I am a child of the Seventies, coming of age then. So who remembers the classic Deep Purple track, the driving bass guitar ... Da da DAAAA da da da-DAAAAAAA da da DAAA da da ... That’s the way Brookside should have begun tonight. Smoke on the Close, as such. It was a good episode, overall, but it had its weaknesses - namely Emily, Nikki and Jerome. But it showed a bit of what Brookside was of old - interaction of ALL characters in one major storyline. As Mr Redmond’s fellow Labour bigots sang in 1997, things can only get better - because they sure as hell can’t get any worse.
The Hilton bungalow burns savagely as Dim and Plank lead a now-conscious Ray and Jessie away from the flames. Jacqui is seen briefly in the middle of the Close, staring at the fire, and Marty and Dire Murray emerge from Sitcom House. Jimmy is also in the middle of the Close, ‘helpfully’ directing the fire bobbies here and there.
Inside the inferno, Jerome still relaxes in the bath. Suddenly his attention is diverted to some sort of rucus outside, and turning his head, he sees smoke seeping under the bathroom door.
The firemen are asking the quivering mass of panicking flesh that are Nikki and the plastic sex toy, if anyone else is in the house, when Jimmy butts in peremptorily and informs them that there was only an ‘old couple’ inside. As Dim and Plank stagger past, wrapped in fire brigade blankets to get a toot of oxygen from the back of the ambulance, Jimmy hails them as heroes.
Jessie is strapped to a paramedical gurney with an oxygen mask over her face. She’s conscious and moves the mask to ask the girls what caused the place to go up in smoke. Nikki soothes her, telling her to put the mask back on.
Max rushes up to Jacqui, who’s still standing in the middle of the Close, to ask what happened, and Jacqui tells him about the bungalow catching fire.
Jerome has managed to get out of the bath and staggers to the bathroom door, banging on it. Now, boys and girls, we know that Jerome was taking a bath. We know, being good viewers and intelligent people, that when a body gets in the bath tub, he/she is naked as the day the were born. We know that Jerome probably didn’t take the time to drape a towel around his manhood when he staggered to the door. BUT the Brookside production crew, WANT us to see a gratuitous shot of Leon Lopez standing in the altogether banging on the bathroom door. It’s gratuitous and gives the female ladolescent wankers a chance to coo and play with themselves whilst fantasising. It puts a bit of sex in the proceedings. It’s insulting.
Whilst Dim and Plank sit on the back of a fire engine, tooting oxygen, the
plastic Mekon appears and drapes herself over Dim’s lap, smothering his
face with another obscene kiss. Marty hovers nearby Plank, suggesting that maybe
the lads should go to casualty to get checked out. Plank brushes this suggestion
aside, as Dim continues getting the kiss of life from the
sex toy.
Dire is outside with Marty, but she spies Adele and the Antichrist standing in the frame of the front door of Sitcom House. The Antichrist takes a few steps forward, obviously hoping to offer comfort and blessing to the afflicted, only to be sharply shouted at by his stepmother, who tells him to get back inside.
Plank, meanwhile, is well chuffed with himself and tells his dad about his exploits in saving Ray and Jessie. The fire brigade reckoned that he ant Dim were the heroes of Brookside Close. Marty is clearly proud and turns to relate the tale to his hard-faced missus, standing nearby.
Dire, however, is less than pleased to hear about this. In fact, she’s horrified. Plank went into a burning house? She queries, screwing up her plaster-of-paris-caked face and bulging her eyes out. Suddenly she tears about, smacking and beating the lad over the head, viciously, whilst calling him a stupid fool.
Plank protests that he had to do what he did. He saved two peoples’ lives.
But he could have got killed, himself, shrieks the selfish Dire.
Marty pulls her off his son, telling her that the important thing was that Plank was alive and well and that he thought enough of others to risk his life trying to save them.
Dire snorts, dismissively. He risked his life without thinking of the consequences, she mutters, petulantly, the selfish bitch.
As Max and Jacqui stand watching the inferno, Rachel rushes up, breathlessly gasping that she had gotten the kids out of the Farnham house. It was now filled with smoke. Max tells Jacqui that they had better get the children elsewhere. The fumes from the fire might be toxic.
Where should they go? Asks Jacqui.
Max suggests taking them to the Health Club.
We get a gratuitous shot of Jerome, lying, bum up. on the bathroom floor.
Jessie is now being lifted into the back of an ambulance, ready to depart. Nikki explains to her Nan that she’s being taken to hospital. Emily volunteers to accompany her. (What a comfort that must be to Jessie, not!)
