THE GORDONS - I HATE’EM
Well, not ALL of them, just the three women. I used to think Brookside revelled in presenting pejoratively weak and negative male characters, always flawed, in relation to good, strong, positive female characters.
Not anymore.
Oh, the men are still weak - wimps, scallies, dullards, workshy ... You name it. But the women - PUR-LEESE! And nowhere are there any more despicable, dislikable, downright crappy women than the three Gordon ones.
No common sense at all - from whiney wannabe trendy Ma with her straggly, lank, white-trash hair to Rabbity Ruth with her annoying upper lip that threatens to retreat up her nostril, leaving us all to gaze in wonder at the miniature Merseyside Tunnel chiselled between her two front teeth, right down to the self-absorbed Kirsty, she of the amazing perpendicular tits, who’s so self-absorbed I’m surprised that her head isn’t stuck even further up her arse.
They serve no purpose except to show the viewers how selfish and arrogant, as well as ignorant, the family are. They utter silly lines, showing a lack of common sense and direction. They are poorly written, poorly acted and generally disliked. Along with the youngest son, who deserves to be killed off by some brutal street gangs, they should all be allowed to die a quick and merciless on-screen death and then allow the writers, the worst of whom can die along with the lot of arsey nincompoop writers, such as Heather ‘Shithead’ Robson, so we can just get back to good Brookside.
I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!
It’s the morning after the night Marty didn’t come home. Dire lies prostrate on the sitcom couch, fully clothed, staring wide-eyed with wuddy at the ceiling. She clasps the phone in her hand.
Over at Number 5, Bicker-Bicker House by any other name, Dan the Man oozes slime as he skulks about the Gordon kitchen.
Meanwhile, over on The Parade, Bev comes into the lounge from her bedroom to find Josh hard at work digging through a cupboard in search of some missing article.
Back at Sitcom House, Brigid greets the day by sitting beside Dire on the sofa. From the wuddied look on Dire’s plaster-of-Paris covered face, Brigid knows something is seriously amiss. Still no word on Marty? She asks tentatively.
It’s good to know this latest crisis hasn’t dimmed Dire’s vocal chords. ‘I’VE PHONED TWO HOSPITALS!’ She blasts, waking Jimmy Corkhill in the extension next door. Still, SHE’S NOT GOING TER LET THAT MARTY REDUCE HER TER A BAG O’ NERRRVES, NOT IF HE’S BEEN ON A BENDER. HMPH! AT LEAST THE KIDS WON’T BE HERE TER WITNESS HIS HOMECOOMIN’!
Brigid, remarkably tolerant of this situation, urges Dire not to be too hard on Marty.
‘BOOT HE WAS OUT ALL NIGHT!’ Bellows Dire.
It just isn’t like Marty to do something like that, reasons Brigid.
HE WAS OUT ALL NIGHT,repeats Dire, broadcasting from Radio Muddie onto the Close. SHE WAS WUDDIED SICK! WHY DIDN’T HE RING HER?
As Josh rummages throught the cabinet, Bev muches her cornflakes in the foreground. Josh
looks up at his mother with great curiosity. ‘Yer know them kids in Africa?’ He asks.
‘Not perr-sonally, no,’ replies Bev, tonelessly.
Well, continues Josh, there’s no water in Africa, is there? He means, they can’t have any puddles or such. No water games.
‘Yer mean they won’t be able ter use a Supersoak?’ Susses Bev, realising that Josh has been searching for the hidden water pistol.
‘They have noothink ter fill it oop with,’ Josh reasons.
‘Don’t you wuddy,’ Bev soothes him, finishing her bowl of cereal. ‘The charity shop is sure ter sell it ter soom mingey little article like yerself joost ter cause more trooble.’
‘WHERE IS IT?!’ Josh demands, petulantly.
‘That soobject is closed,’ Bev tells him.
At that moment, the phone rings. Bev answers and finds that the caller is Mike. Mike is blowing her out, yet again, on babysitting Josh. As she’s speaking on the phone, Josh suspiciously eyes the large Oriental screen standing behind Bev, sussing that she’s put the Supersoak there, which is probably the first place an intelligent child would have looked - but then, look at Josh’s parents.
