So now we know that poor Clint isn’t REALLY being mourned. Jealousy is being dressed up as grief. So ... Who’s REALLY being disrespectful to a dear, departed loved one?
Well, the big day has finally arrived, but no one seems particular excited. It’s morning in the Farnham household, and Jacqui, dressed in jeans and a top, and Max are scurrying around trying to get the kids sorted out for the day. It seems Jacqui hasn’t yet given Maxim a definite answer about changing her surname by the end of today. So what happens now? He wants to know, after having confessed all to her during the previous evening.
Jacqui sighs wearily, as she cleans up the kids. She doesn’t know what happens now. She’s all talked out, she tells Max. It’s up to Max what happens now.
Max has suddenly become dense - perhaps the horrendous brain-eating epidemic that’s rapidly claiming female victims on the Close has moved onto claim its first male. Will there be a wedding? Asks Max.
Approaching the front door of the Farnham house in an attitude of leaving, Jacqui turns briefly to face Max. Well, SHE would be there ready and waiting, she says. But if Max lets her down, it will be as though Max is pushing JACQUI down the stairs - and she reminds Max pointedly that Susannah’s fall down the stairs was an accident.
As she prepares to leave, she remarks to Max that getting married was easy. If Max didn’t show, she would be humiliated, but she would get over it.
The doorbell rings at the Dixons’ and DD arrives, wearing a dress that could have been made from the front window curtains and an enormous hat. (Where is DD’s husband, Tom? About five years ago, about the time Casa BevRon burned, DD was about to get married to Tom, a high-ranking Catholic layman? Maybe DD’s fanaticism was too much for even the saintly Tom to bear). DD enters, self-consciously chattering about nothing in general and cattily admiring the decor of the house, which has changed a great deal since she was last there.
Curiously tacky, she wants to know where Clint was ... You know. Rachel and Mike point out the spot where the patron saint of ducks was mistaken for a decoy. It’s now covered by a thicker mat of the same colour as the carpet. DD stares. Rachel makes a typically brainless Rachel remark, saying that she doesn’t allow Beth to crawl on the spot. (Oh, for Christ’s sake, why not make the hole in the rug a friggin’ shrine! You could set up a little altar with an icon portrait of Clint in a tryptich, with candles and incense burning all the time).
The doorbell rings again, and this time, Jacqui enters. It seems that she’s ignored the tradition that the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride before the wedding on the day. If she has, she’s in for BAAAAAAAD luck. But it seems as though she’s going to get dolled up for her hitchin’ at Casa BevRon.
She greets DD, who remarks that Jacqui’s attempts at getting married were costing DD a small fortune in hats. Jacqui’s about to get ready, when she suddenly remembers that she has a favour to ask Ron. The hotel which was supposed to host the reception made a cock-up. Could they have the reception here by any chance?
Ron and Anthea exchange panic-stricken looks.
Max, meanwhile, is being prepared for his matrimonial sacrifice by Lance, his best man. Lance is reassuring Max about his role as best man. He planned to put on his most masculine best man voice when he made his speech, so Max wouldn’t be embarrassed. He brushes some imaginary dust off the front of Max’s white linen suit and remarks, ‘Maxwell, you look peachy-keen.’ And he kisses Max lightly on the lips. (MAXWELL? Only a few weeks ago, Jacqui was calling him MAXIMILIAN. WHAT IS MAX’S full name?)
Gazing fondly at Max, Lance hopes aloud that Jacqui proves worthy of Max’s affection. Max corrects Lance abruptly, saying he only hopes that he proves worthy of Jacqui. Lance immediately apologises, but Max has a final favour to ask of him. Max has to dash off somewhere briefly. He says he’ll meet Lance at the wedding, and he asks that Lance see that the children get there safely.
Not everyone is preparing for the wedding, however. Poor, pitiful, stinky, greasy, mustachioed Katy lies morosely on the sofa in the flat she shares with the Naughty Nurse. She’s listening to particularly morbid music - sounds like Radio Head at its most reflective. Suddenly, the buzzer sounds from below. Katie pulls herself to her feet and trudges to answer it. It’s Gobby, asking if he can come up. Katie remarks that she doesn’t feel well, but Gobby convinces her to let him come upstairs.