Tim and Nikki volunteer to remain on the scene. Marty is asking Plank if he thinks he should go to the hospital, just to get checked out, when he passes Max and Jacqui. Max stops briefly to tell Marty that he and Jacqui were taking the kids, along with Rachel, who’s mentally a child, to the Club, as their house was filled with smoke. In the first time EVER a Murray has interacted with another family, Marty immediately volunteers to let the Farnhams and Dixons shelter in Sitcom House.
He motions to Dire to help round the kids into the house, but she’s suddenly become absorbed in watching the fire rage. He has to jostle her physically into action.
Jimmy, Nikki and Dim stand watching the burning. Nikki is bemoaning the loss of all their possessions, but Dim tells her not to worry. The important thing is that everyone got out alive. That’s right, Jimmy echoes. The house and all in it was just stuff. At least Ray and Jessie were alive. Nikki’s been trying to get hold of Jerome to apprise him of the situation, but his mobile is just ringing and ringing. Meanwhile, Jimmy invites all the fire bobbies around to Jimily House for some tea.
Nikki wonders if she should go around to the bingo club. It wouldn’t due for Jerome to show up, unaware of what had happened.
Inside Sitcom House, Max, Jacqui, Rachel and the kids are sitting with the Murrays in the sitcom lounge. Adele is standing at the front window. Dire sharply orders the girl to stop gawking and go make everyone some tea. She then takes Adele’s place to gawk, herself, wondering aloud in relief that everyone was saved. Max wonders what started the fire, but Marty admits that he doesn’t know.
Rachel then makes a very sage observation. Oooh, she begins, she thought she were havin’ it bad, wi’ bein floooooded’n all tha’, boot a’ least owse didn’ catch fi-eh!
Nikki is still trying to reach Jerome, when Jimmy urges her to come back to Jimily House and ring on the land phone there. Nikki demurs, saying that she feels obliged to stand and watch her home burn until there was nothing left. Suddenly, she’s aware, amongst all the pandemonium, that she has a text message. She reads the earlier message from Jerome, telling her that he was waiting for her in the bath.
Nikki becomes a typical hysterical Shadwick, shrieking at the top of her hoarsey lungs that Jay was inside the bungalow and pleading with the firemen to get him out.
We see a brief shot of a fire bobby breaking through the house to the bathroom door, where he reaches down and drags Jerome, still bum up, through to the hallway. We next see two firemen carrying Jerome, now draped modestly with a towel outside. He’s put on the ground, as Nikki does her Margi party act of screaming and pleading with Jerome to wake up and talk to her, as the camera executes an overhead shot of Jerome’s seemingly lifeless body.
Now it’s the morning after, and the bungalow is a burned-out shell in the light of day. Dim and Emily walk inside to survey the blackened damage. Emily starts to cry, but the viewers are unmoved, we hate her so much. Dim must be having an off day too, because he moves unsympathetically away from her horrible, little, screwed-up, plastic, orange face.
The Mekon tries to gaze forlornly out through the remains of the extension, asking rhetorically why this had to happen? We ask, ‘Why weren’t you inside the fire, bitch?’
The scene is supposed to be poignant. Suffice it to say that it is not.
A taxi arrives outside and - miracle of miracles! - Jerome steps whole and healthy from the interior, followed by Nikki. They, too, take a walk to look at what’s left of the house. Curiously enough, does Margi know what happened? Has she been told? Has Vonnie, as Jerome’s next-of-kin, been told about his predicament? Hmmm ... How quickly Brookside thinks we forget!
Dimily still stand in the middle of the rubble within. Dim makes the profound statement that the important thing was that no one was killed in the fire. Emily, who thinks life exists for material comforts, remarks that her Nan has lost everything in the ‘stupid fire. (What a pity she didn’t lose you, you arsehole!)
As Nikki and Jerome enter, Dim asks how Jerome is. He responds that he’s all right, but Nikki informs them that Ray and Jessie are being kept in for an extra day for observation ... BECAUSE THEY ARE OLD. (Ah, the tactless truth of New Labour!)
Emily appears to frown, but that’s only her normal expression. She obviously needs some more botox injections in her forehead.
Nikki and Jerome wander into what used to be the bathroom. Jerome picks up the singed remnants of his CD Walkman and then finds his scorched mobile phone. Foolishly, he wonders aloud if he can still get it to work. Nikki is concerned and asks how he’s faring. Jerome remarks that he’s tired, but he’s OK.
Meantime, Emily has found something in the ruins. It’s what’s left of a framed photo of Greg and Jason. She starts to cry. We start to laugh. This is the only picture of her father and brother that she has left, she blubs. Dim is amazed. Doesn’t she have any pictures of them over at Jimmy’s?
No, she sobs. She kept all of them here, because she didn’t want to lose them.
Well, what about Margi? Surely, she must have some with her in Brussel.
No, sighs Emily. She has one of Greg, taken when he was about nineteen, but that was way before she was even born (implying that that makes it unimportant).
