For those too young to remember, this was the title of a David Bowie song from the Seventies. ‘Turn and face the day’, the chorus ran, and much of the song’s sentiment could be applied to Brookside last night. Changes of all sorts - some subtle, some sudden, some inconspicuous, some overdue and some annoying.
Early morning in the Dixon House of Horrors. Ron Dikko, like a bear emerging from hibernation, descends the stairs, clad in his jim-jams and dressing gown (not a pretty sight). He’s surprised to find his bitchy self-absorbed wife, Anthea, sitting on the sofa, head in hands, feeling supremely sorry for herself. It’s apparent that she’s been there for some time.
Ron asks solicitously if she’s endured another bad night of little sleep. She glares at him accusingly and berates him in reply, piously wondering how he can sleep, knowing everything that’s about to face him.
Ron’s feisty enough to answer insult with equal insult. He replies sarcastically that if Anthea would just be patient enough, she wouldn’t have to worry about losing sleep when Ron, her nemesis, was in jail. The selfish bitch ignores that and chooses to rant on about Ron snoring peacefully,knowing he’s committed a crime.
‘Oh, so it’s me snorin’ you object to,’ remarks Ron. ‘Is that what’s makin’ yer decide not to stand by me?’
Anthea’s face is covered with shame at being sussed for the hypocrite she is. She must have learned a great deal from Jerome about how to look guilty and ashamed, because she’s an expert at that now. She admits lamely to Ron that she can’t stop thinking about Gobby Moffatt and his threats. She doesn’t know what she can do.
Ron sits down beside her and tries to reassure her. Anthea has got to get a grip on herself, he says. She has to stay calm and do what any other woman would do in her position.
Lie? She asks rhetorically, forgetting the number of times recently that she’s either lied or kept secrets from Ron. Lie in the face of Moffatt’s threats?
Ron sighs exhaustedly. It’s a little lie, he explains for the umpteenth time. And Moffatt’s issuing idle threats. He wants to scare her.
Anthea admits that she’s continuously feeling tired. Perhaps she’d think better about the situation if she had some decent rest. Ron suggests that she get dressed and go to the Medical Centre to see a doctor. Maybe she could get something to help her rest.
The post has arrived at Hotel Corkhill, and Jimmy stands in the middle of the lounge, studying what appears to be an official-looking letter. Lindsey takes note of the post and wonders why Jimmy has yet to receive any birthday cards. Jimmy absently reminds her that his birthday is the following day, so they’ll all arrive then.
Noticing his distraction, Lindsey asks if he’s O K. Jimmy replies that his decree absolute has just arrived in this morning’s post. His marriage is finally over.
Jessie Hilton stands in the middle of her lounge, doing the favourite Brookside household chore - ironing. But it’s a task done with tender love, as Jessie is ironing Do-A-Little’s underwear. Ray sits nearby, reading the paper. By way of conversation, Ray announces that he had a little talk with Nikki the other day.
Jess makes a non-committal response, more absorbed in Do-A-Little’s smalls than anything Raymundo has to say. Ray continues. Yes, he’d had a chat with Nikki, a nice one, he witters. As a matter of fact, she’d asked if it would be O K for Jerome to move back in, and Ray had given her his consent.
Jessie suddenly glances up alertly from her task. He can’t, she snaps. There’s no room. (Why no room? The bungalow once housed Emily, Nikki, Jerome and the Hiltons?)
Well, they’d have to make room, Ray insists. Anyway, he was given to understand that the doctor’s tenure as a lodger was only temporary.
Jess is obstinate. She will NOT kick Do-A-Little out.
Ray scratches his head in a deliberately laconic way, which infuriates Jessie. Well, he thinks maybe Jessie should have a word with Nikki then, because HE told Nikki that Jerome could move back in and it was all arranged now.
‘Over my dead body!’ Exclaims Jessie.
Jimmy stands in the kitchen of Hotel Corkhill, industriously working a piece of paper into a picture frame. He’s decided to replace the wedding photo of him and Jackie, taken some thirty years previously, with a framed copy of his decree absolute. Lindsey sees what he is trying to do and is appalled.
Jimmy announces that he’s going to hang it where his Guardian article used to hang on the wall. After all, people normally hang their DEGREES up for all to see. No reason why he shouldn’t display his DECREE. Lindsey objects strenuously. He simply can’t do that, she argues. Her mum would be bringing William around regularly and she would see it and be upset. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be like rubbing her nose in it.
Jimmy thinks about this briefly and changes his mind. Lindsey is right, he agrees. After all, he doesn’t need a piece of paper to proclaim his freedom.
Jackie, meanwhile, is working a shift in the garage, when Nisha enters, her pet Plank tagging along. She’s looking for suntan lotion.
In a typically ignorant remark, Plank wonders why she should need suntan lotion. Nisha throws him a withering look and reminds him that she is still susceptible to skin cancer. Well, continues the thick Plank, why should she need suntan lotion at this time of year?
By this time she has gone to the counter, not having found any lotion, and asks Jackie the whereabouts of the stuff. As Jackie shows her, Jackie asks if she’s planning a holiday. Oh, yes, answers Nisha. She’s going to Tenerife. Jackie looks at Plank and asks Nisha if the two are going together. Nisha has no reply, but Plank looks put out. (I want a job in the NHS. If they are so well-paid that Nisha and Katie can take endless time off and loads of holidays, I want to work for them too).
