It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. There was a Scouser in charge of production in the Southeast and winning all manner of awards; there was a Scouser in charge of production in the Northwest and garnering all kinds of derision. One programme attracts more than 16 million viewers per week. One programme barely ekes 3.5 million. One features hard men who look like they could spit in your eye as well as give a girl a good shag; one features adolescent pretty boys with a penchant for showing naked bums. One features actresses who aren’t afraid, when the scene demands it, to appear without the necessary slap or to look as though they’ve been to hell and back after a hard night in the hay. One features actresses who can curiously awake in the morning, having slept in their make-up without a smudge and with every hair oddly in place. Sex is pristine. No one sweats. One programme will last for years. One will be lucky if it survives this year.
But Friday’s episode was curiously good - perhaps because there was a dearth of the beauty brigade and it featured the central storyline of an elderly couple dealing with the loss of their home and how their calamity touches on the rest of the inhabitants of the Close, causing interaction of the degree that Brookside used to master. Phil Redmond should take heed ... And then he should find out the telephone number of one Matthew Robinson (EE Executive Producer from 1998-2000) and offer him the job of sorting out Brookside.
But I digress. And here’s Friday’s summary, which was actually quite good and much along the lines of what Brookside used to be. (Note the remarkable absences thereof, which could explain why).
Ray and Jessie have returned to the burnt-out shell that was formerly their home. They wander about, wordlessly and slowly, hospital blankets draped about their shoulders, staring, mouths agape in horror and disbelief, at the wide hole where the ceiling once was, and the rubble and detritus that was once a home. Jessie’s face crumples and she begins to cry softly, saying that everything had gone.
They are watched sympathetically from a distance by the Farnhams, Jacqui coughing constantly with her chest infection. She remarks to Max that she feels lucky only to be suffering from a cough. Seeing Ray and Jessie’s plight puts her own problems into perspective. She suggests to Max that they have the Hiltons in for a cup of tea. Max remarks that they look as though they could do with something stronger.
Meanwhile, at the Health Club, Sol is fielding calls at reception when Sammy breezes in, late. (How can ANYBODY be late for a job when they live upstairs?) Well, Sammy is. She smiles sweetly and offers a rapid apology to Sol for her tardiness. She was just about to leave when that good school that she and Louise visited the previous day, phoned. The head said that they were willing to take Louise right away.
Sol cuts her wittering short. He wants Sammy to know, he informs her succinctly, that she’s put him in an extremely awkward situation, and he isn’t referring to her tardiness. Sammy, he says, misled him about the intense personal issues at stake with Jacqui, his boss, in applying for the receptionist’s job. Sammy led him to believe that she and Jacqui were mates.
Wel-l-l, stammers Sammy, looking to gloss the situation over, they were, of a sort. At least, they used to be, ages ago.
But since hiring her, Sol says, he’s learned that she recently tried to break up Jacqui Farnham’s marriage.
Sammy looks shell-shocked.
The Hiltons seem to have wandered over to what appears to be the shed at Hotel Corkhill. Jimmy is encouraging Ray to try on his old leather jacket, whilst Jessie has been supplied with what appears to be one of Jackie’s or Lindsey’s old garage jumpers.The couple are grateful for some warm clothes, and Jimmy regales them with the tale of how one of the fire bobbies had made off with one of his best mugs - the one that RKylie had given him last Christmas, the one that said ‘World’s Best Granddad’.
Jessie reminds Ray that the Farnhams had invited them in for a cup of tea, and she was anxious to check their garage before going over there. Ray, for some reason, isn’t too anxious to delve into the garage. He uses this occasion of their shared trauma to try to apologise to Jessie about Helen again. He supposes aloud that something as monumental as losing their home puts the situation with Helen into perspective. It was all a big fuss about nothing, he declares.
Jessie shoots him one of her eagle-eye looks. The fire, she informs him, shortly, changes absolutely nothing regarding Helen, Sylvia OR Ray. Now, she finishes, they’d best have a quick look in that garage.
Sol is still discussing the employment situation with Sammy, particularly her deception. He tells her in no uncertain terms that it’s down to Sammy to sort these personal issues between her and Jacqui and NOT to bring him into the equation, which is exactly what she HAS done in deceiving him. As a result of this deception, Jacqui has left him with no other option but to ask her to leave.
