Back when I were a lass, there was a folk singer (now dead) named John Hartford. One of the first songs I remember was one of his compositions, and it concerned the state of Los Angeles, a city which is situated smack dab upon the San Andreas Fault, which means that, the minute there’s a rumble in the earth’s core, we’re talking MAJOR CATASTROPHIC earthquake. One of the lines of the song was: ‘They tell me that the fault line is right about here. That’s the way it will be.’
Well last night’s ep was all about fault lines - and it’s interesting to see Brookside adopt (surprise, surprise) Eastenders’ subtle concept of LINKING various storylines of an evening through a similar theme. Last night’s theme was about breaking points - Jacqui being done down with coping 24/7 with demanding children (has the woman never heard of toddler groups?), Marty Murray and Adele reaching breaking point with each other in her ill-timed assertion of her independence, and poor Bev, finally reaching breaking point when being goaded by Leanne, who was sublime in her return. Of course, there’s poor, pitiful, wretched Katie reaching breaking point, yet again, and Leanne does as well at the end of the episode - quite literally.
All in all, a good one. Again the absence of the Mekon. By the way, if ANY of the Nazis who drove me away from the Official Forum are reading this, here’s proof positive that give credit where credit is due. I wish them a long, prosperous and narrow-minded life, the shits!
It’s morning at Chateau Farnham and the kids are playing up wonderfully. Poor, pitiful, stinky, smelly, greasy Katie stands uneasily in the middle of the Farnham lounge, whilst Jacqui tries unsuccessfully to quiet the children and speak to Katie at the same time. She apologises to Katie for the kids’ behaviour, mostly Harry, who’s doing a good job at being naughty. Jacqui is heard to reprimand him, as the child knocks a vase over. (It probably doesn’t occur to Jacqui’s limited maternal mind that the kids are acting out because their routine has been disrupted by a new person being present in their home).
Katie makes an effort to leave. It’s best that she not stay, she says. (She’s right). After all, Max wasn’t at all happy about her staying over last night. It was evident that he’d had something special planned for himself and Jacqui. She’d best make herself scarce.
Well, announces Jacqui, Max can stuff it. She wants Katie to realise that Jacqui will always be there for her and last night was proof of this. (Ah, but would Katie always be there for Jacqui? I think not).
As Nikki descends the stairway in Hotel Corkhill, she runs into Jimmy in the narrow foyer. He hails her triumphantly as ‘The Manor Park One’. Nikki is embarrassed. Jerome teases her, asking her how it feels to be branded a criminal, but Jimmy springs to her defence, saying that Nikki is actually a prisoner of conscience.
Nikki objects that she felt as though she was treated like a criminal, and all she tried to do was help that scrawny, little, ginger fella in the front of the demonstration. When he fell over the police cordon, all she did was tell the bizzies to leave him alone.
Rule Number One, instructs Jimmy the Sage. Don’t question the bizzies.
But, Nikki points out, she was arrested for ‘interfering with police work’. She’d like to know how such an action as that was interfering.
Jimmy announces that he’s off out in order to see Bev. His final piece of advice to Nikki before departing is simply NOT to get involved, and he dubs her ‘Papillon’. As a final word, Nikki begs Jimmy not to tell anyone about her ordeal.
After Jimmy leaves, Nikki slumps on the sofa next to Jerome and starts a
moan about the police and their treatment of her. They made a right show of
arresting her, she rants, self-righteously. They took away her freedom, if only
for a little while. Why, her basic
rights were ignored (as if Nikki even
knows what these are!)
Jerome is unimpressed. Welcome to the real world, he quips again. Nikki was lucky she got off without as much as a caution. Live and learn from the experience.
But that’s not the end of it, tne new-found social activist proclaims. She’s planning on lodging an official complaint.
Jerome shakes his head in mild disbelief, telling her that that action just WON’T work.
(The actual truth is that Nikki got off lightly because she was a pretty young girl. They wouldn’t have dealt so lightly with someone like Leanne).
In the lounge at Sitcom House, Adele sits, sulking, and reading aloud the international weather report in the morning paper. Hmmm ... In Cyprus the weather is extremely hot and sunny, whilst on Brookside Close, it’s near frigid and dark and dank.
Marty raises his eyes to his daughter briefly. Just exactly what part of the fact that Adele was NOT going on holiday to Ayia Napa didn’t she understand? He asks, sarcastically.
Just what part of the fact that she was 16 years old and an adult did Marty not understand? Sasses the Liverpool Liverlips.