The Dixons are scurrying about the house, in last-minute preparation of the sudden wedding reception. Anthea hurriedly hoovers the room, looking less than pleased, whilst DD offers the lot several useless suggestions. All they need to get, she witters, is a few crisps and other savouries. Ron’s making a list for Mike, who’s being despatched to the shops. Mike reminds Ron that he’ll need to provide drinks.
Wincing, Ron produces a wad of notes and hands them to Mike, telling him to buy cheaply. Mike mutters something about £300 being gone in a flash.
Gobby and Katie are having a talk, whilst Gobby helps himself to some strong drink. Did Katie realise, he asks, that the bizzies were only trying to pin Harry’s kidnapping on him? Katie replies listlessly that she had told them he wasn’t responsible. Gobby pours another drink. Well, he suppposes, the Dixons are all having parties, balloons and fine wine for the wedding of the year, when poor Clint is lying in his grave.
Swigging from a bottle of brandy, Gobby reflects. He wishes he HAD snatched that kid now. At least that would have been one way this circus would have been cancelled.
Circus? Questions miserable, poor, pitiful, self-pitying, jealous, stinking Katie. It was more like a freak show than a circus.
Gobby makes more mutterings about the bizzies bothering poor Ma Moffatt. Why, it seems as though a bizzy car is parked outside their house permanently now. Well, he says sourly, the Dixons think he is such a low-life, he’d better live up to their expectations. And he swigs again from the bottle, as poor pitiful, greasy, stinky Katie, asks for a glass of the hard stuff too.
The viewers are treated to a panoramic view of the Anglican cathedral of Liverpool and the dock area, as the wedding car drives into view. Jacqui and Ron emerge. Jacqui is wearing a full-length backless dress, with her hair styled in a French chignon. Ron leads her toward the ferry entrance.
Jacqui is puzzled. Is the wedding going to take place across the water, in Birkenhead? No, replies Ron. Max had ordered a wedding ON the ferry ... A ferry across the Mersey for his Liver bird. (Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww).
The registrar waits aboard the ferry, and she introduces herself to DD. The registrar is impressed with this setting - what an original idea, she exclaims. DD’s non-plussed, however. It’s not her idea of a wedding, mind you. SHE would have perferred a church setting and a full nuptial mass.
As Jacqui arrives, the registrar remarks that they now have a bride, but no groom. Ron asks where Max is, and Jacqui immediately becomes worried that he decided to pull out of the ceremony. Just then, she and Ron spy Lance, and Ron suggests that they ask the best MAN, emphasising the last word. Lance admits helplessly that he doesn’t know where Max has got to, saying that Max had to dash off at the last minute and said he’d see him at the wedding.
DD makes a less-than-subtle aside to the registrar that maybe this is a blessing in disguise.
Interlude: We know where Max is. He’s at the cemetary, kneeling by Susannah’s grave and caressing her tombstone.
The inhabitants of Hotel Corkhill, sans Lindsey, are preparing to attend the wedding reception. Jimmy sits, labouriously wrapping a wedding gift, whilst Timily bicker. Emily is being her usual graceless self, not wanting to attend the reception at the ‘House of Horrors’ for a few butties. She certainly hoped Jacqui Dixon didn’t expect her to buy her anything. Tim tactfully reckons that his rescue of Harry would be gift enough for Max and Jacqui.
Wrapping his present, Jimmy remarks that he hasn’t been in the Dixon house since the night he was called when Clint was killed.
The wedding party still waits aboard the ferry. The registrar is getting impatient. She has another wedding scheduled for one o’clock. Suddenly the ferry begins to move. Jacqui looks at Lance, in a moment of panic, wondering where Max could be.
From behind her, Jacqui hears a voice, and turning, she sees Max. Max asks Jacqui if she thought he would have missed the boat. As DD makes another bitchy aside about the marriage to Lance, the registrar hurries the couple along. She’s pushed for time.
