TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
SHE’S BACK! OH NO!!! JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT BROOKSIDE MIGHT BE GETTING BETTER, THEY PUT THE SINGLE MOST IDIOTIC, INEXPERIENCED, AND UNTALENTED WRITER ON AN EPISODE ... HEATHER ROBSON.
Got a political point to make ... Call for Heather. Heather seems to be the writer employed by Brookside with a brief to make Nikki Shadwick, Jacqui Dixon and Dire Murray seem more sympathetic. She only succeeds in making us hate them even more.
How did this woman get a job writing for a major British soap? Was she a part of the inexorable Mr Marquess’s drive to obtain younger writers (who know jack shit and write even less)? Did she know someone in a position of authority? Did Brookside or Phil Redmond owe her or her family a favour?
Sack her! Sack her now! For the good of this programme.
Jimmy Corkhill is hard at work sanding down his front door. Suddenly, Dr Nikki, Heather Robson’s favourite character and the one we’re supposed to love, cherish and sympathise with, appears in the doorway, holding Jimmy’s tablets and a glass of water.
Across the Close, Ron Dixon lies, unshaven, in his bed, staring at the picture in his empty wallet of a much younger Jacqui, Mike and Tony.
At Sitcom House, Antony, dressed in his school uniform, takes one last look at his class photo, catching the stony gaze of Imelda’s eyes. He dumps the picture, unceremoniously, in the rubbish bin in his room.
Jimmy, not stopping in his task of sanding the door, informs Nikki that he’d already taken his medication that morning - took them, as a matter of fact, before Dr Nikki was even up for the day.He carries on, relating to Nikki how much pride he was taking in his house.
Emily bounces down the stairs and out the door, sliding between Dr Nikki and Jimmy. Not bothering to stop, she remarks that Tim was up and out before she was even awake that morning. She heads off to work, walking toward the camera and wearing her traditional pink dress shortened so that it just covers her bum and her pubes. The director of the programme makes her walk directly toward the camera so that her thighs fill the foreground of the shot as Nikki and Jimmy converse in the background.
Dr Nikki is telling her patient that he needs to slow down a bit in his pursuits. He was trying to do too much too soon.
Ah, but good things have been few and far between in Jimmy’s life, he booms. And did Nikki know, Helen only wants him to meet her daughter Stephanie next week?
Which day next week? Snarls Nikki, suspiciously.
What’s it to Nikki? Jimmy quips, shortly.
Well, Nikki says hesitatingly, she has to know because Jimmy has a hospital outpatient appointment next week, and his consultant wanted Nikki to attend too.
Rachel stands in the foyer outside the box room where Ron is abed. She knocks on the door and loudly asks if Ron’s decent. Not waiting for a reply, she opens the door, to find Ron lying in the single bed, his face turned toward the wall.
Coom on, Rachel urges, Ron’s stayed in bed all day before and he ain’t even poo-ah-leh.
Ron admits briefly that he’s feeling low. Rachel asks why. Ron gives the loss of Jacqui’s baby as the reason for his mood.
M-eye-ke’s off ter dental ‘ospital, informs Rachel.He’s goin’ ter ask bowt free treatment fer teeth. Three’oondred pound, dentist quo-ah-ted, Rachel says.
Ron, in despair at hearing this, glances over his shoulder at his dimwitted daughter-in-law. Time was, he exclaims, in anquish, that HE would have paid for Michael’s treatment. Now, look at him! Unable to pay for his own son’s dental treatment. (Er, sorry, but why should Ron have to do that? Mike is 30 years old and has a job.)
Mebbe’appen ‘e wouldn’t have ter, says Rachel, shyly. ‘Appen mebbe she could pay.
Ron looks at her curiously, over his shoulder. Perhaps he wants to know what’s behind her reasoning, but perhaps he has trouble understanding her pathetic, whiney Mancunian drawl.
Rachel pulls a piece of paper from her pocket and holds it out to Ron. Came in po-ast, she says. She swears she didn’t apply for it, boot ad says there’s cheque with ‘ER name on it, if she joost appl-eyes.