Sammy desperately begins to try to explain why she lied about her friendship with Jacqui. She uses her best excuse: Louise. She only wanted this job for her daughter’s sake, she says. Louise had always been used to being comfortable in life, to having money. There was no way her daughter could cope with Sammy being on the dole. (There’s no way Sammy could cope with that either).No way would she resign this job. It was the perfect and right job for her.
Dire Murray enters what was formerly the Shrine of the Antichrist to give the room a good tidying. Suddenly, she stands erect, emits a small noise and clutches the side of her lower abdomen. A cramp. This is Brookside’s way of telling us that Dire’s monthly flux has begun. Damn. No new Antichrist.Still, one is too much. Almost as an afterthought, she gazes curiously around the room, as if only noticing something for the first time.
The walls are bare of religious reliquaries, posters, and icons. Opening the bottom section of Ant’s cupboard, she finds the holy stuff packed away. She calls out to Marty, shouting that Antony seems to have taken down all his Sacred Heart of Jesus posters and votive candles (maybe he’s learned a lesson from across the Close).
‘About bloody time too,’ answers Marty.
Ray and Jessie have opened their garage and are eyeing the contents within. There are several buckets of paint still there. Picking one up, Jessie remarks that it’s a good thing the garage didn’t catch alight. Ray has moved suspiciously to an old brown duffle bag on a workshelf, almost guarding it and hoping that Jessie won’t notice his actions.
Jessie is still reflecting on the fire. It’s not the possessions she regrets losing so much, she says. It’s just the photos and sentimental items that have been lost that bothers her. As Ray hovers near the bag, Jessie remarks upon how kind people have been to them. It restores her faith, she says, beckoning Ray to come along to the Farnhams’ before the tea stewed.
Ray remains behind only long enough to sneak a surreptitious look at another saved picture of the young Sylvia Morgan.
Sammy is still arguing the toss about her job with Sol. She reminds him that he gave her a twelve-month contract. A contract, says Sol, is good only on the basis that it’s workable. Did Sammy seriously think that she would be able to work alongside Jacqui day after day?
But Jacqui isn’t here day after day, Sammy points out. She would be working for Sol.
Jacqui had given him an ultimatum, Sol explains. If Sammy remains in the job, Jacqui sacks Sol. With Sol gone, Sammy would have no choice but to deal with Jacqui. Sol suggests that Sammy make things easy on herself and resign. That way, she could at least leave with a good reference.
Sammy scoffs at that idea. Leaving a job after being in it for two days, she says, derisively, what does that look like? Anyway, Sammy preens, it sounds as if Sol doesn’t really want her to go.
Sammy doesn’t understand, says Sol. She doesn’t have a choice. If she doesn’t go, Sol goes. And if she doesn’t resign, he can use her deception as breach of contract and dismiss her.
The Hiltons have, by now, made it over to Chateau Farnham, where they sit at the kitchen table, surrounded and cosseted by Max and Jacqui, as they drink lashings of tea. Jacqui is commiserating with Jessie, recounting how devastated Ron felt when Casa BevRon burned. (Hmmm ... You’d think buildings insurance would come at a premium on Brookside Close, with three houses having been burned and another the victim of an explosion). Jacqui asks the elderly couple if they’d contacted their insurance people. Max wants to know where they’ll be staying in the interim period.
The Hiltons seem bewildered and shell-shocked. Ray admits that he supposes he’ll have to see the insurers today, and Jessie assumes that they’ll stay in a B and B somewhere. Jacqui informs them that the insurance company should pay for that, as it paid for Ron to stay in accommodation.
Jessie is worried about replacing lost items. All the receipts that they had kept were in the house and were destroyed. All they had was what they were wearing. All their chequebooks, bank statements and cash were burned. Jessie says she even lost her purse. Ray ruefully admits that he had a tenner in his back pocket at the time; they couldn’t get very far on that.
Jacqui and Max exchange sympathetic looks over the couple’s heads.
Jimmy, in the meantime, has had to pay a visit to Dr Parr, himself. He injured his hand in the melee of the fire the previous evening. The doctor examines it and tells Jim that the hand’s infected.
