It’s back this week! No, not Brookside! Channel 4’s back to arsing around with its schedules this week. No, I’m talking about ER. Wednesday night. For those of you who DON’T have E4, several cast members are leaving the award-winning (truly) show this year, not least of them being Anthony Edwards (Mark Greene) and Eriq La Salle (Peter Benton). They’re also losing Malucci and Clio, the American Version of Trona the Two-Watt Bulb.
THAT means, ER will be in the market for some new doctors, and who better to fit the bill than Brookside Close’s own resident psychiatrist-in=training, Nikki Shadwick, dubbed fondly by Jaci Stephan as ‘Dr Nikki’.
Can you imagine her entrance on the show, coming up to Randi at the reception desk and asking, ‘Errrm, ‘scyoose me, boot can yer tell me the way ter the nearest caff?’ Of course, she’ll refer to Kerry Weaver as a Lezza, she’ll try to counsel Luka and she’ll probably be in line for snogging Carter - as long as he manages to find a dead, hairy spider to plop on top of his head.
Hey, it could even lead to a spin-off. Dr Nikki!
And on Friday’s episode, we even got to see her administer treatment.
The show opens with a silent, prolonged shot of the damage Leanne and her hammer have inflicted on Bev’s bar. The taps remain open, but now only drip the last contents of the ale, every bit of glassware in the place has been shattered into bits. A hurricane hitting the place wouldn’t have caused this much damage. My only wonder is that someone didn’t hear the rucus ensuing!
The camera pans back to show a shot of the bar, with Bev’s neon sign still alight atop it. It looks poignant.
Morning at Hotel Corkhill. The doorbell rings and Nikki, clad in Jimmy’s dressing gown, opens it to find Ray, standing with a brown envelope in his hand. Ray apologises for coming around so early, but he’s got the final list of damaged/destroyed items regarding the bungalow fire.
Great, says Nikki. Now all they need to do is create a file for these items on Jimmy’s computer.
Jimmy emerges from the extension, greets Ray and comments on Nikki wearing his dressing gown. This is a particularly intimate gesture - much the same as any woman who’s ever spent the night with her fella unexpectedly has done in donning his teeshirt or the like. I’m uneasy with this Jimmy=Nikki relationship. Not only is it implausible, it’s downright dangerous and any rudimentary psych student would realise as much. And if she doesn’t, then someone like Jessie should. This ‘friendship’ says nothing, does nothing and is going nowhere, just like the characters involved in it.
Nikki apologises for wearing the dressing gown. (Where, exactly, did she come upon it? One assumes it was in Jimmy’s extension, so by reason, Nikki would have had to enter his room to obtain it). But she got cold around 5AM, she says, and didn’t like to turn Jimmy’s central heating on without asking him first, so she donned the dressing gown.
Ray explains to Jimmy that he’s done the estimate for lost goods re the bungalow, and Nikki had offered to put the list onto the computer for him.
Jimmy agrees, remarking that the rebuilding of the bungalow should be the ultimate fantasy for a DIY buff like Ray.
Ray, who seems to have a heavy cold, scratches his head laconically. All he wants, he admits, is to get the bungalow back to the way it was. Although the only alterations he might make, he admits, is to add a couple of rooms - extra space, he explains. (Pretty soon Brookside Close will be wall=to-wall building, what with the Dixon extension, the Farnhams about to add onto the house and now this!)
Jimmy jokes with Ray that Ray will shortly be in his element, once the architects arrive and Ray gets into telling them what and how to do.
Ray still seems pretty downbeat about all the kerfuffle. He tells Jimmy, morosely, that he might be able to rebuild the bungalow, but he’s doubtful whether he can rebuild his family.
Jimmy guesses rightly that Jessie is still royally narked with Ray; but Ray is quick to remark that he thought Jimmy had pretty much the same opinion as Jessie did about him.
Oh, that? Jimmy brushes his former tactless remark aside like an unwanted piece of toast. He’s changed his mind about all that now.
Ray reminds Jimmy that he was supposed to be his mate, but Jim had appeared to turn against him.