Jessie is facing Ray down about the sacrificing of Do-A-Little for Jerome’s benefit. She ticks Ray off for not consulting her about this in the first place. No question about it. Do-A-Little stays.
Ray stands up to his full height of 5’6" and asserts himself at last. Enough is enough, he annouces. The doctor goes. He’s sat around for weeks now, watching Jessie make a fool out of herself. Why she’s acting like a lovesick teenager as far as Do-A-Little is concerned.
Jessie is affronted. The doctor pays rent, she reminds Ray. And twice as much rent as Jerome ever paid.
Oh, come off it, argues Ray, impatiently. He knows what he sees. Ever since that man’s entered the house, Ray’s been afraid to move, lest he be berated by Jessie for impingeing on Do-A-Little’s comfort. Why, he was terrified of looking in the fridge for fear of touching some sacred food that Jessie had put aside for the doctor. And if proof were needed of her devotion to him, well, there she stood, ironing his underpants. When was the last time she ever ironed Ray’s underpants?
He felt as if the whole situation had deteriorated into the lodger vs the husband. And to carry on, Jess had changed her whole appearance since the doc arrived - her hair and clothes.
Jessies asks snidely if Ray would rather she go around looking like Ena Sharples? Ray reminds her that as soon as she returns from her cleaning job, she puts on fresh lippy and scent. She never did that for him.
Jessie asks what’s wrong with wanting to look nice?
Ray continues, saying that she laughed at all the doctor’s jokes. Jessie points out that SHE like the doctor’s company and HE liked hers. That’s just it, says Raymundo, with resignation, she’s not interested in Ray anymore.
Rubbish, says Jessie.
In fact, continues Ray, all Jessie wants to do is have sex with the doctor.
Jessie’s face assumes a pall of horror and she flees into the bedroom, slamming the door. Ray follows, losing his new-found nerve and apologising profusely in her wake.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Lindsey is asking Jimmy if he’s thought of anything he’d like to do for his fiftieth birthday the next day. She thought that a nice meal out with her and the kids would be good.
Jimmy agrees that a special effort is needed for his birthday - after all, it’s tantamount to a double celebration now, with the divorce finalised. In fact, Jimmy had a party all arranged. He’d already produced the invitations the day after Emily’s party and sent them all out. He’d done them on the computer.
Lindsey is amazed. Why hadn’t he told her? Well, says Jimmy, manically, because it wouldn’t have been a surprise. It’s going to be the party of the year, and it will leave Emily’s party in the shade.
Who’s been invited? Asks Lindz.
Everyone, says Jimmy. Including the whole Corkhill clan. It’ll be the biggest Corkhill reunion in years.
Ray stands knocking on the bedroom door, imploring Jessie to come out. He didn’t mean to embarrass her. Jessie, on the other side of the door, announces that she’s shocked and disgusted by Ray’s assumptions.
Yes, well, it had to be said, murmurs Ray. All the same, he thinks it’s best that the doctor move out. And now.
Anthea is dressed and is telling Ron that she’s about to leave for the Walk-In Centre. Ron is preparing to take a bath. Well, he remarks, he supposes Katie Rogers will be there. Not that Anthea should mind that - being that she was as thick as thieves with Katie.
Anthea replies that she’s primarily going to see the doctor. Just before she leaves, she calls for Ron, who’s gone upstairs. She needs his master key, as she’s given the key for the deadbolt to Rachel.
Plank and Nisha have left the garage. Plank, perturbed, is questioning Nisha about her travelling companions to Tenerife. Nisha tells him that she’s going with six of her mates from her college days. It’s just a last-minute cheap trip, she says. Nothing heavy.
Why didn’t she think to want to go with him, Plank demands, petulantly. Was it because she thought he couldn’t afford it?
Nisha patiently explains that it’s important for her to be able to chill out and have a laugh with her mates. And she doesn’t intend to stop that, no matter what relationship she is in at the moment. Spying Gobby Moffatt getting out of his parked car nearby, she motions Plank in his direction. She gave up seeing her own mates, when she got involved with Gobby’s brother, she says. By the way, she wonders what the hell he’s doing around here anyway?
Whatever it is, remarks Plank, he’s up to no good.
Gobby glances guiltily around and slopes off down the passageway that leads to The Close.
Anthea, by chance, is coming in the opposite direction. As she rounds a corner, she runs into the Gob. Needless to say, she is shaking in her shoes at the sight of him. Gobby, looking beetle-browed and threatening (and still speaking as though he’s got a mouthful of liquified shit), tells her unceremoniously that he wasn’t going to hurt her as long as she did nothing stupid.
Anthea implores him to leave her alone. She’s not well, she whines. Anyway, she continues, Gobby isn’t allowed to do this sort of thing to her. It’s called intimidating witnesses, she informs him, and she’ll go to the police if it doesn’t stop.
Gobby shakes his cumbersome bullet-head slowly. She’s got it wrong, he says. Intimidation is when someone says, ‘Drop the charges or I’ll kill your kids,’ or ‘Change your statement or I’ll cut your throat.’ In other words, witnesses are intimidated to LIE to the jury. All Gobby wants Anthea to do is tell the truth. She had to tell the jury that Ron didn’t give Clint a chance. He didn’t shout a warning and give Clint a chance to escape.
