And so, the aftermath of the Christmas episode. Just like the aftermath of Christmas Day ... Yawn. But then, it’s been a big yawn most of the year ... Yes, yes, yes, I know we had the wonderful storyline of Ron’s shooting of Clint, we had Adele’s abortion, we had the bullying. But the first degenerated into a ‘Let’s Hate Jacqui’ routine (which will end tonight in a most unsatisfactory manner a la Luke Musgrove), and the last two are offshoot from the never-ending IVF ‘I WANNA BABY’ Murray line. And, don’t forget, 2001 was the year that’s given us the reincarnation of Guru Jimmy, Sage to all the housewives and bimbos of the Close, the AWFUL lavender marriage to facilitate Sarah White’s pregnancy leave, and endles near-sex and near-nudity scenes with Timily ... Not to mention those thespians par excellence, Gobby and Flint.
Will this programme EVER recover?
Tick ... Tick ... Tick ...
As it’s not yet Christmas Day, there’s still a bit more time for some Christmas titsel on Brookside, and we are treated to a bit of booby in the first scene. Poor, pitiful, orange-faced rubber-doll sextoy Emily stands pitifully at the front window of Hotel Corkhill, watching and waiting for her scally to return from destinations unknown. As she turns sadly away, we notice two things - (1) that she’s apparently wearing a teeshirt that Kylie left behind and (b) that she’s braless and the new implants must be causing her slender shoulders some discomfort, because she’s beginning to rival the likes of Dolly Parton and she who used to be a nice girl (in Ellison’s words), Jordan.
Someone on a forum site mentioned the fact that the central heating must not be turned on in the house sets, because Emily’s raspberries are more than visible - but then, this is what Brookside would want, so all the little puberty-ridden lads and those bigger lads still going through puberty of the mind (and haven’t reached the point in life when they recognise that women who look like Jennifer Ellison are mostly cheap sluts) can enjoy the view. (I don’t know why Brookside are so intent on keeping this actress - she could easily find loads of work in The Daily Sport - after all, Anne-Marie Davies did. What a talent!)
More proof that there is no heating on these sets. Our next scene is Chateau Farnham, and Jacqui Dixon-Farnham, clad in a FLEECE, is reviewing the Christmas cards she’s left it a bit late to send. She picks up one marked ‘To Katie’, pulls the card from the envelope, looks at it, reinserts it in the envelope and rips it to shreds.
Speaking of Katie, she’s in the kitchen at NNT with Louise, the ratchild. Louise is scoffing cereal and - the writers show that they are at least familiar with Dickens and Oliver Twist here - asks for more. Katie is amazed. That would be her third bowl of cereal! But Louise insists that she’s hungry, and showing that she’s the greedy child of a greedy mother, takes not one, but two boxes of cereal and empties their contents into her bowl.
And now a visit to Sitcom House! Marty is situated in the sitcom lounge when the front door opens and Dire blows in like a hearty gale. She’s only forgotten her scissors - that one will use any excuse to ‘pop’ home of a day. She informs Marty that she’d left Ant to stay with Brigid that morning. Marty asks how the boy was when she left him, and Dire replies that he seemed OK. At least he seems happier since they had decided to keep him off school.
Er, speaking of that, Marty begins, he’s just got a phone call from Mrs Plummer. The head’s requested that Marty stop by the school today for an unofficial interview with her, concerning Antony.
Dire raises her steely eyebrows, dangerously coming close to cracking her mask of plaster-of-Paris make-up. (Sincerest of seasonal apologies to the Dire-Defenders, especially he who has the thinnest of skins when it comes to taking criticism). Well, she remarks, maybe Mrs Plummer has come to realise that Ant isn’t the bad guy in this situation!
Marty is having his doubts about keeping the boy off school, especially since, with Dire working, he’s forced to spend his days in the company of Brigid. Dire’s infamous brows knit together ominously. Just what does Marty mean by that inference?
Well, Marty stammers, face it. Not many lads get bullied by girls, and if he’s getting a lot of ‘love-thy-neighbour’ rubbish stuffed down his throat by Brigid, it can’t be doing him any good. The lad does seem to have a lot of old fashioned ideas.