Ron looks at the mail shot the incredibly thick woman is showing him. £2000 can be hers instantly. Equally as instantly, Ron snatches the offending piece of paper from her hand and proceeds to tear it vigourously into small pieces, much to Rachel’s horror.
‘I’ll not have the bailiffs around here again!’ Exclaims Ron.
Meanwhile, at Sitcom House, Marty Murray is rummaging for some food in the sitcom larder in the sitcom kitchen, whilst Big Dire stands nearby at the sitcom counter. Marty is hungry; in fact, Marty is starving, although to look at his rotund, little bantam rooster figure, you’d be forgiven for not realising it.
Dire’s in one of her brassy, stentorian moods. She immediately realises what Marty’s looking for. ‘YOU’LL FIND NOOTHINK IN THERE,’ she bellows. ‘ADELE’S GARETH HAS SCOFFED THE LOT.’
Besides, Dire’s rummaging for something, herself. ‘HAVE YE SEEN ANT’S SCHOOL PHOTY?’ She asks. ‘ONLY I DON’T KNOW WHERE IT IS.’
Ant passes through the sitcom kitchen, presumably to get out of earshot of that awful woman’s awful voice. ‘DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SCHOOL PHOTY IS?’ Asks Dire, stopping him.
(Of course, the little toerag knows where it is. He binned it, you stupid woman!) But Ant lies and tells her he hasn’t seen it.
Across the Close, at Chateau Farnham, Max is preparing to leave for work and Jacqui announces that she intends to visit Ron today, as she hasn’t seen him in ages - well, not since a few days prior to this episode when he had his set-to with Max.
Max reckons Ron’s trying to avoid him, after Max verbally put Ron in his place as regards his parenting skills. The very idea, he huffs, implying that he, Max Farnham, was a bad husband. Max asks Jacqui how she’s feeling and insists that she allow him to take the children around to Rachel, but Jacqui refuses. This is Rachel’s day off. Besides, she’s thinking of taking the kids around to see Ron, which is the same thing as taking them around to Rachel, because Rachel will only end up looking after them during the visit.
Good idea, quips Max, and while she’s there, maybe Jacqui can use that opportunity to tell Ron that they’ve decided to put the house on the market.
Jacqui puts on her ‘Susan Tully-big-eyed’ look and says tentatively that she was kind of hoping Max would change his mind about that. Besides the fact that her family were right next door (and perish the thought that we should ever live anyplace else but next-door or on the same street as our parents), the kids were settled (bullshit! The kids are three years old and would hardly remember that house), they were having the extension built so they would have more space, and then there were Matthew’s and Emily’s trees in the back garden. Surely, Max wouldn’t think of leaving those?
But Max is a man on a mission. This house has nothing but memories of loss and heartache, Max informs Jacqui. It’s time for the two of them to move on.
Over at the increasingly tippy NNT, proof positive that both the Rogers’ sisters are filthy, slovenly sluts, Katie takes this opportunity to inform Sammy that the cleaning situation with the flat had deteriorated so much, that Nisha actually wanted to hire a cleaner.
Sammy is aghast. She doesn’t want some sort of stranger milling around her personal effects. Well, Katie replies, it’s Sammy’s habits that have provoked this thought in Nisha’s mind. For example, when Sammy has a shower, she leaves the bath like Niagara Falls.
Anyway, Sammy changes the subject, telling Katie that, if she can arrange time off work (after just offering to work extra hours - honestly, I do wish the Brookside writers would liaise), she’ll be off to London for the weekend to sort out this situation with Louise.
Katie doesn’t understand. She thought that Sammy had agreed to allow Louise to return to her old boarding school and that Louise was happy. Doesn’t Sammy want her daughter to be happy?
It’s nothing to do with Louise, says Sammy, it’s all down to Richard. She’s sick of depending on him. All through their married life, she depended on him fully, and he left her with nothing.