Anthea tells Gobby that she’s sticking to her story. After all, Gobby wasn’t there. He didn’t know what happened.
Leaning over her and speaking quietly, but menacingly, Gobby informs her that he was, indeed, in the house on the night Clint was killed. In fact, he’d come through the woods and broken in through the Dixon back door. He wanted to get back at the Dixons, he explains.
Suddenly, Clint appears through the back door as well. Seems he’d followed Gobby. He wanted Gobby to put stuff back he’d taken and get out. Clint, he reveals, was on the Dixons’ side. He was there to try to stop Gobby. The two brothers began to argue.
Suddenly, the lounge door opened and Ron Dixon appeared, he relates. Ron said, ‘Get out or I’ll shoot.’ (CORRECTION: RON SAID NOTHING OF THE SORT. HE ASKED TWICE FOR THE INTRUDER TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF, WARNING THE FIGURE THAT HE HAD A GUN).
Almost as soon as he said that, Gobby continues, Ron pulled the trigger. Clint never had a chance. And Gobby? Why, Gobby was right around the corner, hiding in the kitchen. He saw Anthea enter the living room and put the light on. And there lay Clint, covered in blood.
He heard the baby cry. He heard Anthea call out to Jimmy Corkhill and he saw Corkhill enter the room. He heard Anthea call the police. He heard Anthea say that she’d warned Ron not to go downstairs. He heard Corkhill say that he’d warned Ron not to get a gun. Then he heard Corkhill ask Ron why he didn’t tell him he’d got one. Gobby had seen and heard it all.
Clint was trying to do the Dixons a favour and he paid for it with his life. And he wants Anthea to know this: If she doesn’t tell the truth, he’ll give evidence, himself. Then Ron will go down for murder, and Anthea will go down for perjury.
Plank and Nisha are still having a conflab. Nisha asks if everything is O K with Ant at the moment. Plank tells her that Dire has an appointment to see the head about the bullying that’s happening. Marty takes the boy back and forth to school daily, and Adele looks out for him on the playground. He asks Nisha if she’d ever been bullied as a child.
Nisha says it’s quite common if someone’s different, that kids might bully them. He parents kept on at her to keep her head down and try to blend in. She then starts to relate some half-baked story about standing on a desk and singing ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ and spitting on some girl’s head. So much for blending into the background. This all ends by Plank wishing her a good holiday.
Anthea, frightened by the encounter with Gobby, has forgotten all intention to visit the Walk-in Centre, and scurries home in a time that would challenge Maurice Green. She gallops into the Dixon house, and locks and bolts the front door. Dashing into the lounge, she allows herself a frantic crying spell, before she’s startled by an abrupt knock on the door.
Literally jumping out of her skin, she glances apprehensively through the front window, only to see Jimmy smile and wave frantically at her.
She returns to the foyer to open the door and Jimmy enters. What’s the matter? He wants to know. He tried to get her attention earlier outside, but she seemed in a hurry.
The Hiltons are still at it hammer and tongs. Jessie still sits stubbornly behind the closed bedroom door. Ray, on the other hand, now stands in the hall outside, clutching what appears to be a statement of some sort that’s just arrived in the post. He knocks on the door again, being firm with Jessie. He asks her to come out and talk to him. This situation has got beyond a joke now.
Hmmph! Snorts Jess from within. It got beyond a joke when Ray opened his filthy mouth, she retorts.
Anyway, Ray replies, he’s off out for awhile, not that he supposes she’s even remotely interested in where he goes. Jess shouts back that perhaps he can find Jerome when he’s out and tell him that he’s NOT moving in.
As if he only just remembered, Ray bends down and shoves the printed statement under the door in Jessie’s direction. By the way, he informs her, this just arrived. It’s her latest credit card statement. Maybe she’d like to take a look at it. She might come to realise that she’s been spending a fortune on a man less than half her age.
As he turns to go, Ray calls out to Jessie that, instead of seeking Jerome, he just might bring Do-A-Little back, so he can see what he’s reduced the household to. Jessie shouts, ‘Don’t you dare!’
Lindsey arrives at the garage for the start of her shift as Jackie is finishing hers. She greets her mother and asks Jackie if she received her decree absolute in the post that morning. Jackie nods sadly and asks how Jimmy took reception of the document.
Well, admits Lindsey, he’s not exactly turning cartwheels, if that’s what Jackie means.
Jackie does have one piece of good news for Lindsey. She’s just heard that she’s been promoted to Area Manager and will start her new job in two weeks. Because of that and because she has holiday time owed to her, she’s decided (just like that, as you do, especially if you are management) that today will be her last day in the garage, the last one behind the counter. In fact, this, coupled with the divorce, could be the start of a whole new life for Jackie. She tells Lindsey that the offer of Jackie’s old job for Lindsey still stands.
Lindsey says nothing.
Meanwhile, Jimmy is still at the Dixons’, listening to Anthea tell him what Gobby had to say. Gobby, it seems, saw and heard everything that happened the night Clint was shot. He heard her; he heard Beth; he heard Jimmy.
As she tells him these things, Ron shouts from upstairs, asking if Anthea had returned and with whom she was talking. He’s just emerged from the bath and stands at the top of the stairs in his bathrobe and drying his hair with a towel.