‘No wuddies,’ Bev is saying sarcastically to Mike on the phone. She’ll just give Josh a gallon of petrol to play with and leave him to it. She slams the phone down.
His dad’s not coming, guesses Josh, correctly.
Bev apologises, saying that Mike has to go see Granddad Ron in the hospital.
The post has arrived at Bicker-Bicker House.
‘Hallelujah!’ Exclaims Ma Gordon, rushing as fast as Trailer Trash law will allow her, from the front door into the lounge. Dan the Man is the only resident present, oozing slime in his wake. Ma’s got a card from Bitch, who’s now in Peru. She reads from the card. Bitch says the milk’s still hanging, which presumably means her tits are still intact, more’s the pity - they’re lethal - Ma is to keep the boys out of her room, tape Dawson’s Creek for her (er, isn’t she a bit old for that show? Besides, I thought the tart was going to be away from home for a year! Oh, and SURELY by satellite in South America, the natives are able to watch Dawson’s Creek from the U S. Naughty Brookside! BAD research!) Oh, yes - and send some money, since the Gordons seem to be wallowing in it.
Does she say anything about Peru? Dan asks. (Peru? Are you crazy? Why should she? She’d care nothing about any Inca ruins - in fact, she’d find them boring. Never mind the wild life in the Andes. She’ll buy a few llama-haired ponchos from some sheister seeking to con naive tourists and then light out of that country - the Native American men and their pre-historic existence not being to her liking).
Ma scans the few scant lines again to see if she’s missed somthing. Er, no, she doesn’t say a thing about the country, the culture or the people.
Never mind, smarms Dan the Man, knowing that the Gordons are a mentally deficient lot, and - therefore - easy to con. He can see the receipt of the card has just made Ma’s day.
Yes, sirreee, Bob, smiles Ma, her lanky, dirty hair falling in skeins about her face. She’s joost gorra tell Pa. Her baby girl’s alive and joost as self-absorbed as ever!
(Er, sorry, but that’s something to be proud of? That she’s raised sublimely selfish, self-centred, greedy, stupid and arrogant children? What the hell kind of person, much less parent, is this extremely stupid woman, the more of whom I see the more I wish death upon her. Discuss, please).
Dr Parr and Gaby the Grin are having breakfast. Well, Dr Parr is. Gaby the Grin is pointedly trying to avoid her dishy husband, burying her head in the pages of the tabloid press. Dr Parr reaches across the table and pulls the paper down, revealing his wife’s feral little head.
Any chance of a decent conversation this morning? He asks, lightly.
Gaby looks up, grinning falsely. Sorry, she quips, indicating the paper. Celebrity gossip.
Oh, the doctor feigns interest. And what does it say.
Britney burps, jokes Gaby the Grin.
Now, he continues, gazing at her earnestly, any news closer to home?
Again, Gaby the Grin flashes him a false grin. None, she confirms.
Not believing her for an instant, Dr Parr smiles gently. He wants to know, he says, if anything is bothering her; but Gaby the Grin insists that she’s OK. In fact, she wants Dr Parr to stop monitoring her.
Dr Parr accuses her of thinking him an emotional lightweight incapable of looking after her when -
When she’s losing it? Gaby the Grin finishes.
More likely a ‘bit wobbly’, Dr Parr says. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking, he continues; but again, Gaby the Grin insists that she’s fine. She’s merely licked her wounds and is currently taking advantage of a few days off. She must simply try to find something more edifying to do. And she flippantly sends him off to a day’s work, as she provocatively eats a grape. Hasn’t he got some piles to push in somewhere?
Dr Parr turns at the front door and looks at his wife, frustratingly. Some things are better out than in, he reminds her, pointedly.
Including piles? Gaby asks, affecting innocence.
(***HINT: This is supposed to be funny. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!)
Back at Sitcom House, Dire is still wuddying. Where IS Marty? She wails.
There’s absolutely no way Dire can go into work in that state, witters Brigid. She’s going to call that Joanne at the Salon and tell her Dire’s burning up.
