At the end of a week when Brookside’s been re-scheduled, yet again, to accommodate a second-rate car programme, we had the pleasure of seeing what Brookside could be yet again, at its best, and what it’s become at its worst.
It’s been a week when we saw superior acting skills from the likes of Sarah White, Stephen Pinder, Ben Hull and Vicki Gates, but in this selfsame week, we saw totally unnecessary and gratuitous shots of Jennifer Ellison’s arse, which filled the whole screen, and of Suzanne Collins kitted out like a cheap model in a second-rate catalogue. We saw, also, a lot of unnecessary lad-bonding between Philip Olivier, who’s a good comedy actor, but only succeeds as coming across as a poor man’s Michael Owen, when asked to play the hardman stint, and the embarrassingly bad Stephen Fletcher, hired for his looks alone and not having any other saving grace, I’m sorry to say.
Tim only incites the more intelligent viewer to violence - the propensity to pick up the nearest cricket bat and flatten his already cheeky little flat face into oblivion. As far as Fletcher is concerned, the sooner he’s sent back to the sawmill, the sooner better quality houses can be made in the environs of Liverpool.
Buckwheat and Collins should be despatched immediately to Littlewoods in order to further their lingerie modelling careers, and I’m sure there’s some incredibly pornographic magazine where Jennifer Ellison wouldn’t feel constrained to wear her de rigeur black undies and could delight in showing the world her anus, which is actually where her acting talent is to be found.
It’s early morning, and the tacky, poor white phone in Hotel Corkhill is ringing off it’s proverbial hook. Voices are heard off-camera, ostensibly from upstairs, but loud enough for the more discerning viewer to guess that Suzanne Collins and Leon Lopez were standing off-screen in the small foyer of H.C., reciting their lines.
Now REMEMBER ... It’s MORNING. People haven’t got out of bed. Now ... TRY to IMAGINE what YOU look like, what you SOUND like when you are awakened by an early morning phone calls, you women, especially. Got a picture in your mind? Well, prepare for that image to be dispelled.
IN ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF UNWARRANTED, UNNECESSARY AND TOTALLY GRATUITOUS SEX, after debating who should answer the ringing phone, Nikki emerges, clad in black undies and a black lycra crop-top bra, fresh from the bed, not a hair out of place and make-up unsmudged, to answer the phone.
It’s Jessie, and Nikki whines childishly that her Nan’s got her out of bed. Awwwww diddums!
But worse is yet to come. Panic! Panic! Jessie only wants to come over ... Now. Nikki is nearly rude to her grandmother as she slams the receiver down.
Enter Buckwheat, also without a spider leg out of place and dressed in his Calvin Klein undies and baring his masculine chest. He grapples Nikki from behind, moaning about the phone call causing him to suffer from sleep deprivation (and his very presence causes US to suffer from schlepp deprivation. Then, to our increasing embarrassment, he starts to coo into Nikki’s ear and rub his hand up and down her thigh.
MESSAGE TO BROOKSIDE!!!!! WE KNOW THAT NIKKI AND JEROME ARE HAVING A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP, JUST AS WE KNOW THAT SHARON SLEEPS WITH PHIL IN EASTENDERS, THAT SONIA SLEEPS WITH JAMIE, THAT MEL SLEPT WITH STEVE - BUT WE DIDN’T HAVE TO HAVE A LITERAL BLOW-BY-BLOW ACCOUNT OF THOSE RELATIONSHIPS. EITHER BROOKSIDE STOPS CHEAPENING ITSELF BY TRYING TO ACCOMMODATE THE MOLECULAR BRAIN ACTIVITY OF SUCH PEOPLE AS THE DIRE WEBCHIMP OF OFFICIAL FORUM FAME OR IT DOES A SIDE-LINE IN SEX EDUCATION FOR THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED, BECAUSE YOU ARE LOSING VIEWERS!!!!!
Nikki informs Buckwheat, miserably, that her grandmother is hell-bent on coming over and sorting out this insurance claim. Buckwheat, thinking - as always - of himself and his own gratification, is optimistic. Maybe Jess has thought some more and maybe now this thing will be sorted out in his and Nikki’s favour.
