That’s what we had in Brookside last night. Mornings after. How many times have we gone to sleep, happy and contented with our situation, only to see things differently in the light of the next day? The one night stand ... Suddenly, the bloke or the girl we thought the ultimate in sex appeal, the next morning is less than desireable. The sad sack ... Another birthday on his/her own and the bottle is hit big-time. The list is endless. As far as Brookside goes, it was one of those episodes where nothing happens and where an issue storyline they are trying to press, falls flat on its face because it’s been constructed awkwardly and people don’t know how to react. But as far as episodes go, it was one of the better ones - if only for the fact that we were spared the presence of Ellison.
It’s early morning, and Jimmy Corkhill, dressed in his bathrobe, strides purposefully and confidently from his extension bedroom into the kitchen area of Hotel Corkhill. He has the appearance of a man who’s been well-laid, and we know from the disgusting sound effects at the end of Friday’s episode that he has been just that. He gazes around his domestic surroundings with a look of contentment and opens the back door wide to the world. Stepping out into the back garden, formerly the burial place of Trevor Jordache, he breathes in a lungful of fresh air.
Meanwhile, his partner in luuurve, Bev, is seen purposefully and furiously cleaning the top of the pool table, where their brief encounter took place. Bev looks anything but content. In fact she looks as if she wants the floor to open and swallow her up. She looks, in short, ashamed of herself and her actions from the previous night.
Upstairs, at NNT, poor, pitiful, stinky, smelly, greasy Katie sits forlornly on the sofa, dressed in her Jackie Corkhill original bathrobe. She opens a birthday card and gazes at it dejectedly. Reaching beside her, she opens a shoebox, filled with relics from the life of St Clint. She pulls out the birthday card she received last year from the patron saint of ducks and gazes sadly at it and its accompanying picture of her and Clint, in happier times.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is really feeling his oats. He’s fixed a slap-up fry-up for the scroungers who make Hotel Corkhill their home. Tim enters the kitchen to find Jerome, complete with pet spider atop his head, seated at the table. Tim’s pleased to find that the smell of bacon is for real. Nothing better than that smell in the morning, says Jim.
Nikki enters the fray, commenting on Jimmy’s good mood at this hour of the morning.
He’s in a GREAT mood, shouts Jim, doing an apt impression of Tony the Tiger, in fact - the best ever!
And would that have something to do with the fact that Jimmy didn’t arrive home until the early hours of the morning? Teases Nikki.
‘My lips are sealed,’ replies Jimmy, thus inviting further questions.
It doesn’t take the trio long to suss that Jimmy MUST have had his wicked way with someone the night before, and they proceed in badgering him to reveal the identity of the lady in question, but Jimmy plays coy.
‘A gentleman never tells,’ says Jimmy, with pursed lips, forgetting that he’s never been a gentleman a day in his life. ‘But let’s just say that I’m not the only one around here with a smile on their face this morning.’
Jacqui is tidying up Chateau Farnham like a good little housewife, whilst Maxim makes ready to depart for work. Jacqui wonders aloud why the kids have to take EVERY toy they have out of the box. As Max puts his jacket on, she asks him if he’d mind keeping an eye on the children later.
No problem, says Max. As a matter of fact, he offers to take the children out, in order to give Jacqui some time to herself in the house.
Well, Jacqui admits, she was actually going to pop out around 11 o’clock to call on Katie. It’s Katie’s birthday, and Jacqui didn’t want Katie to think that she had forgotten. It wasn’t right to forget important occasions, she adds, pointedly.
Recognising the barb, Max accepts that Jacqui is getting a dig in at him forgetting Valentine’s Day. If that’s the case, he’d really planned on making it up to her tonight. He offers to cook her a romantic dinner for two - he’d even make sure the kids were asleep as well. But, as for Jacqui going to visit Katie, Max thinks Katie might be at work.
Jacqui looks worried. That’s just it, she says, and one of the reasons she’s calling on her. Nisha told her that Katie had the day off from the Walk-In Centre (yet another!). She also told Jacqui that Katie seemed really out of it this morning as well.
Max reckons it’s because Katie is another year older, as everyone is, but Jacqui reckons it’s more than that.
Sitcom House. Marty languishes on the sitcom sofa, trying to read the morning paper, while Dire gets ready to put in a rare appearance at work. It’s half-term - a week later than in Kent - and Marty aims to enjoy every minute of it. It’s his day off. You know what he likes best about half-term? He asks Dire. Not having to deal with teenagers. (Which is stupid, because there are three - two actual and one mentally - teenagers in the Murray household!)
