IT JUST DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER
I have a running hate of the BBC - BBC Radio 5, in particular. For me, that radio station epitomises everything that is bad about the ENGLISH media. The BBC purports to be a publically-funded, non-commercial organisation, with no political or cultural bias, representative of everyone living in this sceptred Isle.
BOLLOCKS!
BBC Radio 5 Live is comprised of left-wing, ill-informed beer-swilling, overweight luvvies (Adrian Chiles and wife), equally obese, de-frocked political advisers (Amanda Platell, Charlie Wheelan) and giggly girls past their prime on the lookout for male fodder (Victoria Derbyshit). Oh, and the sports - token Irishmen North and South who irk the hell out of anyone trying to listen to decent commentary. In the North’s corner, we have Alan ‘Liverpool Football team rule’ Green and in the South, we have Fergus (‘Dis is the turd match o’de day’) Sweeney.
God save us.
This has to be the Brookside of broadcasting. Get caught with your knickers down around your ankles? Radio Five’ll have you. Get sacked from the government? Don’t worry; there’s a spare set of earphones going on Radio Five.
They whipped the nation into a frenzy - well, the peasants at least - because they played to the lowest common denominator and absolutely convinced the populace that England would come home from Japan carrying the World Cup. Now they’re doing a job on Wimbledon, which is the con to end all cons this year. It’s amusing to see the lengths the toffs will go in cheating, undermining and covertly bullying multi-millionaire players in order that the Jubilee Year will see a British male win the event.
In North America, before political correctness became de rigeur, we used to have Polish jokes. The Canadians got smart and donated their biggest one to Britain.
I have to say it. Brookside is bad at the moment. It doesn’t appear to get any better, but at least it now has a rival in the form of the BBC and the soap opera that is Wimbledon. And just as Big Brother rains annually on Brookside’s Parade, so the Aussie duo will finish off the Britfeast in the semi-finals at Wimbledon.
So, come on Hewitt and Philippousis (you gorgeous hunk of man), put the ENGLISH out of their misery for once and for all. Bang, bang, boom, boom! They shoot horses, don’t they ...
Pity the same can’t be done about Brookside.
At the beginning of yet another day, Marty Murray’s seen putting down the telephone, his face an ashen shade of grey.
Across the Close, it looks as though moving day’s come at last. Ron Dixon is packing the few remaining mementos of Tony Dixon’s brief life into a cardboard box. He pauses for a moment to gaze sadly at a picture of Tony in his school uniform.
Meanwhile, next door, Max Farnham rushes to and fro, hurrying to pack last-minute items.
Big Dire is in the sitcom kitchen, pfaffing about the sitcom counter. Marty enters slowly, a stricken look upon his face. Dire clocks his entrance, but doesn’t notice the look on his face. Grateful of an open ear and a shut gob, she launches into her latest diatribe about Adele and the bracelet she sold.
SHE AIMS TER’AVE A WORD WITH RADELE ABOUT THAT BRACELET, SHE CAN PROMISE MARTY! She warns.
Marty, as if in a daze, stumbles to the sitcom table and collapses in a heap in one of the chairs. That Detective Inspector Casey just rang, he says, tonelessly. The detective wants Marty to come down to the station this morning to be interviewed about Imelda Clough. He turns a bleak gaze in Dire’s direction. Marty wonders aloud why the police would want to interview him.
As he expresses this, Antony, unseen by either of his parents, comes to stand in the door of the sitcom kitchen.
‘PROBABLY JOOST ROUTINE,’ assesses Dire, unsympathetically.
Well, yes, the interview with Antony, here, in the house, WAS just that - routine, Marty agrees. So why didn’t they interview Marty here at the same time, instead of phoning him up at the crack of dawn and telling him to get down to the station.
Over at Chateau Farnham, Max is instructing Tim and Plank, the lift and shift men, to go upstairs and dismantle the beds. As he’s giving them these instructions, Ron pops in, moaning about the fact that Rachel and Mike have taken the kids out for the day, courtesy of Jacqui paying for a day out.
What about Ray and Jessie? Max asks, anxiously.
Ray and Jessie? Repeats Ron. ‘Yer can fergit about them! They disappear whenever anyone mentions anything about work!’
Max looks perturbed at this piece of information.
Now Antony is seated at the sitcom table, toying with his breakfast. He asks Dire why the police wanted to see Marty that morning.
Dire replies that it was just part of the police’s investigation, nothing more.
Antony looks like he could almost shit his pants.
Adele walzes in at that moment, only to find herself on the receiving end of a verbal barrage from hre big-gobbed stepmother. JOOST BECAUSE SHE AND MARTY’AVE BEEN BUSY, THERE WAS NO REASON FER ADELE TER THING THEY’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE BRACELET.
Adele shrugs and treats her bleach-brained stepmother’s remark with the contempt it deserves and turns her attention to Antony. What’s it like being grilled by the bizzies? She teases.
Antony tries to avoid her, but Adele won’t be stopped. Well, she thinks Antony’s got good reason to feel guilty about Imelda’s disappearance.
Now Antony does shit his pants, right there at the sitcom table, the stench engulfing the room in its entirety. Why? He manages to gulp.
Because Ant got her suspended, chatters Adele. Never mind, she continues, Adele’s mates all reckon Imelda’s in London whacked out on drugs, unless she’s been murdered by some pervs.
Antony lifts his shitty arse off the seat in one swift movement. Imelda’s NOT been murdered! He protests, violently. She’s in London. She’ll be found soon. Everyone would see.
Jessie and Emily stand in the middle of the nearly-finished bungalow, examining the work done by the builders. Emily is showing Jessie a house magazine and explaining to her grandmother how she wants to re-decorate Hotel Corkhill so that it has a minimalist look. She’s showing her pictures of chrome coffee tables and the like and Jessie’s murmurring appreciatively. In fact, Jess remarks, she’d quite like to have that sort of look for the bungalow. She was dead against having it cluttered up with some cozy OAP look.
At that moment, Raymundo enters in full voice. He’s marvelling over how much extra space the builders have given them in the renovated bungalow. He crosses the room. Why, there’s enough space here for him to keep his workbench and tools.
‘What do you plan to put in the garage?’ Asks Jessie, sarcastically. ‘Furniture?’
Ray affects not to hear her and disappears again.
Jessie looks disgruntled as she stands gazing at the empty room. That’s just the trouble, she admits to Emily. If Ray has his way, he’ll fill this house with all sorts of old people’s knick-knacks.
Well, Emily suggests, furtively, her grandmother just simply shouldn’t let Ray have his way. (Why not? Ray lives there too. It’s his house as well.)
Jessie agrees. She didn’t want to turn this into another OAP’s bungalow. She wants something fresh and new for it, like what she sees in Emily’s magazines.
(Er, who’s going to pay for the Hotel Corkhill makeover? Emily and Tim aren’t exactly rolling in it yet.)
Josh sits on the couch in the lounge of Bev’s flat. Bev marches stolidly from the boy’s bedroom, having a whinge about the fact that Josh had left the light on in his bedroom ALL MORNING. That lekky costs her money, doesn’t he know?
And just look at this! She exclaims, picking up various tins of soft drink.
‘What about it?’snarls the little thug, sullenly.
‘They’re all half-full!’ Wails Bev. ‘How many times do I tell yer that yer drink the whole tin o’drink!’
Oh, this is all too much, she moans. It’s costing her a fortune, with the lekky and the wasted food and drink and ...
Josh shrugs and uses the remote control to increase the television volume, thus, drowning out Bev’s incessant whine.
As Ron packs some boxes, Ray appears with some clothes on hangers. Ron notices this and abruptly asks Ray what he’s doing.
Ray pauses, bewildered, and replies that he’s starting to pack for the move.
No, says Ron, emphatically. Ray and Jessie were not to move next door. Hadn’t he told them already? The Farnham house is simply too small. They were welcome to stay on at Number 8 until the bungalow was built. Ron affirms that once again, he’s going to enjoy his own home and suggests that Ray tell that builder of theirs to get a move on.
Mike and Rachel arrive at the park, a day out paid for by Jacqui and with the use of Jacqui’s people carrier.
Oooh, Rachel exclaims as she lumbers from the car. Oooh, rath-eh’ave this than day mo-avin’.
Well, Mike agrees, Jacqui did pay for them to take the kids out.
Ron’s now in the process of moving some of his belongings next door, helped by Ray. Jacqui and Max are shifting boxes about and Tim and Plank are doing the same. As Ron deposits a box in the Farnham house, he points to Ray with his thumb. Hope Max and Jacqui don’t mind, Ron remarks, nonchalantly, but Ray snd Jessie are staying next door.