Enter another piece of gratuitous sexual shit, in the form of Tim, cockily entering, also wearing the regulation boxies and bear chest. He confidently greets everyone with ‘White Rabbits!’, encouraging Nikki and Buckwheat to reply in kind. He casually asks who was on the phone.
Sussing that he had been awake, Nikki barracks him for not answering the phone in the first place - although why Tim enters from the extension, when he and Emily have been given the master bedroom, is anyone’s guess.
Day has begun on The Parade, as well, and the first shot we see is of a locksmith’s van. Bev stands desultorily in the doorway of the bar, as Max passes by, walking toward The Shelf and speaking with a distant Jacqui on his mobile. He can be heard asking after DD and the kids .Bev follows him, wanting to call out to him, but reluctant to do so. She follows him from a distance, until he reaches the Health Club door that leads to The Shelf.
Jessie has called around to Hotel Corkhill, in a conciliatory mood. Buckwheat offers her a cup of tea, and Nikki asks her grandmother insolently, ‘Where’s the fire?’ This is an obvious reference to the fact that Jessie was so keen to see the two of them this morning. Jessie is not amused by that flippant remark. As far as having any second thoughts about accommodating the ungrateful pair of scroungers, she’s far from relenting.
In fact, she wants them to know that the £7000 claimed by Buckwheat - £7335, to be precise, as Buckwheat corrects her - is impossible to honour, given the circumstances of their claim. If they agreed to Buckwheat taking this out of what THEY had claimed, then that would leave Ray and Jessie hard up to repair the house.
Nikki makes some cack-handed remark, and Jessie sternly reprimands her, pointing out the infeasibility of her getting a hardship loan. Nikki points out that a hardship loan need not be repaid.
Jessie is well impressed ... not. It’s nice to be able, like Nicola, to get money for nothing, but if they parcelled out the insurance claim the way Nikki and Buckwheat were demanding, then the Hiltons’ financial state would be nothing with the claim. As for Nikki, Jessie succinctly and RIGHTLY, reminds her granddaughter that she was in a financial mess before all this started. (Too right, going back to before Greg died, as I recall).
The doorbell sounds then, and Ray enters, looking distressed and holding a greeting card of some sort in his hand. He seeks Jessie, holding out the card to her plaintively. This just arrived in the post, he says, dolefully. It’s from his mother; a nurse must have written the card for her.
Jessie takes the card and reads aloud, puzzled: ‘To my little Ray of sunshine.’
Ray says that’s what Kitty used to call him when he was a boy.
Jess reads further: ‘One for every year of your life. Twelve kisses.’
And that’s the way Jessie would sign his and Bernard’s birthday cards, he explains, one ‘x’ for every year of their lives.
Jessie asks Ray if his mother seriously thinks that he’s twelve years old again. She’s getting worse, wails Ray. He spoke to Bernard, who visited Kitty last week, and Bernard told Ray that Kitty didn’t even recognise Bernard! Ray thinks that he and Jessie should visit Kitty - today, this week, soon.
Jessie tries to soothe Ray, telling him he’s fretting for nothing. They simply couldn’t visit Kitty this week, not with all this kerfuffle about the insurance claim. Anyway, Kitty was in good hands and being well looked-after. They simply didn’t have the time to visit her this week, maybe next.
(Dum-de-dum-dum-DUMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Now what does this tell you, folks?)
The Walk-In Centre is a veritable beehive of activity this morning, as we hear a patient Impatiently asking the Naughty Nurse how long she’ll have to wait. Nisha calms her down and moves to the rear of the reception area, where we see Dr Gary Parr, easily the best character to be introduced on Brookside in ages, standing by a filing cabinet, casually dressed in a jumper and chinos.
Nisha informs him that the advert for Mrs Dawson’s job of senior receptionist went in the Echo this week. Dr Parr, revealing an appalling lack of understanding regarding medical matters, enquires callously why Mrs Dawson needs six months recuperation period after surgery anyway. (Well, doc, some people do - depends on the type of surgery they have).
Nisha whispers naughtily that the woman’s surgery is something to do with ‘downstairs’, female problems. She isn’t sure what, but she recalls that every time Mrs Dawson sneezed, she had to rush to the ladies’. (Sounds like a prolapsed uterus to me).
