Brigid has come for another purpose as well. She’d like a quiet word with Marty.
Reluctantly, Marty asks Adele to put the kettle on.
Lindsey is sitting on the sofa at Hotel Corkhill, aimlessly thumbing through a magazine (probably looking for Marks and Sparks adverts) and flicking through the channels on the television. The front door opens and Jimmy enters, announcing that he’s starving. How long will dinner be?
Lindsey says she’s fed up with doing the tea. She does it every other night. Oh, remarks Jim, get his own tea, will he? Lindsey sarcastically suggests that Jimmy institute another rota. Oh, he doesn’t mind getting his own tea, Jim says. It just would have been nice to know beforehand. What if he had had plans for this evening?
Lindsey reiterates by asking rhetorically what if she had had plans? Jimmy tactlessly dismisses that, by saying that Lindsey never goes out. Lindsey decides not to argue that point, but only gazes after Jimmy unhappily.
Anthea is walking down The Parade when Jacqui calls out to her. Noticing Anthea’s looking more glum than usual, Jacqui asks if anything’s wrong. Anthea denies it, but Jacqui sees through the facade. Putting an arm around Anth’s shoulder, Jacqui offers to buy her a coffee. To Anthea, that’s the best idea of the day, and off they trot to the bar.
Brigid and Marty settle uneasily in the sitcom lounge in order to have their ‘quiet word’. Brigid begins by informing Marty that the last thing Dire needs at this moment in time is various and sundry family members being at each others’ throats. So, she proposes that she and Marty make an effort to be as civil as possible to one another ... given the circumstances.
‘Oh,’ remarks Marty, sarcastically, ‘so you’re not REALLY burying the hatchet, then, Bridge? Well, that’s VERY Christian of you.’
Brigid immediately snipes that it’s more Christian than Marty’s precipitous action of pushing a frightened and vulnerable, young girl into having an abortion.
Marty retorts. What about Brigid and Father Pat’s way of dealing with that same frightened and vulnerable young girl? Forcing her to have a baby she wasn’t in the least prepared for, and then making her reek of guilt after the abortion was carried out?
Brigid explains that she was only thinking of what was best for Adele’s
future if she had the abortion. How would Marty feel if, ten years down the
line, Adele came to him with the same sort of fertility problems Dire was facing
now - and all because of an abortion? No, Marty expects Adele just to walk away
and forget all about the baby she aborted. Well, Brigid knows that poor girl
will be scarred for life by that in
e experience.
Marty is flabbergasted by the old windbag. ‘What kind of argument is that?’ He asks, rhetorically. ‘That might never happen.’
Marty points out, trying to use words of one syllable or less, that Adele made a mistake. She made a mistake and she paid the price. There was no need for busybodies like Brigid and Father Pat to hover around her, ensuring that the girl spent the rest of her life beating herself up with guilt.
The earwigging Antichrist appears from the direction of the kitchen and sits smarmily close to his grandmother, asking her pointedly if she plans on staying for tea.
Well, Brigid replies primly. She doesn’t really know if she’s welcome.
Fed up with her incessant sniping, Marty grits his teeth and apologises to the hypocritical old bag. That pleases her, and she asks Antichrist Ant if there’s anything she can do to help in the kitchen.
Antony bitchily remarks that Adele is making a mess of the place, and - once again - the Purgatorial pair disappear to plague Adele some more.
In the meantime, Ron Dixon is scouring The Parade in search of Anthea. Suddenly,
through the picture window of the bar, he spies her and Jacqui, cosily having
a coffee. He turns in disgust, only to run into the increasingly filthy piece
of
flesh who used to be Katie Rogers (and would still be, if she bothered
to bathe).
‘Got your father-of-the-bride speech all finished?’ Asks Katie, snarlingly.
Ron politely informs the wretch that he has about as much intention of attending the wedding as she does.