Max and Jacqui stop in the middle of filling a packing crate. They exchange looks of horror. Max points out succinctly that Ray and Jessie are RON’S lodgers. He and Jacqui paid for vacant possession of the property.
Ron demurs.
Max turns desperately to Ray. Is is too late for him and Jess to go to a hotel? He asks. Won’t the insurance pay for them to go to a B & B?
Ray scratches the back of his head and sucks his breath in through his front teeth. Ooh no, too late for that, he says.
Well, couldn’t Ray try with the insurance again? Max wheedles.
Jacqui, in the meantime, has followed Ron back to Number 8 to try her hand in persuading him to take the Hiltons with him. Ray and Jessie as tenants were NOT a part of the deal she and Max had struck with Ron. Ron pretends not to listen to her as she continues. Look, she points out to Ron, he’d managed with Ray and Jessie since January, and since it was only another month until the bungalow was finished -
Correction, interrupts Ron. Ray and Jessie were settled in his home when he returned from prison. The fact that Ray and Jessie were there at all was down to Mike, who invited them to stay. Mike is responsible for Ray and Jessie, and Mike should get them out. By the way, where IS Mike? He asks.
Jacqui tells him that she paid Mike and Rachel to take the kids to the park for the day.
Ron nods, understanding how Mike and Rachel also manage to snake out of any sort of work. But he reiterates his position. He hasn’t had his home to himself since he returned from prison, and now he’s got a chance to have his own home again, the way HE wants it.
Upstairs, Tim and Plank are about to move the items belonging to Tony Dixon. Tim has a rifle through Ron’s box of mementos and finds an autographed picture from Noel Edmonds to Tony Dixon. They are having a laugh about the naffness of this, when Ron enters the room and hears the end of their giggle.
Swiftly, he grabs the box away from the two lads. Just what did they think they were doing? He demands, hoarsely. Didn’t they realise that this was all that was left for Ron of his youngest son? They should have more respect.
Tim and Plank look truly chastened, as they slink from the room.
Mike, Rachel and the three children are riding on a miniature train in the park.
Jessie and Emily are still in the bungalow, making plans for its refurbishment. Jessie tells Emily that she’d like some bright rugs on the floors, not awful pastel carpets and mahogany shelves filled with knick-knacks.
As if on cue, Ray enters once more, with the news that Nick the builder had promised to let him have some extra mahogany bits. Ray plans to make some nice polished mahogany shelves. He thought Jess would like to fill them with knick-knacks.
Hmph! Mahogany shelves! Jess mutters under her breath to Emily. And who does he reckon will polish them, she’d like to know? She takes the magazine from Emily’s hands and holds it out to Ray. She thought she might go for a different look for the bungalow, she tells Ray. Something along the designs in this magazine, she says.
Ray peers myopically at the magazine. ‘Not very good workmanship, that,’ he remarks, critically. ‘I mean furniture’s supposed ter look like furniture, not instruments of torture!’
Jessie whips the magazine away from him, in exasperation.
Ray reminds her that she’d best get next door and start packing for the move.
‘I’m staying put,’ Jessie announces, emphatically.
‘We’re not wanted,’ Ray reminds her gently, as he turns to leave.
‘I’m staying put!’ She shouts after him, and then she turns to Emily and whispers, conspiratorily. ‘It’s a wind-up anyway, this move.’ As a matter of fact, Jessie decides, she’s of a mind to take a trip into town and look at some new furniture. Emily volunteers to go along with her, and Jessie gratefully accepts, remarking that she could do with a young woman’s opinion.
Josh is still sitting on the sofa in Bev’s lounge. He begins to shout for her. He needs to go to the loo, he wails.
Bev is rapidly getting fed up with her son. She storms into the lounge. Look, she tells the kid. This is her one day off and the only time she’s got to do her housework! How does Josh expect her to get on when one minute she’s going out running errands for him and the next she’s playing nursemaid. She points to the boy’s crutches. Anyway, Josh should be well able to go to the loo by himself now. It’s only for a wee, after all.
But he’s not good at it yet, on crutches, Josh moans.
‘Well, practice makes perr-fect,’ replies Bev, trying to ignore the little spoiled brat and get on with her work. As she does so, Josh begins to whine in a pitiable voice. His leg hurts, he moans. Oh, it just hurts loads.
Bev’s sighs wearily and gathering up the little thug’s crutches, she guides him into the loo. (Do I detect the beginning of budding Dot and Nick relationship?)
As Tim and Plank gather up boxes and material in the former Dixon lounge, Ron enters the room, carrying a medium-sized brown wooden box, which is curiously locked. He asks the lads, first of all, if they know if this belongs to Ray or Jessie. Tim confirms that he and Plank have brought that box over from the Farnhams’.
‘Aye-aye,’ says Ron, with wonder to the lands, ‘and I’ve a fair idea I know what’s inside this and all.’
Tim and Plank exchange curious looks, before Tim asks Ron about the contents.
‘Well, it’s obvious,’ Ron explains. ‘It’s the other fella’s dressing-oop gear.’
Tim and Plank exchange even more curious looks, as Plank nudges Tim. ‘You mean Max is one o’them transvestites?’ Tim asks, hesitantly.
Now it’s Ron who nudges Tim as he places the box on the table. ‘No,’ he replies. ‘You know what I mean - them with the funny handshakes and the trouser legs rolled oop.’
Tim and Plank exchange worried looks. (Obviously, the great unwashed haven’t ever heard of Freemasons.)
(***PSSST! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!)
Marty Muddie sits in an interrogation room at the police station, when Detective Inspector Casey enters. Marty doesn’t rise to greet the man, although the policeman greets him politely. Marty looks bored. Detective Inspector Casey apologises for being late, remarking that there’s just not enough hours in the day.
Marty immediately asks the detective why the man wanted to see him and down at the station as well.
The policeman takes a seat opposite Marty at the table and shrugs. Well, he begins, chummily enough, he realises Marty’s reaction to Imelda with regard to the way she behaved towards Antony, and that’s understandable. But at the end of the day, he says, Imelda’s gone missing and she IS a child, after all. He thought perhaps Marty, in his capacity as school caretaker might be able to shed some light on other aspects of Imelda’s character.
He asks Marty how long he’s worked at Brookside Comprehensive. Marty replies that he’s worked there about four-and-a-half years.
Casey remarks that Marty’s the ‘man inbetween’, as regards his position at the school.
Marty doesn’t quite understand what Casey means by that remark, and the detective explains that Marty’s in a somewhat unusual position as caretaker, in that he’s neither a teacher nor a student. Therefore, he sees things that the students might not necessarily see and conversely, that the teachers might not see as well.
He consults his notepad for a brief moment. Without looking up, he informs Marty that Imelda Clough left Brookside Comp on 20th March at 3:40pm. Now looking directly at Marty, he asks where Martywas between 3:40 and 4:30pm on the 20th of March.
Marty looks momentariy baffled by the question, as if it would be obvious to all where he was on that day. Why, he was at school, he supposes.
The detective looks at him sharply. So he really can’t say where he was about the time that Imelda Clough left the school? The detective asks.
Marty’s beginning to sweat a bit now, and he pauses to think, running back dates in his mind. ‘Let’s see,’ he calculates rapidly. ‘The 20th was a Wednesday. There was a Health and Safety Meeting at 4pm that day. That’s where I would have been.’
The detective asks him if he’s certain about that. Marty is absolutely certain.
Casey rises from his chair and excuses himself. He asks Marty to wait there for a moment and promises to try not to be too long.
Marty follows the retreating figure, with fear in his eyes. (Neil Caple is a truly wonderful actor and really deserves something better than Brookside).
At the park, Mike and Rachel have taken the kids for face painting. Harry has a tiger’s face painted over his own. Mike starts whingeing about his teeth. Rachel’s mildly fed up with this saga. In a rare show of ‘brainfulness’, she tells M-eye-ke she ‘don’t know wh-eye he don’t shurroop’n take doc-teh’s off-eh’n get teeth fixed.’
Mike’s not about to give into that, no, sirree! That snotty doctor must think him a real mug, if he’s thinks Mike can be bought for the price of a new bridge for his teeth. He’s got that type pegged, he says. They’ll keep delaying tactics up, hoping Mike will give up and go away.
Oooh, Rachel begins, hit en’t moon-eh M-eye-ke wants outer this, com-pen-say-shun, like?
Mike is adamant that all he wants is for Dr Parr to say he’s sorry about getting Beth’s diagnosis wrong. (Yeah, sure, like we all believe this, don’t we?)