Anthea runs to the foot of the stairs and whispers loudly to Ron that he’ll wake Mike up. But Ron thought Mike was downstairs with Anthea. Who’s the other voice? Jimmy pops his head around the corner to tell Ron that he’d just stopped by to invite the Dixons to his fiftieth birthday celebrations the next evening. Ron tells him to hang on whilst Ron dresses and comes down.
Anthea reiterates that the pair of them will wake Mike, who’s just come off nights.
She scurries agitatedly back into the lounge, followed by Jimmy. She’s panicked at the thought that Gobby Moffatt knows Ron didn’t shout a warning, even though he did and we know that the Brookside writers think the majority of viewers are thick as pig shit and wouldn’t remember that Ron shouted TWO warnings.
Jimmy, for once, is completely sane in his advice to Anthea, the raving woman. He reminds her succinctly that she married Ron for better or for worse. Well, this is ‘worse’. She simply has no choice. As a wife who supposedly loves her husband, it’s Anthea’s duty to say whatever she can in order to keep Ron OUT of jail. It’s as simple as that, he says to her.
Anthea is almost hysterical. She’s frightened, but hasn’t a thought for Ron. She’s only concerned with her fear of Gobby Moffatt and what he’ll do to her. For that reason alone, she’ll sacrifice the man that she doesn’t love, but only remains with for comfort and financial security. She shows this by her imminent behaviour in this scene.
‘I can’t do it!’ She exclaims to Jimmy in a blind panic. ‘I can’t do it! There’s no future in it!’
Jimmy is realistic and coldly unsympathetic. Then if she can’t support Ron, she’ll lose him.
Then she may as well leave, cries Anthea, her every action begging for sympathy and approval from Jimmy, her Sage.
And go where? Jimmy wants to know. Over the Close to his?
Anthea is shocked and disheartened that the Sage isn’t about to tell her what she wants to hear. She thought he was her special confidante, that she could tell him anything, she wails.
And so she can, he reminds her. But his advice is this: Anthea is Ron’s wife and he deserves her total support. She either supports Ron, or she loses him and everything with him.
When she hears that, Anthea reacts like a spoiled brat, who hasn’t got what she wanted. She physically pushes Jimmy toward the front door, screaming at him to get out.
As Jackie Corkhill prepares to leave the garage for the last time, Lindsey asks if Jackie received an invitation to Jimmy’s fiftieth party for the next day. Jackie says she didn’t, but then, she didn’t expect to receive one. Lindsey tells her that all the Corkhill family would be there. Why didn’t Jackie come?
Jackie refuses, but Lindsey insists that she bring William. Jackie agrees to do that, but states that she won’t come inside. She puts on her coat to depart.
Just think, says Lindsey, the next time Jackie visits the garage, it will be as Area Manager.
Oh, Jackie doesn’t think there’ll be much cause for her to visit. She’ll be based at a desk at Head Office. Well, replies Lindsey, as Jackie would be making more money, perhaps she’d buy a car. Then she could stop by here for petrol. Jackie tells Lindsey that she doesn’t care if she never sees the garage again.
Lindsey excuses herself from a waiting customer to hug and wish her mother good luck. As Jackie reaches the door, she takes one last look back at Lindsey serving behind the counter and she walks out the door for the last time.
Jessie has finally come to her senses and left the bedroom. Now she sits contritely beside Ray on the sofa. She’s repentant. She tells Ray that she didn’t really want to sleep with Do-A-Little. She knows Do-A-Little didn’t feel the same way about her .
Ray asks her if she ever thought about it, fantasised. In her mind, anything was possible. And Jessie confesses that in her mind, she didn’t feel as old as she was. Oh, she’d die of embarrassment if the doc ever realised. Besides, she says, he probably only saw her as a mother figure, anyway.
Ray assures her that that wasn’t true - or he wouldn’t have been jealous of the doctor. But the age difference, protests Jessie.
Well, reasons Ray, look at that Michael Douglas fella and Catherine Zeta Jones - and just look at next door (meaning Max’n Jax).
No, Jessie sighs, she just had a teenage crush, that’s all. The doc brought about a flutter in her stomach that made her feel young again. Ray muses ruefully that he wishes he made her feel like that.
Jessie flirts by saying that her stomach is fluttering right now.
She must be hungry then, jokes Ray. Jessie admits that she has been neglecting her husband something rotten, but she’ll make it all up to him. She promises. Omigod! She suddenly thinks. She hopes the doc hasn’t realised what a fool she’s made of herself.
Ray assures her that Do-A-Little probably just thinks she’s a good landlady, that’s all. Anyway, Ray will tell the lad when he returns tonight that Jerome is moving back in and he will have to leave.
No, Jess objects. Ray doesn’t have to tell him anything. SHE will tell Do-A-Little that he has to move.
Ron has come downstairs, dressed and shaved, after Jimmy’s departure. He wonders at Anthea’s early return from the clinic. She never made it to the clinic, she tells him. She ran into Gobby Moffatt on the way.
She has to tell Ron. Gobby knows she’s lying for Ron. He knows because he was in the house, himself, the night Ron shot Clint. He saw and heard everything. He heard the words Ron said, he saw her turn on the light, heard the baby cry, saw Jimmy come in. Everything.
Gobby had broken into the house on his own, she says, and Clint followed him in order to talk him out of doing it. Clint was on their side. He was trying to get Gobby out of the house. Ron had shot and killed an innocent man.