Jacqui whispers to Max that she truly thought he wasn’t coming. Max admits he had to seek some advice from someone. Susannah? Questions Jacqui. See? She knows everything about Max’s movements. Max tells her he wants to spend the rest of his life with her.
Gobby and Katie are drunk. Some people are utterly charming when they’re
drunk. This pair are uglier than they normally are. Gobby is vicious. Katie
is remarkably more miserable, if that’s
ly possible. Gobby wonders
sarcastically why there were no invitations for him and Katie to the wedding.
Katie jokes mirthlessly that perhaps they were stuck in the post.
Gobby wonders where the reception is taking place - some top-dollar place, he supposes. Jacqui went in for stuff like that. Katie just drinks and stares dumbly into the distance.
At the same time, the wedding takes place on the ferry, with Jacqui and Max exchanging vows and that other miseryguts, Anthea, looking distinctively uneasy.
Later, the wedding party adjourn to the Dixons’ for the impromptu reception. In the melee, Ron makes an awkward remark, about his ex-wife and his CURRENT wife getting on famously. Anthea takes umbrage at being referred to as the CURRENT Mrs Dixon. And we get to see DD, minus her hat. She looks like a poor man’s Vivienne Westwood. Whilst chatting to Lance, DD seems to recognise him, and she asks if he, by any chance, attended Manor Park Comprehensive. Lance admitted that he did, indeed. (Er, I thougtht the Dixons and the Powells frequented Brookie Comp?)
Attendance at the reception seems patchy. Raymundo is there, but no Jessie, and nary a Murray - not that anyone would have thought to have invited that lot - with Dire bleating on about the details of her IVF and Brigid finding a soulmate in abortion condemnation in DD. God forbid!
Still Jimmy and Timily arrive, and are hailed as the guests of honour. Tim kisses the bride, telling Jacqui that she ‘scrubbed up well’. Jimmy gazes thoughtfully around the house, remarking to Anthea that the house looked a bit different than before. Determined to find fault with Ron, Anthea, the patron saint of bitches, grumbles that she thought it disrespectful to have the reception in the place where sainted Clint breathed his last. (But then, you don’t want Jacqui to be happy, do you?)
Mike appears, serving drinks, and asks Jim what he’d like to drink. Jimmy asks for a cup of tea.
The drunken couple continue drowning their sorrows and self-pity at Katie’s flat. Gobby is remembering the first night in Benidorm, when he and the sainted Clint first ran into Jacqui and Katie. Gobby tells Katie that Clint was absolutely made up to be marrying her. Gobby generously says he had never seen the patron saint of ducks as happy as he was the last few weeks of his life. (Funny, how Gobby was trying to ruin that happiness during that time, eh?)
But this wedding of Jacqui’s, he remarks with disgust. Poor, pitiful, smelly Katie dismisses the marriage, drunkenly. That? That’s a rebound thing, and Gobby agrees. Gobby reckons Jacqui’s only going through with it because Max is the kid’s dad.
Maybe so, says Katie, her miserable gob even more miserably twisted in bitter jealousy, but she would never forgive Jacqui for what she was doing, especially about the reception.
What about the reception? Gobby wants to know.
Poor, pitiful, twisted, ugly Katie confesses that Rachel, whose brain ability has somehow been severed from her vocal ability, rang Katie that morning, specifically to tell Katie that the wedding reception had been switched at the last moment to the Dixon house. (WHY did this extremely DENSE and BOVINE woman do this?) How utterly disrespectful to the memory of sainted Clint.
Gobby’s Neanderthal brows knit together. (From under what rock do those idiots on the NG crawl, who think he’s sexy?). He rises ominously from the sofa and stalks drunkenly, but purposely out the front door of the flat. Katie asks where he’s going.
‘To toast the happy couple,’ he informs her, ‘Alive!’
Quickly, Katie follows his departing fat arse.