Gary Parr shares a tactless laugh with Nisha regarding this, prompting the viewer to ask what the hell these people were doing in medicine anyway? There’s some banter about stress-induced incontinence and how Dr Parr would recommend treatment via collagen and HRT, before Nisha ventures to remind him that they really DIDN’T have to advertise for a new senior receptionist, when she knew the PERFECT candidate for the job.
(Now who would this be, I wonder? Surely not Katie, who has days off for any reason at the drop of a hat, is habitually late for work, openly hates the job and has one written warning for her deliberately rude treatment of patients?)
Dr Parr wisely defers pursuing this course of conversation, instead noticing that his post has arrived. He picks up the scant pile from a nearby desk and opens an envelope. It’s a letter, he says with surprise, from Leanne Powell’s solicitor. He continues scanning the letter and commenting on its contents aloud to Nisha. The solicitor wants his confirmation of the dreadful injuries sustained by Miss Powell in the unprovoked attack from Beverly McLoughlin.
The doctor is beside himself with disbelief. There wasn’t a scratch on the woman. Well, this says a pretty penny about his medical career if it’s all down to defending a scally on the make!
The financial negotiations continue at Hotel Corkhill. Jessie points out, again quite rightly, to the recalcitrant Nikki and the materialistic Buckwheat, that their £7k claim is mainly concerning trivial possessions. Why, look at Buckwheat’s list - £4k of that £7k is for clothes alone!
Buckwheat complains with a mega-sulk that Jessie is now begrudging him the clothes on his back.
Not true, argues Jessie, but Buckwheat AND Nikki had to admit that a helluva lot of money went on buying designer gear. Why, just look at the price of trainers Buckwheat had listed. The bulk of Buckwheat’s list consisted of designer clothing and CDs.
Buckwheat protests that he had to replace his music collection. That was worth £1000 alone. Ray starts moaning about the prices of some of the CDs Buckwheat has listed being phenomenal, and Buckwheat is reduced to protesting like a spoiled child that some of those CDs were imports and, therefore, very expensive.
Ray is sceptical, and annoyed enough to accuse Buckwheat of effecting a fiddle as far as the insurance claim was concerned.
Buckwheat affects the injured dignity of one truly caught in the act of attempting a fraud. He denies such an action, as piously and righteously as Richard Nixon. The only whitewash to be found on Buckwheat is the pancake make-up applied to make him that much more of a white black person!
Not fiddling! Argues Ray. Why, of course the lad knew just what he was doing! And after all Jessie’s done for him too! Asking him into her home, not once, but twice, especially after the charade concerning his deception of Nikki! Buckwheat should be grateful to Jessie, instead of trying to diddle her on the insurance.
Buckwheat cockily replies that that sort of argument is rich coming from Ray. If anyone wants to talk about deceiving Jessie, then Ray’s the expert in that. (If I’d have been Ray, I would have decked the little spider-haired son-of-a-bitch! What happened to his supermodel mother, and why hasn’t she been asked to help?)
Bev is now negotiating payment of the locksmith. Poor Bev! The bloke’s changed the locks on her flat and on the bar, but she doesn’t have enough to pay him. She gives him what she’s got, promising to have the balance later. He’s reluctant to take such a payment plan, but is forced to do so.
Nisha saunters along The Parade, hearing the last bit of Bev’s haggling. When the locksmith departs, she asks Bev if there’s any further news about her break-in. No change, replies Bev, sadly, but she’s got the locks on the bar and her flat changed. She was certain that Leanne trashed her bar, and then she remembered, she told Nisha, that the hard-faced cow had the keys to her flat. She didn’t sleep all last night.
Nisha then commits a terrible faux pas of confidence. She admits to Bev that Gary Parr received a letter that morning from Leanne’s solicitor, wanting confirmation from him of the ‘dreadful injuries’ Leanne had sustained as a result of Bev’s unprovoked attact.
Bev pleads with Nisha to tell her more, but Nisha coyly says that she’s not allowed to say. Indeed, she shouldn’t have even told her that. (No, she shouldn’t and for this she could be sacked). It’s just enough that Bev know that Leanne has got a solicitor onto the problem and Bev should watch her back.
Buckwheat’s insolent remark has prompted Ray to make an unfounded apology. Ray admits that he’s handled this claim in a rather cack-handed way.