Next door, Jerome is attempting to make Nikki see sense about not pursuing a complaint about the police. While she was in custody, he asks, rhetorically, did the bizzies hit her?
No, answers Nikki.
Well, he continues, did they charge her with anything?
No, she answers, reluctantly. But it WAS a wrongful arrest, she argues.
Jerome shakes his head, pointing out to her that she wandered into a crowd of protestors and then proceeded to argue with serving policemen. They had no choice but to arrest her, and she had no chance after she took that line of action. They arrested her, says Jerome, and she was damned lucky that they let her go with a slap on the wrist.
That’s just it, moans the obtuse and narrow-minded Nikki. They actually expected her to be grateful for that.
Jerome tells her that it could have been a lot worse. He warns Nikki that if she tries to make trouble for the police, then the police would make trouble for her - only they’d be better at doing it. Jerome tells her of the time when he was a kid and got into a scrape with the bizzies. His dad lodged an official complaint about the police and the bizzies made his family’s lives hell. Every time the doorbell rang, there was a bizzie about something minor, and the number of times his dad was stopped and searched. Nikki should heed his words. It simply wasn’t worth it.
The doorbell rings, and Nikki jumps in anticipation of the police arriving, but it only proves to be Ray.
As he enters, he remarks that he’s very surprised at Nikki’s behaviour. Nikki is surprised that Ray even knows what happened. Who told him?
Ray admits that he ran into Jimmy, who told him everything, about her getting caught up in the protest and arrested. Ray asks if she’s all right.
Nikki says that the police gave her a lecture and let her go. Jerome remarks that he’s trying to get her to forget the whole thing.
Well, Ray ponders, he wouldn’t worry about her arrest. These things happen, he says. Still, best not to tell her Nan about any of this.
Nikki asks if Ray made a special trip over here to tell her that, but Ray admits that he’s actually called round to see Jerome. Nikki leaves the room and Ray tells Jerome that the insurance rep has got in touch with him and Jessie about the claim. Ray’s got a few questions about Jerome’s claim. According to the rep, Jerome’s claim is so extensive, it looks as though they were claiming over the odds. Is Jerome certain that he’s not bumping up his claim? Ray asks.
Jerome looks uneasy for a moment and, looking away from Ray, like the guilty mutt he is, he lies and says he isn’t.
Ray accepts his word and then asks if Jerome is working that evening. Jerome confirms that he is and Ray begs a favour of him.
Jerome is offended. First Ray comes over and accuses him of launching an insurance fiddle, then he asks Jerome to do him a favour.
Ray explains. He’s only asking Jerome to have a word with Helen on his part.
Jerome demands to know why Ray can’t have a word with Helen, himself.
Now it’s Ray who looks uneasy. Helen’s said that she doesn’t want to see him again, he says miserably. That’s only because Jessie chose to interfere, he explains. She simply had no right to stick her nose in his business with his daughter. Anyway, Ray wants Jerome to tell Helen that Ray really wants to keep in touch and really wants to see her again. If Jerome would do just that, Ray would call around later to see what Helen had said.
Jacqui and Katie sit on the Farnham sofa, whilst the kids make a helluva racket in front of them. Katie is having yet another day off from the clinic and she tells Jacqui that she fully expected to wake up this morning with a birthday hangover.
Jacqui is having problems with Harry this morning. She’s trying to get him dressed and he’s not cooperating. She calls him over to her so she can put his shirt on him, but he dashes past her up the stairs. Jacqui, exasperated, follows. As she leaves the room, the phone rings. She calls out to Katie to answer it.
It’s a call from a disgruntled Great Grannies’ customer. The caller asks for Ron, and Katie, uneasily, replies that Ron isn’t there. The caller asks when he’ll return and Katie replies precisely that Ron will be back in 6 weeks and 2 days. The caller asks where he is, and Katie lies and tells her that he’s on holiday, but also informs the caller that Ron’s daughter is looking after the business.
At that moment, Jacqui re-enters the room and Katie hands her the phone, telling her it’s a complaint about Great Grannies. Not another one! Moans Jacqui and takes the call, identifying herself as MISS DIXON!!!
(This was bad writing, I think. First of all, Ron’s murder trial was SO high profile, that everyone in the area knew who he was and why he was on trial and also why he’d been sentenced. In fact, much has been made of the fact that Great Grannies lost a lot of custom due to the bad publicity of Ron’s trial. You cannot tell me that a client of that organisation would be unaware of Ron’s current whereabouts. And MISS DIXON? I thought she had decided to call herself MS DIXON-FARNHAM! Jacqui is no longer a professional career woman and, hence, has no right to refer to herself by her maiden name!)