No, insists Dire. SHE’LL do it. And she picks up the telephone. Immediately she hears the BT Message Alert tone. There’s a message, she hisses to Brigid. It’s Marty! She listens and puts the phone down in disgust.
He says not to wuddy, she moans to Brigid. He’s got a delivery at school and he’s going straight there.
Well, thank God he’s OK, sighs Brigid.
Dire remarks that he says he’ll try to get home at lunch. He probably left the message when she was on the phone to the hospital.
Then it’s best that Dire go off to work and leave the post mortem for later, Brigid suggests.
Dr Parr stands at the counter at the garage, trying to purchase a pack of chewing gum.
Twenty-nine pence, demands Leanne in a surly tone.
‘Ah-ah!’ Teases Dr Parr. ‘What’s the magic word?’
‘Please,’ Leanne says, reluctantly.
Dr Parr thanks her in a pseudo-posh voice and leaves, just as Ma trudges into the garage. Already in thrall to Leanne, Ma offers to put the kettle on, telling an unlistening Leanne that she’s got a postcard from Bitch finally, as Leanne continues to glare out the window at Dr Parr as he walks across the road dividing the garage from The Parade. Bitch only wants some more money from the Gordon family money tree, Ma jokes. Then she, too, gazes out the window at Dr Parr’s departing form.
Ma moans that not only policemen are looking younger; it’s doctors as well.
HIM? Asks Leanne, incredulously. Why, he’s got an old man’s head on a young man’s body, she snarls.
Ma thinks the doctor’s easy on the eye - oh, and so do her ignorant daughters, she adds.
Leanne turns and thrusts her face only inches from Ma’s. Did she ever tell Ma about her compo fiasco? She asks. THAT ONE (indicating Dr Parr, who’s now arrived at the door of the surgery and stands talking to Nisha) threw a spanner in the works for her, he did.
‘Tell yer what,’ she confides to Ma, ‘if soomone’s tellin’ me I’ve got six moonths ter live, I’d rather they not have a gobful of chewy.
Oooh, witters Ma, oooh, she doesn’t think he chews gum in front of his patients.
And there’s another one, continues Leanne, in full flow, noticing Nisha, who thinks a lot of herself. Honestly, Leanne rants, give soom people a uniform! Mind you, she continues, that’s one uniform she wouldn’t want to sniff - doin’ people’s feet, lancing boils and being sprayed in puke. Nerrr-sing isn’t just dishing out happy pills, kneeling on trollies and saving lives.
‘Yer norron E R now, luv!’ Shouts Leanne through the glass as Nisha and the doctor enter the surgery.
As Josh and Bev stand in the foyer of the flats, Gaby the Grin returns from the garage, herself. She’s been on a chocolate run, she tells the two of them. Bev is giving Josh final instructions for the day. He’s to stay in the flat and NOT annoy the neighbours. Josh scowls, as Gaby the Grin greets him.
That scowl’s not for Gaby the Grin, explains Bev. Mike blew them out on babysitting again.
Gaby the Grin notices that Bev looks stressed.
Bev explains that she only has to leave Josh on his own again. No wonder he’s ‘devil child’.
Immediately, Gaby offers to bebysit him.
‘YOU!’ Exclaims Bev. ‘After what you’ve been through?’
Actually, Gaby the Grin explains, Bev would be doing her a favour letting her look after Josh. Displacement therapy, she adds. It will take her mind off the other thing, she says. She jokes with Josh about making fairy cakes and feeding the ducks.
Josh scowls again, and Gaby challenges him to a computer game.
Later, as Max Farnham walks along The Parade, Gaby the Grin and Josh stand on the balcony and whistle at him. Max looks up and greets Gaby the Grin as Leanne clocks his action from the garage forecourt. Max is amused and amazed to see Gaby in Bev’s flat with Josh and asks what she’s doing there. Gaby jokes that she’s swapped flats with Bev, then tells him that she’s looking after Josh for a bit.
‘Oh, well,’ quips Max, ‘sauce for the goose.’
Gaby invites him up for a coffee.
As Max starts to go up to the flats, Leanne cattily offers her sympathy for poor Jacqui Farnham to Ma Gordon. Her husband just couldn’t keep it in his trousers, she remarks.