The wedding reception is taking place in the Dixon back garden. There’s music playing on the stereo and people are milling about. Max asks Tim to cut the music, as he wants to make a speech and embarrass his new wife. The new Mrs Farnham warns the listening audience that her husband is ‘bladdered’. Max, thereupon, launches into a speech extolling Jacqui’s virtues of patience, loyalty and trust.
Max acknowledges the part Jimmy and Tim played in rescuing Harry, to which Tim cheekily replies, ‘Thanks, Dad’.
Max concludes by saying that Jacqui’s love had made him a better person, and he never wants to give her cause to regret marrying him.
Unbeknownst to the assembly, Katie and Gobby have arrived on the Close. They approach the Farnham fence, where there appears to be (conveniently) two holes big enough for them to peer through and get a good idea of what’s going on. As Katie and Gobby peer through the holes, they catch sight of a pristine Jacqui and Max, escaping the assembled multitude to share a private kiss.
Gobby makes a snide remark about the clan at least moving the reception outside. No blood stains to soil Jacqui Dixon’s wedding reception, he says, sourly.
A nervy Katie warns him that they risk being seen - and if Gobby’s seen, they’ll be sure to call the police. But she carries on spying through the peephole, herself. As he continues to look, Gobby remarks how amazing Jacqui looks in her dress. She looks happy, he says, with surprise and dismay. But ... How CAN she be happy with HIM? He asks himself, bitterly. (And if you’ve never realised it before, you know now, that these two sadsacks aren’t mourning Clint at all - one is feeling extremely sorry for herself and jealous of Jacqui, the other is bitterly vindictive at losing Jacqui and jealous of her happiness with Max. Clint deserved a better brother and a better girlfriend.
As they continue to watch the couple, the miserable pair note Harry running up to Jacqui and Max and being embraced by them. Peering through the pole, Gobby remarks bitterly that he never loved anyone the way he loved Jacqui.
When she hears this remark, Katie is ready to depart. She tells Gobby that they should go. After all, there’s nothing left for the two of them here. And they trudge melancholically away, as Jacqui and Max stand holding their children.
With the reception in full swing, DD sits and talks to Raymundo. (Please, tell me, if Ray’s here WHY Jessie isn’t?) Ray is complimenting DD on Jacqui, but DD - who appears to be suffering from terminal bitchiness - admits that she’s not at all keen on the prospect of having Max Farnham as a son-in-law. Giving vent to her true opinion, she confides to Ray, a perfect stranger, that Jacqui was going into this marriage too fast. Why, her feet had barely touched the ground since she was involved with Nathan last year!
As the Dismal Duo arrive back at Katie’s flat, Gobby’s in a moaning mood. The Dixons might be laughing now, he warns ominously, but Ron Dixon won’t be laughing if he’s banged up inside. Well, Katie remarks morosely, he’d only be released after about 10 years. When that happens, Gobby declares, he’ll be there to kill him. Did Katie realise that poor Ma Moffatt was about to top herself?
Katie tries to talk Gobby out of his violent tendencies. She assures him that she wants justice too, but all this violence won’t bring Clint back.
Back at the reception, Lance prays silence for the father of the bride to
make a speech. Ron begins a maudlin speech that’s quite coherent at first.
A parent is full of wonder at the birth of a child, he says. A parent would
do anything for that child, and he acknowledges the presence of all his friends,
neighbours and old adversaries. He then launches into a eulogy about the importance
of families, who need the support and protection of each other. Sometimes, he
admits, when a person makes a super
effort to protect his family, it IS
possible to overreact.
Poor Gobby and Katie sit side by side on the sofa, morosely. Gobby remarks prosaically that Katie looks lonely, and Katie replies by saying that she thinks Gobby stinks of brandy. (Could it be she’s smelling her upper, mustachioed lip?) Gobby puts his arm comfortingly around Katie’s shoulder and cuddles her. Stroking her greasy, filthy hair, he tells her that everything is going to be all right. Katie remarks that Clint used to stroke her hair in just that same way. (But, of course, it was a lot cleaner then). Gobby remarks that Katie smells of soap (which is probably a subtle hint by Gobby that Katie should take a bath). The smell of soap is comforting to Gobby.