It’s all different now, Jimmy assures him. Anyway, the Sage proffers advice, Ray wants to remember that WIVES are dispensable, but kids aren’t.
Outside, Dire is unpacking groceries from Plank’s car. Plank is asking her how it feels now to have a bit of money at her disposal for a change.
Dire seems uneasy, and Plank asks if she’s told Marty about the extra funds he’d provided. The greedy, hard-faced bitch looks singularly uneasy, glancing about the Close. She WILL tell Mart, she promises. In fact, she has to. She couldn’t very well undergo IVF without him, could she?
Plank, feeling unusually generous, spontaneously suggests that he take her out for a spot of lunch later on.
Dire is immediately suspicious and asks why the lad’s being so unctuous.
Plank remarks that he reckons that this time of month, Dire is in need of all the family support and attention she can get. (FOR ALL THOSE OF YOU, ESPECIALLY THE CURRENT INHABITANTS OF THE OFFICIAL FORUM, WHO ARE INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT’S TRANSPIRING HERE, DIRE MURRAY IS HAVING HER PERIOD.)
Dire, for once, is embarrassed. Things have come to a pretty pass, she observes, when the whole family is aware that she’s having her monthly time.
At that moment, we hear the mellifluous tones of Jacqui Dixon-Farnham, calling after Harry, who suddenly runs down the street in the direction of the Murrays. Dire leans down and scoops the child into her arms, as Jacqui sprints into view.
Jacqui immediately scolds Harry for running in the road, something she’s warned him against doing. Dire clucks and chucks at the child, reluctant to hand him over to his mother, asking if he’s been a naughty boy for his mum.
She asks after Jacqui, saying she didn’t get to see much of her since Jacqui’d become a wife and mother. Jacqui admits that she’s been very busy with the children. Dire suddenly offers her babysitting services, should Jacqui and Max ever want an evening out or some time to themselves, as she hands Harry back to Jacqui.
As Jacqui starts to return home, Dire follows her, labouring the point about being available to babysit anyplace, anytime, anywhere, at a moment’s notice etc. Because Dire knows that being a mum is the hardest job of all.
Jacqui, almost fleeing now from the madwoman, promises to consider the offer.
As she sadly returns to her stepson, Plank suggests that they meet at 12:30 for lunch.
Voila! Thanks to the Corkhill all-singing all-dancing computer and Nikki’s superior typing skills, Ray now has one hard copy of the insurance list, and Nikki proudly hands it to him. Jimmy takes his leave of them both, telling Nikki that he’s going into work early today, as poor Bev will need all the help she can get.
Nikki suddenly remembers that she was due to work the afternoon shift at Bev’s. She couldn’t possibly do that now, she says, crying off. Why, she has too much to do. Because she got involved with the student protest the other day, she never made it to the Loans Department of the university.
‘Well, there you go!’ Exclaims Jimmy, wagging a finger at Nikki. ‘If you WILL go around getting arrested!’
After he leaves, Dr Nikki gazes after him with concern. She asks Ray if he thinks Jimmy’s acting a bit too hyper these days.
Well, Ray admits, Jim’s certainly had a change of heart as far as Ray is concerned. He only wished Jessie would have a similar change of heart.
Nikki encourages Ray to believe that Jessie will come around to his past. It just takes time, but Ray HAS to tell Jessie the truth. That’s what’s annoying her grandmother more than anything.
She interfered with Helen, Ray begins to witter, and now ... Now Helen has said that she didn’t want anything more to do with Ray. She didn’t want to know him.
And before Nikki’s eyes, Ray breaks into tears.
Nikki promises, in an effort to soothe Ray, to try to get Jerome to talk Helen into seeing Ray.
Bev unlocks the door of the Bar and enters. At first, she seems unable to take in the scope of the damage done, but once she takes a step and her shoe crunches broken glass, she realises that practically everything has been damaged or destroyed.
She slowly circumnavigates the premises, mouth agape in horror and disbelief. Finally, she turns the light on, as if she hopes that by doing so, the extra light will prove the scene to have merely been an illusion.