Jimmy makes a joke about not wanting his hand chopped off, and dour Dr Parr doesn’t raise a smile. Antibiotics will do the trick, he informs Jimmy. And Jimmy must visit the clinic on a daily basis in order that one of the nurses could change the dressing on the hand. Normally, the doctor continues, he’d be concerned about prescribing antibiotics for Jimmy with him being on the lithium, but since Jimmy hadn’t listened to the doctor about staying on the anti-depressant, why should Dr Parr concern himself as to whether or not Jimmy takes the drugs.
He gives Jimmy a steely-eyed look. It seems to him, Dr Parr says, quite rightly, that Jimmy is only willing to listen to his doctor when the medical problem is one Jim can see, such as the infected hand, whereas Jim’s depression is an ‘unseen illness’ and Jimmy is unwilling to take medical advice.
Jimmy accuses the doctor of trying to force him into making decisions that he reckons are bad for him. Jimmy declares that he wants to be in control of his own life.
Dire has peremptorily summoned poor Marty into the inner sanctum of the Antichrist’s room. She makes a great show of gesturing toward the bare walls and ceremoniously opening the door of the cupboard where the religious gear has been stowed. There, she announces, accusatorily, Ant’s hidden everything after stripping his walls. What’s going on? She demands of Marty. This is HIS influence, isn’t it?
Poor Marty shuffles his feet and scratches the back of his head. He admits that Plank had told him he’d had a chat with Ant about religion, but maybe Dire was making too much of this. After all, Antony WAS nearing his teens. Maybe he was clearing his walls for some of the gumpf normal teenage boys clutter their walls with.
Dire hates the word ‘normal’, maybe because she’s so abnormally hard, and begins to seethes. But why has he hidden his religious posters, she wails. Oh, it means he’s lost his faith, she just knows it.
No, it doesn’t, remarks Ant, who’s walked in on the melodramatic scene. He hasn’t lost his faith at all. And what did his mother mean by thinking that? He just couldn’t win, he says. She moans because he isn’t like other kids and then she moans when he changes. He doesn’t have time to discuss this with her now; he’s late for school. And the biggest religious bigot of all is summarily put in her place. Good.
Back at the surgery, Jimmy is preparing to take his leave of Dr Parr, who reminds him once more that his hand will have to be dressed every day. Jimmy could call into the surgery, he says, and the nurse will see to it - if Jimmy will let her, that is, he adds for good measure. (More and more, I like Dr Parr).
Jimmy counters that there’s only one treatment that he wants to do without and that’s the lithium. And anyway, he asks, Dr Parr referred to the surgery. He thought that the Walk-In Centre was about to become a bona fide surgery.
Dr Parr replies calmly that it will be up and running as a medical centre by Easter. (Does that mean we’ll have a special guest appearance by Alan Milburn?)
Dr Parr asks Jimmy how he’s coping without the lithium, especially with all the fire business happening, which only could serve to cause added stress.
Jimmy piously replies that he was more concerned for the welfare of his neighbours than for his own safety, but the doctor sees through this guise. He tells Jimmy to be honest with him for once.
Jimmy hesitates and unwillingly confesses that he was doing all right until last night. He ‘lost it’ for a few hours, he thinks.
Was it a manic phase? Jimmy asks.
Dr Parr asks Jim to describe what happened and he would assess it. Jimmy explains that he seemed to lose his head for awhile, shouted a bit, ran around under the stress; but the point was he coped with the situation and got through it, even though it wasn’t until hours later that he felt normal. Was Dr Parr perhaps thinking about sectioning him again?
If he truly went through a manic phase, admit the doctor, Jimmy leaves him no choice.
While the Hiltons still sit dejectedly at the Farnhams’ table, Jacqui corners Max in the foyer and asks him to hand over all the money he has on him. Jessie whispers to Ray that she thinks they’ve overstayed their welcome and prepares to leave. As Jacqui and Max re-enter the kitchen, Jessie and Ray thank them for the tea and rise to leave, but Jacqui stops them.
Ray thanks the couple for the tea and the muesli, even though the latter was hard going on his teeth. Max interrupts their thanks to say that he and Jacqui wanted to offer them something more than tea and sympathy. Jacqui hands Jessie the cash - £280.00. She asks the elderly couple not to be offended or embarrassed, just to treat this as a loan to tide them over until the insurance made good their claim. They could use the money to find a B and B and buy themselves a few things to wear. And that wasn’t all - she was going down to the Club later and release some more funds for Ray and Jessie - at least another couple of hundred.