Inside the bar, Jacqui is pleading with Anthea to try to get Ron to change his mind about attending the wedding. If Ron would listen to anyone, he’d surely listen to Anthea, Jacqui reasons.
Anthea remarks that she’s probably the last person Ron would listen to at this moment. Have they had a row, Jacqui wants to know; but Anthea protests that it’s nothing. Still, Jacqui says that if Anthea wants to talk about what happened, she’s a good listener.
Filthy Katie is fumbling with the key to the upstairs flats, when someone speaks to her from behind. Turning, she encounters none other than Gobby Robbie the Blobby Yobbie.
Katie is shocked at first, asking him what he’s doing there. Why, Gobby’s come to see Katie, he explains. He wants to see how she’s getting on and also he wants to thank her for keeping in touch with Ma Moffatt. How about the pair of them going for a drink, he suggests.
Katie, remembering that Jacqui and Anthea are in the bar, swiftly suggests that Gobby accompany her upstairs to her flat.
Gobby turns on the charm; the flat? He IS honoured. Remembering Gobby’s gossip about Katie being the meat in a Musgrove sandwich, Katie hurriedly assures Gobby that it’s only for a drink.
At the Salon, Dire and Mrs O’Leary are clearing up for the day. Making chat, Dire asks the Emily portion of Timily how married life is treating her. Emily asserts that marriage is great - if only they weren’t skint all the time. Dire knows the feeling, especially now that Adele has said that she planned on staying in school for her A Levels and going onto university.
Yes, Emily’s heard Adele say how she wants to go to uni and study law. Dire must be dead chuffed. Dire is anything but ... It will only be two more years before Adele has to go to uni, and there’s loads of expense to deal with.
Ah, but Emily bets Dire’s pleased that Adele decided not to have the baby,under the circumstances.
Dire is gobsmacked. In fact, she so shocked, her make-up nearly cracks. Baby? Where did Emily hear about Adele’s baby? Oh, Emily remarks off-handedly, Adele told her about the abortion. It wasn’t a secret, was it? (I thought it was, or is Emily, like Rachel, stupid?)
Anthea and Jacqui are having a heart-to-heart. Anthea says that she doesn’t doubt that Jacqui loves Max and also that Max loves Jacqui, but the truth remains that Max doesn’t have the best of track records when it comes to marriage. Jacqui insists that Max has changed. Has he really, Anth wants to know. Two broken marriages behind him makes him appear as though he’s someone who’s afraid of commitment.
Jacqui brushes this comment aside. Of course, she knows Max cheated on both Susannah and Patricia (with each other, as I recall), but that’s in the past. Max has changed.
Well, Anthea persists. There’s his age ...
He’s forty-four, exclaims Jacqui, that’s not ancient. (Well, actually, Max SHOULD be forty-one, but hey, this is Brookside).
And his employment record, continues Anthea. He’s been a surveyor, then there was the restaurant, then going off to sail around the world.
Jacqui argues that that showed Max’s initiative. Whenever he got bored with something or thought something wasn’t right for him, he had the guts to start again anew. She sees that in a positive light.
Anthea remarks that to some people that would seem selfish, and that the person in question didn’t have the wherewithal to see anything through. She reminds Jacqui that Max went off sailing, leaving Susannah behind with young children. (Correction: Susannah kicked Max out of house and home with nothing but the clothes he had on his back, after Jacqui told her Max was having an affair with Faye).
Anthea, playing the devil’s advocate, observes that those actions make Max appear to be someone who runs away from commitments and responsibilities. Jacqui’s emotive eyes fill with tears.
As Dire and Emily walk from the Salon, Dire snappishly questions the girl. When exactly did Adele tell her about the abortion? Last week, Emily replies. Adele was dead mature about it too. Lots of girls her age just want a baby, she says. They can’t think past having the baby and what it will entail.