Boot, Rachel begins again, Cit’zens Ad-v-eye-ce say doc-teh en’t admit li-a, lower-a, l-eye-a-bility.
Of course not, bleats Mike. He won’t admit liability because his insurance premiums will go through the roof.
Oooh, says Rachel, shaking her head. ‘E wo-an ‘mit ‘e’s wrong.
Then, vows Mike, illogically, he’ll make sure that nasty, sneaking, little Dr Parr sees Mike everyday (easy enough to do when you’re unemployed), and that will certainly wear the bugger down.
Rachel wrinkles her forehead, blinks about thirty times and reckons M-eye-ke should gi’oop wi’good grace.
Max and Jacqui are getting on with their packing, while Ron stands about offering his unwelcome advice. Jacqui wonders aloud how Mike and Rachel are getting on with the kids, whereupon Ron has a moan about Jacqui paying the couple to look after the children for the day.
And keep them out from under foot, mumbles Jacqui. Besides, it’s Rachel she feels sorry for - having to listen to Mike whinge all day long about Gary Parr.
Well, now, Ron admits, Mike does have a point there. After all, that doctor did refuse to come and see Beth, and he got her diagnosis totally wrong.
Max is on his knees on the floor taping a box. He looks up sternly at Ron and quips, ‘You can’t diagnose what you don’t see. The truth is that Beth wasn’t presenting ANY of the symptoms of meningitis.’
‘And he DID see her three different times as well,’ Jacqui adds.
Well, Ron reckons, self-righteously, it was sheer good luck that Beth survived at all, no thanks to the doc.
Max pauses in his work and sits back on his knees, arms akimbo. ‘I can’t believe you,’ he says to Ron, laughing grimly. ‘You’re as biased as Mike.’
‘AND that Dr Parr was indirectly responsible for Michael losin’ his job,’ Ron adds, for good measure.
‘NO,’ argues Max, emphatically, ‘MIKE lost HIMSELF his job. He quit, remember?’
Ron waves a hand, dismissively at Max, turning away. ‘You professional-types are all alike,’ he sneers, ‘always closin’ ranks, always lookin’ after each other. I know yer types, all dressin’ oop and secret dinners.’
Max squints his eyes in concentration, trying to understand the meaning behind Ron’s cryptic words.
‘Pay no mind ter’im,’ says Jacqui to Max. ‘All me dad does is go on. Let’s start getting this stoof outa here.’
As Max gets to his feet and lifts the packing case, Ron stops him by taking him by the arm. ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘and yer can’t fool me. I know yer one o’them.’
Max looks perplexed. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re on about,’ he says.
‘Yer better not say,’ warns Ron. ‘They might rip yer tongue out.’
Tim and Plank are still lifting and shifting when Ron returns from the Farnhams’. He’s dead certain that that Maxie Farnham is one o’them Mason fellas, he tells the lads.
Tim wants to know how how Ron knows this. Eyeing the wooden box suspiciously, Ron opines that that Maxie Farnham always did act daft.
Why not look in the box? Suggests Tim.
Ron hesitates and tries to open it. It’s locked. Tim offers to break it open. Again, Ron hesitates, but finally concedes. The lads succeed in breaking open the box, only to find a mechanical apparatus within. Tim and Plank exchange puzzled looks again. What is it? Plank finally asks.
‘It’s one o’them surveyor’s things,’ Ron says, frantically. ‘And now it’s knackered.’
Plank offers to put the apparatus in his van and try to fix it. Of course, he adds, looking at Ron, it’ll cost him.
As Plank walks away with the box, Tim leans close to Ron’s ear and whispers, ‘So he’s not one o’them, then.’
(***PSSST! AGAIN, THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!)
Marty sits waiting in the interrogation room.
Back in the park, Mike and Rachel are still discussing Mike’s allegedly moral pursuit of Gary Parr. Mike asserts that he can’t give up now. It’s simply a question of who wins.
Oooh, says Rachel, ‘hit’s question o’ savin’ face.
Well, Mike continues, what about the next kid who gets meningitis? Maybe if their sloppy treatment o’people gets shown oop, Dr Parr and his doctor mates will mend their ways.
Boot, Rachel protests, blinking furiously, Cit’zens Hadv-eye-ce say we doan have coompla-int. Beth din have no-ah sym-toms.
But the doctor wouldn’t coom ter see her! Mike argues.
Rachel’s quiet for a moment, trying to remember how to think, when finally she speaks and discovers the vestigial remnant of her brain. Oooh, she says, she were joost woond’rin’ if M-eye-ke were joost latchin’ onter doc-teh thing causer soomthink else ... L-eye-ke ‘im ‘avin’ degree boot no job.
Mike can’t meet Rachel’s gaze at this assessment. Any road, he says, they’ve had a nice day.
Pa-id fer b-eye Jac-keh, mutters Rachel.
Things have come to a fore at Number 8, with Jacqui and Max almost moved in. Ray and Jessie have arrived back, and Max remarks to Tim and Steve that they’ll soon just have Ray’s and Jessie’s things to move over to Ron.
Jessie looks affronted. She swells up like a toad. She’s staying put, she announces, firmly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jacqui says, ‘You’re lodgers and you’ll have to go.’
‘NO!’ Ron interjects, as Ray blinks, uncomprehendingly. ‘They’re stayin’ put!’
Max intervenes, saying that the situation is very simple to comprehend. Either the Hiltons move next door with Ron or they go into hotel accommodation. In fact, Max offers to pay for one night in a hotel for Ray and Jessie.
Jessie adamantly refuses to budge. They were paid-up tenants and they were staying here.
‘Well, that’s gratitude fer yer!’ Grouses Jacqui. ‘Yer were happy enoof ter take the money we offered yer after the fire.’
‘And we paid back every penny,’ replies Jess, sourly. ‘And we’re not being ferreted about like chattel from pillar to post. I’’m staying here!’ And with that she dashes from the room and runs upstairs to the main bedroom of the Dixon house, which she shared with Ray. She slams the door and pries a chair against it.
Ray, Ron, Jacqui and Max follow her up the stairs, Ray knocking sharply on the bedroom door and demanding that Jessie come out. She’s making a fool of herself, he tells her.
And Ray should stand up for their rights! Jessie shouts back on the other side of the door.
Well, that’s it, says Jacqui, throwing up her arms in defeat. She wasn’t about to move until someone sorted this situation out.
But most of the furniture has been moved, Ron protests.
Not the beds, Max snaps and he orders Tim and Plank to stop working at once. The lads are truly bewildered, as Jacqui and Max push past them. She and Max are going to work, Jacqui informs Ron as she passes him. Ron can sort this mess out.
Mike and Rachel are sitting on the grass of the park with the kids nearby. Rachel asks Mike if he’s truly happy. Mike tells her that he is. (Yawn. Sorry). She’d be happier, she says, if he promises not ter mention Doc-teh Paaarr. Oooh, she suddenly realises. Do M-eye-ke reel-eye-se that they nev-eh’ad day out wi’out Beth?
They’ve never had a holiday without Beth, Mike remarks. (Lie. They have. Their honeymoon). It would be nice to have a holiday without the baby. It would be nice to have no bills. (Er, sorry, I still can’t get my head around Mike and Rachel’s debts. What bills? They pay no rent. They pay no utilities. They pay a fiver a week to the loan company. WHAT BILLS?)
Mike muses about all the families with parents around their own ages that he sees in supermarkets. Why couldn’t they be more like those families? He wonders. He watches them buy whatever they want, spend as much as they want. Do they have any debts? (Probably, and they probably pay for a lot more in life than you do, tosser). He looks sadly at Rachel. It was never going to be like that for them, was it?
Bev storms into her lounge from the area of the loo. Josh sits nonchalantly on the sofa, watching television. ‘Josh!’ She shrieks. ‘Yer’ve only gone and weed all over the bathroom floor!’ Looking down at the carpet, she begins to wail again. Josh has managed to knock his unfinished drink all over the carpet.
Josh is bored, he announces. Can’t they go to the pictures? He asks Bev.
No, she moans. She can’t afford it. (You what? How much does a film cost? A fiver for an adult and £2.50 for a kid? Bev CANNOT be that skint. She simply cannot. She makes a good wage. Again, WHAT DOES SHE DO WITH THE MONEY?)
Marty sits and waits impatiently for the return of the detective.
Mike and Rachel are now packing up Jacqui’s car for the trip home. Mike announces to Rachel that he’s made a decision. He’s going to go for a computer job. (Oh, really? And how, pray tell, did he manage to get training for such a job?) He suggests that they stop and get a takeaway for the kids, especially as they had some of Jacqui’s money left.