Meanwhile, Nisha walks along The Parade, her arms laden with bottled drinks. Dr Parr approaches her, taking one and praises her for being a real Nightingale. A drink was just what the doctor ordered.
Nisha remarks that Florence Nightingale was ‘ a white bird’ (excellent history lesson, this), and anyway, the drinks were strictly one-off.
Max takes a pew in Bev’s flat and admires Gaby’s hair, as has everyone else. He takes a gander about the flat, where he’s never been. Amused by Bev’s opulent, discordant taste, he remarks about how ‘Charles Rennie MacIntosh’ the flat is.
Gaby tells Max not to be such a snob. Max asks her how Guildford was.
It was excrutiating, admits Gaby, seeking, yet again, to unburden herself of private problems to inappropriate people. Her mother kept wanting to ‘talk’ about what happened.
Well, Max points out, he’s here for a chat.
There’s a difference between a chat and a talk, Gaby points out.
Well, what’s Gaby’s take on the situation? Max wants to know.
Rob Dexter is dead and she’s partly responsible, admits Gaby. She hates the man for doing this to her. (One notes that Josh sits watching those infernal Magic Rabbits in the background.) She thanks Max for letting her vent some steam, and for not interrupting and insisting that Dexter’s suicide was not her fault.
Max suddenly goes all shy. Well, he admits, coyly. He was worried about her - as a neighbour, he hastens to add.
Oh? Replies Gaby, archly flirting. Not as a friend?
Well, that too, Max reluctantly admits.
That was a wind-up, Gaby confesses, and it was this sort of behaviour that’s got her into trouble in the past. Anyway, she needs an update on the governors’ meetings she’s missed.
Max sighs wearily. Well, all the governors’ meetings have been totally hijacked by Imelda Clough, he says. It seems that the police are centering the search a bit more closer to home, he adds. (And we see a shot of Dire, seated at the sitcom table, glance at her watch, and rise and stride from the room).
Gaby’s shocked when she hears about Marty Muddie being suspected.
‘They’ve already had him in twice for questioning,’ Max says. And then he laughs grimly. ‘Just wait until the lynch mob round here get hold of that!’
Gaby sincerely hopes that the police eliminate him before the vigilantes kick into force.
Max is unsympathetic with the governors’ views on Marty. Gaby knows as well as Max does that Imelda Clough led that Antony Muddie a dog’s life. In fact, Mrs Plummer’s notes from the meetings she had with the Muddies state that Antony Muddie was suicidal.
Josh shouts out that he thought he and Gaby were going out.
Ten minutes, Gaby promises, before turning her attention to Max again.
God forbid, says Max, that Harry should be suicidal at age eleven, but if so, Max would be straight around that school to throttle the culprits. When you have kids, he says to Gaby the Grin, you do anything to protect them.
‘I understand the urge to knock the girl into next week,’ Gaby replies, breathless with wonder. ‘But murder her?’
Josh shouts out to Gaby that she’s got 8 minutes left.
She doesn’t know Marty Muddie personally, Gaby admits. But she certainly can’t imagine him a murderer.
Max looks at her coldly and seriously. ‘Why?’ He deadpans. ‘Not the type?’
When Dire returns home at the end of her working day, she finds Marty sitting morosely at the sitcom table. For a moment she stands in the doorway of the kitchen and simply stares at him.
Before she kicks off, Marty says, quietly, he wants to apologise. He’s soddy.
That it? Replies Dire, coldly. Well, she’s not at all impressed.
Marty says he’s soddy again.
Dire simply stands staring at him sceptically, her mouth agape in feigned boredom.
No harm done, she finally quips. After all, she LIKES tossing and terrrning all night, as well as being late for werrrk. Oh, and as for werrk, she’s Joanne’s golden girl at the moment - and at the end of a long day and a sleepless night, what’s a written warning? She rants, full of heavy sarcasm.
Marty struggles with words. He-he had to get his head together, he admits, feebly.
Well, Dire snaps. She’s made oop for him. Never mind HER head.
He did ring that morning, Marty says, but the line was engaged.