HEAVY MENTAL
That’s the only phrase I can come up with to describe Brookside at the moment. Heavy mental - HEAVILY mental. Everyone is losing what they have upstairs, except Rachel, who can’t because there are no bats in her belfry, basically because she hasn’t got a belfry.
This week all the episodes were written by John Fay, who’s normally an apt writer, but even he seems to be taking the proverbial mick these days. This proves it - Brookside is becoming a farce, and anyone of any intelligence sees it as such. As for the others, well ... I NO THAT THEY R WEIGHTING 4 THE TRIAL BCUZ THEY H8 RON. R U HOPING ROBBIE STAYS?
Brookside kindergarten is now in session - in Friday’s ep, we meet the headmistress.
Ron, Anthea and Mike are assembled in the Dixon House of Horrors the next day. Mike has just returned from his night shift and is being told by Ron of Anthea’s encounter with Gobby the previous day. Most notably, he’s telling Mike about the fact that it was Gobby who had broken into the Dixon house that fateful night on his own, and that Clint had followed him secretly, in order to stop him from harassing the Dixons. Clint, in short, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had met his death when Ron shot him.
Mike listens intently, as Anthea tries to draw attention to herself. She walks back and forth across the foreground, huffing and puffing, fanning herself with her hand and the neckline of her top. When Ron’s finished relaying events, Mike shrugs. He can’t see how this discovery would make any difference to Ron’s tria, he observesl.
No difference? Ron exclaims. It makes a lot of difference. It means Katie Rogers was right about Clint all along. He was innocent. Ron had killed an innocent man. He tried to protect the Dixons and what thanks did he get - a bullet.
Mike argues that Ron has to remember that his trial starts on Friday. It still doesn’t alter the fact that there were intruders in his home, and Ron was trying to defend what was his. It stands to reason that if Gobby hadn’t broken into the house that night, Clint wouldn’t have followed him. If anything, it was Gobby’s fault that Clint was killed, not Ron’s.
Anthea, in the background, has gone to the kitchen sink and rinses her face in cold water.
It’s Jimmy’s fiftieth birthday, and the Corkhills - Jimmy, Kylie and Lindsey - are preparing a feast for the multitude of guests they are expecting. Kylie, who has grown about five inches since we saw her last and who now looks closer to twleve than to nine, is buttering butties. The doorbell rings and Kylie thinks her Nan has come early. Jimmy answers it, returning with a huge bouquet of flowers. They are from his niece, Tracy Corkhill, who’s unable to attend.
Over at the bungalow, Do-A-Little is forced into making a quick exit. He’s packing his bags quickly, as Jessie, suddenly feeling remorseful, apologises profusely for the fact that he has to go so soon. Ray phaffs in the background, helping the doctor to hurry along, rushing him into leaving. He can’t leave quick enough for Ray’s liking.
Rachel has returned from a visit to the Land of the Braindead to join the Dixon fold. Anthea is relishing the retelling of her encounter with Gobby to the insipid girl, hoping and almost knowing that she’ll get misguided support from her quarter against the real Dixons. Rachel joost knew Clint couldn’t do an-ehthin bad. Kay-teh should know, she reckons bovinely.
Mike jumps up, disgusted with his silly wife’s behaviour, as she sits down beside him on the sofa. Rachel asks where he’s going. Mike snaps that he’s off to the chippy for something to eat. He’s glad to get out of this house, he maintains, glaring pointedly at a shame-faced Anthea. In fact, he wants to get off before Rachel takes the opportunity of telling him ‘I told you so’. And he storms out of the house, leaving the incredibly stupid wench looking distressed and uncomfortable.
Max Farnham is getting out of his car, when Ray shouts across at him. He tells Max that he spoke to Jacqui last Friday about some tiles. Max looks at Ray questioningly. From the look on the younger man’s face, Ray surmises that the conversation must have slipped Jacqui’s mind - oh well, she has a lot on her plate, poor girl. Anyway, he understood Max and Jax were about to do some decorating. Well, he had a load of these tiles he had ordered last year for Susannah, he adds hesitantly. He was going to re-tile the kitchen. He still had them, he says.
Jacqui had promised to write a cheque, he continues. How much? Asks Max.
Oh, he wasn’t badgering for the money, assures Ray, quickly. Max calms him, saying that he can write the cheque on the business account. Ray quotes him £276.76 and adds that he wasn’t going to charge Susannah for actually doing the work. Max writes Ray’s cheque. When he receives it, the older man promises Max to bring the tiles straight around.
No need for that, Max assures him. Ray could keep the tiles. He’s certain Ray will find a use for them.
Jackie Corkhill and William arrive on the doorstep of Hotel Corkhill. When Jimmy opens the door, she wishes him a happy birthday and says she’ll be around the next day to collect William. She hands Jim a birthday card, knowing that he doesn’t want her to stay. She can come in if she wants to, asserts Jimmy. Kylie wants to see her. Anyway, Jackie can surely have a drink with Jimmy on his birthday.
As Do-A-Little finally drives off in his top-of-the-range BEEMER, funded by our contributions to the NHS, Ray noisily and happily waves him off. Jessie hushes him, reminding him that he needn’t be so happy about the event and telling him that the poor doctor would probably be sleeping on someone’s couch tonight. (Are there no hotels in Liverpool or is he just a sublime cheapskate?)