‘Don’t even go there, Marty!’ Warns Dire.
She continues by telling him to make sure that Mrs Plummer knows how concerned the Murrays are about the treatment Ant’s been receiving at the hands of the bullies. What she wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall at that ‘unofficial’ meeting. And Marty should make sure he doesn’t take any nonsense off that one. Just because Mrs Plummer’s his boss, doesn’t mean Marty can take any kind of dross off her.
Jimmy arrives back at Hotel Corkhill bearing a Christmas tree to be decorated. He’s greeted at the door by a worried, balloon-infested bimbo. She’s clearly disappointed to see Jim on his own. She was hoping Tim would be with Jimmy.
Jimmy is philosophical. Sometimes these things take longer than expected. Emily should learn to be patient. Emily moans about having to work. That Dire Murray’s a real slave-driver, she says.
Runs in the family, quips Jimmy, as he puts the tree up, the way that Christy Murray and Leanne were at the bar. Still, at least Jim gets the day off Christmas Eve.
Emily screws her forehead up, looking more and more like ET in drag. She’s worried about Tim, she confesses. He hasn’t called her at all and he’s been gone for days. Does Jimmy have any idea at all where he might be?
Now, Jimmy soothes her, Tim has to go where the ‘work’ is. He might be in Land’s End, or John O’Groats ... Maybe even sur le Continent.
Boot ... ‘E ‘asn’ called ‘er, Em whines.
Well, he won’t have time to, reasons Jimmy, if he’s robbing a bank in Madrid or something.
This doesn’t quell Emily’s worries, however.
Leanne sits in the office of the bar, phone in hand. She holds the receiver as the line rings and rings and no one answers. As she replaces the handset, she gazes sadly at a framed photo on the desk of her and Christy in happier times.
Nisha enters the kitchen at NNT, booted and suited and ready to go out. Louise the ratchild is there with Katie. Nisha announces that she’s off to the supermarket to do the big shop for Christmas. Katie asks why she’s doing the Christmas shopping today.
Because she has to work until late on Christmas Eve and so does Katie, reminds Nisha.
Katie’s made a mug of tea and hands it to Louise with the instructions to take it through to the bedroom to her mother, Sammy.
Louise looks at Nisha and in a very odd Harry Potterish posh voice (remembering that the previous evening, Louise had a mingeing, Scally accent), asks if the local schools are good.
Nisha asks Louise if she won’t be returning to her old school. Sounding like a poor little rich ‘gel’ in an Enid Blyton novel, Louise answers politely that she ‘won’t be returning to her old school. Something to do with school fees. No one ever tells her anything.’ And she disappears into the bedroom with Lady Muck’s mug of tea.
Nisha, beginning to get royally fed up with running a B and B for the Rogers family, asks Katie sarcastically if anymore of Katie’s family were showing up for the holidays. And how long did this lot plan to stay? Nisha rightly ascertains that Louise’s school fees haven’t been paid and, as a result, the child has been asked to leave the school.
Yes, Katie confirms, and apparently the girl travelled all the way from her school on her own on the train last night. Sammy was really distressed about it.
Yeah, sure, smirks Nisha, she’s so distressed that she’s having a lie-in, while Katie uses her day off to look after Louise.
Only until Sammy wakes up, Katie reminds her. After that, the day was her own.
Nisha looks at Katie critically. She certainly hopes Katie is going to use part of that day off to make a trip around Jacqui’s and apologise.
Katie lowers her eyes, shamefully. She was thinking about that, she admits.
Nisha shakes her head. She can’t believe Katie would try to do something like what she did to Jacqui.
‘You mean break up a relationship,’ says Katie, taking a dig at Nisha’s history with Jerome and Nikki.
Nisha defends herself. She never started out intentionally to break up Jerome and Nikki. In fact, Jerome did the job mostly, himself. But that was just a boy and girl going steady. Katie tried to break up a marriage, for Christ’s sake. Nisha advises her harshly to ‘get a grip.’
And she leaves to do the shopping.
After she goes, Lady Muck makes an appearance, looking the worse for wear and showing her thunder thighs under her jim-jams. She’s shattered, she announces. As soon as she’s got herself together, she’s going to give that school a right mouthful.