Detective Inspector Casey finally re-enters the interrogation room, apologising forthe delay. Marty declares indignantly that he’s been kept waiting for hours.
The detective smiles frostily and sits down, apologising. Now, he says, resuming the questioning, where did Mr Muddie say he was on the 20th of March at 4pm?
Marty squints his eyes in a puzzled manner. He’s told the detective. He was at a Health and Safety meeting at the school.
But he’s already checked with Mrs Plummer, Casey informs him, and the Health and Safety meeting for that day was cancelled until the next week.
Where did Marty work before coming to work at Brookside Comp? The detective asks.
Marty replies that he worked at St Wilfred’s school.
Why did he leave? The detective asks.
Well, Marty begins, Brookside Comp was closer to where he lived.
Casey leans forward in his chair. Does Marty recall a pupil at St Wilfred’s named Jennifer Black?
Marty thinks a moment. Yes, he admits. He remembers the name.
It seems, Casey says, that Jennifer went missing about two months before Marty left St Wilfred’s. And she hasn’t been seen since. Does Marty remember this now?
The camera pans in on Marty’s face as it goes cold with horror.
Barry Woodward wrote this.
A TALE OF TWO MITCHELLS
Or
LIFE NOT IMITATING ART
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Louise Mitchell. She lived with her mother Lisa and her step-father Mark in a fictitious part of East London, known as Walford. Her father, Phiw, lived close by. Phiw was the local hard man, but he loved little Louise very much.
Yes, yes, we all know that. THAT Louise is fictitious. She’s an exceptionally pretty baby, chosen by the production staff of Eastenders (probably for that reason) and her chief activity is to be ferried around the set by Lucy Benjamin and/or Todd Carty or Steve McFadden and giggle and coo on cue. She’s harmless and cute. Of course, when she grows up, she may not be. Many beautiful babies grow into ugly adults, in more ways than one ...
And that brings me to another Louise Mitchell, a REAL person of that name.
Quite recently, someone on the Official Brookside website asked for information concerning other unofficial Brookside sites. Here’s some information about one. It’s called soaps-r-us.co.uk, and the Brookside section is written by someone promoted as a feature writer, who’s called Louise Mitchell.
A few months back, some of the people who regularly contribute to Brooksider got more than a bit arsed with a particular poster on the Official Forum, who seemed to lurk on the Brooksider site and re-post everything discussed on a particular day on the O.F., presented as HER ideas. She even did the same on the Soapbox site, reading the forum and reposting threads as HER ideas. It bothered Alan enough that he posted a warning on that forum about plagiarism.
Annabelle contrived something else. The Brooksider contributors were encouraged to post, anonymously, false spoilers about Brookside, in an effort to see how this person would react and post the false bits on the Official Forum. She didn’t bite the bait, but someone else did.
Imagine my surprise, when my sixteen year-old daughter pointed out to me that the Brookside writers must be nicking my ideas, because all of my false spoilers were cropping up on other sites being discussed as verbatim. I had a peek at the computer screen, finding out that these spoilers were being debated as truth on that bastion of knowledge, the newsgroup. (Now that the Magic Rabbits has crawled out of his woodwork, they’re trying to make a go of it again; but he’s been curiously quiet about his orgasmic rantings re Fletcher and Gates).
It didn’t take me long to realise that these spoilers were gleaned, not from Brooksider, but from soaps-r-us, who presented them as TRUTH.
And that’s when the nastiness started. Through the intervention of Annabelle, who administers the Brooksider site, Louise Mitchell was apprised of her mistake - and left with the distinct odour of rotten egg covering her face. Unable to sustain her humiliation, and too immature to put her hands up to being caught in a ruse, she starts a flame war against Brooksider.
At first, it’s little more than the odd bitchy innuendo, then I catch the odd phrase, peculiar ONLY to the summaries, being introduced and presented as her own work, and then ... the real piece de resistance.
In her latest offering as ‘Feature Writer’ for soaps-r-us, Mitchell offered a scathing personal criticism of Patsyjo, one of Brooksider’s regular contributors. I include it here for all to see and contemplate. (Remember, THIS is the work of a ‘professional’):
‘Now this really is the last time that I will refer to the Brooksider forum, only to mention that the site's host persists in sniping at me, most recently accusing me of copying her opinions on little Beth Dixon's meningitis (we both wrote that the infection had an over-long incubation period). Truth is, I watched the show, the aforementioned issue niggled me so I mentioned it in my summary a couple of weeks ago. Later, when I read on the Brooksider site that they also had a thread going on the same subject, my reaction was relief that others had also reacted in the same way to the irresponsible storyline. At the bottom of the thread was a dig at me, saying I'd been plagiarising again. Did I turn bitchy and accuse them of stealing my ideas? No, and it's a shame they can't do likewise.
Carry on ... She eats her words and does exactly what she accuses Brooksider of doing ...
After today, I'm going to turn the other cheek (which would of course be very "po-faced" of me). If any readers are considering joining in with this forum which comprises a bunch of pretentious, pompous and exaggeratedly intellectual tossers, who poke fun at my writing, yet, to my astonishment, are nauseatingly full of praise for their odiously dim pal patsy-(I am a punctuation-free zone)-jo, then you have been warned.
PS: I've even stopped reading "Nell's" brilliant summaries as I can't run the risk of unconsciously repeating anyone else's precious work now can I?’
Note the red. I am reminded of the fact, and comforted by the same, that people who respond with such verbal abuse, are, themselves, of sub-standard intelligence. They simply don’t have the nous of accepting the fact that they’ve unintentionally bitten a bit of a piss-take. Well-known people accept being the brunt of a joke from time to time - the instance of Ann Widdecombe choosing to answer her phone with the phrase ‘Karloff speaking’, in reference to the media referring to her as ‘Doris Karloff’ comes instantly to mind. Why can’t an insignificant, little nobody, or ‘no-mark’ as Tim O’Leary would call her, like Louise do the same? Is her ego so inflated that it’s become as fragile as cut glass? Why the vitriol? She wasn’t asked by soaps-r-us to cease her ramblings on that site because her street cred might be dented.
But, having said that, she SHOULD be asked not to contribute any further by her site administrator for the appalling personal attack she rendered on Patsyjo - specifically the phase ‘odiously dim pal patsy - (I am a punctuation-free zone)-jo’.
Ms Mitchell needs to learn an essential lesson here. You DON’T make sweeping assumptions about people’s written expression (especially in the informal context of a message board) simply because there might be hidden reasons behind the way such expressions are made. Not that I need to explain to the likes of Ms Mitchell, but patsyjo is an extremely educated and erudite person. The reason for her seeming lack of punctuation, spelling et al is a bona fide medical one, not that that’s any of Ms Mitchell’s business, anyway. If she’s that narked by proper punctuation and grammar, may she NEVER log onto the Official Forum - she just might blow a gasket.
Oh, and Louise, honey. DON’T presume to play the ‘po-faced’ (yep, that’s one of my terms) grammatician with me. I’ll wager I can better you with grammar, syntax and composition anytime, anyplace, anywhere and in FOUR languages.
Your outburst and personal attack at Patsyjo Shand were uncalled for, over the top, insensitive, tactless, rude and highly unprofessional. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, LOUISE, but there’s an unwritten rule about courtesy being extended between the Brookside sites, both official and un- ... But it’s a two-way street, and it’s reciprocated in turn. Your invective just disqualified you, and - by extension, soaps-r-us - from any courtesy in that quarter. You’ve left an otherwise viable website open for scorn and derision, by your one moment of trying to score a personal point.
Your opinion of Patsyjo is that she’s stupid and dim, but if you want to know who’s easily recognisable as fitting those adjectives, I’d take a look in the mirror if I were you. It’s written all over your face.
And I relish the thought that you, a person whose head is so far up her arse the light of day is lost forever and whose ego is so big that she dares deign to accuse the BBC of plagiarising HER ideas, won’t be reading anymore of my summaries. The thought that someone of your ilk is gleaning ideas and expressions from them is actually quite sickening. You are the worst sort of feeble cheat.
So, be off with you, go on. Crawl back into your little hole at the base of the woodwork with the rest of your little cockroach friends, and leave us, your infinite betters, to get on with the task of discussing, praising, dissing, whatever Brookside, Eastenders, Wimbledon, the Tory Party, Uncle Tom Cobbley and the price of tea in china with insight, perspicacity, clever bitchiness, acerbic comment et al - but never with such malicious and puerile sulking as you’ve exhibited.
I hope soaps-r-us soon realise the liability they have in you and your good talents. I suggest you retire gracefully to your home in Torquay and spend the rest of your days watching Fawlty Towers videos. Do us all a favour; there’s a good girl.