Bev’s face is a picture of shock and horror.
In the background, we see Jimmy walk down The Parade and enter the bar. He, too, is caught up in the shock of the discovery. By now, however, although she hasn’t uttered a word, Bev is near tears.
Jimmy approaches her and asks what has happened.
Bev’s face turns into a mixture of defeat and bitterness. ‘She didn’t do a good enough job when I was away,’ Bev says, sadly, referring to Leanne. ‘So she came back to finish it off.’
Back at Hotel Corkhill, Dr Nikki has managed to calm Raymundo down, by sitting him firmly at the Corkhill kitchen table and plying him with a hot cup of tea. Ray manages to stop snuffling long enough to apologise for his reaction, explaining to her that everything going on in his life at the moment had simply become too much - discovering Helen, the fire, and now this latest predicament.
Nikki sympathises with him, saying that Ray had only just found his daughter again, and that was a monumental happening, no matter how anyone perceived it. Out of curiousity and just plain nosiness, Nikki asks Ray if he ever thought about Helen before. He must have known she was out there somewhere.
Well, Ray begins, shakily, blowing his nose, at first, he thought about her all the time. He knew roughly when the baby was due, and then word got to him that he had a little girl. He wanted to see her, but in his circumstances, he thought it best that he didn’t. What he didn’t realise, was that a person just couldn’t simply package away their feelings.
But now Helen’s found Ray, jollies Nikki. And not only did Ray have a daughter, he had a granddaughter too. How old was she?
Ray tells Nikki that his granddaughter’s name is Stephanie, and that she’s twelve, which makes this piece of information yet ANOTHER grey area on Brookside. Some weeks ago, when Ray agreed to meet Helen at The Black Bull, when Tim and Plank were on reconaissance and saw them, Helen brought Ray a picture of Stephanie and told Ray that the girl was EIGHTEEN!!!!! Now, all of a sudden, she’s TWELVE. Did someone have an afterthought and decide that there might be an up-and-coming storyline about a 12 year-old girl in Brookside? Or is she really FIFTEEN, playing TWELVE and will celebrate her SIXTEENTH birthday sometime in the summer, when she’ll be rewarded by TPTB with a new haircut, a bleach and a DD set of silicone implants? Who knows? All I know is that in January, Helen’s daughter Stephanie was eighteen, and now in February, she’s twelve. Maybe in March, she’ll be six!!!!!
Ray goes on to tell Nikki that he’s back to thinking about Helen all the time now, especially since he was living under the same roof as young Beth Dixon now. He wonders what Helen was like at her age, and then looking at Nikki and Emily, wonders the same thing.
Nikki tells Ray that she thinks he should make the effort to see Helen, and Ray replies dolefully that he doesn’t know where Helen even lives. Nikki volunteers Jerome for finding out Helen’s address.
Back at the ruin that was once Bev’s Bar, Jimmy reappears with a broom and dustpan. Bev stops him. It’s not worth the effort, she says, tonelessly. Jimmy, however, disagrees. Of course, it’s worth it. They have to get this mess cleared up if they want to open tonight. The bar was worth the effort; Leanne Powell wasn’t.
Dire and Plank walk through the doors of the establishment, closely followed by Nikki, who - it appears - has found time in her busy schedule of protesting, scrounging, counselling and typing, to do a shift at the bar, for which she’ll get paid nothing.
Dire surveys the wreckage in wonder. Someone must have had some party the night before, she gobs, before even thinking about what she’s saying.
Jimmy immediately points an accusing finger at her. If that’s the case, he says, Dire wants to be asking her Christy what he’s been up to! It’s Christy responsible for this, Jimmy alleges.
Bev shushes him abruptly, saying that there is no proof as to the identity of the person responsible; but Jimmy won’t be silenced. Well, he asserts, loudly, who else had the keys to this place? There were no signs of a break-in? All evidence pointed in one direction. Abruptly changing his tack, he asks what he can do for Dire and Plank.