The Mersey Mover bus pulls away from The Parade bus stop, and Leanne stands there, gazing across at the bar and smiling slyly.
Adele is still sulking in the sitcom lounge. Marty asks her brusquely if she intends on lounging around the house all day. Dire shushes him, reminding him that today is her day off and she wants some peace.
Well, as a matter of fact, Adele sasses her father, she DID plan on going shopping. Would Marty like to come along and hold her hand?
Shopping? Marty queries. And just what did she intend to buy?
Oh, you know, the usual holiday stuff, purrs Adele, A bikini, sunglasses ... And a big box of condoms!
Marty is gob-smacked. Adele laughs that the last bit was just a joke.
And what was the point of that joke? Marty demands.
The point, preens Adele, is that she’s an adult and therefore should be treated like one.
Marty storms off in anger, as Adele smugly smiles.
Meanwhile, on The Parade, Bev is playing Sinbad, cleaning the windows of the bar, when suddenly she hears a familiar voice. Turning, she sees Leanne, standing nearby, smiling tentatively.
‘What do you want?’ Snarls Bev, not pausing in her window-washing. ‘Come to pay me back the money you owe me?’
Well, no, answers Leanne, but Lance had told her how he and Bev and made up, and Leanne wanted Bev to know how glad she was of that - because in all that happened, Lance was really the innocent victim - much like she, herself, was too, Leanne adds hopefully.
Bev grunts unsympathetically. If Leanne hadn’t come to repay the money she’d had off Bev, Bev asks, then what exactly was the point of her visit?
Leanne admits that she’d hoped Bev had changed her mind about Leanne
as well, and she repeats the assertion that she, Leanne, was really innocent
in this brouhaha. Leanne says she believes that Bev will forgive her because,
in the milk of
kindness, she smarms, Bev is the dairy.
Bev looks at Leanne with that beautifully twisted sceptical look that she wears so well. ‘You mean I’m the stupid cow!’ Bev quips.
Leanne points out that Bev never grassed her up. Surely that means something.
It means that Bev was afraid of being made to look like an abject idiot, did she ever decide to grass Leanne up, replies Bev. And she unceremoniously orders Leanne to get out of her sight.
Before Leanne can even think about leaving, not that she does, Bev reminds her of a few home truths - like the fact that before Bev left the country, she had built up a good little business here, a veritable gold mine. Why the place, like all Brookside businesses, virtually ran itself. She made a good living from it, even enough dosh to put some aside for Josh. And now she’s back - and look what she’s reduced to ... Cleaning her own bloody windows!
Leanne maintains that what happened during Bev’s absence wasn’t Leanne’s fault. Oh no? Says Bev. Whose fault was it then?
Leanne maintains that it was Christy’s fault.
‘NO!’ Exclaims Bev. ‘Because when I left, YOU were supposed to keep the business ticking over!’
Leanne comes straight to the point and asks Bev to give her her old job back. Please, she begs. She wants to help.
Bev says that the only way Leanne can help her is by repaying her the money owed. She suggests that she repay Bev in kind. Why, with Leanne back at her old job, it wouldn’t be long before the two of them had this place back on its feet.
‘You brought it to its knees!’ Shouts Bev.
Leanne begins to beg Bev for her job. Please, she reiterates. She’d do anything for Bev. Why, she’d even clean the windows.
Giving Leanne a brief and hostile look, without another word, Bev picks up the bucket of dirty, soapy water and douses Leanne with it.
Standing in the middle of The Parade and dripping wet, Leanne reverts to nasty type and vows that Bev will regret doing this.
‘Not half as much as I’d regret giving you your old job back,’ remarks Bev, wryly.
Adele is still sitting smugly in the sitcom lounge, having successfully managed to annoy Marty, when suddenly Marty bursts into the room, carrying a large object in his arms. He marches directly to the sofa where Adele is sitting and hurls the object onto the seat next to her.
Here, he says, he’s got something for her. It happens to be a suitcase. Adele looks at this, interpreting in her own mind her triumph. Does this mean it’s OK for her to go on holiday to Ayia Napa? She asks, hopefully.
Of course she can go, says Marty, shortly. After all, Adele is an adult now.