Jessie is near to tears in her gratitude.
After listening to Jimmy’s account of his behaviour during the fire, Dr Parr tells him that he hadn’t suffered a manic phase at all. What he had experienced was a huge rush of adrenalin, which is what anyone would have felt in the situation.
So, reasons Jimmy, he had a normal reaction, like a normal person?
Dr Parr explains that he coped with a high-stress situation. In fact, his body kicked in a chemical reaction.
But, Jimmy reiterates, he coped.
Dr Parr begins to write a lithium prescription. He knows Jimmy will just tear it up, but he tells Jimmy that he’s putting it in Jim’s medical notes that he advised Jimmy to go back onto his medication immediately before he develops a more serious problem, which he will. And as long as he’s off the lithium, he wants Jimmy to keep in regular contact with his psychiatric nurse.
He warns Jimmy that if he thought the episode he experienced the previous night was bad, a real manic phase will make that seem like a walk in the park.
Sammy is now crying on Sol’s shoulder about her desperation for a job. She’s playing the ‘Louise’ card, telling him about how she couldn’t cope with Louise when the child was an infant, because of post-natal depression. She tells him how she rejected her daughter, how she left her in abandoned in her pram outside a hospital.
Sol is sympathetic to her plight. Sammy preys upon it. This is why she needs the job, she pleads. For Louise. She only wanted the best for her daughter, in an attempt to make up for all the bad times she suffered at Sammy’s hands as a baby. She didn’t want the job for Sol’s benefit or to mess Jacqui about; she needed the job to pay for Louise’s school fees.
Sol tells Sammy that Louise loves her; Sammy had no need to buy her child’s love.
Sammy points out that Sol has a wife and child. Surely he’d do anything for them. Well, OK, Sammy did a stupid thing in lying to get this job, but it wasn’t about her - it was about Louise.
Sol admits that , yes, he does have a wife and child, which is why he’s intent on keeping this job.
Jacqui suddenly appears, surprised at what she sees. She remarks that she thought Sammy would be long gone by now.
Sol intervenes to tell Jacqui that the pair of them were just discussing Sammy’s options.
Options? Says Jacqui, quizzically. She thought that there was only one option - she wanted Sammy off the premises.
Sammy speaks up cockily, asking Jacqui what Jacqui would do if Sammy refused to go? Sammy reminds Jacqui that she had a contract. She could take Jacqui to tribunal if Jacqui insisted on sacking her.
Jacqui is not impressed and reminds Sammy that she blatantly lied in order to get the contract, much less the job, telling Sol that she was a personal friend of Jacqui’s. In no uncertain terms, Jacqui tells Sammy to ‘do one’.
Sammy maintains that she has rights. She’ll hire a solicitor and fight this all the way.
And Jacqui has rights too, Jacqui counters. She owns the club and she holds the right to hire and fire, and if Sammy doesn’t like that, she could sue Jacqui, and Jacqui would meet the costs. No cost was too much to get shot of Sammy!
Jessie and Ray now stand on the pavement in front of the burned-out bungalow, staring at the wreck disconsolately. Jimmy approaches them, telling them that they could stare all they wanted, it wouldn’t change a thing. Ray remarks sadly that they had no place to go, whilst Jessie hurries to say that they have to find a B and B.
Jimmy immediately offers the facilities of Hotel Corkhill, but Jessie is reluctant to impose.
Nonsense, shouts Jimmy. It’s his house. He’ll decide who stays and who goes. Anyway, he has the room. And Ray and Jessie need people standing by them at a time like this. Besides, it would be a nice way for Jimmy to pay Ray back for all the times he’s helped Jim.
Dire Murray stands staring contemplatively and sadly out the window. Marty surmises that her period has come on. Dire is surprised and asks Marty how he knows. (Well, it’s your narky moods, Dire ...) Marty remarks that he didn’t think the Tampax in the bathroom were for cleaning out Dire’s ears.
Jessie stalks uncomfortably to and fro in the lounge of Hotel Corkhill. She’s restless and her pride has been dented. How embarrassing, she hisses to Ray, reduced to moving into a neighbour’s house.