Katie points out to her sister that the fees haven’t been paid.
Yes, they have, insists Sammy. There was just some cock-up with the bank transfer or something.
Katie tells Sammy that she’s going to see Jacqui later that day, in order to apologise for what they tried to do.
Sammy protests. That’s exactly what Jacqui Dixon wants, she shouts, Katie grovelling on her doorstep.
Katie says she can’t believe that she ever let Sammy talk her into doing something that low to Jacqui and Max.
Jacqui deserved it, Sammy argues, and that Max is just a perv - making Sammy strip like that.
Jacqui and Max, both wearing fleeces in the cold set of the house, sit at the Farnham table, surveying the finished Christmas cards. Max picks up the torn and shredded card addressed to Katie. Jacqui rolls her eyes and twists her mouth, admitting that after she addressed the card, she didn’t feel such good tidings of great joy toward Katie.
Max muses a paraphrase of the Twelve Days of Christmas: ‘On the fifth day of Christmas, my good friend sent to me ... A vat of poison.’
Jacqui thinks that that’s the end of the Katie jihad. They should hear no more from her. Well, Max observes, wearily, he hopes that Katie’s particular brand of hatred isn’t aimed in their direction anymore.
Jimmy has encouraged the Mekon into helping him decorate the Hotel Corkhill Christmas tree. He’s asking Emily what she and Tim had planned for Christmas - going to Jessie’s?
Only for their tea, Emily says. She had thought of doing a Christmas dinner, herself, for Tim and Jimmy. (Emily cook? Emily cook a turkey? Who would eat after Emily?)
Jimmy’s grateful. Time was, he says, that a girl of Emily’s age would have been doing Chrimbo dinner for her oosbund and a couple of kids of her own.
Emily asks Jimmy what was the longest length of time he’d been on a job.
Well, Jimmy reminisces, he spent a weekend trying to knock through a wall into a jewelry shop once.
Was the job a success? Emily asks.
Er, well, no ... It seems Jimmy’s mate read the plans upside down. So they ended up knocking into a fishmongers’.
Emily wails that she’s tried calling and texting Tim, but she’s got no reply.
She doesn’t want to be doing that, Jim warns. Remember the last time she was texting him messages. Steve Murray heard it and decked him.
Oh, Tim’s got his phone on vibrate, Emily preens.
But he might be someplace where he can’t get a mobile signal, reasons Jimmy. Like on the Continent, maybe. Emily should be patient, he urges.
Then he tries the Christmas tree lights. They don’t work.
‘Every flamin’ year,’ Jimmy mutters.
Interlude: There’s a shot of a ringing mobile, lying intact on a deserted beach.
Leanne is holding a ringing handset in her hand, when there’s a buzz on the office door. Looking at the CCTV, Leanne sees Rachel waiting at the door, holding Beth in her arms. Leanne presses the button to allow her entry. Rachel comes in, speaking in her annoying, pleading voice. She’s ever so sorry, boot she’s got to cr-eye off work today, she explains, pitifully. M-eye-ke got called on an emergency security job at Macclesfield and he had to go as they really need moo-neh. ‘N there’s noone to look after Beth -
‘What would you do if yer fella didn’t coom back?’ Interrupts Leanne abruptly.
Rachel is puzzled because she’s dim and doesn’t understand the gist of the question. Does Leanne mean Christy?
Leanne nods. She thinks he’s dumped her.
Christy? Repeats Leanne. Wh-eye, Christy luvs Leanne. ‘E’s crazy about ‘er, anyone can see that.
Leanne is doubtful, but Rachel tries to encourage her. Christy’s joost doin’ whut mos’ lads do this t-eye-me year. Wh-eye, she bets ‘e’ll be back ter-mor-reh with soom daft sto-reh.
Rachel is certain that Christy will return. She’s only too sor-reh she can’t work today.
Leanne, however, thinks she has a solution to that problem. She’ll look after Beth.
Rachel isn’t certain she’s heard Leanne correctly. Leanne look after Beth?
Coom on, says Leanne, insulted, she isn’t the Wicked Witch of the West. Besides, it would take her mind off Christy.