Seemingly at a loss for words, Dire stammers that she and Plank had thought to have some lunch, and Bev apologises for the state of the place, saying that they could probably get something at The Shelf.
Jimmy interrupts. What was Bev doing, sending her clientele to an over-priced gaffe like The Shelf. Table for two, was it?
Bev apologises again to the gob-smacked Murrays, saying that Jimmy was pitching an ill-timed wind-up. She then tells Jimmy that it’s impossible to serve the Murrays. They had no food.
What’s Bev thinking? Shouts Jimmy, undeterred. OK, so there’s no food; but they can offer the Murrays a sandwich and a cup of coffee, couldn’t they?
Bev hisses that the coffee machine is broken, and Jimmy shouts back: ‘Well, what’s wrong with the good old-fashioned way? Can’t you put a kettle on?’
Bev smiles in embarrassment, reminding Jimmy that every piece of crockery was broken, every glass smashed and all the drink had been destroyed. Besides that, they couldn’t ask the Murrays to sit amongst this rubble.
Problem solved, says Jimmy, confidently. He’ll seat them upstairs in the conservatory part. And he ushers a reluctant Dire and Plank upstairs.
After he goes, Bev whispers with concern to Nikki, asking her if she thinks Jimmy’s more manic than usual. Nikki gazes after him, with a worried look on her face.
Meanwhile, at Chateau Farnham, Jacqui is trying to do a load of laundry. Emma sits on the floor behind her, banging on a saucepan. Jacqui turns to tell the child that she’s supposed to play with the plastic saucepans, not the good ones.
Suddenly, Harry runs into the kitchen, carrying Jacqui’s mobile phone and holding it out to her. Jacqui ticks him off for having the phone and realises that there’s a caller on it. She takes the call, apologising for the little boy, having it, only to receive abuse from the caller about the way she was bringing up her children.
Exasperated by the caller, she storms into the lounge area, where Harry is seated at the coffee table. She starts shouting at the child, reminding him that she’d told him and told him never to play with the phone. Harry manages to look idiotic, whilst covering his ears with his hands, just as Max puts his head around the door to witness the scene.
Seated upstairs at Bev’s Dire is discussing Plank’s ‘housekeeping’ money. She feels guilty sifting all this money the IVF way again, especially as the Murrays had debts to pay. But the debts will always be there, remarks Plank, sweepingly and stupidly. Dire deserved another shot at IVF.
He says this as Jimmy approaches with their coffees, and he overhears this. He regales the Murrays with the assertion that Bev will come out of this calamity even stronger than before. ‘TRIUMPH IN ADVERSITY!’ He shouts.
Dire asks if Bev’s called the police.
The bizzies? No, who needs them! Cries Jimmy. No need to get them involved. No, sirree, Bev would wait until just the right moment and then ... That Leanne Powell would find out just how much of an amateur she is when she encounters a revengeful Bev.
Bev, only on the lower level, hears all this, and when Jimmy returns, she tells him to shut up about revenge and the like.
Oh, well, Jimmy assures her, if she didn’t want to go public with her plans for revenge, he understood. Now, he’ll just set about setting the tables -
Bev tries vainly to stop him, telling him that there really was no point in setting the tables, when Ray enters. Nikki’s put a call out to him, and she has something for him. She tells Ray that Jerome wasn’t at all happy at acting as a go-between for Ray and Helen ... But he HAD managed to get Helen’s address, and she hands Ray a folded piece of paper.
As Ray’s about to go, Dire Murray approaches Nikki, having just taken a trip to the ladies’ loo. Looking at Bev briefly in embarrassment, she whispers to Nikki that something had to be done about the ladies. The loo was a mess, and they were out of sanitary napkins.
Nikki is quick to help, saying that she might have a tampon in her handbag, when Jimmy interjects loudly, talking to Bev.
‘There you go, Bev!’ He shouts. ‘There’s proof that there’s ALWAYS someone worse off than you are!
There’s poor Di Murray there, how long has she been trying to have a baby and what? No success!’