Jimmy ambles onto the scene, complaining about the smell of smoke that’s pervading the Close. Mind you, Jim states, you should see the state of his washing in the back garden.
This remark incurs the wrath of Emily and provokes usage of her gratingly awful voice. Just look at this mess! Why, this was all that was left of everything her Nan owned, and all he was worried about was his poxy washing.
Jimmy ignores this remark and suggests that everyone there would be better off at Jimily House, where he would rustle them all up some breakfast. He stops Nikki and Jerome, telling them that they were more than welcome to stay at his, thus reincarnating Jimily House as Hotel Corkhill, once more. Oh, and by the way, he continues, he was talking to one of theose fire bobby fellas, who told him that the fire appeared to have been started by a candle atop the television set. It melted down and caught the telly afire.
Nikki starts to agonise. This was all her fault, she moans to Jeorme. Everyone almost died because of her. Her dad had spent most of the last years of his life, renovating that bungalow, and in the course of an evening, she had destroyed it.
Emily mutters rhetorically that at least everyone was alive.
Meanwhile, at Chateau Farnham, Jacqui and Rachel are beginning the task of clearing up the smoke smell. They are washing down the walls. Jacqui, scrubbing hard, remarks that in a few weeks’ time, the builders would be in ripping all this old stuff out. She wondes aloud to Rachel if the Hiltons had insurance.
Mike returns from his night shift, having seen Dim outside, who told him what had happened. Mike remarks briefly that Jerome was lucky, and asks if the Dixons and Farnhams are all right. Without any further thought, Mike, who’s as shallow as Emily, asks for something to eat.
Outside in the Close, Dim is talking to Plank. Apparently, they had plans to spend the day flogging the booze, but Dim now thinks it best that he stay with Emily. Plank says he needs the money and Dim reminds him that he has a list of customers to pursue. Dim reckons it won’t take them that long to get shot of the ale.
Plank re-enters Sitcom House, where everyone is giving Ant a pep talk prior to his returning to school. Ant is making objections about going. Marty tries to convince him that Paige and Imelda wouldn’t be bullying him now. Ant thinks that the situation will be worse for him.
Marty reminds him that he’ll be arriving at school a bit later than the others and that he’ll be leaving earlier. When he leaves, either Marty, Dire or Plank will always be on hand to meet him. And Mrs Plummer won’t let the bullying start again. Ant should forget the incident the best he could and get on with his schoolwork.
Ant protests vainly that everyone would be watching him at school as soon as they knew what was up.
Jacqui has just got off the phone with the Health Club, and she’s in high dander. She’s also developed a particulary nasty cough. Fancy that, she begins, she was all ready to go to the club and have it out with that Sammy Rogers, only to be told that Sammy’s taken the day off - and to visit some posh private school with her daughter! Well, when Jacqui got through with Sammy, Sammy would be history at that club! She starts to cough again.
Rachel thinks the cough is due to smoke inhalation from the night before and suggests that Jacqui should see a doctor. As she has another coughing fit, Jacqui decides to take Rachel’s advice, telling Mike and Rachel that she’s going to see about getting an appointment with Dr Parr and she leaves for the walk-in centre.
Rachel continues cleaning the walls, as Mike the eternal ingrate, sits down grudgingly. That’s just typical, he mutters, discontentedly. Here they were again, being used as an unpaid live-in housemaid and babysitter for the Farnhams. Mike mutters that he’s going to put the dehumidifier on next door and think about the letter that they had to write to the Count y Court.
The Murrays are still trying to gee Ant up for going to school. Dire spares a thought for Jerome and the Shadwick girls. They must be in shock, she reckons. Marty announces that he feels as though the Murrays should do something.
Adele enters the room and asks Ant if he’s ready to go to school. Ant takes a deep breath and leaves with Adele, as Marty assures him that those two girls won’t come near him.
Nikki and Jerome are standing by Jerome’s Golf, when Jerome realises that his keys were left inside the bungalow. Now he’ll have to pay to have a duplicate set made. And more money will be wasted in costs of cabs.
Nikki stares sadly at the bungalow, remarking that Jessie’s life had been blown to bits by this. She’d probably never get over it. GET REAL! THIS IS SUBLIME AGEISM HERE! Nikki should realise that her grandmother is made of sterner stuff - she’s lived through the Blitz as a child, lost a boyfriend in the Suez Crisis, had an abortion, was widowed and left with a young child and lost her son and grandson. Jessie is tough as old boots. It’s Nikki who’s the weak one.
This was all her fault, all because she planned on that stupid, romantic dinner for her nan and Ray. Jerome gives her a look of surprise. He thought the candlelit dinner was meant for him.
Nikki then tells Jerome about the confusion over the ‘other woman’ in Ray’s life. It seems that Jerome’s mate, Helen, from the bingo club, is actually Ray’s daughter.