Katie deadpans that she thought Sammy’s fondness for credit cards did that.
And now, Richard was only trying to dictate the time Sammy would be allowed to spend with Louise - and he wasn’t even her father!!!
Dr Nikki and Jerome Kiss-Me-Mandingo-Yowsah-Boss are leaving the Close for a rare day at university. Jerome suggests to Nikki that he’d like to invite a few mates around for the evening, just for a laugh and to play Trivial Pursuit. Nikki is suspicious of Jerome’s motives, but Jerome explains that whilst he was apart from Nikki, he discovered his mates again - which reinforces the theory that Nikki is, in reality, Nikki No-Mates. He’d forgotten what an amusement mates could be (and what a singularly miserable bitch Nikki is and all).
Nikki’s thick dark brows, in contrast to her blonde hair, knit together in a worried frown. She’s not at all sure Jimmy’s up to having strangers in the house, she informs Jerome, with a professional air.
Jerome’s jaw drops a mile.
Take that Helen, for example, Nikki begins to rant, there’s Jimmy getting all excited about her -
At that moment, Ray calls out to her as he leaves the Dixon house. The couple stop.Ray approaches them, explaining hastily that he was on his way around to have a chat with Jimmy, who’s still sanding the door in the background. Er, he continues, hesitantly, Jimmy seems to be seeing a lot of Helen lately.
Yeah, remarks Nikki, acerbically. The two get on like a house on fire - and she immediately apologises for the tactless remark.
Ray’s worried about that situation. Doesn’t it seem, he asks, to Nikki as though this whole thing’s happening too fast?
Jerome interjects to say that it isn’t as though Jimmy and Helen were a couple of kids. In fact, they were older people.
That’s not the point, Ray exclaims, petulantly. He’s only just gotten to know his daughter after forty years, and nowadays it seems she spends more time visiting Jimmy than she does visiting Ray. Besides, he’s concerned for her and doesn’t want to see Helen get hurt.
Nikki wickedly tells Ray that next week, Helen had arranged for Jimmy to meet her daughter. Ray is mortified. Even HE hasn’t been allowed to meet his own granddaughter yet. And not only that, he KNOWS Jimmy’s not got round to telling Helen about his mental illness (and not much of anything else in his sordid past, either).
Jumping to Jimmy’s defence, Dr Nikki says she’s worried about the situation too. Jimmy’s really high on the thought of Helen at the moment, she says. She doesn’t want him to get set up for a gigantic fall with which he couldn’t cope.
Jerome excuses himself from the incipient mothers’ meeting, as he calls the discussion, and bored, leaves. Nikki trudges after him. Ray is about to continue over to see Jimmy, but the builders who are supposed to start on the bungalow, arrive.
Jacqui has arrived at Number 8 and, having been told that Ron is upstairs in bed, she enters the small room where he lies. Ron is still lying with his face to the wall. Jacqui calls out to him, but he doesn’t answer or move. She calls him again, but gets no reply.
‘What’s going on?’ She wails, plaintively.
Leaving the builders to get on with their work, Ray approaches Jimmy, who’s still phaffing about with his door. Jimmy greets Ray and draws his attention to the door he’s just re-painting. Ray briefly apprises the door and critically comments that Jimmy should have stripped the paint right back to the wood before re-painting. But he didn’t come over to discuss D I Y, Ray says. He wants a word with Jimmy about Helen.
Jacqui is still trying to get Ron to respond to her. She pleads for him to get up.
Ron, still not facing her, buries his head in the sheets and replies that he’ll get up when Josh arrives.
Come on, Jacqui urges, gently. All Ron’s grandchildren (well, all but Josh) are downstairs. Come on, she jollies, she knows Ron’s feeling down because of Anthea and the bank refusing his loan, but hey - she’s got a whole load of ironing at hers that he could tackle if he wanted ...
(Excuse me ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. Who does she think she is? If I said something like that to my dad, he would have knocked me for the proverbial six. Has she no tact and understanding?)