Dire’s and Nikki’s mouths hang open in abject horror at Jimmy’s tactlessness, and Bev looks as though she wishes the floor would open and swallow her. Hearing the commotion, Plank joins the party to observe.
Jimmy continues, undeterred by his shocked audience. No, poor Dire was devastated. And then look at all the other things happening lately - what with all these long-lost daughters turning up out of the blue and people getting arrested -
Now Ray and Nikki are aghast, but Dire breaks the silent, desperately embarrassed. Plank tries to call Jimmy up on his behaviour, but Dire quickly says that they have to go and asks Bev how much the lunch cost.
Equally desperate to make amends, Bev assures Dire that the lunch cost nothing.
‘Eh?’ Quizzes Jimmy, suddenly. ‘Noothink? You’re not running a charity here, Beverly, you know"!’
Dire and Plank beat a hasty retreat, as Bev rounds on Jimmy. Didn’t he realise how much he was embarrassing those poor people, not to mention her? Jimmy should apologise to them.
Apologise! Says Jimmy, in consternation. What for? They got a free lunch, didn’t they? And he moves away to continue working.
As he departs, Bev and Nikki exchange uneasy looks. Bev tells Nikki that she can’t cope with Jimmy acting this way. He was Nikki’s mate, it was up to her to deal with him.
Nikki admits that Jimmy’s freaking out a little lately.
Dire finally arrives home, to find Marty sitting dejectedly at the sitcom table. Seeing her enter, he asks if she wants a sarnie. No, Dire begins to explain, but then simply says that she’s already had something.
From the look on her face, Marty ascertains that she’s had a bad day and Dire concurs. Marty shakes his head, helplessly. What this family needs, he reckons, is a holiday - all of them. The trouble was, they had no means to finance one.
Dire turns away from Marty and fumbles in her bag, taking out £500 of the money Plank gave her. Handing it to Marty, she confesses that she was unsure whether to bank this money or keep it at home. Marty is surprised.
Max is calming Jacqui down. He tells her that the kids are now happily ensconced in the back garden, making mud pies. And making more mess, grouses Jacqui.
Max asks if the children had been behaving badly today, and Jacqui launches into a tirade about the fact that the kids hadn’t given her a moment’s peace all day. She didn’t even have a chance to go to the toilet.
Max is amused and shocked and asks if she’s managed to go.
Yes, grumbles Jacqui, but not on her own.
Max accurately remarks that it must be Jacqui’s time of month (as well as Dire Murray’s), and Jacqui confirms this. But she’s surprised that Max knows. (Hang on, hang on. Jacqui and Max are married. What husband DOESN’T know when it’s his wife’s time. Out come the tampons in the toilet. Hell, I even make a point of warning my husband as he always inadvertantly manages to do something that annoys the hell out of me on the first day of my time. What’s the matter with this woman?)
Max, with the wisdom of years, assures Jacqui that a man just gets to know these things.
Hmmph! Snorts Jacqui, she supposes that if a man had lived with as many women as Max had, then this knowledge would be second nature.
Max is affronted by this remark, but remembers the cause of it, as Jacqui comments that she’s surprised he didn’t note the date in his diary.
She’s suddenly repentant, however, and apologises for having a bad day with the kids. Max is understanding, reminding her that he had often told her that there would be bad days with the children.
Jacqui feels guilty. She’s afraid that Harry will grow up thinking his name is ‘Harry-Don’t-Do-That’ or Emma might think hers is ‘Emma-Stop’. Jacqui tells Max that Emma had even managed to put a shoe down the toilet before Jacqui even had a chance to flush. Max starts to laugh, but Jacqui tells him that it was his shoe she shoved down the loo.
Ray wanders around a strange neighbourhood, a scrap of paper with Helen’s address held tightly in his hand. Suddenly he sees a street that matches the name on the paper - Digmont Road.
Marty is quzzing Dire at Sitcom House about Plank’s donation. When exactly did he give her the money? Marty asks.
The other day, Dire says.
But why didn’t she say something? Marty asks.