Just at that moment, the doorbell rings. Marty continues to read the paper, whilst a disgruntled Dire, who’s already on her feet, the lazy bitch, answers the door. It’s Laura, Adele’s dozy friend. Dire screams upstairs, where we hear distant music, to Adele that Laura has arrived, and Adele shouts back that she’s upstairs. Dire screams back, asking her if she can’t come down and greet her friend.
Exasperated, she turns to Laura and asks if Laura communicates with her mother. As Laura disappears upstairs to join Adele, Dire then returns to her favourite pastime of nagging Marty.She reminds him that the gas man is due to come today. Marty asks what time he’ll arrive.
You know the gas company, Dire snaps, they never say. Marty is less than pleased that he’ll have to hang around the house on his day off. Then Plank enters, sitting down briefly opposite Marty to ask him if he’ll give Plank a hand with a car he’s fixing. Marty is reluctant to get up off his fat bottom, but he agrees to help Plank. As the two men reach the narrow Murray foyer, there’s congestion of a sort, as Adele and Laura have come downstairs.
They pass the departing Murray men and enter the lounge, where Dire pounces. She immediately asks Laura if she plans on going on this ‘so-called trip’.
Yes, answers the slow-spoken girl.
And who else is going? Interrogates Dire.
Oh, loads, answers Laura breezily.
Who? Persists Dire. As far as she can recall, Laura’s is the only name that’s been mentioned thus far. And while they were on the subject, does Laura’s mum think such a trip is OK?
Laura’s immediately worried and assumes the defensive. Mrs Murray hasn’t talked to her mother! Laura exclaims.
Adele calms Laura down. Don’t worry, she says. Dire only thinks she was as frightening as Anne Robinson!
Jerome, Tim, Nikki and Jimmy are enjoying the remains of Jimmy’s slap-up breakfast, when Tim starts to brag to Jerome about his ‘work’. What? Nikki quips, sarcastically. WorK? Selling his knock-off, dodgy ale? Tim wants to watch himself, she warns. People can go blind drinking that stuff.
Well, it’s OK for the likes of Nikki and Jerome, retorts Tim. They’re students. They’ll get degrees and everything will go all right for them on the job front.
Nikki glares at him. She might not be a student for much longer, she admits, sullenly. She’s thinking of packing the whole lot in. Truth was, she could no longer afford to pay for her education (after squandering all the money Margi had sent her for fees on clothes, mobiles, CDs, drink et al).
Nikki would have no problem with her fees, Tim points out, if she’d accepted Emily’s offer of money.
Jerome asks Nikki to reconsider dropping out. Why not go down to the uni and apply for a hardship loan? He suggests.
Another debt! Exclaims Nikki. And another 10 years to pay it off.
Suddenly Jimmy puts on his Sage’s cap and speaks wisdom. The enlightened listen beatifically. He knows Nikki’s finding it difficult at the moment, he begins, sympathetically, but quitting is the easy way out - and he knows because he’s spent his life trying to find the eternal shortcut to success. Nikki’s degree, he explains, is her passport to a successful career. Education is a big element in changing one’s life, and Nikki shouldn’t throw the opportunity to have a good education away by dropping out. Oh, she may think she will be able to return to studies some day - go back when she’s got a few bob; but by then she might be settled in her routine - married, with commitments and another sort of job. It would be difficult to return to the student lifestyle.
Poor, pitiful, smelly, dirty, filthy Katie shuffles into the kitchen at NNT and pulls out the trusty bottle of vodka, pouring herself a hefty helping. In the distance the downstairs buzzer rings.
Marty is helping Plank with the car Plank’s fixing, when Tim emerges from Hotel Corkhill and approaches them. Plank is testing the engine of the red Escort. Marty welcomes Tim’s appearance, and volunteers the lad to help Plank with the car. It’s Marty’s day off, he explains, and he wants to relax. As he departs, he quips suspiciously to Tim how amazing it is that some people appear to get by without doing a turn. Tim ignores the jibe.
Plank explains to Tim that Marty’s arsed at Adele because she wants to go on holiday to Ayia Napa, and he doesn’t want her to go.
Tim doesn’t blame Marty. Had Plank heard about that place? They get up to all sorts there. Mind you, Tim confesses, he wouldn’t mind visiting a place like that - if he weren’t already married, that is! Anyway, he’s got something for Plank. Tim tells Plank that he’s managed to sell the last of the stolen ale.