Oh, and lest I forget ... You’ll notice, Louise, that I included inverted commas in the quotes taken from your rantings - far be it that you should accuse ME of plagiarising the work of a genius!
Onto matters Brookside ...
Marty Murray and Detective Inspector Casey sit opposite each other at the interrogation table.
Jessie is sitting stubbornly, barricaded in her bedroom at the Dixons’.
In the back garden of Chateau Farnham, Max stands, gazing lovingly at the two small trees planted in memory of his dead children, Matthew and Emily. As he stands, we see black-and-white flashing images in his mind of Matthew and Emily at play, smiling at him.
Back at the interrogation, Casey is trying to put Marty at ease, after his last shocking question. Let’s put the question of Jennifer Black aside for one moment, he says, soothingly. This is about where Marty works and his capacity at the school, after all. Marty should try to calm down. This is only an informal interview, the Inspector smiles, chillingly.
The policeman asks if Marty had ever seen Antony bullied at school. Marty replies that, on occasion, he had witnessed Imelda bullying Antony.
How did Marty advise Antony to handle this situation? Casey asks.
Marty replies instantly that he told Antony to hit Imelda back.
Casey purses his lips in thought for a few seconds. Surely, Marty must have seen other instances of bullying at school, he continues. How did Marty handle that?
Marty replies that he informed the bullies that he would be reporting them to the head, and he told the victims that they should hit back at the bullies.
Hmmm ... ponders the detective. Is that why Marty encouraged Antony to take an iron bar to Imelda Clough?
Back at Number 8, Ray is trying in vain to persuade Jessie to come out of the bedroom. Jessie refuses, shouting back through the door that she doesn’t aim to move until the bungalow is ready. (Good grief, won’t the room get a bit smelly?)
‘Come out this instance, Jess!’ Orders Ray, impatiently. ‘You’re behaving like a child now! You’re ... You’re TOO OLD to be acting this way!’
Jessie shouts back through the door that Ray MAKES her feel old. In fact, she may NEVER come to live at his pokey, old bungalow!
At the Farnhams’, Max enters the house through the back door. Jacqui tells him that Lance has just phoned, wanting to know if Max were coming into the restaurant that evening. If not, she says, Lance was willing to stay on.
Max nods absently. Where are the kids? He asks.Shouldn’t they be home by now?
Jacqui tells him that Mike’s phoned to say that he and Rachel had taken the children for a burger in town.
Max supposes no one’s thought to tell the children that they’d be back in their own beds tonight. Anyway, he tells Jacqui, he’s been having a re-think about the situation with the Hiltons. This could scupper the whole move, he says, morosely. In fact, he was inclined to call the whole thing off, even though he realises that it might mean forfeiting a fee as they’d already exchanged contracts.
‘We’ve GOT ter move,’ says Jacqui, gently emphatic. ‘Besides, me dad needs his £25k and WE need a bigger house.’
Max turns and gazes thoughtfully at Jacqui. He needs to know how SHE feels about moving back to Number 8.
Well, muses Jacqui, going back to Number 8 was, for her, like going home, even though, she adds teasingly, she spent many of her formative years on a corpy estate.
Max laughs, reminiscing about the first time he saw ‘the Clampetts’ arrive.
Number 8 was the first house her parents had ever owned, Jacqui says, and although their marriage ended there, the house held a lot of good memories for her too.
OK, agrees Max. He’s up for the move - as long as Jacqui remembers the time scale put on their stay there.
Jacqui raises her hand solemnly. ‘Six moonths and then we make the REAL move,’ she vows. ‘Then yer can replant Matthew’s and Emily’s trees in a proper garden.’
‘Preferably to a five-bedroomed house in Walton,’ Max quips.
Jacqui nods in wholehearted agreement. She just needs to know that Ron is OK in himself and that his business is doing OK.
Max takes a lengthy look about the room in which they’re standing. This house will forever be associated with Susannah’s death, he reiterates to Jacqui. But all the same, he DOESN’T want to live with the Hiltons.
Jacqui nods understandingly. She’ll have another talk to Ron and Ray, she promises.
Marty’s nightmare continues. After bringing up the fact that Antony had attacked Imelda Clough with an iron bar, Detective Inspector Casey wants to talk about more instances of violent behaviour shown by Antony. For example, the policeman offers, there was the incident of the metal waste bin in the loo and Antony’s wanton destruction of the science lab. Did Marty encourage the lad in either of those outbursts?
Of course not, replies Marty, scathingly. Antony was under pressure because he was being bullied by Imelda. (Sorry, no. Those two incidences were Antony’s reaction to his guilt at having caused Imelda’s death).
‘What about the iron bar?’ Casey is relentless. ‘After all, Antony says you told him to do it.’
‘I told Antony to slap her,’ Marty sighs, wearily.
‘You told him it was all right to slap a girl?’ The detective sneers, deprecatingly. (Bravo. Here lies the crux of Antony’s dilemma exposed at last. The bully was a girl. Society says men don’t hit women. Imelda could not lose; Antony could not win.)
He’s a mild lad, offers Marty. He would have had to have been under a lot of pressure to make him snap and react to her like that, he adds, defending Antony’s motive.
‘Throwing a metal waste bin and attacking a girl with an iron bar,’ remarks the detective, dubiously. ‘I’d say your Antony had himself a bit of a violent streak in his character. Have you ever considered counselling for the lad?’
‘He doesn’t need that roobbish,’ says Marty, dismissively. ‘I know my family,’ he continues, forcefully. ‘And if it weren’t for that bullying cow, none of this would have happened!’
Casey raises his head, swiftly, upon hearing those last remarks. ‘None of WHAT would have happened?’ He asks, suspiciously.
Marty swallows hard before finding his voice. ‘Me sat here answering needless questions while you lot are out scouring the place for that little ... bitch,’ he adds, bitterly, not meeting Casey’s gaze. Then he turns his head and looks at the detective defiantly. ‘Look, Inspector Casey,’ he begins, stoutly, ‘I don’t like Imelda Clough and I DON’T like bullies.’
Ron’s still milling about, continuing to pack his clobber in anticipation for whenever the move eventually takes place. As he potters about in the lounge, Ray approaches him tentatively. Ray begins to wail about Jessie’s behaviour. He doesn’t know what’s come over her, he says, nervously. She won’t even begin to entertain going to a B and B, or even taking Max’s offer of a paid hotel room. Why, he even offered to take her to Southport for the day, but she wouldn’t budge from that room.
Ron glances briefly at Ray, over his shoulder, and continues packing.
‘Hmph,’ Ray snorts briefly in wonder, ‘she even told me I made her feel old. Well, I AM old. We’re both old.’ Oh, it was beyond Ray’s ken how anyone could cope with women. Why, oh why couldn’t they be more like fellas? Anyway, Ron’s been around a fair bit. Does he have any advice he can give another old fella in this situation?
‘Hey,’ Ron stops abruptly. ‘Less of the "old". I’m not ready fer the grave yet, y’know.’
Ray crumples a bit. He’s just at his wits’ end about how to get Jessie to move into Number 7.
Ron sighs and turns to face Ray, stopping all pretence of work now. ‘Look, Ray,’ he says, earnestly, ‘I’d love ter help yer, mate, really. And if Number 7 was any bigger, yer’d be more than welcome. Boot you and Jessie can’t hope ter move in there with me. Why, with Michael and Rachel and Beth, there’ll barely be enoof room as it is ter get by. Truth is, I need a smaller place o’me own and a quiet life.’
Ray stutters that he merely hoped Ron would talk to Jacqui about them staying on, just to see if she’s softened in her views.
‘I’ll talk ter RJacqueline,’ Ron promises. ‘After all, she’s not gonna terrn down a bit o’rent money now, is she?’ (Is that truly how Ron assesses his daughter? Driven by money? Charming dad. Wonder where she got that trait?) In fact, Ron suggests, why doesn’t Ray try talking to Jacqui, himself? He might stand a better chance of getting her to come around to letting the Hiltons stay if he caught her on her own and without Max. By the way, he thinks she’s on her own now, as he’s just seen Maxie leave for work.
As Ron continues to encourage Ray, Ray determines that he’ll use this opportunity to talk to Jacqui on her own. He leaves by the front door, as Ron watches him, connivingly. As the front door slams, Ron turns facing the camera and asides, ‘One down, one ter go.’
Josh sits helplessly on the floor by Bev’s washing machine, his plaster casted leg stretched out in front of him and the floor covered in washing powder. He’s yelling for Bev. She scurries into the room and spies the mess and immediately begins nagging him for making it.