Ron turns swiftly in the bed to face Jacqui, furiously.
‘DON’T YOU PATRONISE ME!’ He exclaims, so vociferously that Jacqui is startled. According to Jacqueline’s husband, Ron continues,in a sarcastic vein, Ron has too much time on his hands and needs to get a live. And according to Jacqui, all Ron’s fit for is ironing and babysitting. She’s as good as confirmed his own opinion of himself. He’s useless.
Jacqui quickly apologises for her off-hand remark. But Ron’s wrong, she protests. Didn’t Ron always maintain that family was the only thing that was important. Look at the way Ron’s always managed to look after her and Mike.
Ron interrupts, saying that he’s just become another overbearing old pensioner. He just wants to be left alone.
Jacqui finally snaps in exasperation. Well, that’s fine with her, she says, if Ron wants to lie here and wallow in self-pity. It just proves how selfish he is. He hasn’t given a thought to what she and Max have been through of late. The baby she lost was Max’s baby too, yet Ron comes out firing on all cylinders and verbally attacks Max! And as if the stress and grief over the baby aren’t enough, Jacqui continues, the bar’s not breaking even, she’s got no one managing the Health Club, and to top it all, Max is now talking about selling up and moving house.
Well, replies Ron, listlessly, if that’s what Max wants to do, then Max always gets his way; and nothing anyone can do will dissuade him. But that’s typical of Ron’s life, he surmises. Everyone leaves in the end.
(Are we sympathetic, peeps? All together now, one, two, three ... NOO!)
Tim and Plank arrive at the construction site, where Plank should feel right at home. As they park the van, they emerge to see the crew lolling about. The foreman approaches them, a man who reckons he has considerable wit. A cocky little sod. Tim, perhaps, in twenty years’ time.
‘Who do we have here?’ He asks, mischievously, as the lads approach. ‘Bert and Grace?’ The brickies laugh.
‘Now then,’ he continues, ‘who’s the lifter and who’s the shifter?’ Again, the crew laughs.
The foreman asks, seriously now, if either Tim or Plank were accustomed to manual labour. Tim brags that he used to be a brickie, himself. (What a lie. Tim USED to work in a builders’ merchant’s yard, but was caught nicking by Greg Shadwick).Tim confirms that the wage payable for shifting the waste is £500.
Plank, with a worried look on his face, mutters to Tim, wanting to know where they were supposed to dump the waste, but Tim shushes him.
That’s right, confirms the foreman. Five hundred quid, with one hundred up front. The lads get the rest when they’ve shifted the lot. He leads the lads round the back of the building, where they see a small pile of rocks, cement and builders’ rubbish.
Seeing this and the small size of it, Tim cockily replies that this should be a piece of cake. Ah, interrupts the foreman, after they’ve shifted that pile, there was another to remove. And he points to his right, at the extreme rear of the building, where an amenity tip-size pile of builders’ rubbish lies strewn about. Tim and Plank exchange looks of dismay, as the foreman laughs and urges the lads to put their backs into the work.
As they begin, Tim mutters about getting only £250 apiece for shifting this other enormous lot. Plank is merely disgusted.
Sammy Rogers stands forlornly in the NNT flat, looking at a photo of herself and Louise, which she replaces on a shelf.
Dire and Marty have returned from food shopping. As they enter the house, the see no signs of life, but the music from the family stereo is louder than Dire’s voice. They stand around for awhile, shouting for Adele, but get no reply. Marty jokes that they’d best get the food unpacked and cooked before Gareth the Ganet scoffs the lot. He asks Dire if she reckons Ant’s about the place.
Well, no, Dire replies. If Adele’s here with Gareth, she wouldn’t want Ant to be gooseberry, would she? But come to think of it, where was Ant? A look of worry creases her plaster-of-Paris face.
Plank and Tim return from the landfill, having just shifted the enormous pile. The foreman and his crew stand in front of the building awaiting them. That’s the last of the stuff, Tim remarks, exhausted. Now they demanded their £400.