Ray’s happy, he announces. He’s got a cheque for over two hundred quid in his pocket and he has Jessie back all to himself.
Inside Hotel Corkhill, Jackie and Jimmy chat civilly. Jackie is telling Jimmy about her new job. Jimmy remarks upon her new-found status: Jackie Corkhill, Area Manager. Er, it’s NOT Corkhill anymore, Jackie tells him gently. As the divorce brought a change in her life, she’s decided on a new beginning. She’ll be using her maiden name from now on.
The doorbell rings again. Jimmy jumps up, telling Jackie that the guests have surely begun to arrive. Of course, she’ll stay for more drinks, he insists. After all, she’ll know everyone - they’re all family and friends.
As Jimmy dashes off to answer the door, Wills spills his drink down his trousers. Jackie fusses over him and asks Kylie to take the child upstairs and change him into some dry clothes. She’ll mop up the mess. As she walks to the kitchen counter for a tea towel, she spies the framed copy of Jimmy’s decree absolute lying there. She’s horrified.
Jimmy enters with yet another bouquet of flowers. From Billy and Sheila. They couldn’t come either. Jackie ignores the announcement, instead holding up the framed document and demanding to know what Jimmy was playing at. Where did he put their wedding photo? Perhaps he burned it.
Jimmy is anticipating an argument, and begs Jackie not to argue with him on his fiftieth birthday. Jackie stops suddenly and looks at Jimmy. Then she quietly announces that she’s never going to argue with Jimmy again. That’s a thing of the past - even if they have to wire her jaw shut. She suddenly laughs at the framed document.
Jimmy doesn’t understand her humour and asks what she finds so funny.
The framed decree absolute, she laughs. She’s suddenly remembered the story behind the wedding photo which Jimmy says is behind the document. She remembers the photographer at their wedding reception and how Jimmy questioned and queried him about his future engagements, as he took their pictures. Then the following week, when the man was out on assignment, Jimmy breaks into his studio and steals ALL the photos he’d developed of their wedding. And the silly scally only bothered the poor man for months afterward, trying to get compensation from him from the ‘loss’ of their wedding photos.
If Jimmy were so pleased about their divorce, why didn’t he wear the document wrapped around his head. Better yet, get a slide projector and project it on the side of the house. How about a billboard advert? Or advertising space in the Liverpool Echo?
Jackie admits that she found it hard to enter what had once been her home before. It still felt as though it were Jackie’s house, but it was different. The ornaments were practically where they were supposed to be. The coffee table was gone. It’s as though someone’s come back from holiday and found the whole place a bit different and disconcerting. She resolves there and then never to set foot inside this house again.
Jerome and his luggage have arrived at the bungalow. Nikki greets him enthusiastically, but Jerome appears less than comfortable with moving back in. Jessie and Ray are nowhere to be found, but Nikki wants to give him the red carpet treatment. Emily makes no secret of the fact that she’s not happy at all about Jerome being back in her sister’s life, but Jerome is quick to remind Emily that she no longer lives at the bungalow.
Ray arrives and greets Jerome warmly. Jerome admits it’s good to be back. Ray explains that he and Jessie have to get ready to go to Jimmy Corkhill’s birthday party and asks the young couple if they plan on attending. Nikki coyly remarks that she and Jerome are going to stay in and unpack.
When Nikki leaves the room, Emily again threatens Jerome with dire consequences if he misbehaves. Jerome snaps irritably, ‘Grow up!’ He’s made mistakes and paid for them - and so has Emily, she’s not exactly pristine. He, in turn, warns Emily not to lecture him.
Jackie Corkhill stands at the front door of Hotel Corkhill, preparing to leave the Close forever (or at least until it becomes clear that Sue Jenkins can’t land another acting job). The taxi waits for her. She’s saying good-bye to Lindsey and Kylie, but oddly, seems to have forgotten her son, William (such are children in Brookside).
Suddenly Jimmy appears, holding the wedding photo, now restored to its rightful place in the frame. He wants Jackie to have it. Jackie refuses, wanting Jimmy to keep it. Sadly, she tells Jimmy to enjoy his birthday and the rest of his life, and turning, she climbs into the cab and leaves.
As that cab leaves, a yellow minicab pulls up to the curb in front of Hotel Corkhill. Jimmy has already turned to go back inside, but his attention is drawn to the cab.
Rod Corkhill, minus facial scar and looking as young as ever, alights and calls out a greeting to his Uncle Jimmy. As he walks up the drive, he notices the multi-coloured shutters on the windows. What’s going on with the windows? He asks.
Jimmy sighs and tells him that that’s all to do with a long story - a long story that’s finally over. And uncle and nephew walk toward the house.
Back at the Dixon House of Horrors, the family are still debating the repercussions of Gobby’s knowledge of events. Anthea still walks to and fro, fanning herself repeatedly, in the throes of a hot flush.
Rachel opens her fat mouth and utters an inanity - Kay-teh should be told, she announces. Ron admits that he does, indeed, feel sorry for Katie Rogers. Mike disagrees strongly and he and his brainless spouse begin an argument. He doesn’t feel sorry for Katie in the least - has Rachel forgotten how Katie’s treated Ron and Jacqui? How can Ron feel sorry for her, after she openly spat in his face?