Showing a bit of concern, Dr Nikki ruefully admits that everyone’s lost a great deal in the fire, and they should all be pulling together instead of trying to grab whatever money they could.
With that in mind, Jessie suggests that they go through ALL the lists, starting with the practical stuff first, the things that people needed to get them through daily life - crockery, kitchen utensils, sheets etc. She shows Nikki the list of priced items and where they’ll be bought.
Nikki peruses the list, astounded at the cost of these articles. She points out to Jessie that Jess appears to have got quotes from high street shops.
Yes, replies Jess, curiously. What was Nikki getting at?
Well, Nikki reckons, Jessie didn’t have to use high street shops. In fact, she could buy a lot of this stuff at cheaper prices elsewhere - outlets and markets. Look, Nikki points out, £1000 for a carpet, why, that was way too much.
Jessie informs her that the insurance assessor specifies the outlets to use for purchasing (those approved of by the insurance company, Nikki, you dolt). Anyway, says Jessie, buy cheap, buy twice.
And look at the beds! Exclaims a dense Nikki, who thinks everyone of her generation will be young and live forever. Orthopaedic mattresses! A fortune!
Your back is your life support, says Jessie. Nikki doesn’t realise that now, but she will as she ages. (And she WILL age).
Well, the selfish, little madam demands, how much did Ray and Jessie reckon on needing?
Jess tots up the list. Let’s see ... There were lamps, the telly needed replacing, fixtures and fittings, curtains (sorry, kerrtains) ...
Poor, pitiful, selfish Nikki looks dismayed.
Tim and Plank meet a despondent Bev walking away from the Garage. Tim greets her cockily with a ‘Pinch-punch-first-of-the-month’ load of shit. Plank asks after Bev, and she admits that she’s OK. Looking back in the direction of the garage, she says that Leanne hasn’t been in though.
Plank stupidly remarks that his Uncle Christy has said that Leanne looks the worse for wear after that fight.
Bev spits that Plank wants to tell his uncle that if he every shows his weasly face around there again, it’ll be much worse for him. But, she’s glad she’s run into the lads. She wants to ask Tim about procuring some drink.
Sorry, Tim replies, cockily. His source had dried up. Anyway, with Bev only paying him £5 per bottle, it was hardly worth ti.
Bev immediately offers to pay him £10 per bottle for the next lot.
OK, agrees Tim, acting Mr Hardman. Money up front.
Bev says that she’s unable to do that at this moment, but she will pay him when the bar’s up and running, she promises.
Tim gives her a sneering look. On her word alone? He enquires. No way. He then insolently reminds Bev that she conned Nikki and Jimmy out of a wage, by making them work for her for free. (Er, didn’t Jimmy offer their services unasked? Check your sources, Tim.)
Bev beats a humiliating retreat, as Plank gazes sympathetically after her. See? Brags Tim. Already he’s beating his customers off with a stick. And THEY’RE coming calling after him! Why, Plank couldn’t be serious in saying that he didn’t want to partake of another heist.
Plank admits that he doesn’t want to do another ale heist, ever! Why, they only got half of what the whole lot was worth.
Tim says that they’ll learn from their mistakes. He makes Plank a proposition. If Plank could do something and get paid cash-in-hand, without the taxman finding out, if he were a 100% certain of no one finding out and no one getting hurt, would he consider doing something with Tim?
Wet-rot begins to set in on Plank.
Max greets Dr Parr as he enters The Shelf for some lunch. Behind the doctor, Bev lurks at the entrance to the restaurant. Max’s attention is diverted, briefly, by a phone call, which he takes.
As Max speaks to the caller, Bev introduces herself to Gary Parr. She’s surprised to find that he isn’t from Liverpool. No, he explains, he’s actually Mancunian, for which Bev apologises (Ha!). She asks why he’s to be found in Liverpool (pretty ignorant on the writers’ part, as Liverpool isn’t exclusively prohibited to people who are Scousers).
Dr Parr explains that he trained in Liverpool and that his wife likes the city. He then jokes with Bev, asking if she’s taking a day off from creating new patients for him, which prompts Bev, never the brightest light bulb in the pack, to ask about the contents of Leanne’s solicitor’s letter.