Dire fudges something about Marty’s insurance scam, saying that it was dishonest. Marty can’t understand, however, why Plank chose to give this amount of money to Dire, alone, and not to the couple as a whole. And what, exactly, is this money for?
Dire again fudges by reminding Marty that Plank’s money was the ‘household contribution’ that Marty had been nagging the lad to make.
Marty asks Dire what she hoped to spend the money on, and Dire cryptically replies that she isn’t expecting miracles.
Back at the bar, Bev uneasily eyes Jimmy as he tears around the place, tackling tasks. Edging over to Nikki’s side, Bev confesses to Nikki that Jimmy’s behaviour is getting on her nerves. Nikki volunteers to deal with him, and Bev agrees to this - as long as Nikki takes Jimmy home.
Nikki approaches Jimmy, as Bev watches from a safe distance. Jimmy is maniacally cleaning the top of the pool table, going on about the state of the place. As he witters on for some moments, Bev abruptly stops him, by ordering him to go home.
He straightens up, suddenly, as if out of breath, and Nikki fetches him a glass of water to drink. She suggests that perhaps Bev is right. Maybe Jim ought to go home. She’d go with him. He thanks Nikki, saying that he knows she’s keen to help, but he can look after himself.
Nikki asks him if he’s been recording his thoughts in his Self-Management Journal, and Jimmy confirms that he has. Nikki confides to Jimmy that she’s certainly no expert in dealing with manic-depressives, but everything she learned in writing her essay, she learned from Jim. (Now THAT’S interesting. It either doesn’t say too much for John Moore’s, or else it says that Nikki is an incredibly bad and dense student. Which one?)
Jimmy listens humbly to what Nikki says and then whispers softly to her that he thinks he’s ‘heading for one’.
Well, why not talk about it with her? Dr Nikki suggests. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that.
Not here, asserts Bev.
Jimmy darts away for an instant and returns with his Self-Management Journal, which is a page-at-a-glance diary. Jimmy must have big pockets in his denim jacket, because he seems to carry this book with him everywhere!
He’s been making all kinds of notes in his journal, he says, showing it to Nikki. Look! He points to a section. He even had sex last week, he brags. Nikki glances at the page and then gives Bev a look of disbelief mingled with pity. Bev looks unvomfortable. Not here, she insists. Take the problems home.
Nikki turns her attention back to Jimmy. It’s good for Jimmy to be everyone’s friend, she tells him, but it’s not right that Jimmy should be trying to take on the world’s problems. All the stuff that’s happening around him, Jimmy just can’t let it get to him.
Jimmy says he can’t help it, and Dr Nikki suggests a therapeutic exercise. Jimmy should repeat the following fact: ‘Ray Hilton is my mate, but he’s not my problem.’
Jimmy mumbles softly and without conviction: ‘Ray Hilton is my mate, but he’s not my problem.’
Now, says Nikki, he should repeat the next phrase: ‘Nikki Shadwick’s getting arrested is not my problem.’
Jimmy softly repeats the phrase, and Nikki demands that he repeat it in a loud voice.
‘NIKKI SHADWICK’S GETTING ARRESTED IS NOT MY PROBLEM,’ shouts Jimmy, and this time gives a short laugh at the end, telling Nikki that he feels better already.
Bev looks at the pair of them sceptically. What is this? She wants to know. Some sort of primal scream therapy? It’s not as if Nikki’s getting paid, she says.
That depends on what the payment is, quips Jimmy.
Glancing naughtily at Bev, Nikki issues another phrase: ‘Bev’s Bar getting trashed is not my problem’.
Jimmy shouts the phrase in his loudest and most confident voice.
Ray finally stands in front of a large white house, which he recognises as Helen’s. After a few moments, a tall young, adolescent girl emerges and starts to wash the downstairs windows. Ray realises that this must be Stephanie, Helen’s 12 year-old daughter who was originally 18.
Max is helping Jacqui fold the laundry, as she enters the back door from the garden. The kids, she tells Max, are having a lovely time. She then apologises to Max for being so tense earlier on.