Ray comments on how kind it is of Jimmy to offer.
Bah! Jess would have preferred somewhere more private, so she and Ray could sort out the myriad of problems that had arisen with the arrival of Helen.Things that needed to be sorted out privately, amongst themselves. Instead, they have to sit solidly here at Jimmy’s, smiling all the while, playing happy families.
Jimmy bounds down the stairs, informing the couple that he’d got Lindsey’s old room ready for them. And he’d found a pair of his old jimjams for Ray - oh, and one of Lindsey’s old nighties for Jessie. He holds out a skimpy lace nightie. (Remember that Lindsey was about a foot taller and about three stone lighter than Jessie). Jessie stares at is aghast. Jimmy uneasily suggests that she could wear a cardy over it, and he’d make sure he kept the central heating on at night.
Oh, woe is me. The Murrays are having the baby blues again. Marty vows to Dire that if he won the lottery, he’d spend the lot trying to get her pregnant. Staring across the Close at the shell of the bungalow, he muses on how funny life is - one day there’s a new life and the next -
It’s flushed down the toilet, moans the boring Dire. No baby this time. Dire feels as though she’s failed. For the umpteenth time, Marty assures her that she’s NOT a failure and he promises her that they will achieve their goal of having a child. She should have faith.
Hmph! She scoffs. Look where all her faith got her! And Antony! Did Marty think the lad would lose his faith?
Marty shakes his head. It’s peer pressure with Antony, he assures her.
Once again she repeats her old mantra of ‘all their prayers coming to nowt’ - having tried God, science and Mother Nature.
Marty vows that he’d turn Buddhist or any other Eastern religion, if it meant Dire could have a baby. Honestly, he’d do anything (to shut her up!)
Jimmy and Ray sit in the lounge of Hotel Corkhill, when a restless Jessie announces she wants to go upstairs and get cleaned up. She goes upstairs and Jimmy asks Ray if everything is OK with him and Jessie, only Jim (being now more perceptive) has noticed a - you know, atmosphere.
Oh, dismisses Ray, uneasily, it’s something and nothing. Nothing a time machine wouldn’t remedy.
Jimmy offers his help. Maybe Ray would like to discuss his problems with The Sage.
Well, Ray admits, he thinks he’s going to lose Jessie. You see, he explains, years ago, he had a fling when he was married to Reenie and Jessie found out.
But that was years ago! Protests Jimmy. It had nothing to do with Jessie, surely.
Well, Ray confesses, as a result of his fling, he got the other woman pregnant. Only now, his long-lost daughter had tracked him down. Oh, it all happened years ago and now he’s being punished for that transgression.
Jimmy, surprisingly, offers no consolation, instead taking the hypocritically moral high ground. Well, how the hell did Ray expect Jessie to react, he demands, irrationally. Jimmy had done many a dire thing in his life, but that was one thing he would never do - walk away from his responsibility, especially if it concerned a child.
Ray takes umbrage at this remark and gets stolidly to his feet. He thought Jimmy was his mate, he says.
And Jimmy thought Ray was a decent man, Jim replies, self-righteously.
Ray removes the leather coat from his back and throws it at Jimmy. Jim can keep his clothes AND his offer of shelter. Ray was going. See you around, MATE. And Ray storms out of the house into the cold.
A taxi pulls up to The Parade and stops in front of the bar. Inside, we see Bev, accompanied by Josh, who is no longer a ratchild and no longer resembles a little Lance. The new Josh has a Number One haircut, a low forehead, beetle-brow and looks as though he’s at least eleven, when Josh should only be seven. In short, he looks like Son of Gobby.
Bev emerges from the cab and stares in horror at the crude sign now atop the bar. LEANNE’S LOUNGE, she reads aloud, in disbelief. Since when? She asks herself, aloud. She steps onto the pavement and peers myopically through the window.
Ray sits huddled on the step of his caravan, shivering in the cold.
Bev and Josh enter the bar. Bev is disgusted with the filth and disarray of the place, kicking around cheap bits of tacky furniture. Look at the state of this place, she fumes. She storms over to the office and shouts down the corridor for Leanne. No reply.
Turning furiously, Bev announces ominously: ‘Just wait till I get my
hands on her!!!’
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002