Rachel begins to thank her profusely, before Leanne suddenly remembers her image and roughly orders Rachel to just go home and get Beth’s bottle and nappies and whatever, if she wants to keep her job.
Nisha still hasn’t left to do the Christmas shopping and asks Sammy the whereabouts of Louise, thinking the ratchild would like to accompany her to the supermarket. Sammy, apparently unconcerned, tells Nisha that she’s sent Louise on a message. (Aside: This is the first time I’ve heard what I presumed to be a Scots’ term in England. It was carried over by the Scots’ settlers in Colonial America, and is used frequently to this day in my state to mean ‘go on an errand’.)
On her own? Asks Nisha, concerned that a child so young (well, Louise is supposed to be ten) could be trusted to do something like that.
Louise is very independent, assures Sammy. (She’d have to be, with Sammy as her mother). Anyway, she only sent her to the garage. They were out of teabags.
Nisha, trying to be tactful, tells Sammy that Louise intimated that there was a problem with her school fees. Sammy is forced to admit that there were a few small difficulties that had to be ironed out.
What about Richard, Sammy’s husband? Nisha asks. Isn’t this his responsibility? And where does he stand in all this? Sammy hadn’t once mentioned calling him since she arrived.
Katie needs her, Sammy insists. She’ll stay as long as she’s needed.
Katie’s on the mend, Nisha tells her.
Jacqui is seated on the Farnham sofa, playing with Emma, when Max, who’s just answered the doorbell, tells her that she has a visitor. Carrying the child in her arms, Jacqui goes to the front door to find Katie on the doorstep, looking shameful and crest-fallen.
What does she want? Jacqui asks, brusquely.
‘To apologise,’ mumbles Katie, not meeting Jacqui’s eyes.
Jacqui’s unimpressed. ‘Forget it,’ she dismisses her, struggling with the wiggling Emma (who obviously sees her mother off-camera). ‘Don’t waste my time. I’ve got things to do.’
Besides, she continues, how can she ever believe a single word Katie has to say again after what she and Sammy tried to do?
Katie agrees woefully, but she must talk to Jacqui.
At that moment, Max appears behind Jacqui, protective of his wife. Jacqui doesn’t want to hear anymore of what she has to say and leaves the doorway. Max tells Katie succinctly that perhaps she’d best leave and not return.
He shuts the door, but Katie won’t be deterred. She shouts and pleads for Jacqui to hear her out. She’ll remain on that doorstep, she says, until Jacqui agrees to talk to her.
Inside the house, Jacqui and Max exchange concerned looks. It’s freezing out there, says Max, finally. She’ll be gone after about five minutes, he reckons, hopefully.
Emily is still trying to reach Tim by his mobile. All she gets is his voice mail, she wails to Jimmy in her awful, awful voice. And when she sent him text messages, he didn’t answer. That’s it. She’s worried. She’s ‘ad enoof. She’s phoning the bizzies.
The bizzies! Jimmy’s horrified. Perhaps she’d like to remember that Tim was on licence. If he’s caught, then he gets sent back inside.
Boot, she stammers, what if ‘e’s dead?
Well, if that had been the case, Jimmy reasons, the bizzies would have been checking here to verify Tim’s address. And he warns her with finality NOT to phone Tim again.
Interlude II: We see an apparently unconscious Tim lying on a cold beach. (Pity, he’s not dead).
Katie still stands on the Farnham doorstep. Max glances out the window, amazed that she’s still there. He determines to tell her to go, once more, but Jacqui stops him.
Perhaps, it would be best if she just talked to Katie, she says. That way, it would put an end to the situation and Katie would go. Max reluctantly agrees and takes the children out of the way.
Jacqui grimly opens the door. Katie repeats that she only wants to apologise to Jacqui.
Again, Jacqui reiterates: How is she ever going to trust Katie after this? How can she ever believe another thing that Katie says? She and Sammy, Jacqui says, tried to ruin her marriage to Max.
Katie miserably agrees, ashamed of herself and what she had done. She didn’t realise, she explains, how much she hated Jacqui, especially whenever she saw her with Max.
Jacqui tells Katie that what she did wasn’t done just out of anger - it was also sly and stupid.