Dr Parr deflects the situation by telling Bev that he can’t really discuss the case with her, and Bev replies, disgruntedly that Leanne Powell is only out for a quick buck.
Max finishes on the phone and starts to talk with Gary Parr as he leads him to a booth. Gary discloses that he’s about to move into the area in the next week.
Oh, that’s right, remembers Max, Dr Parr was moving into Max’s wife’s old flat.
Parr nods, grimacing. Yes, and moving in to find that the kitchen suite as well as the bathroom suite had been virtually lifted out.
Max murmurs sympathetically.
Gary gives Bev a short, scathing look. Never mind, he says. He supposes it’s to be expected to find scallies all around.
As Max seats him, Bev approaches Max. Please, she pleads, can he spare her amoment?
Max asks if Bev needs a table. No, she doesn’t want to eat, she says, she just needs a word with Max.
Max is busy at the moment, he replies, shortly. But he can meet her back at The Shelf at around 5PM.
Tim and Plank are sitting on a relative of Plank’s (no, not Dire or Adele, but a park bench), each having a portion of chips. Plank huffs in self-pity. Reduced to eating chips on a park bench! No wonder Nisha looked down on him! And why shouldn’t she, he continues his moan. Look at him! He’s 21 and still he has to return home to his parents’ every night and sort out THEIR domestic problems for them. Why, if he went home right now, he’d find a big argument brewing over Adele going to Ayia Napa or Ant in tears about the goings-on at school. Nisha never had to contend with that, he says. SHE left home at 18 and she paid her own way after that. (Really? Throught nursing school?)
All he wants, vows Plank, is a little space of his own and a little peace.
Well, purrs Tim, sensing that he’s found Plank’s Achilles heel, if Plank were to go in dibs with Tim on this heist, he could have all that and more. Then, not only Nisha, but all sorts of other girlies would be beating a path to him. Tim’s got a job lined up that will surely earn them thousands.
OK, challenges Plank, what is this wonderful, no-fail job?
Ah, replies Tim, playing coy. He can’t tell Plank the details of the next job unless he knows for certain that Plank’s in.
Plank pretends to think a moment. (He has to pretend, because he can’t, really), then reluctantly, he agrees to go in on the heist. But, he reminds Tim, this is his last job. And he want’s nothing to do with dodgy ales or ringing motors.
(But could this be one job too many?)
Tim is jubilant that he’s obtained a new recruit.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, the financial dispute is now raging. Nikki is doing her BEST impression of a spoiled brat, stamping her pretty, little foot and exclaiming that she can’t believe that Jessie would be so callous as to see her own granddaughter go without. (Without what? Designer clothes? Drink? Clubs? Cds?)
‘Who paid all the insurance premiums?’ Counters Jessie, losing patience with Nikki’s inability to get a grip on the situation.
Nikki argues that she and Buckwheat paid rent, therefore they expected to be insured. (This is a PRIME joke. Nikki never paid a day’s rent in her life to Jessie, and Buckwheat only did so reluctantly!)
Jessie stares at Nikki in disbelief. Rent? She doesn’t pay rent!
Nikki maintains that she does, but somewhere in her convulted, little, selfish mind, she corrects herself and tells Jess that BUCKWHEAT is made to pay rent. Yeah, pipes in Buckwheat, peevishly, and the one time he was going to be late with the rent, Jessie marched his arse right down to the bingo club and got him a job.
Jessie, becoming harder and flintier with every insipid word issuing from this extremely ungrateful couple’s mouths, snaps that they need to get their own priorities straight.
That’s Jessie all over, cries Nikki. She’s only happy when SHE’S in control of a situation. SHE’S got to pull the strings. Look at the situation with Ray. She throws a wobbly when it’s revealed that he has a daughter from a long-lost affair, and now she’s denying Ray the right to see his daughter, off her own whim.
Jessie stands up like the prow on a battleship, announcing that she’s never been so insulted in her life and ordering Ray home with her. She leaves in high dudgeon, leaving Nikki and Buckwheat to ponder the fate of their words.
Sitting on the park bench and certain of Plank’s commitment, Tim tells him about the new job. Emily had a mate at beauty school, who had a fella, Dougie. This Dougie is a right hard man, but he’s someone who can get his hand on any sort of goods to flog. At the moment, he’s into leather gear. But, and this is important, says Tim, he stashes all his goods in one warehouse.