And they’ll have it, the foreman promises. As soon as they discharge this third pile, and he and his crew move away to reveal a third pile of new builders’ waste that needs disposal.
Marty Murray is trying to relax and watch television. But he has a problem. He can’t find the remote. (Actually, I have a problem too. The Murrays are supposed to be skint. So ... Where has the new posh telly come from? And the video?) He shouts to Dire that he can’t find the remote. It’s ALWAYS by the video. But then - Gareth’s been around, hasn’t he? The big ape!
At that moment, Ant enters through the front door, and the wrath of Dire descends on the boy’s head. ‘WHERE HAVE YER BEEN?’ Demands Dire, frantically.
Ant looks at her with mild disdain and replies that he’s been at his mate Carl’s.
‘CARL?’ Eyes Dire, suspiciously. ‘WHO’S CARL?’
His mate from his form, Ant explains, with exasperation.They were playing on Carl’s computer and Carl’s mum made them tea. Antony turns to go upstairs, as Dire heaves a sigh of relief and turns her eyes heavenward with exaggerated thanks.
Honestly, mutters Ant, she worries when he has no mates and she worries when he does. Dire begins a maternal chuckle.
(Let’s have a sitcom laugh now. All together ... Canned laughter ... CHUCKLECHUCKLECHUCKLECHUCKLECHUCKLE)
By now, Tim and Plank are almost on their knees, but they’ve finished shifting the heavy rubbish. As they stagger toward the foreman, Tim informs him that they’d finished. About time too, snorts the foreman, contemtuously.
Tim asks for the balance of the money, and the foreman counts out £400 and hands it to him with disdain, and then walks away, laughing at the two lads. Plank turns to Tim in disbelief and asks if he’s about to let that foreman get away with treating them that way.
Ray’s builders, on the other hand, seem to have called it a day, because he’s standing forlornly by their abandoned cement mixer, when Dire Murray steps nosily and self-righteously from the Sitcom House. Dire greets him and crosses the Close in the direction of Chateau Farnham.
She rings the bell and Jacqui appears at the door, miraculously recovered, it seems, as she’s ferrying Emma about on her hip. (For those of you reading this, who AREN’T familiar with what an ectopic pregnancy entails, suffice it to say that it’s MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY, which comes with the instructions that the victim not lift anything weighty (and that would include a small child) OR drive for at least six weeks). Watch this space for further fauz pas regarding this.
Dire’s a bit embarrassed ans says she’s only called round to see how Jacqui’s doing. She would have visited her in the hospital, she says, witteringly, but she thought that might be a bit too formal. Any road, she’s sorry about the baby. She hopes Jacqui doesn’t mind, she says, fawningly, boot her Moom’s lit a candle and all. How’s Jacqui feeling?
Looking at the soppy woman as though she’s an alien from outer space, Jacqui tells Dire that she’s still suffering from pain. (Pain? Listen, Missus, if you’d really had an ectopic, you’d barely be upright now, let alone carrying around a strapping three-year-old.)
Dire leans forward toward Jacqui conspiratorily. She has every right to think Jacqui a fellow sufferer. In her warped mind, Jacqui’s sacrificed a bit of her fertility, and with any luck (or so Dire thinks), there’ll be another whingeing, infertile female on the Close with whom she can empathise. Hmmmm ... Wonder how mad she’ll go when Jacqui conceives?
Dire’s been speaking in an unnatural (for her, anyway) low tone of voice, and now she’s almost whispering. She knows exactly what Jacqui’s going through, she tells her. Not a month goes by that she doesn’t hope against hope ... Well, anyway, she thought it might be this moonth, boot ... No baby, she shrugs, laughing uneasily. Still, there was hope for Jacqui.
Oh, she wasn’t trying to get pregnant, Jacqui tells her, honestly. This pregnancy was all an accident.
Dire doesn’t understand what Jacqui’s saying. She hadn’t planned her baby? Didn’t expect ... ?
‘I was on the Pill,’ explains Jacqui. ‘I slipped through the net.’