‘Boot yer always on at me ter help!’ Shouts Josh.
In the middle of this pandemonium, there’s a knock at Bev’s door. That’s probably the baby-sitter, she tells Josh, sprinting to open the door. Opening it, she finds Gaby the Grin, holding a dustpan and brush as though she’d never seen the items before. (She probably hadn’t). Gaby the Grin holds the articles toward Bev gingerly, saying that she’d found them outside Bev’s door.
Bev takes the dustpan and brush and quips that she was cleaning up more of Josh’s mess.
Anyway, Gaby the Grin says, there was a note left that flowers sent to her had been left with Bev. Bev teases her about always getting flowers from the dishy doc, and without thinking, Gaby mutters something about Dr Parr always sending flowers when she was upset.
‘Ahhhhhhhhhhh,’ Bev moans, ‘I realllyyy need me a good feller.’ Gaby the Grin is sooooo lucky, she whinges. Good fellas were hard ter find these days. Mind you, that Dave Burns was a swine, boot’e did keep RJosh occupied.
Gaby the Grin is grateful for Bev’s daft gab, especially as it keeps her from looking at the card accompanying the flowers, as she knows exactly who sent them to her.
Bev continues. She’s all but decided that she’s going to demote herself at the bar, she tells Gaby the Grin. She simply couldn’t cope with managing the place any longer.
But wouldn’t she be out of a job? Gaby the Grin queries, misunderstanding Bev.
Naaah, scoffs Bev. She’d still be a barmaid. She’d joost have less wages and more time to spend with Josh.
Oh, that’s so unfair, murmurs Gaby the Grin, sympathetically. But what about Mike? Couldn’t Bev persuade him to do more? (It’s NONE of your business!)
‘Who? Mr Unreliable?’ Exclaims Bev. ‘Yer gotta be jokin’!’ And then she notices the unopened card with the flowers. Er, isn’t Gaby the Grin going to open it? She asks, nosily.
Oh, tee-hee-hee, mercy-me, yes, witters Gaby the Grin, caught out in her uneasiness. She opens it surreptitiously. As expected, the card’s from Rob Dexter: ‘Soon we’ll be together.’
‘Well?’ Demands Bev, anxious to know the gory details.
Gaby the Grin crumples the card in her hand. Bev was right, she admits, smiling her feral grin. The flowers WERE from Gary.
Dr Nikki opens the front door of Hotel Corkhill when she hears the bell sound. Happy Smiling Helen stands on the doorstep. Dr Nikki’s mouth turns down at the corners in dismay. Who was she expecting? Brad Pitt? Wake up and smell the coffee, Nikki. He’s got Jennifer Anniston; why trade lamb for mutton?
Happy Smiling Helen smiles uneasily, bobs her head and asks Nikki if Jimmy were at home.
Dr Nikki glares at Happy Smiling Helen and steps aside to allow her to enter the house. Jimmy’s popped out to the shops, Dr Nikki admits, grudgingly. He shouldn’t be long. Happy Smiling Helen’s welcome to wait.
Well, Happy Smiling Helen witters breathlessly, entering the house, she really couldn’t stay long. She was due in work (at her highly-paid profession of bingo cashier).
Dr Nikk rudely turns her back on the woman and walks toward the Corkhill kitchen. Would Happy Smiling Helen like some coffee while she waited?
Yes, thanks, replies Happy Smiling Helen, suddenly feeling uneasy in the presence of so eminent a psychologist. She supposes aloud that she should have rung before dropping by.
‘Maybe yer should join the real world and get a mobile,’ quips Dr Nikki. (Ah, yes, tell the world, Nikki. One doesn’t exist these days without the ubiquitous mobile phone. No wonder Nikki’s brain has been destroyed by radioactive rays).
Ray has arrived at Jacqui’s, distraught at Jessie’s behaviour. He really doesn’t know what to do about her, he confesses helplessly to Jacqui. Jessie’s been in an awfully funny mood these past few days. She’s refusing to leave Number 8 entirely.
Jacqui listens sympathetically. She doesn’t mean to be unkind, she tells Ray, but they have a young family and the whole reason they were moving into Number 8 was for the added space. If Ray and Jessie remained, it would be just as it was before. Nothing would have been achieved.
‘I know that,’ Ray volunteers. ‘I’m perfectly happy ter move with Ron, boot he’s insistin’ we stay put.’
How long before the bungalow’s finished? Asks Jacqui. Ray says it will be completed in the next couple of weeks. Well, she hesitates, if it’s just another couple of weeks, she can’t see why either Ron can’t put up with them for two weeks or delay his own move. She suggests that the both go next door now and have a chat with Ron.
Marty is still being interrogated. The Detective Inspector draws his attention to the fact that Marty, himself, had physically attacked Imelda Clough.
‘I caught her abusing Antony,’ he explains, roughly. ‘She got verbally abusive with me and I pushed her against a wall.’
‘Hard enough for her to need medical attention, apparently,’ deadpans the policeman.
‘Look,’ Marty begins, desperately, ‘I lost it with her. Boot yer gotter understand how terrified my boy was of her. She conned her way into my home during my wife’s birthday party. She conned her way into the house when Antony was ill just so’s she could bully him. The lad was desperate. We all were desperate ter do something. Do yer know what it’s like when yer kid tells you he’d rather be dead than go ter school and face what Antony was facing?’
Casey nods sympathetically. He could understand Marty’s frustration, he says. But what about the school? Were they aware at the time of Antony’s problems with Imelda?
They were aware, says Marty, bitterly, but they had ‘procedures’ to follow.
‘In other words,’ the detective insinuates, ‘you felt that the school wasn’t doing enough to prevent what was happening to Antony.’
‘I felt they were dragging their feet,’ Marty replies.
‘Were you pleased, then, when Imelda Clough was suspended?’ Casey asks.
‘I was pleased that the school was finally doing something about the situation,’ Marty confirms.
Hmmm ... Muses Casey. Imelda Clough returned from suspension on the 20th of March, and that was the last time she was seen. Er, does Marty often lose his temper? He asks, suddenly.
What’s that got ter do with Imelda returning from suspension.
‘Oh,’ sighs the detective, ‘I just thought maybe your frustration might have spilled over, seeing her back at school again as if nothing had happened.’
Marty’s brows knit together in bewilderment at that remark, as the detective again gets up from his chair.
‘Will you excuse me a moment?’ He asks, smiling frostily. ‘I need to make a phone call.’
Ron’s been watching out the front window since Ray departed for Jacqui’s house. As soon as he sees Ray and Jacqui come out of the Farnhams’ front door, he quickly bolts the front door of Number 8. Jacqui rings the doorbell, but Ron only stands at the window watching frantically. When she notices him, Jacqui approaches the front window, demanding that Ron let her and Ray enter.
You can come in, he shouts at her through the glass, but he can’t, he adds, pointing at Ray. He’s evicted, Ron informs her.
Ron can’t do this, Jacqui shouts back. (No, indeed, he can’t. If contracts have been signed and money’s exchanged hands, then the house belongs to Max and Jacqui and Ron can’t evict anyone.)
‘I don’t want Ray and Jessie back!’ Shouts Ron, petulantly.
‘You can’t do this ter me!’ Shouts Ray, impatiently.
‘I already have,’ Ron replies.
Things have finally calmed down now between Bev and Josh. He’s sitting on the sofa and Bev rests wearily by the breakfast bar. Bev is lecturing Josh severely. Josh is to be on his absolute best behaviour when the childminder comes the next day, she says.
Josh grimaces. He doesn’t like her, he states.
Well, Bev whinges, she HAS to work, otherwise they wouldn’t have a place to live. But how would Josh feel if Bev were able to spend more time at home with him? She doesn’t have to work all the time, she says. (Indeed, she doesn’t. If she had nous enough to hire a deputy or duty manager, she could work the hours that suited her, as manager).
Gaby the Grin moves cautiously down the pavement of The Parade, moving her shifty, little eyes right and left, ever alert to unexpected presences. She’s so busy darting her eyes left and right, however, that she’s startled when Rob Dexter pops up from nowhere in front of her. She gives a startled little jump.
When she’s recovered her voice sufficiently, she gulps and tells him that he’s to send no more flowers, now or ever. ‘It was only ever work between us,’ she tells him.
Oh, yeah? Replies the slimy Rob, raising one eyebrow, cockily. What were all those evening drinks then? Surely they meant something.
It was only for Linda’s sake, Gaby twitters, nervously. She was sympathetic.
Rob Dexter apologises to Gaby the Grin, for not being able to admit his feelings for her when Linda was alive.