In the background, Dire begins to witter worriedly. Whatever can Marty mean? He can’t be serious!
Of course he’s serious, Marty says. Adele is an adult and, as such, she can do what she likes. He can do nothing to stop her. In fact, she was right all along in her assertions. She is a mature individual who knows exactly what she wants. Oh, he almost forgot. He picks up the local paper, folded to a particular page. When Adele DOES go, she must be sure to take this with her.
Adele takes the paper and reads the heading: 'Accommodation to Let’. Suddenly, it dawns on her. She’s being told to go, leave home.
Marty notices the realisation sinking into her features and clocks the disbelief on the gobsmacked Dire’s face. He grins wickedly. Adele is an adult, he repeats. She can do what she likes. She can get pregnant, go on holiday, pay rent, wash and clean house. In short, she can PAY HER WAY. She’s not a schoolgirl anymore. She’s an adult, and she can expect to be treated like one. So, if she’s such an adult, she can just pack her bags and stand on her own two feet.
Adele jumps up. ‘You’re pathetic!’ She shouts at Marty. ‘I can’t wait to leave this house! But I’ll go when I’m good and ready and not when YOU tell me!’ And she does what she does best, flounces from the room.
Once she’s gone, Dire rounds heavily on Marty. What the hell was he thinking of? She thought he wanted to play this down, let the other parents complain.
Marty admits that Adele especially got on his nerves today.
But what if Adele had called his bluff and gone? Dire wants to know. Honestly, Marty was so stubborn! He’d sooner have his own daughter walk the streets rather than give in.
Oh, she wouldn’t have left, Marty scoffs. She likes her creature comforts too much.
But is this the best way to handle this situation? Asks Dire.
Jacqui finishes her phone conversation with the irate Great Grannies customer. Jessie Shadwick didn’t show up for work again! Jacqui announces. That’s the second time in a week! Honestly, she actually loaned that woman £500 and this is the way she repays her! Would Katie mind awfully, just looking after the children for a few minutes whilst Jacqui popped next door and had a word with Jessie?
Katie, who’s been looking increasingly uncomfortable and self-pitying for awhile, declares that it’s about time that she left. Jacqui suddenly becomes clingy and begs her to stay. She’s thankful of the company, she says. Forget going next door. She could call Jessie on the phone. Just as long as Katie stays. In fact, Katie can stay as long as she likes.
Jacqui’s been very kind, Katie says, and she’s put up with a lot from Katie, but Katie really ought to go.
Why? Asks Jacqui desperately. Katie didn’t have to work today.Why not spend the day with Jacqui and the kids. (PU-LEESE!) They could all go somewhere, have a day out together.
Katie takes a deep breath and explains her situation. Jacqui is really the best mate she could ever have, she begins; but lately, Katie’s felt that their friendship is a sham.
Jacqui is puzzled by this admission, and Katie continues. Look at the date ringed on Jacqui’s calendar. Ron’s release. It’s like a holiday or a special occasion. Well, poor, pitiful, sad, self-pitying Katie turned 26 the day before, and there she was with no future - because the man who was responsible for ending her future happiness would soon be getting out of jail.
Jacqui interrupts to tell Katie that, together, they could work this dilemma out.
Maybe, says Katie, dubiously, but she wouldn’t forget it. She tells a shocked Jacqui that she’ll see her around and leaves abruptly.
It’s now late in the day, and Dire Murray is seen drawing the curtains as Marty returns home. From the upstairs of the Murray home, we here the relentlessly boring driving beat of a tuneless song. Marty hears it to and comments on the fact that Adele still appears to be at home. So she’s not done a runner yet, eh? He quips to his wife.
Dire shrugs. Adele’s been out shopping with her mate Laura for most of the day, she says.
Well, Marty wants to know, what did they buy?
Dire tells him that she never asked Adele what she bought, but she did notice that the girl returned home laden with two heavy bags. She stayed in her room the rest of the afternoon, Dire continues. As a matter of fact, she had her tea up there and all.
Marty flops wearily onto the sitcom sofa, motioning upward with his eyes at the sound of the pounding music. Dire sits down beside him. Marty remarks that he liked it better when Adele was into Kate Bush. But this stuff - it would be nice if it had a lyric now and then.
Dire laughs and says that Marty sounds like her father. Marty replies that he sounds like HIS father! Then he tells Dire that he’s been thinking about the time his dad let him go away on holiday with his mates when Marty was only sixteen.