‘I WAS RINGIN’ THE MORGUE!’ Bellows Dire, dramatically.
Marty wearily rolls his eyes heavenward. ‘There’s no place like home,’ he mutters, under his breath. He pushes past Dire and leaves the room.
Dire turns her head in the direction of his exit. ‘I THOUGHT YER WAS DEAD!’ She shrieks.
Off-camera, Marty answers her. ‘Soddy ter disappoint yer!’
Gaby and Josh stand on the balcony of Bev’s flat, armed with the Supersoaker. Josh has persuaded her to play the game of squirting people below. Gaby is suddenly dubious. Is Josh SURE Bev’s OK about him playing with this thing?
Oh, sure, Josh lies, as long as it’s not people who’ve just had their hair done.
Hmmmm, Gaby wonders, it doesn’t seem like a good idea, full stop. Looking below, Josh sees Leanne leave the Parade area and squirts, hitting her on the backside. Leanne is oblivious and keeps walking, which sends Gaby and Josh into fits of giggles, squatting down.
Gaby wonders if Leanne’s realised who squirted her. No, Josh assures her. He’s a pro.
Marty and Dire sit at the sitcom table. Dire is speaking, oddly, in a quiet voice, confessing that Marty scares her.
Again, Marty says he’s soddy.
‘Soddy’ as a word is banned, Dire says. (And so it should be. The word is properly pronounced ‘sorry’, Scousers. No ‘d’s’ in that word.)
Dire urges Marty to put them both out of their misery and simply tell her what is wrong. Does he have cancer? She asks suddenly. (What an incongruous question! Who wrote this? Carmel Morgan? Well, I’m surprised.)
Marty denies having cancer, which causes Dire to react dramatically by rolling her eyes heavenward and thanking God fervently. But, she continues, what’s so unbearable that he has to stop out all night and can’t bear to look her in the eye?
Dan the Man is lolling about lazily on the mingey Gordon sofa, when there’s a knock on the door. He hears someone call out: ‘Chop-chop, Blue Eyes!’
Lazily, Dan the Man stretches, sitting up, and then trudges to the door, trailing an ooze of slime in his wake. He opens the door to see the hapless Sean, returned with Luke, who jumps up and down and dashes past Dan the Man, shouting, ‘Chop-chop!’
Dan the Man welcomes the kid back.
Oh, he likes the pining step-dad routine, Sean remarks caustically, as Dan the Man ruffles Luke’s hair.
Dan the Man is equally as sarcastic. It’s ALWAYS a pleasure to see Sean, he says. In fact, they didn’t see enough of him. Would he care to come in? And he stands aside and beckons Sean inside.
As Luke and Sean enter the lounge, Luke runs directly to a pile of toys lazy Ma’s not been arsed enough to clear. Sean ambles into the room, remarking that he’d hope to catch a word with that slag of a wife of his.
Dan the Man glances uneasily in Luke’s direction, admonishing Sean, who’s carrying a small blue, plastic bag, about his language in front of the child.
That’s OK, says Sean, easily, flopping onto the sofa. Luke’ll soon learn what type of woman his moother is. What is it - seven when kids begin to get a grip on things? (Er, this is obviously a paraphrase of the Jesuits’ statement: Give me the boy until he’s seven and I’ll show you the man.)
Sean looks at Dan the Man expectantly. Well? He asks. Isn’t Dan going to put the kettle on? As Dan begins to move toward the kitchen, Sean tosses the blue plastic bag in his direction. He’s brought a present, he says. Luke had a little accident, and Sean told the kid they’d save the accident for Dan the Man.
Dan looks squeamishly at the contents within the bag. Making a face of disgust, he asks Sean cattily if the water taps don’t work in Sean’s house.
Why, Dan the Man knows Sean’s house like the back of his hand, surely, Sean quips, standing up, his face inches from Dan’s. After all, wasn’t that where Dan the Man first knocked off Sean’s wife?
Across the Close, Marty begins the difficult task of explaining his past life to Dire. It’s about Jan, he confesses.
Yes, yes, Dire says, with impatience. She knows all about Marty hitting Jan, and she understands why.