‘If anybody deserves an apology,’ hisses Gaby the Grin, ‘it’s Gary. That legal case crippled us.’ Then she warns him to stay away from her and not come near her at all. She stomps away from him furiously, in the direction of the communal entrance to the flats. As she fumbles in her handbag for her keys, she drops them to the pavement. Bending to retrieve them, she’s visibly startled by a male hand scooping them up and helping her to her feet.
PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION! HE’S BACK!
It’s Lance, dressed in a suit and looking like an undertaker. Solicitously, he asks if she’s OK, as he can tell by her mien that she’s upset.
As she’s never met him before, Gaby cringes (or maybe she’s homophobic) and flinches away from Lance. It’s OK, he assures her, he works at The Shelf and knows that she’s a friend of Max’s. She looks like she could do with a cup of coffee, he suggests and asks her to come into The Shelf to have a cuppa on the house.
Gaby tries to demur gracefully, but Lance insists. Max would never forgive him if he left her alone in her current state.
And Gaby the Grin follows Lance into The Shelf.
Jacqui and Ray are still adamantly standing outside Number 8, with Jacqui demanding at the top of her voice that Ron open the door. After a few minutes, she hears the bolt slip and Ron opens the door slightly, telling Jacqui that she can come in, but Ray can’t.
Ray immediately begins to blubber. What’s he to do? Where’s he to go? He doesn’t even have a toothbrush.
Jacqui glances frantically first at Ron and then at Ray. Turning to Ray, she tells him to go back to Number 7. He can stay with her and Max for one night. Ray potters off and seeing him depart, Ron mutters disdainfully about Ray acting like a soft kid.
‘Yer can’t do dis, Dad!’ Jacqui exclaims, arms akimbo and frowning.
‘I have,’ says Ron, smiling smugly. ‘He’s evicted. And when her oopstairs ventures outer her room, and she will, I’ll evict HER too.’ And he slams the door in Jacqui’s face.
Max is seated in one of the booths at the rear of The Shelf, opposite an emotional Gaby the Grin, who’s crying prettily and sipping a big cup of coffee. She’s told him the entire ballad of Rob Dexter (on HER terms, of course, I still say the woman’s fucked him and a lot of other men during her marriage). Max looks at her in the way he might look at Emma if she fell and skinned her knee. He makes cooing, clucking sympathetic noises as she dabs her eyes and relates her woes.
This Rob Dexter’s certainly overstepped the mark, Max murmurs, manfully. Gaby the Grin must do something.
But what? Gaby the Grin cries, femininely.
Well, tell Gary for a start, suggests Max.
But she can’t! She exclaims. Not after all that bother the last time.
But something has to be done, Max reiterates, phantom phone calls, popping up out of the blue, unwanted flowers ... This is harassment. She should seriously think about involving the police.
Gaby the grin gasps in petite horror.
Happy Smiling Helen isn’t too happy at the moment, nor is she smiling. She and Dr Nikki wait in uneasy silence for the return of the Sage from the shops. Attempting small talk, Dr Nikki asks Happy Smiling Helen how she and Jimmy are getting on.
Now Happy Smiling Helen smiles uneasily and bobs her head. Better, she nods.
Dr Nikki wrinkles her nose dubiously and bitchily comments that she hopes Jimmy can cope OK with this relationship.
Sensing female pherones rising, Happy Smiling Helen raises her hackles and smugly remarks that she’s certain that Jimmy can handle it. In fact, they both WILL handle their relationship - together.
Dr Nikki juts out her prominent jawline aggressively, making her look just like Kat Slater in a blonde, frizzy wig. (It’s true! Look at the faces!!!) That’s all very well and good to say that, she says to Happy Smiling Helen, but the truth is Happy Smiling Helen doesn’t know what Jimmy can be like.
Happy Smiling Helen replies that she’s actually been reading up on manic depression, quite extensively, as it happens.
Yes, sneers Dr Nikki, but Happy Smiling Helen has never seen the Sage when he’s having an episode. It’s all right reading about manic-depression, but Happy Smiling Helen has never come face to face with it first-hand. (And you almost expected the eminent psychiatrist to stick her tongue out at the end of this diatribe and go, ‘Nyahhh!’)
Happy Smiling Helen, needless to say, is highly offended.
Detective Inspector Casey has finished his phone call and returns to the interrogation room where Marty waits, frustratingly.
Now, he brusquely begins, sitting down again, Marty left his previous caretaker’s job in 1998. Why was that? He wonders.
Marty replies that it was because Brookside Comp was closer to where he was living at the time; he’s already told the detective that.
And that was why he left? The detective pursues.
Marty heaves a sigh of exasperation in response.
Consulting his notepad, Casey asks if Marty remembers a particular incidence of bullying at St Benedicts, which resulted in a pupil taking an overdose, which he - thankfully - survived. The pupil’s name, Casey says, was David Letrot.
Marty nods. He remembered the incident. And he remembered young Letrot. He was a promising footballer. Good player.
So Marty followed the school team? Asks Casey, with interest. Then he remembers what happened to the lad after the suicide attempt. Didn’t he lose all interest in playing football?
Marty nods.
And, Casey continues, narrowing his eyes and leaning across the table towards Marty, he recalls that young Letrot was being bullied by a girl ... Jennifer Black. In fact, he believes that Black was subsequently suspended after the suicide attempt. Funny, that. Does Marty see any similarities between this case and Antony’s? Two lads, being bullied by girls, Marty the caretaker at both schools?
Marty replies that he didn’t know either of those children personally. In fact, he wasn’t aware that Jennifer Black had been suspended.
Casey leans back in his chair, draping one arm over the back like a Scouse Jeremy Paxman. Hmmm ... Two girl bullies ... Was Marty as angry with Imelda Clough as he was with Jennifer Black?
Back at The Shelf, Max is still trying to convince Gaby the Grin to inform the police about Rob Dexter’s behaviour. Gaby the Grin shakes her head firmly. It’s no good, she says. No law’s been broken.
Suddenly, like a jack-in-the-box, up pops Rob Dexter again. (Well, you have to laugh, don’t you?) He appears from out of nowhere, just like Batman, and sidles onto the bench beside Max.
‘Oh,’ he remarks, ‘so you’re Gaby’s latest bit on the side?’
Gaby the Grin lets out a little squeak and Max starts to make pompous noises of protest.
‘Well, you’ll take my advice, mate,’ Dexter says rapidly, assuming rightly that he’s about to be ejected, ‘and steer well clear of her. She’ll only use you and dump you.’
As quickly as he appears, Lance is at his heels, playing the perfect maitre d’. He politely asks Dexter to leave, suggesting that the man didn’t really want to cause any trouble. Dexter disappears.
Gaby the Grin is left reeling with horror in her seat. Immediately she implores Max not to tell Dr Parr about this.
Max insists that she’s right to tell the police.
The police won’t act until something happens, she says firmly. (Er, excuse me, but something just DID happen, you stupid bitch! What has to happen? Dr Parr getting a gun off Tinhead?)
Then she should tell her husband, Max urges.
But Gaby the Grin is stubborn. It’s over now. Dexter’s got his thrill. No worries.
Max then suggests that she have a drink to steady her nerves.
No, she says, thanking him and rising from her seat, determinedly. What she plans on doing is going home and giving Dr Parr the best night of his life. (That good, is she?) Did Max realise that once upon a time, the two of them would drive over 200 miles just to spend one night in bed together? And she leaves Max with that enticing thought.
As she preens from the restaurant, Max is left staring at her lipstick-stained napkin. (OH PUR-LEESE, DO NOT LET MAX GET INVOLVED WITH THIS WOMAN? WHAT HAS JACQUI DONE TO DESERVE SOMEONE LIKE THIS?)
As he stares at the napkin, he’s suddenly startled from his reverie by Lance, clearing his throat and standing unobtrusively by his elbow. Max looks up.
‘I joost wanted ter tell yer,’ Lance whispers, ‘Mrs F phoned about five minutes ago. I thought I’d better be discreet so I told her yer was busy with a meeting of the Round Table.’
Max looks startled and more than just a little guilty and protests, asking why Lance did that. There was no need, he says. He and Mrs Parr are just friends.
Lance shoots him a dubious look and says that anyway, Jacqui said she’ll be nipping around to see him shortly.
Jacqui, in the meantime, is in the process of negotiating with Ron about the house swap. Jacqui is so exasperated by Ron’s recalcitrance that she lets slip the fact that Max even mentioned not moving this morning and forfeiting their fees.
Ron replies that he HAS to move, but he doesn’t have to put up with the Hiltons.
Does he WANT to move or not? Jacqui finally asks.