Again, Max repeats that he knows some days with kids are harder than others.
Jacqui explains to Max that she feels that the kids need more than she can offer. Oh, she can take them swimming or to play group, but she feels that they need some added stimulation.
As Max looks at her with a puzzled frown, she continues. It’s not that she’s being pre=menstrual or anything; but she thinks that they might do well to be in nursery.
Well, says Max, there’s a creche now at the Health Club. Maybe Jacqui should take them there a couple days a week.
But she wants to set this up herself, Jacqui maintains. She wonders if it would be so unfair to the kids if she were to go back to work part-time.
Max is understanding. He feels that everything has got on top of Jacqui lately. Not only has she been looking after the children and the house, but she’s worried about her dad, his business, Katie -
And now DD, Jaccqui informs him. Only the day before, Jacqui learned that DD had broken her ankle. She mentions to Max that she was thinking of going to visit her mother this weekend.
Max is encouraging. It would be nice for the kids as well. A break would do them good.
‘A break from me, you mean,’ quips Jacqui.
But Max was thinking that the kids could go with Jacqui.
When she hears this, Jacqui’s face falls a mile.
Marty talks to Dire while she finishes the dishes. He’s annoyed about the wodge of money Plank has given her. It seems to Marty as though Plank gave the money to Dire, exclusively, and not to them as his parents. He stands and looks at Dire for a moment, as she plays the poor, sacrificing, noble wife bit.
He tells her to stop being noble. Dire pretends not to understand his meaning.
He remarks that Dire hasn’t talked about wanting a baby for ages. (Oh, yeah? What was that humping, bumping and grinding just last week? Playschool?)
Dire suddenly confesses all. She keeps volunteering to babysit every child on the Close, she says. You know the old wives’ tale about if a childless woman is around babies enough, something will rub off. Why she even scared the piss out of Jacqui Farnham earlier that day.
Marty listens closely to what his selfish wife is saying. What this family needs, he says, is a little bit of hope. And what Marty wants to do is keep this £500 for starters and add to it, just for another shot at IVF. Pretty soon, he reckons, they’ll have enough for another crack.
Dire half-heartedly protests. Marty doesn’t have to do that.
Marty tells her that he wants it to go on the record that this is HIS decision. (Why do I suddenly have a feeling that Adele might nick that money?)
Ray is still standing in front of Helen’s house, staring at Stephanie washing windows. The child turns and notices him. She asks who he is and why he’s staring at her? Ray starts to tell her not to worry and to identify himself, but before he can utter a word, she runs into the house, screaming for her mother.
Nikki has walked Jimmy home. As they enter Hotel Corkhill, Jimmy is talking non-stop. He really shouldn’t have left Bev on her own like that, he says.
Nikki assures him that Bev will phone them if she needs either of them.
Jimmy continues wittering in a monotone voice. Nikki shouldn’t be living here like this with him, he says. That’s the reason Lindsey left in the end, Jim was holding her back. But that’s the difference, see? Lindsey had a choice. Nikki doesn’t, when her house has been reduced to charcoal.
Nikki ventures to reply to this. If she and Jerome were causing him a problem by staying there, she offers, they could easily find someplace else to stay (like Vonnie’s?) Jimmy’s done loads for her and her family, she continues, why, if he hadn’t taken Dimily in, who knows what might have happened to them. And Nikki’s not stupid, she says (oh no? That’s a matter of opinion). She knows exactly how Dimily are coming by their money. It’s just that Jimmy’s made it possible that Dimily could be near family, and Nikki was grateful for that. She thanks him for all he’s done.
Jimmy tells Nikki that she’s not to go anywhere.
Back at the Bar, Bev’s on her own. She stands behind the bar and gazes silently and sadly at the destruction wrought by Leanne. Looking down, she finds an unbroken Malibu bottle that’s somehow survived the carnage. Bev heaves the bottle against the wrought-iron decor and it smashes. She begins to cry, hopelessly.
Someone named Patrea Smallacombe wrote this. She ought to go back to uni
and study exactly what an undergrad psych student studies.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002