Katie again agrees, almost in tears. She realised that she no longer had a future with Clint now that he was dead, and she was determined that Jacqui shouldn’t have a future with Max either. So she tried to split them up. She even wished that Jacqui were dead. And Jacqui doesn’t have to speak to her anymore if she doesn’t want to, Katie finishes, because she, Katie, deserves everything that comes her way.
The miserable, greasy creature turns to leave, but Jacqui stops her, inviting her into the warm in a most Christian gesture.
Interlude III: A lone figure is walking on the beach, when he spies the unconscious Tim lying in the distance.
Rachel arrives at the bar, with Beth in her pushchair. Leanne greets her. Rachel asks if she’s heard anything from Christy.
Leanne shakes her head. She’s been trying his mobile all day, and she instructs Rachel to bring the baby through to the office. Rachel witters about bringing the pushchair. That way, Leanne can take Beth out for a walk if she wanted.
No, thanks, says Leanne. She’d better remain in the office and stay by the phone, in case Christy called.
Interlude IV: The loner on the beach is seen to dial a number on his mobile phone as he eyes Tim lying in the distance.
Lady Muck and the ratchild are alone in the NNT flat, sitting on the sofa. Louise, reverting to her normal scally voice, asks her ‘Moom’ where she’s going to go to school. Sammy, bored with the child’s questions, tries to ignore her, telling the kid not to bother her, as she fumbles in her purse.
But Louise the ratchild persists. She wants to go back to Ravenscrest, her old school. Why can’t she go?
Sammy tells Louise not to question her so. She tells the child to remember that she’s an adult and therefore, Louise should have respect for her. She hands the girl some money, telling her to go to the garage and buy some lemmo for Sammy. When the child leaves, Sammy begins to scrounge through the flat until she finds a bottle of vodka and pours herself a generous helping.
Interlude V: The loner is taking instructions from an unseen voice on his mobile, telling him to check for a pulse in Tim’s neck.
Marty Murray is tucking into a hearty meal at the bar, when he’s accosted by his brassy wife. (Question: I thought that the Murrays were skint. So Marty can afford a lunch out).
Dire demands to know what the head, Mrs Plummer, had to say for herself.
It was OK, says Marty.
So, assumes Dire, she’s going to expel Imelda Clough?
No, admits Marty, and Dire knows that the head can’t do that. But Mrs Plummer WAS on their side. And she said that there was nothing she could do as long as the Murrays insisted on keeping Ant off school.
So what does she plan on doing when Ant returns? Asks Dire.
Why, er, try to get the school anti-bullying policy to work, stutters Marty.
This is too much for Dire, who explodes with sarcasm. That one, meaning Mrs Plummer, should have a career in politics!
Hang on a minute, Marty quells her. He wants to remind Dire that he’s a pig in the middle of this situation. The head didn’t say so in so many words, but she did want Marty to know that if this situation with keeping Ant at home continued, it wouldn’t go down well at all with the governors, especially since Marty was a staff member.
Dire reckons that the head is trying to blackmail Marty and says so.
Katie sits in Jacqui’s front room, relating her side of events leading up to the scam on Jacqui and Max. It was all Sammy’s idea, Katie admits.
But that was no reason for Katie to agree to go along with the plan, remarks Jacqui.
Well, yes, it was, argues Katie. It was a family thing, Sammy trying to help Katie get back at Jacqui. She had to go along with it, like Anthea went along with lying for Ron.
That has nothing to do with it and Katie knows it, says Jacqui, determinedly. And Anthea didn’t lie for Ron. She was merely doing what any wife would do, trying to protect and defend her husband. And anyway, what difference was it if it were five seconds or even three or two between the time Ron shouted at Clint and the time he fired the gun? Anthea said what she THOUGHT was right.
Katie narrows her beady eyes and stares at Jacqui. Does Jacqui mean to say that if Max killed someone, she would stand by him?
Of course she would, Jacqui argues. It’s what a wife does. She would stand by him and do everything she could to try to keep him out of prison. And if Clint had done something like that, Katie would have done exactly the same.
Katie looks at Jacqui and squirms uncomfortably. Well, maybe she would.