Rachel can’t look Mike in the face, but makes a silly statement about how it would give Kay-teh a lot of coomfut to know that Clint was really the way everyone believed him to be.
Rod sits on the Corkhill sofa as Lindsey and Jimmy serve him drinks and talk to him. Jimmy asks after his brother and Rod tells him that Billy is now 18 stone and grey as a coot. Jimmy reckons that’s Sheila’s fault and asks after her. Rod tells him that Sheila now has two flower shops.
Rod turns the tables and asks Jimmy how he’s faring. Jimmy brushes the question aside - oh, you know, a few ups and downs. All a part of life’s rich tapestry - and speaking of tapestry, would Rod like to see his Millennium Tapestry?
Jessie is preparing to go over to the birthday celebrations, but she’s detained by Emily whinging that Jessie wouldn’t allow Tim to move in after the tearaways got married. Nikki reminds Emily that Jerome was never in jail, but Emily retorts that Tim did nothing. Jessie tries to ignore the squabble, but promises that Jerome won’t be allowed to forget his misdemeanours. Nikki tells her nan to wish Jimmy a happy birthday for her.
The Hiltons have arrived at Hotel Corkhill and join Jimmy, Rod and Lindsey. Jimmy admits that he’s excited at facing the prospect of a life after divorce and a life after fifty. With Jackie gone, he feels a whole new responsibility shifted onto him. Rod is chatting with Lindsey on the side, remarking that he’s surprised she hasn’t flown the nest yet.
Lindsey tries to explain to him the nature of Jimmy’s illness. It’s not like a cold, she says. It’s continuous. Sometimes he’s O K; sometimes he has bad days. She just has to deal with him and the illness one day at a time.
The whole of the Dixon clan has now assembled at the House of Horrors. Ron sits at the table, whilst Anthea paces maniacally back and forth restlessly. Mike is seated on the arm of the sofa, where Rachel, Jacqui and Max sit side by side. They are still arguing about the efficacy of telling Katie Rogers about Gobby’s knowledge.
Ron finally admits that he’s sorry that Clint’s dead, but he’s having second thoughts about telling Katie of their discovery. Anthea shouts at him that Katie has a right to know, since she and Clint were engaged. Mike joins the fray, pointing out that no, technically Katie was not engaged to Clint, since she never received the ring until after his death. Besides, telling Katie Rogers wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. If anything, it would add fuel to her fire. Katie is on an ego trip of self-pity at the moment, Mike points out rightly. She’s in her element playing the role of the wailing woman.
Rachel argues that it’s unfair not to tell Kay-teh. She’s so DES-pon- dent, she might even try to kill herself.
Get real! Laughs Mike, mirthlessly. She’s living only to see Ron get life. He looks deprecatingly at his near-idiot wife and his narrow-minded stepmother. Didn’t these two understand what this whole thing meant for Ron? Ron could actually die in jail!
Anthea wrings her hands and wails that she actually thought about that a lot. (Well, that’s big of her).
Then, Mike continues mercilessly, she should have common sense enough to know that it could be worse, a LOT worse, for Ron if Katie Rogers knew the truth about what happened that night.
Max and Jacqui have been sitting quietly until this point, and neither have uttered a word. Rachel decides to put the ball in Jacqui’s court. She knew Kay-teh better than anyone, Rachel says. Doesn’t Jacqui think that Kay-teh should be told the truth?
Without a moment’s hesitation, Jacqui says that it would be best if Katie didn’t know.
Too right! Affirms Mike. And Jacqui reckons that, he surmises, because she’s a Dixon, and if eitherRachel or Anthea had been born a Dixon or bothered to remember that they had married Dixons, they would see it that way too.
Anthea bitterly demands to know what Max thinks about the whole thing, especially, she spits, as Max has MARRIED a Dixon. The bovine bitch it so supremely confident that Max is going to support her and the brainless Rachel, she almost crows the question.
Max gives Anthea a long, serious look and says softly and with conviction that sometimes it’s best to keep quiet about certain things. Ron quietly thanks Max for his token of support.
Hearing Max’s and Jacqui’s opinions has swayed the guileless Rachel, who witters, ‘May-beh they’re r-eye-ght.’
Jessie and Ray remark to Jimmy at his party, that they are surprised Anthea hasn’t shown up. Anthea? Questions Jimmy. Oh, her! The last time he saw her, she went off on a right one, she did. Threw him out of the Dikko’s house. He’d also asked Mick Johnno, but he couldn’t come either. (And Sinbad? Nary a mention).
Jessie mentions hopefully that Nikki still might come along later. She was helping Jerome unpack right now. Nikki? Remarks Jimmy. Nice girl. Did Nikki tell him that she’s going to interview Jimmy for her uni project next week?
Meanwhile, Timily stand morosely in the background, having been roped into attending the dire party. Emily is less than pleased - six adults and two kids at this flamin’ party, she mutters; and did Tim realise that that Rod one had only been a bizzy at one time?
Tim replies that that was probably why no one wanted to come. He couldn’t imagine himself at fifty. If he ever reached fifty, he’d top himself. (Never mind, maybe the producers will do that before long, Tim). Emily remarks that she had hoped to invite her mate, Becky Big-Tits. She had to try to buy back the beauty course from her, before Jessie found out what she’d done.