Dire’s face becomes a horrible mask-like picture of ugly jealousy.
Back at the building site and clutching his wad of money, Tim calls out to the departing foreman, following him. The man turns to face Tim, and as he does so, Tim lunges forward with his head and nuts the man on the forehead. (This seems to be a common tack in Liverpool). The foreman falls onto his back. As Tim and Plank drive away in the van, laughing, the man raises himself onto his elbows, and we see he has a bloody nose.
Rachel, wearing a housemaid’s pinney, strides purposefully to the door of Ron’s room and knocks. She shouts at him, ordering him to get up. No reply. ‘Gerroop now!’ She shouts again. ‘This aint nach’rool.’
Still no reply.
She bangs on the door again, saying that Josh was downstairs and she needed his help with the children.
Tim and Plank drive off, laughing. Tim jokes about the Rat Man (the foreman) trying and failing, but he couldn’t get anything past the likes of O’Leary and Murray. Tim applauds himself for giving the foreman one, and Plank makes a crude joke from that expression. Tim, however, assures him that there’s only one lady to whom he’d give himself. He suggests that the lads celebrate by buying a tonne of ale with their earnings.
Marty and Dire sit in the sitcom lounge, Marty trying to read the evening paper, as any sitcom father would do. Dire, however, is seething with fury (and, needless to say, back to speaking in her ‘natural’ tone of voice).
‘HONESTLY,’ she begins, in a cadence of self-righteous indignation, ‘SOOM WOMEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TER BREED!’
Marty glances up from his paper. What does Dire mean by that? He asks, indulgently.
Dire doesn’t hear him, or, rather, she doesn’t listen. ‘I MEAN, THAT’S WHY YER GO ON THE PILL, she squawks, NOT TER HAVE A BABY!’
Marty puts the paper down. What IS she talking about?
‘THAT JACQUI FARNHAM!’ She exclaims. ‘SHE WASN’T EVEN TRYIN’ FER A BABY. OH, IT’S SO OONFAIR!’
Marty berates Dire, telling her that her attitude toward Jacqui wasn’t fair either. It was a serious operation Jacqui underwent, and Dire had no way of knowing how Jacqui would have reacted to the pregnancy if it went full term.
The couple are interrupted by Antony, who enters the room, carrying a large Atlas. He priggishly informs Marty and Dire that it’s 215 miles from Liverpool to London. Imelda must have really wanted to run away if she were willing to go that far! And he skips from the room back to his lair upstairs.
Marty and Dire shrug. If that’s what makes Ant happy ...
Next door at Hotel Corkhill, Jerome’s uni mates have arrived and, together with Dr Nikki, they’re having a game of Twister on the lounge floor. (Surprise, surprise ... Jerome really DOES have mates. EVEN BIGGER SURPRISE ... One of Jerome’s mates is actually BLACK ... Not coffee-coloured, not deep tan, but BLACK). Emily is unenthusiastically calling out turns on the Twister spinner. She’s not enjoying the company.
At that moment, Tim and Plank enter the front door, laden with ale. Just what the party needed, shouts Jerome, but Tim maintains he’s not about to sub any students with ale. In fact, he and Plank decide to ring up a few of their own mates and ask them to attende the impromptu celebration. Tim suggests that Emily ring a few of her beauty course mates, but Emily infers that all the girls on her course are spoken for.
Hearing all these impromptu plans, Jimmy wafts through, suggesting that he’ll ring Helen and ask her to come around as well.
It’s chaos in the Dixon household, so noisy, one can’t hear oneself think. Josh, quite frankly, is running riot. He’s dashing about the room, dressed in what appears to be either a Kung Fu outfit or his pyjamas, executing Kung Fu kicks and shouting at the top of his voice. Ron sits, dressed in his own pyjamas and dressing gown, forlornly on the sofa, occasionally shouting at Josh to sit down or play quietly. Rachel alternates between having a discussion with Ron and Ray and screaming at Josh, who pays no one any mind.