Does Jessie know? Asks Jerome.
Nikki nods. The child was the result of an adulterous affair with a woman named Sylvia Morgan. Jessie was angry with Ray for keeping her existence a secret. Jerome is shocked, never imagining Ray capable of such a thing.
Nikki tells him that the previous evening, Emily was all for kicking Ray out. Well, Jerome admits, sheepishly, Emily had never really forgiven him for his faux pas with Nisha.
Emily has been trying to sleep, but hasn’t really, because she’s still wearing her make-up, which leads one to believe that if she takes her make-up off, her face will fall apart. She enters the lounge of Hotel Corkhill to find Tim cutting away the burnt bits of the photo of Greg and Jason. He promises Emily to try to fix the photo for her. She hugs Tim and asks him what she would ever do without him - after all, he saved Jessie’s life. The rest of the scene it too pointless, irrelevant and boring to describe.
Ant walks tentatively down the school corridor and starts to climb the stairs, when he sees Imelda and Paige stomb purposely toward him from above. Much to his surprise, they pass on either side of him and carry on their way. Ant breathes a sigh of relief.
Rachel sits at the table in the Farnham kitchen, laboriously writing the letter to the County Cork, tongue held consciously between her teeth. Mike enters via the back door. He tells her that, even though the dehumidifiers were full, the house still felt damp to him - meaning, why not scrounge off the rich relatives for a few more days?
Rachel pushes the finished letter toward him for his approval, wondering if she should have told the Court about losing her jobs. It might make a difference in their payments and ensure that they get family tax credits.
Rachel is depressed about their financial situation. No matter what they did, it always seems as though they were losing money.
Look, says Mike, they’ll make these loan payments at a low rate for about a year and then they’ll start to save some money. Then things will start to get better for them. Just remember, he tells her, there’s always someone worse off that they are - look at next door. Rachel wonders again if the Hiltons were insured, but just then the key turns in the lock and Mike makes her hide the letter.
Jacqui returns, with the news that Dr Parr has diagnosed a chest infection.
Oooh, witters Rachel, was it becuz o’ fi-eh?
No, Jacqui explains, he thinks she may have caught it on the flight home from France. She’s supposed to keep an eye on the kids with this infection and she’s about to ring Max. Oooh, says Rachel, mebbe Jac-keh ought ter be in bed.
As Jacqui talks in the background on the phone to Max, Mike heads upstairs for a kip.
Ant walks uneasily down the corridor again, between classes. Suddenly, he stops, trembling. There, standing outside a classroom door, staring at him maliciously, are Imelda and Paige. The voice of a teacher inside the classroom, roughly orders the girls inside, and Ant, again, breathes a sigh of relief.
Nikki sits forlornly on the sofa at Hotel Corkhill. Tim and Emily have gone to bed for some kip, she tells Jerome. (Tim and Emily are ALWAYS in bed). Jerome says Nikki should get some sleep as well.
Nikki confesses that she can’t sleep. She’s consumed with guilt for having caused the fire. Everything is gone, she says, beginning to cry. All her coursework is gone too. All her notes, even the laptop.
Jerome murmurs some comforting words. That should be the least of her worries. She could always get an extension for her work. The uni would understand. He was going to do that.
Nikki berates herself even more. She’d forgotten all about poor Jerome’s work, in her self-absorption.
Jerome laughs. Well, actually, all his work and books were in his car, but that wouldn’t stop him from asking for an extension anyway.
Nikki puts her arms around Jerome and cries some more. She put all those candles out, she weeps, and she could have killed him. Thank God for Jerome’s mobile phone. When she realised he was in there, she was frightened. Just think if she hadn’t noticed that he’d texted her. Jerome could be dead. (Don’t worry, he still has a spider atop his head).
Rachel passes Max, on her way to the Dixon house, as Max is returning home. Jacqui can be heard coughing in the lounge. Rachel whispers to Max that Jacqui should be in bed with that cough. As Max enters the lounge, he suggests as much, but Jacqui remarks that she just wants to clean the place and rid the house of the smoke smell. Max insists that she put her feet up. Besides, a solicitor friend of his was in The Shelf earlier and Max had a conversation with him about the Sammy situation.
He tells Jacqui that she COULD sack Sammy, but the fact that Sammy had a 12-month contract MIGHT mean that Jacqui would have to pay Sammy compensation in the form of one year’s salary.
Jacqui points out that she didn’t sign any contract with Sammy, but Max says that Sol did, in the capacity of Health Club manager, so Jacqui was still liable. And if Jacqui were forced to get rid of Sol in this instance, it could cost her more money, in having to pay off his contract as well.
Jacqui, however, remains determined. Sammy Rogers was NOT working in her Health Club, and if she had to sack them both, she would and sod the cost!
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002