Ron sighs heavily and doesn’t answer for a bit. Finally, he admits that he isn’t certain that he wants to move houses. Oh, he needs a smaller place and the money, and God knows, he sees Clint Moffatt every day of his life in this house.
But it hasn’t all been bad memories here, Jacqui tells him.
Ron starts to reminisce about their years in the house. Why, did Jacqueline realise that Ron was the first Dixon to own his own home - that was courtesy of Maggie Thatcher, making it possible for people like them to buy. But the house had bad memories as well, he says. Not only Clint, but Tony dying and Ron’s marriage breaking up.
Then why is he dragging his feet? Jacqui asks. Ron needs the £25k profit he’ll make on the swap. She realises he’s only doing this swap for her and she’s doing it for him. The only problem, as Jacqui sees it, is Jessie.
She won’t budge, Ron says.
Jacqui agrees to give Ron one more day to effect some sort of compromise with the Hiltons. In the meantime, Ray can stay the night at theirs, but Max will want things sorted out by tomorrow.
Back at the interrogation room, Inspector Casey plays his trump card with Marty. He believed Marty recently got a promotion at work, didn’t he?
Marty nods, trusting the policeman less and less. Not exactly, he says. The head caretaker suffered a heart attack. He was appointed acting head caretaker.
And when was that? The detective asks and then answers his own question. Shortly before the 20th of March, wasn’t it?
Marty nods.
And it was in that capacity, as head caretaker, Casey says, again consulting his notebook, that Marty attended the Health and Safety Meeting on 20th March.
That’s right, confirms Marty.
Again, Casey leans back in his seat. ‘Well, I’ve checked with Mrs Plummer,’ he informs Marty, ‘and she tells me that the Health and Safety meeting for that day was postponed and rescheduled for the following week. Now can you account for yer whereabouts between 3:40 and 4:30pm on that day, Mr Muddie?’
Marty looks absolutely flabbergasted and witters softly to himself, calculating dates in his mind.
‘Yer moost have soom idea of where yer were,’ the detective persists.
‘I-I was at school most likely,’ Marty stammers, finally seeing where this line of questioning is leading.
‘Boot yer werrren’t,’ continues Casey, slightly hectoring now. ‘Mrs Plummer confirms that. In fact, Mrs Plummer says yer rather flexible with yer hours. She says yer joost ‘nip out’ now and then. Maybe yer joost nipped out that day.’
Marty’s face is red with fright and horror.
Back at Hotel Corkhill, the struggle for the heart and mind of the venerable Sage continues. Happy Smiling Helen has been mightily offended by Dr Nikki’s attitude. She accuses Dr Nikki of being patronising with her.
‘I’m not bein’ patronising,’ Dr Nikki protests, in the voice and tones of a scally, instead of a university student. ‘I joost wanter know what’ll happen wi’Jimmy if thinks don’t werrrk out fer youse two.’
Happy Smiling Helen shows a ferocious streak. That’s really none of Nikki’s business, she hisses. And Nikki would do well to just step back and let her and Jimmy get on with their relationship. (Ever notice how Happy Smiling Helen, an uneducated woman with ostensibly a poorly paid, unskilled job has better diction than Dr Nikki, the uni student?)
Well, sneers Dr Nikki, who knows more than any lecturer could ever tell her about psychology, joost because Happy Smiling Helen’s read a few books, she reckons she knows all there is ter know about carin’ fer Jimmy. (The words ‘pot’, ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ immediately come to mind). Joost what does Happy Smiling Helen know, she taunts, about inappropriate sexual behaviour?
Happy Smiling Helen gathers up her handbag and her dignity in a huff. She’d best be going, she sniffs.
‘I don’t mean ter be havin’ a go at yer,’ Dr Nikki calls, after the fact. ‘It’s joost that I’m wuddied about Jimmy.’
Conveniently, at that moment, the door opens and the Sage, himself, walks in. He’s pleasantly surprised to find Happy Smiling Helen there. Happy Smiling Helen, however, isn’t in the best of moods and tries to brush past Jimmy.
Jimmy stops her, saying she saved him a phone call. He thought maybe she’d like to go to an exhibition with him the following week. Paul McCartney’s paintings were being shown.
(Excuse me ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA! I don’t know if Brookside meant this to be funny or to be taken seriously, but if it’s the latter, it’s pathetic for several reasons. First, it just reinforces the attitude that Scousers have that they’re the best in everything. Paul McCartney’s paintings got royally and universally panned. I could paint better. They were puerile and amateurish. And they only got exhibited because, well, because he’s Paul McCartney. Just like Edwina Currie, another Scouser, gets her trashy tripey novels published, because she’s Edwina Currie. And someone like Jimmy Corkhill going ot an art exhibition of ANY sort. He’s an aspiring intellectual, but he’ll never attain that status. He reminds me increasingly of the pathetic character played by Jane Horrocks in the Mike Leigh film ‘Life is Sweet’. In fact, I can almost hear Jimmy croaking, ‘I am too an intellectual’. If Brookside intentionally meant this to be pretentious, it shows as just that. But, please God, spare us from anymore of Jimmy Corkhill’s antics. The man is past it. Finito. Finis. Acabado. Kill him off now, and save the show.)
Helen manages to hurry past him, snipingly telling him that she’ll call him.
Back at the copshop, Marty’s interview abruptly ends, when Detective Inspector Casey rises, closes his notepad and thanks Marty for coming in. ‘We’ll be speaking ter yer again,’ he promises, ominously.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Marty demands, ‘yer’ve had me down here all day long and yer’ve accused me of all sorts. And after all that, yer letting me go?’
The detective turns briefly in the frame of the door. ‘Like I said,’ he smiles, coldly. ‘We’ll be speaking ter yer again.’
Jacqui stands uneasily at the bar in The Shelf, whilst Lance wipes the surface with a cloth. He tells Jacqui that Max shouldn’t be long with his meeting. Jacqui is uneasy around Lance and vice versa. Not surprising, since he’s spent the majority of his time on the show slagging her off to her face. Suddenly, Lance attempts to break the ice. He wants Jacqui to know, he says, that everytime he’s in her presence, he feels he has to force himself to talk to her.
Jacqui glances at him sharply. What does he mean? She asks.
‘What I mean is,’ he stutters, ‘well, I’ve said soom teddible things about yer. I realise now how wrong I was. And joost so’s yer know, I’m havin’ noothink more ter do with RLeanne - not after what she did ter Bev. And I know now that what she said about you was all a pack o’lies. Boot that’s RLeanne,’ he sighs. ‘Veddy manipulative, that one.’
Max enters the bar area at that moment and greets Jacqui, lovingly. Jacqui tells him that she has some news for him. Does he want the good news or the bad news first?
Max opts for the good news.
‘Well,’ Jacqui begins, ‘me dad’s evicted Ray.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Max exclaims. ‘We can finish moving in tomorrow-’
‘Now the bad news,’ interrupted Jacqui. ‘Ray’s stayin’ with oos ternight. And then tomorra we’ve got ter talk Jessie around leavin’ the house.’
‘This is insane!’ Shrieks Max. (Now THAT was genuinely funny.)
Marty wanders absent-mindedly into the sitcom kitchen, where Dire is standing, as per usual, by the sitcom counter. Marty is mulling over dates and hours in his mind, trying to remember where he was on the afternoon of 20th March. Why can’t he remember? He mutters, with increased frustration.
Dire’s not at all worried about his interrogation, however, and Marty’s shocked by this. Doesn’t it concern her that he went down, ostensibly for a few hours this morning, and ended up staying there the whole day?
WELL, WHY SHOULD SHE BE WUDDIED? Dire bellows. IT WAS JOOS ROUTINE, FER GOODNESS’ SAKE!
‘I’m tellin’ yer yer should be,’ Marty warns, ominously. ‘Because they’re buildin’ this thing oop as though Imelda’s dead, as though she’s been merr-derred.’
That policeman, he continues, kept bringing up the fact that Marty had pushed Imelda. He had a go at a bully, and she’s the victim! He exclaims, in despair. And not only that, he continues, did Dire remember that Jennifer Black, the girl from St Benedicts who went missing about two months before he left?
Dire nods, now suddenly hanging on every word Marty says.
‘Well, SHE was doon fer bullyin’ a lad at that school,’ Marty says, bleakly. ‘At every twist and terrn, that Casey tried ter make it look as though I knew her. She bullied a lad and she disappeared. And I was werrkin’ at the school. It’s all there,’ he cries. ‘Imelda Clough is dead, and they think I killed her!’
Barry Woodward wrote this. Neil Caple carried it.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002