Ray is in the background, trying to get through to the builders on the phone. He’s speaking at the top of his voice, because of the din and appears to be getting nowhere in his complaint about them leaving abruptly.
Rachel shouts at Ray, over the brouhaha of Josh, asking Ray why he doesn’t leave it until tomorrow to phone the builders, but Ray shouts back that he wants an answer as to why they did nothing about starting today. Rachel shouts at Ron, pleading with him to help her handle Josh, who starts to tug at the tie on Ron’s dressing gown, trying to get Granddad to stand up and play. At that moment, in the background, Beth begins to cry; and Rachel screams again at Josh to settle down. Josh is running to and fro around the room, and Ron’s beside himself with nerves.
‘Fer pity’s sake,’ he shouts over the din created by Rachel, Ray, Beth and Josh, ‘I got less aggro and more peace when I was in prison!’
Suddenly, Josh stops in front of Ron and stares, wide-eyed, at his grandfather. ‘You were in PRISON?’ He asks, with wonder.
Ron hastily corrects himself. That’s just a turn of phrase, he tells Josh, quickly.
Josh begins again to execute karate turns and shouts periodically. Rachel screams at him to stop and asks him, over the baby’s crying what time Bev puts him to bed. Josh ignores her, trying to pull Ron to his feet again. Rachel screams at Josh to answer her, and Josh shouts back that he’s not Josh, but the Karate Kid.
Suddenly, a blast of loud dance music erupts and Rachel, Ron and Ray jump with fright. Rachel wonders where that blast came from and Ray remarks, putting the phone down that it sounded as though it were next door. Oooh, says Rachel, couldn’t be Jac-keh and Max!
Ron rises from his chair and announces to all concerned that he was going back to bed. And he leaves the pandemonium of the lounge and runs upstairs, to Rachel’s chagrin.
Katie has returned from putting in an appearance at work and finds her older sister waxing philosophical, with a drink. Funny how she and Katie have suffered so much for their love, Sammy muses.
Poor, pitiful Katie’s beetle brows knit over her eyes in puzzlement. What does Sammy mean?
Well, Sammy expounds, Sammy’s lost her daughter and Katie her fella.
This sets Katie off into a rant. Sammy could always get her daughter back. Louise was only in London, whereas poor, sainted Clint was dead and rotting in the soil of Liverpool. But Sammy’s puzzled, herself. Why exactly is she going to London? She wonders aloud, ignoring Katie’s attempt to garner self-pity. Is it a matter of welfare or warfare?
Is it for the best that Louise remain there? She realises that Louise is accustomed to the finer things in life - having lots of money and living the high life.
She’s her moother’s daughter, snarls poor, pitiful Katie.
Sammy faces Katie and says that she and Louise are the only family Sammy has left. (Er, what happened to Chrissie and Geoff?) Is it so wrong for Sammy to want the ones she loves best in this world by her side?
Katie scowls and replies that it was possible to love joost as mooch when that person was far away.
The party at Hotel Corkhill is now in full swing, consisting of uni students and Tim’s and Plank’s mates. Jimmy wafts through again, encouraging the noise, and informing all the uninterested and uninteresting bods that Helen couldn’t make it that evening, as if anyone cared.
Tim and Plank regale Emily with talk of how they passed their day and how they ended up treating the awful foreman at the site. He had the audacity to suggest that Tim and Plank were a pair of shirtlifters, Tim laughs, when he was the geeaer in the YMCA tee-shirt.
Emily points out Jimmy’s gleeful mood to Tim. She can’t ever remember seeing him like this before. It’s almost as though he’s normal. Dr Nikki hears this remark as she and Em stand in the kitchen. Dr Nikki can’t talk to anyone else because she’s got no friends. By way of changing the subject, she asks if Emily’s thought anymore about her promotion prospects offered her by Joanne at the salon.