So Marty’s dad let him go off with his mates then? Dire sounds shocked.
Yes, Marty admits, but the old man wasn’t happy about it. But that was different anyway. They were lads, and they didn’t go to Ayia Napa. They went to Rhyl.
Dire looks indulgently amused, listening to Marty’s reminiscences. And what was Rhyl like? She asks.
It was all Space Invaders, rain and a leaky caravan, Marty replies.
Dire sees the irony in their situation. Here they sit, worried about Antony because he’s not normal in wanting to do the things kids his age do, and worried at the same time about Adele, because she WAS normal and wanted to do the things kids her age do. A body couldn’t win, she muses.
Marty glances apprehensively at Dire. He’d happily hand this thing with Adele over to her to handle, he says. Let her take over the situation and deal with it.
No, thank you, answers Dire, firmly. She had enough of being the bad cop during the abortion crisis. She wants to be the good cop for a change.
The wide screen telly at Chateau Farnham is blaring out that old Brookside standard THE MAGIC RABBITS - do do-do-do do do do do do-do-do do do-do diddy-diddy DOO! The kids are watching it, but Jacqui ushers them upstairs, promising that ‘Mummy’ would be up in a moment to read them a bedtime story. But first she calls Max. She can’t reach him, however, obtaining only his voice mail. She leaves a message, and promptly rings Katie.
She tells Katie that she’s about to put the kids to bed and that Max was working until midnight that night. Why doesn’t Katie come over? They could talk about what they meant to talk about before (meaning Ron).
The camera pans to Katie, holding her mobile, looking as though she’s in a restaurant someplace. There’s not really that much left to say, says Katie, coldly. (When will Jacqui realise that this girl is friends with her only on Katie’s terms - i.e., when she wants to abuse that friendship?) Anyway, Katie continues, she’s already out with Nisha. They were having a belated birthday celebration as Nisha had to work the night before. She doesn’t want to fall out with Jacqui, Katie says, so she hopes Jacqui will understand.
The camera pulls back from Katie and we see her seated at the bar at Bev’s. There appears to be a good few people now coming in to have drinks. Bev asks Katie what she’s drinking and Katie orders a large vodka and tonic.
Bev asks Katie if she’s waiting for anyone, and Katie says that she isn’t. She’s alone.
Well, says Bev, as she pours Katie a hefty helping of vodka, she wants Katie to spread the word amongst her friends (what friends? Jacqui?) that Bev’s Bar is back under OLD management! And she serves Katie the drink. The wretch takes it and moves away from the bar.
Bev moves next to Jimmy behind the bar. Guess whom she came into contact with today? She asks him. Before Jimmy can reply, Bev tells him about Leanne coming around. She only wanted her old job back! Bev exclaims.
‘I hope you told her to do one,’ says Jimmy.
‘I did better than that,’ giggles Bev. ‘I threw dirty water in her face!’
Jacqui sits on her own, having a telephone conversation with DD, who appears to have broken her ankle. As she’s talking to her mother, one of the kids starts crying and the other one wakes up. Jacqui excuses herself, ending the telephone conversation and promising to visit DD this weekend.
Ray pops over to Hotel Corkhill, finding Nikki on her own. He wonders if he might wait for Jerome’s return in order to find out what Helen said. Nikki confirms that everyone’s out except her and that it’s all right for Ray to wait.
As he sits down, he asks if Nikki is OK after her ordeal with the police.
Nikki reiterates her horror that such a thing occurred at all.
Did she share a cell with anyone? Ray asks.
No, says Nikki, thankfully. She wasn’t there that long, so she was put on her own.
Well, Ray informs her, if a body’s there a long time, you’re glad of the company. Ray knows, he confesses. He’s been in a few scrapes, himself, while he was in the army in Malaysia. He got 56 days once for fighting - he and his mates wrecked the Corporals’ Mess, he brags, shyly. (I find it SO implausible that an old fuddy like Ray should have been a hardman fighter in his youth. And that Brookside should seek to present it as something of which someone should be proud! And that Ray promptly turned into a hen-pecked husband!)
Jacqui finally is able to rest on the sofa. She begins to relax, when the children start crying again. (I mean, these kids are three years old, for Pete’s sake! And speaking of ages, shouldn’t Emma have had a birthday in January? Ah, the things I am unable to ask ED!)
Ray is relating his Jail House Blues reminiscences to Nikki, who’s an apt listener. Now the jail he was in in Malaysia - THAT was a jail. It was a concrete shed with no windows, except bars across the front. He and his inmates had a cot for a bed and a bucket in which to pee. AND they were on bread and water.