Plank asks him who bought it, and Tim explains that a mate of his bought it. Plank immediately thinks Tim’s unnamed mate is someone dodgy, but Tim explains that his mate was getting married and bought the whole lot for his reception. And Plank’s due his share. He hands Plank £400. Plank is antsy. Walls have eyes around the Close, and he doesn’t want people to see Tim handing him money.
As Bev persists in cleaning the bar, a sour look on her face, Jimmy breezes in, greeting her with, ‘Morning, boss!’
He apologises for being late and immediately teases her, asking if she thought last night were ‘cool’. It’s odd, he muses, how people can work together like that for a long time, then something magical happens and the two see each other in a completely different light. He begins to wax lyrical about their sexual encounter. Why, they certainly cast a few sparks last night. Hey, they’d better be careful, lest the same thing happen to the bar that happened to the bungalow.
Bev remarks shortly that she’d had a few drinks at the time, and she tries to cry off the significance of the previous night.
Jimmy doesn’t buy it. They were two lost souls who found each other, he exclaims.
Bev is blunt. It was a one-off. Look, she explains, she wants to try to let Jimmy down gently, but as a couple, they were a non-starter. She doesn’t want to be hard-faced about it, but still, she doesn’t want Jimmy to get any ideas about them as a couple. In short, she says, last night never happened.
Poor, pitiful, greasy, incontinent Katie sits morosely on the NNT sofa, bottle of vodka in hand. The phone rings. And rings. And rings. Finally the answerphone picks up the call. It’s Jacqui. She’s downstairs. Is Katie there?
Plank examines the £400 given him by Tim. It wasn’t easy, he remarks, humping that ale from pub to pub. Tim tells him to put the money away before someone like Marty sees it. Anyway, Tim says, he’s planning a new job and he’ll shortly be giving Plank a call.
No, Plank demurs. That job was a one-off.
Is Plank serious? Asks Tim, dumb-founded. He’s turning down big money.
It was big money, says Plank, sensibly, because they didn’t get caught. And Plank had only helped him out on that because Christy had bodged the first job up.
Tim asserts that he’s too good to get caught.
Plank observes that prison is full of people who were too good to get caught.
But, Tim tries to persuade him, he’s already planning something that’s bigger money, but easier to shift. Plank’s not impressed.
Jerome and Nikki walk along the street in the direction of the university. Nikki still isn’t sure about applying for a hardship loan. Jerome tells her that a hardship loan is for people like her, who are skint. (But is it for people who are skint because they wasted all the money intended for fees on frivolities?)
Nikki’s worried because the university will want to examine her bank statement, and she’s ashamed of that at the moment.
Just then, they notice a group of protesters above, chanting and waving banners. Nikki wants to know what’s going on.
Just some sort of protest, says Jerome quickly. He suggests that they walk through it. Jerome is anxious to leave, but Nikki is intrigued and wants to stay.
Poor, pitiful Katie is now quite drunk. The buzzer continues buzzing.
Back at Sitcom House, Marty sits enjoying his paper, whilst music thunders upstairs from Adele’s room. Dire enters, demanding to know if Marty’s prepared lunch. She hasn’t long to stay. Marty puts the paper down, admitting that he forgot to do lunch. He had to spend most of the morning helping Plank fix a car. What a day off, he moans. He wanted to stay away from teenagers, but here he was with a houseful.
Oh, and that Tim came by to see Plank, Marty continues. They seem to be hanging out a lot at the moment, he observes.
Adele and Laura surface from upstairs, demanding food. They’ve spent all morning planning their holiday, Adele says, goading her parents. They head for the kitchen in search of food.
Left alone, Dire muses aloud to Marty about phoning Laura’s mother. Not a good idea, says Marty. The harder Dire resists, the more Adele will dig in. Marty had been thinking about this. Why should he and Dire worry unnecessarily about this? If Laura’s reaction this morning when Dire mentioned her mother were anything to go by, Marty is fairly certain that they aren’t the only parents to object to this trip.
Dire is puzzled by Marty’s reasoning. Marty explains that they should shut up and let someone else do the dirty work over this holiday. One of the other parents is bound to make a noise.
Dire admits that she’s too tired to do battle constantly with Adele.