It’s not exactly a promotion, says Emily, but there is more dosh to be made at the new salon. Dire Murray reckons Emily should go for it, even though it means trekking across Liverpool.(Er, that’s called ‘commuting’, Emily). But Emily smugly reckons that Dire would be only too glad to see the back of Emily, because she’s jealous of Em’s success.
Jerome interrupts the sibling talk and asks Nikki for a dance, as Jimmy helps a drunken girl out of the house and into the fresh air. Plank, Tim and Emily watch the proceedings, reckoning that things are turning up a gear.
Jerome and Nikki enjoy a public snog, but Nikki pulls away from his embrace a bit too early for Jerome’s liking. He asks Nikki if he could be honest with her for a moment. He says that he’s fearful of her role as Jimmy’s carer. He feels that she’s putting her life on hold because of her consuming care of Jimmy. He continues by telling Nikki what he’d said that morning. When he was away from her, he missed her, but that during their time apart, he rediscovered his mates and learned how to have a laugh again. And that’s what they should be doing whilst they are young.
He points out a young black man in a tight tee-shirt across the room. Does Nikki know where that bloke spent Easter break? In Ghana. Reckons a person could get by on three quid a day there. Got a cheap flight and all. Now what did Jerome and Nikki get up to over Easter?
Nikki hesitates a moment, before confessing that she doesn’t remember what they did.
Exactly, says Jerome. As a couple, they should get out more, go places, do things.
Nikki remarks primly and priggishly that she’s well satisfied with her life the way it’s going.
Over at Chateau Farnham, Mr and Mrs Farnham stare worriedly out the window in the direction of Hotel Corkhill, scene of the rowdy party. As they gaze out the window, they see Marty Murray leave Sitcom House and go next-door. Jacqui wonders if Max should go over and complain about the noise.
Max demurs. Marty seems to have taken it upon himself to do just that. (Not like Max to confront anyone).
Well, huffs Madam, as the turns from the window. They’ll just have to make certain their new extension has double glazing.
Max raises his eyebrows and states firmly to Jacqui that the couple are moving, and that’s that.
Not while Ron is in his current condition, Jacqui remarks, equally as firmly.
Meanwhile, at Number 8, Rachel and Ray stare out the window at the raucous events, with dismay, as Josh continues to play havoc with their nerves. Rachel can’t believe that Beth and Ron are actually sleeping through this racket. Josh is running around, practicing karate kicks on Ray and shouting. Rachel screams at him to stop.
Ron stumbles into the lounge, obviously awakened and demands to know from whence that noise is coming. Pulling aside the curtains of the front window, he witnesses bands of youths coming and going from Hotel Corkhill.
Immediately Ron panics. ‘It’s that bloody Corkhill!’ He groans.’Look at that! Bloody boonch o’hooligans, fightin’ and scrapin’ like that! It’s joost like it was that night, all over again! We’re gonna be terrorised!’
Ron starts to whimper and panic. He wants to call the police, but Ray objects. Calling the police would only get Emily and Nikki into trouble.
The moment Ron utters the word police, Josh shouts, ‘Freeze!’ And everyone turns in the direction of the child’s voice. The camera pans to Josh, standing, legs apart on one of the Dixon easy chairs, his arms outstretched in front of him and clutching a toy gun, in the police combat stance. When he’s got everyone’s attention, which is what he wants, Josh then shouts, ‘Bang! You’re dead, Granddad!’
There’s an interminable moment of horrified silence, before Rachel collects her few wits enough to reprimand the child, telling him to put the toy away and get off the chair; but it’s all proven too much for Ron.
‘It’s all happening again!’ He cries, in blind panic. ‘Joost like that night! The party, the yobs, the noise! That Sotto coomin’ over ...’ He gropes helplessly about the room, trying to make his way through Ray and Rachel toward the foyer and the stairway. Rachel and Ray call after him, helplessly, but Ron dashes, frightened, up the stairs.
‘I can’t bear it!’ He’s crying. ‘I can’t live here anymore, not on this street, not in this house! Our Jacqueline might be moving, boot not before I do!’
Heather Robson tried. (sigh)
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002