The plan is for Tim and Plank to drop Emily off at college in Plank’s van one day and Em would find out the address of the warehouse - where the premises were and what else was inside. The rest was down to them. But they would follow the Corkhill 4-P Guide - Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance - from the Gospel according to Jimmy the Sage.
As the two lads walk away, Plank comments how much like Jimmy Tim is beginning to sound. Tim pretends to be worried.
It’s 5PM and Bev is sitting in one of the booths at The Shelf, opposite Max. She explains to him that because of Leanne’s abuse of privilege in her absence, Bev could no longer obtain any credit with the brewery. She desperately needs stock with which to re-open the bar. Desperately, she pleads with Max to use his account with the brewery to order stock for Bev’s Bar, promising to repay him out of her profits.
Max looks decidedly uncomfortable, telling Bev in a nice way that he’s apprehensive of getting involved in this situation.
Bev points out that it wasn’t she who ran the bar into the ground. She was trying to get the thing up and running again. But she shudders to think what would have happened if she hadn’t come back.
Again, Max says that he’d like to help, but he can’t.
Bev guesses it’s because Jacqui won’t let him. Or maybe, Max is afraid of the place as competition for The Shelf. OK, Bev suggests, so she won’t serve food. In fact, she would advertise The Shelf in the bar, place adverts all around etc. Did Max realise, she asks, that it was two years ago to the day that she took over that bar. She had such big dreams. Please, she begs him. He has to help her. She has no one else to turn to.
It’s the end of the day shift and Dr Parr and Nisha prepare to leave the clinic. Dr Parr informs her that Dr Finn is taking the evening shift, and that this doctor would also be joining him when the place became a proper medical centre, shortly after Easter.
Nisha asks what Dr Finn is like, and Gary Parr begins a subtle character assassination of Dr Finn as a fogey. He suggests that Nisha come for a drink with him.
Because the residents of the Close and The Parade are not allowed to leave the premises, Nisha points out that there is no place local where they could go. Parr suggests going downtown, but Nisha demurs. She’s got revision to do, as she’s studying to become a Nurse Prescriber (or Nurse Practitioner, as we say in the US).
Dr Parr then teases her, warning her that when she’s a Nurse Prescriber, he hopes that she doesn’t go pill crazy on the patients. A lot of time, he says, what a patient really needs is a ready ear and some sympathy.
What about litigation? Nisha teases back.
The day he started worrying about litigation, Parr admits, is the day he quits medicine.
Bev tells Max about her father, musing about how nice it would be to have a job that you really looked forward to starting in the morning. That never happened for her old man, she says. Working in a factory, he had to suffer the Sunday Night Dread. But when Bev took over the bar, she loved it. She looked forward to every day, playing the Queen Bee, gossiping, being an agony aunt to the punters?
How did that slip away and turn into this? She moans. She’s now a single mum without a spare penny. And she can’t run a bar on blood, sweat and tears. She had no money, and all the bills are red ones.
Max says it sounds to him that Bev needs a new start. She needs to reinvernt herself.
Bev quips that she’s not Madonna, and anyway, where else was she going to find some old lady who was a soft touch and who would leave her all her money?
Max admonishes Bev that the advice he’s going to give her might sound terrible, but it was the best that he could think of in her current situation. Perhaps it might be best if she simply cut her loses and left.
Bev muses sadly that she went away, only to come back to be kicked in the teeth.
Nikki and Buckwheat are simmering down on their own. Nikki is trying to study, but wails that she can’t concentrate, after their contretemps with Jessie and Ray.
At that moment, Timbo the Dimbo bounces in with news that Number 5, formerly belonging to Mick Johnson, has been sold. It was his intention, Tim brags, for him and Em to have a place like that one day. But not here, he adds, scathingly. There were too many plebs and scallies around here for his liking.
And he bounces out again.
Buckwheat remarks that hearing that Mick’s house has been sold makes him feel weird. There were actually going to be people living in that house, his former home, that he didn’t know. He owed a lot to Mick, he says. After Buckwheat’s dad died, he went off the rails a bit. If it hadn’t been for Mick ...