Now the actual doorbell rings at NNT and Katie is forced to answer it. Jacqui enters, wondering what the hell Katie’s playing at. She’s been downstairs phoning and buzzing for the better part of an hour and Katie never answered. It was only because Bev had to pop back upstairs for something that she was able to get to Katie’s front door at all!
Jacqui wrinkles her nose delicately at the whiff of a familiar odour. Has Katie been drinking? And at this hour of the morning! She pushes past the wretch into the kitchen. Katie protests weakly that it’s her birthday and she was celebrating.
Jacqui remarks sceptically that Katie doesn’t look too clever. Jacqui proposes that she make the two of them some coffee and Katie could confide her problems to Jacqui.
Meanwhile, the protest at the university is in full swing. Jerome has done some asking-around and informs Nikki that a government minister was due to visit John Moores that day. This lot had planned on giving him a hard time about reinstating grants. Anyway, Jerome is bored by it all and wants to move on.
Not Nikki. She wants to stay. Jerome doesn’t want anything to do with the protest, but Nikki gets on her proverbial soapbox. It’s so unjust of the government to make students pay fees, she argues. And anyway, this was a free country and people were allowed to protest. Why, if it hadn’t been for student grants in the first place, she tells Jerome, people like them would have had no opportunity to go to university - it would have remained a place for toffs and aristocrats only. And she joins in the chanting full force. Jerome manages to look miserable.
Plank is now standing in the sitcom lounge, forking over his ill-gotten gains to Dire. Dire pretends that she doesn’t want the £400 offered her, but she grabs it greedily, agreeing that it can be used for - AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH! Another shot at IVF!!!!! Still, she mentions briefly, it isn’t right that Plank is giving all his hard-earned money to his parents. And anyway, she asks suspiciously, where did he come by so much spare cash?
Jobs, Plank insists. Oooh, witters Dire, Plank should really keep some dosh for himself. He should be out enjoying himself - oh, and he should keep a keen eye on that O’Leary lad. He doesn’t make all his dosh from honest graft. (Sorry, Dire, but neither does Plank. When he’s not out robbing with Tim, he’s earning cash-in-hand AND drawing the dole! Isn’t that FRAUD?)
Marty enters the room just at the moment he sees Dire pocketing the wad of bills. He asks about the money and Dire lies, telling him it’s housekeeping from Plank.
Adele re-emerges again, having still not eaten and demands lunch. Marty shortly directs her toward the kitchen. Just make sure she lets him and Dire know what she wants and then Marty will present her with a bill for the food used.
Adele looks at her father as though he’s just sprouted horns. Surely he didn’t expect her to pay for her food?
Well, Marty points out impishly, she DID insist on saying that she paid her own way. And she DID say she was an adult. Adele had to learn that she can’t pick and choose when she wanted to be treated like an adult and when she wanted to be considered a kid.
Adele screws up her piggy eyes and scowls at Marty. The trouble with him, she says, is that he didn’t want her to enjoy herself because he and Dire were past it. And she does her party piece of flouncing out of the room.
Nikki and Jerome stand in the middle of a group of protesting students, behind a skinny ginger-haired kid. Nikki spies a man standing on a wall nearby, brandishing a camera. She remarks to Jerome that perhaps they might be on telly. Jerome knows better. He sees the man exchange looks with nearby policeman. More likely, Jerome says, the man was part of Special Branch, here photographing students’ faces for future reference. The number of police indicated that they anticipated trouble.
Jacqui makes Katie a cup of black coffee with two sugars. Then she grabs the bottle of vodka and pours it down the sink. Katie protests, saying the booze isn’t hers. And anyway, it was her birthday.
And Katie was acting like an old alky, remarks Jacqui. Why was Katie doing this? Jacqui says she would have expected this sort of behaviour from Sammy, but not Katie.
Can’t Jacqui guess? Asks self-pitying Katie.
Jacqui knows. It’s the sainted Clint. A year ago, Katie was celebrating her 25th birthday with the man she loved.
Jacqui sighs in exasperation. Katie really should be moving on from this now. She isn’t saying Katie shouldn’t miss Clint or that it’s not normal to miss someone who’s died, but Katie really ought to start picking up the pieces of her life again.
But that’s just it, protests Katie. She can go hours, days without thinking of Clint at all. Then suddenly while she’s doing something as mundane as washing dishes, it all floods over her again.
Jacqui tells Katie that grief isn’t something that comes in neatly wrapped packages that can be put aside and brought out from time to time. Katie has to move on, for her own good. Get on with her own life.