Yes, Jacqui tells her, she would.
Well, Katie remarks, Clint’s not around, is he, to put that theory into practice.
Jerome pops into the bar and asks Rachel, who’s serving, if she’s seen Nikki. Rachel tells Jerome that Nikki’s not due in until later. (You’d think Jerome, living with Nikki, would know her work schedule). As he turns to go, he’s greeted by the mystery woman from the bingo club, who enters.
She suggests a drink to Jerome, but he demurs, saying he’s skint. She, however, offers to buy him a drink and asks when he’s working at the club again. Jerome says he’s working the next night and so is she. She asks if he plans on bringing back his friend with the winning streak.
Does she mean Ray? Jerome asks. He’s actually married to Jerome’s girlfriend’s grandmother.
Oh, remarks the woman, clearly interested, then he’s NOT really her grandfather?
No, confirms Jerome, Ray and Jessie have only been married a short time.
He seems like a nice fella, the woman comments.
Maybe she’s interested in his cashflow of three grand, Jerome jokes.
The woman laughs uneasily. Well, she admits that she likes her men mature, but not frayed around the edges.
The Coast Guard ambulance has arrived and drives toward the loner and Tim.
Rachel enters the bar office to find Beth settled happily in her pushchair and Leanne sitting despondently nearby. Rachel compliments her on settling Beth down so well. But Leanne is not interested.
She’s convinced that Christy has definitely dumped her.
Rachel reckons he just got tanked up like most lads do. He’ll sleep it off and be fine.
Leanne sobs that the two of them were supposed to be going Chrimbo shopping today and having lunch in town. Christy wouldn’t have missed today for anything.
Nisha enters NNT, laden with Christmas supplies. Louise willingly helps her with the bags and Nisha thanks her for being such a good girl. By the way, she asks Louise, where’s Louise’s mum?
Wordlessly, Louise points to the sofa, where Sammy lies curled up, cuddling an empty glass. An empty bottle of vodka lies on the floor beside the sofa.
Tim is lifted into the Coast Guard ambulance and whisked away.
Dire has now ordered a meal with which to stuff her fat face at the bar, but she spends more time gobbing off at Marty for his failure to stand up to Mrs Plummer. If this woman is blackmailing Marty, she rants, he’d be best going to his union.
But what Mrs Plummer said, says Marty, actually made sense. The longer the Murrays kept Antony off school, the longer the lad will feel more out of the school situation. He’ll become more and more isolated. She had asked Marty to use the Christmas holidays to think about the situation as regards Antony. And she reminded him that if the Murrays persisted in keeping the lad off school, the education authority would be forced to prosecute them. The long and short of it is that they have to consider sending Antony back to school.
Dire has only listened superficially to what her reasonable husband has said. She only wants to know why it’s taken the school so bloody long to sort this thing out?
Jacqui and Katie still face each other in the Farnham front room. Jacqui admits that the two of them will never see eye-to-eye about Clint and what happened. But they do have to decide if they want to continue their friendship.
Katie defers to Jacqui. That’s up to Jacqui to decide, although, she, Katie, would understand if Jacqui didn’t want to be friends, after everything that Katie has done.
Jacqui understands why Katie’s done what she did the past several months. She wimps out and decides that the Katie-Jacqui axis should continue. (Has Brookside ever heard of ‘moving on’ - i.e., Alex Fletcher moving onto another dimension with her character - that of wife and mother - and Diane Burke moving onto the dole queue for untalented actresses?)
The two share a cry and a cuddle and reconcile and - hey presto - just like Nikki Shadwick’s alcoholism, their feud is a thing of the past.
Tim has been transferred to an NHS ambulance and is being wheeled on a gurney into the A & E department of a hospital.
Jimmy returns to the Close and spies the Mekon looking out the window, her orange, plastic face smeared with tears. He enters the house with concern, thinking that perhaps the tart has heard something.
Emily shakes her plastic Mekon head. No, she’s tried his mobile, but wasn’t getting anything.
Jimmy tries to reason with her. Tim could be anywhere, he says.
No, soomthink bad’s ‘appened, Emily states. She feels it.
We feel it too ... It’s called boredom.
Summary © 2001 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2001