Nikki and Jerome have finished unpacking and lie on the Hilton sofa in each other’s arms. Nikki is asking Jerome a studiously written ambiguous question, which comes across as being patently stupid. She asks Jerome how big ‘it’ is? Jerome won’t say, but she insists on knowing how big ‘it’ is. Finally, Jerome remarks that his overdraft is £1200.
Why, that’s nothing! Nikki exclaims. Jerome asks her if she’d spoken to the finance director yet .Nikki nods. The woman suggested she take out a hardship loan. She owes £9000 on her student loan and has an overdraft of £2000. The university has agreed to defer her payment of fees until January. She could just about manage that if she worked extra hours at the bar, but working extra hours meant that she had less time to study. It was a vicious circle. She reckoned she could be £15,000 in debt when she got her degree. (Christ, Christy must pay well at that bar! How do I get a job?)
(Excuse me, a rant is coming on here. If Brookside expect us to feel sorry for these beautiful student types, they aren’t getting my sympathy. In the first place, Margi Shadwick has a high-flying job in Brussels and must be making BAGS of money. So why is her daughter forced to take out student loans et al? Besides which, Margi must have had extra income generated from the sale of the bungalow to Jessie and Ray and surely Greg must have left pensions provisions? And wouldn’t Margi have been means-tested as well as concerns Nikki’s education? As far as Jerome is concerned, certainly he has a legacy from his father and his mother didn’t seem to be too badly off. Are these parents just cheap or are the children naturally scroungers?)
At the swinging birthday party, Jimmy decides it’s time for him to make the birthday speech. He formally declares the year of his fiftieth birthday to be YEAR 0. Well, here he was at his big do and only eight guests had shown up. Now, normally people would have expected that to be a disappointment for the person whose birthday it was, but not Jimmy. No, siree!
You see, he explains, the people who chose not to turn up did so because they were scared. These people had heard that Jimmy was suffering from mental health problems. They may have thought him to be dangerous because he had a mental illness. Of course, it would have been different if he’d just come out of jail, he explains. If he had been in jail instead of a mental hozzy, brother Billy would have been right here tonight. You see, jail was a macho thing. It was easy to understand. Billy would have no qualms asking Jim how he’d fared in prison. If you lose your freedom, that’s O K, says Jimmy. Lose your marbles and you’re stigmatised.
As the guests begin to look uneasily and embarrassingly at one another, Jimmy struggles to explain. His breakdown HAD to happen, he says. It had to happen for him to attain his complete freedom. Today he felt totally free for the first time. (Want to bet this is another Damascene conversion scene the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Luke Musgrove confessed to Nikki, thereby miraculously curing her alcoholism? Jimmy will be totally sane after this, I’m sure).
In fact, he reiterates, the people who had bothered to attend tonight’s party, were actually the people who gave him the most support in recent years. Sorry, he says to his nephew, no offence, but Rod has no right to be here tonight. Anyway, Jimmy was now back firmly in control of his life andhe’s looking forward to the next 50 years (God help us!). He thanks the guests for coming and he thanks Lindsey for all her help; and he finishes by toasting ‘freedom’.
A diatribe of another sort is transpiring at the Dixons’. Anthea is reiterating her prime fear - the fact that Gobby has admitted to breaking and entering and that his knowledge of events will rumble her lie. She isn’t concerned at all with Ron’s fate, but with her ‘lie’ being discovered.
Jacqui speaks up, saying that just as she knew Katie better than anyone, she also knows Gobby. He did this by way of a threat. Didn’t Anthea see and understand the way Gobby worked? Moffatt never did any sort of dirty work he couldn’t get someone else to do for him. That was the way he operated when he first planned the break-in to Ron’s house. If Anthea retracts her statement and tells what really happened, then Ron gets life and NO ONE ever susses that Gobby was here in the house. He’s free. Gobby wants her to do that. It puts Ron away and it doesn’t point the finger at him. Gobby wasn’t about to put his neck on the line for anyone or anything.
Anthea, feeling supremely confident in her ability to judge people, refuses to believe Jacqui’s reasoning. She thinks Gobby feels so strongly that he just might sacrifice his own freedom to get at the truth.
Now Max speaks. What does it matter even if Moffatt does reveal that he was there? It still boils down to his word against hers. It would be obvious to the jury that he was a scally no-mark and she was a respectable married woman. Two-to-one the jury would believe Anthea. They could easily see that Ron reacted only in a way to protect his family and his home. Anything that Moffatt says, Anthea should just continue to deny. Again, Ron thanks Max for his reasoning.
Anthea, however, is still unconvinced about Gobby’s motives, but this time, when she puts up an argument for telling the truth as opposed to lying for Ron, she’s met with a cacophony of protest from all around - silly Rachel bleating about what Anthea is going to do, Ron asking her if she’s going to support him, Mike demanding to know her decision and asking how she can even think of going against Ron after what he’s done for her, Max telling her she has got to stand by her husband, and through it all, Jacqui’s voice, pervading, commenting on how Gobby Moffatt must be loving all this havoc he’s caused. This is just what he planned to do, disrupt the Dixon family unit, send them into disarray, by preying on Anthea’s weakness.
In the midst of all this noise, Anthea is overcome by a hot flush and bolts for the front door, dashing outside and gasping for breath. Once outside, she bursts into guilty tears, knowing that everyone inside is right and she is too stubborn and cowardly to admit that she’s wrong.
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001