Emily reiterates. Who wants a baby at sixteen anyway? If Adele had had it, Dire would only have ended up looking after it. But Adele impressed Emily with her maturity. She had her life all planned and knew that a baby wouldn’t fit in right now. Dire must be pleased Adele is so mature. Dire is hating Adele more and more and her cold eyes are snapping with jealousy and petty envy.
Back at the bar, it’s Jacqui’s turn to answer Anthea’s observations about Max. Jacqui tells Anthea that she’s not a wide-eyed innocent about her relationship with Max. And she isn’t a teenager, smitten with a crush. What she feels for Max is real. Maybe it wouldn’t work out, but maybe it would. She certainly wants to give it a try. Anyway, she explains, Max isn’t just her partner; he’s also her best friend. She has everything she could ever want in this relationship with Max, after her near-disasters with Nathan and Gobby. (I thought Nathan was all right, but the producers didn’t). Surely Anthea understood what she was trying to say - didn’t she have the same sort of relationship with Ron?
Anthea gives Jacqui a wry look. (Well, no, Jacqui, Ron’s and Anthea’s relationship is based on who can out-lie whom). Well, Jacqui concedes, maybe not right at this moment, but on the whole, didn’t Anthea feel that way?
Anthea replies that perhaps it’s best they don’t discuss that right now. And Jacqui asks her again if she would please try to convince Ron to come to Jacqui’s wedding. Anthea agrees to give it her best shot. Jacqui suggests another coffee, but Anthea wants something stronger - especially considering that she’s going to have to do a hard sell on Ron.
Another unlikely couple are sharing a glass of wine upstairs - poor pitiful stinking Katie and Gobby. Katie is performing the self-pity routine she’s perfected during the past few months, saying how people have told her things would get better with time, but they haven’t. (So I guess people have given up telling her, mostly because of her B.O.) Gobby muses that he still can’t believe Saint Clint the Duck is gone.
He mentions that Ma Moffatt said Katie had told her about Jacqui’s wedding. Again, he reiterates how grateful he is that Katie has kept in touch with Ma.
Katie says it’s nice to have someone to talk to. By talking to Ma Moffatt, she almost feels as if she hasn’t lost Clint. Poor pitiful Katie begins to snivel and cry. Gobby reaches out and touches her hair, but after he feels the grease in it, he surreptitiously wipes his hand on the sleeve of her blouse. Yuck!
Lindsey, in her boredom, has removed herself to her boudoir, where she sits in high dudgeon and a grand sulk. Jimmy knocks tentatively and enters. Seeing his daughter sitting thus, he asks in an exasperated tone what’s bothering her.
Lindsey feels that she’s messed up her life. She’s supremely dissatisfied with her lot.
Oh? Jimmy raises his eyebrows speculatively. So perhaps Lindsey would still rather be associating with her gangster and drug-dealing mates, is that it?
No, Lindsey admits, but she feels as if she currently has no life.
No life? Exclaims Jimmy. Why, of course she has a life. She has the full and exciting life of a young, single mother. (Real scope there, Jim).
Lindsey tries to articulate her feelings. All she seems to do, she says, is cook, clean and care for Kylie. (That makes a change, since poor Jackie used to do all those things). Lindsey admits that at times she feels more like 49 than 29. (ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH! THEY GOT IT WRONG AGAIN!!!!! ALL THIS BLEATING ON AND ON ABOUT JACKIE AND JIMMY BEING MARRIED 27 YEARS AND LINDSEY ADMITS THAT SHE’S 29!!!!!!! LINDSEY WAS NOT NOT NOT BORN OUT OF WEDLOCK. IT’S BEEN SAID MANY TIMES THAT JACKIE WAS THREE MONTHS PREGNANT WITH LINDSEY WHEN SHE MARRIED JIMMY. UP UNTIL THIS YEAR, THE CORKHILLS HAD BEEN MARRIED SINCE 1971, AND THIS YEAR THEY CHOPPED THREE YEARS OFF THEIR MARRIAGE, BUT LEFT LINDSEY’S AGE THE SAME. IF BROOKSIDE CAN’T HAVE BETTER CONTINUITY THAN THIS, THE SHOW DESERVES THE AXE!)