As they sit together, Gobby admits that he was ‘made up’ that Clint had found Katie. (Huh! You could have fooled me during the last weeks of Clint’s life, Gobby!) Katie admits that she was never as happy as she’d been with Clint. When he died, she lost everything. Katie begins to cry. Gobby remarks that when he’s close to Katie, he feels close to Clint. He kisses Katie lightly.
Ron rambles on, digressing from his original speech as father of the bride. The streets are dangerous, he says. There are curfews in some places, and people are scared - scared enough to buy guns. And some are unlucky enough to use them. A shot in the dark to protect a family, he mumbles. He can go no further. Ron breaks into tears and slumps into a nearby chair. Anthea rushes to attend him. Ron sobs and points to the rug on the floor, acknowledging that Clint died right on that spot. Looking at Max, he warns him that he knows Max will do anything to protect his family, but one day Max might find a strength that would frighten him. A person never knows what he’s capable of, until he has his finger on a trigger.
Kneeling beside him, Anthea tells Ron how proud she is of him. (Don’t take what she says seriously; she’s addled. She’ll have a different opinion the next day, for sure). Ron babbles that Clint had his whole life ahead of him. Standing over him, Max assures Ron that Ron isn’t a murderer. He didn’t intend to kill anyone. Anthea seconds that opinion, telling Ron what a good man he is.
If a white lie will ensure that Ron doesn’t go to prison, she’ll continue to tell white lies until the cows come home. She’ll tell the jury that Ron gave Clint enough time to identify himself and leave the house. This remark is overheard by Jimmy, however.
Gobby is giving a professional-looking massage to Katie’s shoulders and neck. He used to do the same thing to RCLint after footie. He reminds Katie that Katie and Gobby still have each other. (That’s supposed to be a comforting thought? Misery loves company, they say). He asks shyly if he can kiss her, but before she can reply, he does so.
As the reception continues, Lance and the all-knew funky punky DD enjoy a dance. Jimmy and Anthea are enjoying a cosy chat. Anthea tells Jimmy that she’s glad Ron invited him. Jimmy seems inordinately interested in the state of Anthea’s marriage, but she assures him that she and Ron are rock-solid.
She asks after Lindsey, who’s another no-show. Jimmy says Lindsey wanted to come, but couldn’t miss Kylie’s concert. (Kylie sings or plays an instrument?) Anthea asks if Jimmy’s heard from the Court Welfare Officer regarding custody of William, but Jimmy hasn’t. Anthea encourages the recently sectioned manic-depressive who’s blighted his wife’s reputation with the local community by telling him what a smashing dad he is. (Actually, Anthea shows how stupid she is in reckoning that a child would be safe under Jimmy’s protection. But she’s never been that good a judge of character, has the bitch? C/f Ma Moffatt).
Nearby Tim and Mike are having a conflab. Glancing around, Mike remarks that Gobby Moffatt didn’t dare to show his face. They’d half expected him to do so. Wonder where he was? Tim jokes that Gobby Moffatt probably crawled back to his Tuffett. Passing the lads, Jimmy overhears their conversation. Stopping briefly, he remarks that Gobby will be back. He has a score to settle.
The Dirtbag Duo enjoy a serious snog. Coming up from air and from being scratched by Katie’s facial hair (she has considerably more than Gobby), Gobby wails about how much he misses Clint. Katie does the same, moaning that no one understands her loss. Gobby starts to eat her face again, but Katie stops him. The attempt to thwart his advances are futile, however, and Gobby begins snogging her again, cooing to her that the pair must look after each other. Clint would be absolutely made up if he knew Gobby and Katie were looking after each other. It’s what he would want. In fact, Clint would rest easy in his grave knowing that Gobby was looking after (and servicing) Katie. And that argument is enough to make poor, pitiful, filthy dirty, smelly, sexually frustrated Katie, lie back and think of ducks (and a rhyming word).
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001