The problem was, they had to keep their pee-buckets gleaming clean all the time, but they were expected to use them for work as well - digging. So what they would do is use a mate’s bucket for pissing one day and their own for digging and alternate.
But, Nikki tries to obtain an imagination at the relation of the tale, why did the army do that sort of thing?
Oh, it was just to break a body down, Ray says.
At that moment, Jerome arrives home. Ray jumps up and instantly asks if he managed to have a word with Helen.
Jerome looks uncomfortable. He did, and the news isn’t good, he says. Helen never wants to see Ray again.
Marty and Dire are still sitting on the sofa, at a loss about how to handle this rebellious situation with Adele. Suddenly Dire admits that she’s been thinking about this all day and she thinks she has an answer to the problem. She thinks that from here on, she and Marty shouldn’t venture to mention the holiday again.
But, Marty observes, if they ignore the situation, it won’t go away.
This is a big deal for Adele, Dire explains. The Murrays weren’t in favour of her going, and Dire would hasten to bet that none of the other parents were either. But the more they protested to Adele, the more the girl would dig in. Marty knew what she was like.
But, how much did he think she would actually need for this holiday? How much for the balance of the payment, plus her spends?
Marty reckons about £300 to £400 pounds.
Exactly, says Dire, smugly. Marty knows too well what Adele’s like with money. Didn’t Dire say that the girl came home today lugging two big bags of shopping? AND there was the £17.00 per month she put into her contacts. She only has a part-time job at the garage. There’s no WAY that she’ll be able to save up for that holiday. So, no money means she won’t be able to go. There’s really nothing to worry about.
Marty sees the logic in Dire’s plan. It’s spot on, he says.
So, Dire says, decisively. There’ll be no more kicking off when Ayia Napa is mentioned. Whenever Adele mentions going on holiday, the Murrays concurr, saying ‘OK ... Whatever ... Send us a card.’
It’s sussed. But why do I think it won’t be. (cf: Next episode).
Jacqui now sits on the Farnham sofa, asleep with both the children.
Bev and Jimmy lock the bar and walk away from it, although why Bev doesn’t just turn and go upstairs is beyone me. Bev is pleased. Things appear to be picking up slowly, she remarks to Jim. She thanks him for his help, saying that Nikki would be in to do the afternoon shift the next day. In fact, Bev is optimistic. She’s actually beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
But it’s hard work, jokes Jim.
Yes, but it’s fun, says Bev, almost gaily.
As the two move away, a figure emerges from the nearby phone box. It’s Leanne, who stands and watches them leave. As they depart, a slow and evil smile spreads across her face. She raises her right hand, which clutches a set of keys to the bar, which are still in Leanne’s possession. (Why didn’t Bev think to get these off her?)
Now Nikki and Jerome are seated on the Hotel Corkhill sofa, and Nikki’s telling Jerome about her conversation with Ray. Ray told her about getting into fights in Malaysia.
Swapping prison stories, were they? Jokes Jerome.
Well, Nikki admits, Ray’s stories were real hardship ones.
Then why is Nikki persisting in complaining about the police? Jerome asks. What was the absolute worst she had to endure in the few hours she was in custody.
Nikki looks like a spoiled, disgruntled child. The worst thing was the jibes the bizzies made about scroungy students wanting to use taxpayers’ money and them calling her a lefty student.
Jerome laughs. No one takes that stuff seriously, he says.
But just imagine! Them calling HER a lefty student! Nikki is insulted, more than anything.
But when she was in the police van, she continues, that ginger kid asked her if she were going to the big demonstration against tuition fees in London next week. She was thinking about it, seriously.
Jerome scoffs openly at this. Nikki’s on the verge of being a drop out! What gives her the right to join in a student protest, when she wouldn’t be a student anymore?
Nikki announces that she’s changed her mind. She won’t be dropping out, even if it means taking out a hardship loan. She’s going to that demo next month and she’s going to ge t her degree as well!
Leanne stealthily opens the door of the bar and slowly walks inside. She walks behind the bar and, one by one, begins to turn all the drink taps on. Looking around, she withdraws a large hammer from her bag and smiles her trademark evil smile once again, as she surveys the premises.
Gazing fondly at the hammer, she remarks, ‘Last orders, Bev!’
John Fay wrote this. One of the better writers. A good episode.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002