Lindsey, in short, WANTS a life. She wants to be able to go out and have a good time with mates now and then. So? Jimmy replies. What’s stopping her? Go out with some mates.
That’s just it, Lindsey says. She has no mates. She tried to show friendly to Jacqui Dixon the previous day, and Jacqui didn’t want to know. Jimmy may not have noticed, but there’s hardly a soul beating a path to Lindsey’s door at the moment. People seem unwilling to forget what she was and give her a second chance.
Next door, at Sitcom House, Brigid, Marty, Adele and the Antichrist are assembled in the kitchen, as the Blessed Mother of the Bleached Head returns from a hard day’s grind ruining other people’s hair, if hers is anything to go by. (Uh-oh, here comes a dressing down by a ubiquitous twerp in another time zone on another message board that doesn’t really exist, who purports to have a teenage daughter, but can’t take a difference of opinion without resorting to calling people abusive names. Still, I make no apologies, neither for my opinion nor for my observations).
As Dire enters, Marty hastily reminds everyone that squabbling is not allowed. As Dire appears, the proverbial kow-towing and mollycoddling of her temperament begins. (This is sickening. I see Neil Caple driving down his street some days. The next time I pass him, I’m going to block his way and tell him to sort his character out).
Did Dire Dear have a good day?
Dire Dear looks like she could break thunder with her balls, if she had any, which she probably does, hidden somewhere. So-so, she replies shortly. Glass of wine, Dire Dear? Cup of tea?
Adele asks if she might open her presents now, oblivious to the look of cold hatred Dire Dear is shooting in her direction. She decides to open her present from the Plank, who’s not present, first. It’s a skimpy pink top, with no back at all and very little front. Adele likes it and holds it up admiringly.
Dire Dear sneers openly. ‘That’s joost the sort of thing yer new mate Emily Shadwick would wear. Very fitting.’
Adele gives her a puzzling look and Dire Dear continues. It seems she had a very interesting conversation with Emily as they were shutting up shop today. It seems that ‘this one’ (indicating Adele deprecatingly) has been going around bragging to all and sundry about her abortion. Marty warns Dire Dear not to go any further.
But Dire Dear is in her element and ignores him. ‘This one’ was going on to Emily about how it was a good job she got rid of the baby because it would stand in the way of her career. And there was Emily going on about how dead mature ‘this one’ was about it, how sensible she was.
Adele protests weakly that she wasn’t bragging at all about the abortion.
Well, shouts Dire Dear, what on earth was she thinking about, telling the likes of Emily Shadwick? (Well, sorry, Dire Dear, that storyline was a bit weak, itself. Surely an inveterate gossip like Jessie would have told both her granddaughters about Adele’s predicament, especially since Brigid had blurted it out originally to most of the neighbourhood?)
Adele gets a feisty look on her face and decides to stand up to her stepmother. She informs her that she told Emily, because she needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t sit in judgement on her. At least, Emily understood why she couldn’t have kept the baby.
Couldn’t have kept the baby? Repeats the bottled blonde hypocrite. Well, of could have kept the baby, but Madam wanted the easy option. Directing attention and self-pity to her plight, she reminds Adele and all present that poor Dire Dear was undergoing a last-ditch chance to have a baby (and bankrupting her family in the process), while ‘this one’ throws hers away and then treats it like a good story.
All this time, Marty is shouting at his obsessive and selfish bitch of a wife, but to no avail. Adele runs, sorry, FLOUNCES from the room in tears.
Jacqui has returned home and is in the process of telling Max about her conversation with Anthea. Hopefully, Anthea will make Ron see sense about coming to the wedding. At that moment, the doorbell rings. Wondering who it could be, because neither Max nor Jacqui are expecting anyone, Max goes to answer it. Soon we hear the mellifluous voice of Lisa Morrisey.