Nikki replies that she still feels creepy about that house. She was raped there, or so she says (we still don’t believe the unbelieveable storyline). Why, if it hadn’t been for Buckwheat’s support after the rape, she would have lost the plot permanently.
Buckwheat reckons the couple sure have been through a lot together. And they’re still going strong, says Nikki, with wonder.
Buckwheat, with his infinitesimal knowledge of such matters, reckons that most married couples, faced with his and Nikki’s dilemmas, would have fallen at the first hurdle. (I think not, Buckwheat). In fact, Buckwheat reckons that he and Dr Nikki are an item for life.
Nikki goes all stupidly shy and asks the proverbial question so often badly used by hackish, second-rate soap writers, ‘Are you sayin’ what I think yer sayin?’
(HE WANTS TO MARRY YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH! AND IF THIS IS THE CASE, PLEASE, BROOKSIDE, MARRY THIS INCREASINGLY MORE BORING, SANCTIMONIOUS, SELFISH AND SELF-CENTRED COUPLE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AND DESPATCH THEM SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE, BUT OFF, OFF, OFF OUR SCREENS!)
Buckwheat smiles his biggest and shyest Step’n Fetch it grin, and just when you fancy Nikki’s about to say, ‘Kiss me, Mandingo!’, the doorbell rings. (Another classic ploy, when writers run out of ideas).
Buckwheat admits Jessie, who looks suitably contrite. Back for Round 10? Buckwheat quips.
Jessie admits that she feels terrible, just AWFUL, about the rucus that occurred. Hearing her granmother offer the verbal olive branch first, Nikki admits that she said some pretty stupid things too (but that’s an everyday fact of life about Nikki).
In fact, Jess had been thinking, and she’s come round to offer to buy Nikki and Buckwheat a king-size bed for their own use (neglecting to explain how such an article of furniture could even be fitted into the closet that doubles for Nikki’s bedroom in the bungalow), as well as some clothes.
Jessie’s offer is met with stunned silence on the part of the childish couple.
‘Is that it?’ Nikki shouts, ungratefully, when she finds her voice. ‘Nan, we need MONEY!’
That’s it, Jessie says, with finality. They couldn’t possibly hand over more than £7000 to Jerome out of the £19,000 they were receiving on the claim.
Nikki pressures her granmother. Well, couldn’t Jessie lean on the insurance assessor when she sees him next week? She whines, pitiably.
Jessie sighs wearily. She’ll try, she promises, but there isn’t much hope.
Well, snarls Nikki, put it this way: If she and Buckwheat didn’t have any money, they wouldn’t need a bed, because they wouldn’t be moving back in! (If I were Jessie, I would have given this sassy bitch the hard part of the back of my hand across her face).
Back at The Shelf, Max is trying to offer Bev some encouragement in her decision to start anew. Bev’s a fighter, he reckons.
No, Bev sniffs, she’s no fighter. Not anymore. Leanne took that all out of her. Especially with that barney the other day. That’s the doing of Bev. Why, that Dr Parr had only received a letter from Leanne’s solicitor today. But that’s the story of Bev’s life, she moans. She sets herself up and someone knocks her down.
Max gulps uncomfortably and admits that he, too, received a letter from Leanne’s solicitor that morning, wanting information on the incident.
Bev’s hopes are lifted. Well, she comments, that’s good. In fact, that’s very good. Dr Parr doesn’t know her at all, but Max has known Bev for ages. And that’s where she’s one better than Leanne. Leanne had no mates, but Bev had plenty. Surely Max would go to bat for her.
Max avoids Bev’s hopeful gaze. He can’t deny what he saw in the garage, he confesses.
Bev is speechless with disbelief, hearing Max’s words.
Seeing the look of shock on her face, Max tries to defend his stance. ‘But surely you can’t expect me to lie!’ He exclaims, sounding like the wet Max of old.
Bev shakes her head sadly. Well, she didn’t expect him to run an extra mile for her for some lager, she admits, but this - this is different. If Leanne goes ahead with her claim, Bev says, Bev may as well pack her bags.
In that case, advises Max, Bev would be better off taking his advice. Sell up and move.
Heather Robson wrote this. She must be new and inexperienced. It shows.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002