Katie pulls out the self-pity routine again. That’s easy enough for Jacqui to say. Katie had no one. Just look around. Jacqui had Max and the kids; Sammy had Louise; Nisha had more blokes than she could shake a stick at. But what has Katie got?
Jacqui says that Katie has her friendship. Katie has to snap out of this negative attitude. She can’t believe that she’ll never have anyone to love. Why, no one knows what’s around the corner. Who would have thought this time last year that she’d be married to Max this year?
But Katie is jealous again. Jacqui always lands on her feet, she mutters, sullenly. (Change the record, please!)
At the scene of the protest, a red car pulls up and a man, supposedly the government minister, steps out and walks inside a building. At the front of the protest, the skinny, ginger kid breaks the cordon and falls to the ground. The police immediately move in and arrest him. Nikki starts shouting and pulling at a policeman, demanding that he leave the lad alone, when - to her abject consternation - the police arrest her and clap her in the back of the paddywagon. Jerome is shocked, but not as shocked as Nikki, who’s driven away in the back of the van.
Back at Sitcom House, Plank, Adele and Laura are in the kitchen. Adele is moaning that her parents aren’t treating her fairly. There would me no bother if Plank wanted to go to Ayia Napa.
Ah, reasons Plank, who’s developing a brain, he was older. Anyway, he says, his parents have a point. Ayia Napa was full of all sorts. Surely Adele should understand that.
Adele gets Plank’s hint about her abortion and protests that she made one mistake and she’s still being made to pay for it.
Plank is determined, however, that Adele won’t repeat that mistake.
Oh, she wouldn’t, Adele promises, cheekily. She’d be prepared next time. She’d be careful.
Laura makes a remark about safe sex and makes eyes at Plank.
Adele, meanwhile, asserts that she’s capable of looking after herself, thany you very much.
Plank snorts. Adele might THINK she can look after herself, but he knows different. She wants to realise that when she goes to a place like Ayia Napa there will be loads of older blokes there just itching to get some 16 year-old girl in bed. And he plonks out of the kitchen.
‘Just who does he think he is?’ Adele huffs, angrily.
‘Cute,’ replies dozy Laura, dreamily.
It’s late in the day and Jerome is seated on the steps outside the Police Constabulary. Eventually, Nikki skulks out.
‘Well, if it isn’t the Manor Park One,’ Jerome quips. He’s caught up in the irony of the situation and laughs. Nikki fails to see the humour of the situation. The irony is lost on her.
Jerome explains how ironic that he, a black man, should be seated waiting outside a police station for his white girlfriend, who has just been arrested. It’s usually the other way around. Anyway, he’s relieved she’s all right. Has she been charged.
Nikki sullenly replies that she wasn’t charged with anything or even cautioned. She was merely given a lecture about interfering with police on duty. She was appalled. She thought this was a free country.
It is, admits Jerome, if your face happens to fit.
And then, she continues, they asked what a nice-looking young girl like she was doing mixed up with a bunch of scruffy student-types. She’s horrified at that attitude. She actually had to tell them that SHE was a scruffy student-type.
Welcome to the real world, quips Jerome.
Inside Chateau Farnham, the lights are low, a scrumptious meal is on the table, the kids are asleep and Max waits anxiously for Jacqui to arrive. When she appears, he brags that he’s even got Harry and Emma settled and the rest of the evening was theirs alone.
Jacqui looks a bit uneasy. That might be difficult, she begins. She’s brought Katie home with her to spend the night.
Max looks at the wretch unenthusiastically and wishes her a half-hearted happy birthday.
Katie asks if she can use their loo and disappears.
When she’s out of earshot, Max hisses viciously at Jacqui, asking her if that’s her way of thanking him for what he’s done for her this evening. Why on earth did Jacqui have to bring Katie home with her?
Jacqui explains that she found Katie in a right state, and she couldn’t just leave her. After all, she says, she’s only just got Katie back again; she couldn’t risk losing her. Anyway, she placates Max, there’ll be other evenings.
Max is petulant. It’s a pity Jacqui didn’t have that sort of attitude on Valentine’s Day. Here Max goes, planning a real romantic evening for him and his wife and she carries on bringing home waifs and strays.
Katie’s not a waif or stray, says Jacqui. She happens to be Jacqui’s best mate.
‘And I’m your bloody husband!’ Reminds Max.
(It’s time Jacqui distanced herself from Katie, or else she’ll
forever suffer from terminal adolescence!)
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002