She enters the lounge, carrying some thick school brochures. Seeing Jacqui, she remarks cattily about the Farnham house becoming Jacqui’s second home.
Max asks her if she’d like a drink, but Lisa refuses, saying she only stopped by to drop these school brochures off for Max to look at. The new school year would be commencing soon, and she thought it would be a good time for Max to put Harry’s and Emma’s names down for a good school.
Jacqui pipes up, asking why the children couldn’t go to the local primary. Lisa gives her a withering look, explaining shortly that Susannah would have preferred private education.
Refusing to give up, Jacqui enquires after the cost. Lisa says the best prep schools would cost £1000 a term. Anyway, she continues, ignoring Jacqui and redirecting herself to Max, two of the schools were holding open days within the next two weeks, and she thought it a good idea if she and Max were to attend.
Max asks when the open days were. Lisa replies that the date was (of course) 14th September.
Jacqui and Max exchange uneasy looks. Max begins to waffle, in true Max fashion. There’s a problem. You see, he and Jacqui had a previous arrangement that they would find impossible to break. Lisa, of course, is impervious. Break it. Do whatever it was another day.
Jacqui begins to speak, but Max stops her, suggesting that Lisa attend the Open Days and report back to Max which school she thought the best; then he’d make a trip to see it. Again, Lisa demands that Max drop whatever he had planned with Jacqui and accompany her.
Well, Jacqui interposes, he can’t. Because they were getting married on 14th September. So there, you nosey old witch-bitch. Nyaaaaaaah!
To say Lisa is stunned would be an understatement.
Anthea returns home to be greeted by Ron, asking sarcastically how Jacqui was. He explains he went to look for Anthea and saw the two of them sharing a coffee in the bar.
Anthea defends her presence, and tries to convince Ron to go to Jacqui’s wedding for Jacqui’s sake. Couldn’t he try to put aside his misgivings? Ron replies that this whole thing isn’t about Ron and Max, it’s about a suitable husband for his daughter.
Anthea maintains that Jacqui is a grown woman, and there’s little Ron can do. In fact, Jacqui’s thought the whole thing through, and she loves Max for what he was and is.
Loves him? Scoffs Ron. Why she doesn’t even know what love is. He’s having nothing to do with this shower.
Lisa is still standing in horrified silence, upon receiving the news of Max’s and Jacqui’s impending nuptuals. When she recovers her voice, she demands to know how long this affair has been going on? Max gets defensive and tells her that he has no reason to justify his actions to Lisa.
But Lisa has assumptions of her own to make. Yes, sir, she reckons that there was a fair amount of hanky-panky-wanky-wanky going on between Max and Jacqui BEFORE Susannah died. Lisa reminds Max that she has serious responsibilities as the legal guardian of Susannah’s children. She demands to know why Max hadn’t told her before that he was involved with Jacqui. When exactly did he plan on telling her that the two of them were going to marry? When she saw the pictures in the local paper? (Er, I thought Lisa lived in Chester).
Max explains that he hadn’t told Lisa, simply because he knew what her reaction would be, and he wasn’t wrong. The truth is, he and Jacqui were deeply in love.
In love? Ha! Lisa is scornful. Jacqui was just taking Max for a proverbial ride, didn’t he see? Why ‘that one’ (meaning Jacqui) was just looking for an opportunity to get her feet under the table, just to get what she wanted - Max’s son. She didn’t even have the common (‘common’ being the operative word in Lisa’s tirade) courtesy to wait for a decent interval after Susannah’s death before she got her claws into Max. And Max would soon be out on his ear with nothing. Jacqui would have it all. (WHY do people incessantly harp on and on, implying Max is a widower? At the time of her death, Susannah and Max were divorced and she was planning a marriage to Mick Johnson. No one bleated about Mick picking up the pieces with Vonnie, virtually right at Susannah’s graveside. Why is everyone thinking Max should put on sackcloth and ashes for a woman who, at the end, didn’t give a toss about him?)
She tactlessly reminds Max that, in case he hadn’t forgotten, he’s a middle-aged man with two failed marriages behind him. Max, she says, is NO Michael Douglas, and Jacqui is certainly no Catherine Zeta Jones.
Anthea is still trying to sway Ron, who is being obdurate in his refusal. If Ron doesn’t give Jacqui his blessing, he’ll ruin her big day, argues Anthea.
Back at poor, pitiful, grimy Katie’s flat, she re-enters her lounge and sits beside Gobby on the sofa again. She’d had a crying fit and has just emerged from the loo, but it’s obvious that she didn’t have a wash. She apologises for ‘losing it’, but she just can’t bear to see Jacqui Dixon swanning around all over planning her wedding. (It’s called ‘jealousy’, Katie loov. Why don’t you admit that Clint was a male body who wanted a shag and was willing to marry you for it? You’re without another man at the moment, and Jacqui has something that you want, as per usual).
Gobby gives a short laugh. Why, Jacqui’s marrying a granddad! That’s nothing to be jealous of. Katie lies and denies she’s jealous; it’s only that seeing Jacqui planning a wedding reminds her of what she COULD have had with Saint Clint the Duck. She should have been planning her own wedding now, instead it was Jacqui, who always lucked out. (Boo-hoo!)
Lisa and Jacqui, meanwhile, are still going at it hammer and tongs. Without mincing words, Lisa accuses Jacqui of being nothing more than a scheming, manipulative, little bitch. (I’d say that was a fair assessment of Katie, actually). In fact, that’s all Jacqui’s done all her life. She schemed to make money, and now she reckons that money makes her something. (Actually, this is a brilliant example of class prejudice, on Lisa’s part).
Jacqui retorts that she’s actually done something for her money that Lisa couldn’t even have imagined doing in her life - Jacqui’s actually worked for it, and worked hard.
Max interjects to suggest succinctly that Lisa should go and go now, without delay.
Lisa vows that there’s no way she is prepared to stand by and allow Max to do this to Susannah’s children. If she has to, she’ll fight him through the courts for custody if Max proceeds with his plans to marry Jacqui.
Well, Lisa should high-arse her skinny one around to the Dixons’, where she’d find an all-too-willing ally in Ron. Because simultaneously, Ron is vowing to Anthea that he will never attend Jacqui’s wedding. In fact, if she goes ahead with her plans to marry Max Farnham, he’ll do everything in his power to stop it.
Katie continues her whingeing to Gobby about Jacqui. Jacqui doesn’t know the meaning of failure, she whines. Whenever anything goes wrong, Jacqui always manages to come up smelling like roses. And look at poor, pitiful, smelly Katie. The one time she found a fella she looved, Jacqui Dixon’s family takes him from her. She’ll never find another one like Clint. (Thank GOD, for that!)
Gobby’s beetle-brows knit together in his classic Neanderthal look. He makes a solemn promise to Katie that this will be one time Jacqui Dixon won’t come up smelling like roses.
Aren’t these two deserving of a Jimmy Corkhill sectioning? I mean, aren’t they disturbed and unbalanced, not because of grief over a death of a loved one, although grief was surely and initially a catalyst? But one is a sociopath and the other so self-obsessed and ridden with jealousy that she’s unhinged. Ron may have accidentally killed Clint, but revenge on Ron is forgotten. In their warped minds, it’s Jacqui who’s responsible for the death. But it’s not the death at all, is it? Gobby’s got a cob on because Jacqui dumped him. Katie is just venting the jealousy she’s harboured toward Katie that’s eaten away at her for years.
I hope these two ‘do one’ and soon.
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001