There’s a bit more, says Marty, interrupting her. By the time, they’d had Antony, he begins, uneasily, their maddage was on the rocks. Jan put it all down to post-natal stooff -
‘YES, I KNOW ALL THIS!’ Exclaims the Blessed Wannabe Mother, interrupting yet again.
‘YOU KNOW NOOTHINK!’ Shouts Marty, shutting her big gob up for once. Dire recoils, as Marty begins again. Oh, he tried to step in whenever he was at home, he says, wearily. But he was always at school, it seems. He was doing loads of overtime, trying to bankroll her one night out a week, as well as the catalogues.
What about Ant? Dire wants to know.
Marty says that he returned home one day to find Jan shaking Ant, who was teething at the time.
Dire is horrified. What did Marty do?
‘What did I do?’ Repeats Marty, in a zomi-ish daze. ‘Why ... I took the baby off her.’ Next morning, he continues, Jan was in tears of guilt. She smothered Antony with kisses, saying that she’d never do it again. It was hormones, PMT,depression - the usual.
The USUAL? Says Dire, in disbelief. She can’t believe that Marty didn’t ship out and take the kids with him.
Neither can he, Marty remarks, in a faraway voice.
Dire stares at him in obvious disgust at what she perceives as his weakness. He sounds so-so DISGOOSTINK! She almost pukes the word.
As Dan the Man prepares the tea, Sean stands gazing at a photo of Luke with Ma Morgan. Dan notices him, and compliments Sean, saying that Luke is a smashing kid.
Still looking at the picture, Sean replies that Luke’s the best thing that happened to him in his life. Luke, in fact, is the only thing he and Rabbity Ruth seem to have got right.
Well, things seem to have calmed down between Sean and Rabbity Ruth, Dan observes.
Only because everything’s on Dan’s terms, Sean remarks, viciously.
Hey, calm down, Dan urges Sean. After all, Dan is on Sean’s side.
‘You what?’ Sean scoffs.
Honestly, Dan professes. In every other respect, he thinks Sean acts like a plonker, but at the end of the day Luke is Sean’s kid. End of story.
Sean looks at Dan sceptically.
Marty continues to relate his tale of marital woe to the current Mrs Muddie. We join once more the saga of Jan. Marty, sitting at the table and staring vacantly into the distant past, relives his first marriage. Things with Jan, he says, would often calm down for awhile. It was as if they would brush her problems under the carpet, he explains. It was ... a complicated situation, he adds.
FER MARTY, MAYBE BOOT NOT FER THE KIDS, bawls Dire, harshly.
A wistful look crosses Marty’s face as he reminisces about Jan, and this look isn’t lost at all on the hard-faced madam facing him either. It’s funny, Marty muses, but when Jan was loving, she was a great mum, really fun to be around.
‘AND WHEN SHE WAS BAD, SHE WAS HORRID,’ quotes Dire at the top of her expendable lungs.
Marty mumbles that he wanted his children to have two parents.
But Jan broke Plank’s arm and she shook Antony, Dire argues. It shouldn’t have mattered what Marty wanted, it was the kids who were important.
Marty shakes his head slowly, as if trying to comprehend the situation. He truly thought those incidents were one-offs, and that Jan would get over her problems. He raises his head slowly and looks at Dire, bleakly desperate. He looved her, he says about Jan. He looved her, but he didn’t always like her. ‘The same as I loove you, boot I don’t always like yer - like now,’ he adds, for good measure, but the dig is lost on Dire.
‘WELL, MAYBE IF I STARTED KNOCKIN’ YER ABOUT, I’D GET MORE RESPECT,’ taunts Dire. (It’s lost on Dire that, although Jan physically knocked the Muddie kids about, Dire’s fucked with their minds. Which is worse?)
His maddage to Jan was a roller coaster, Marty continues to muse in a faraway monotone voice. The time before they had Ant, Jan seemed happier. She started to go out more and was nicer to the kids. Marty knew that, because he was watching her like a hawk. It was only then that he realised it was because she was sleeping around.
Dire’s face assumes an ugly curl-lipped sneer of disgust. ‘FER GOD’S SAKE,’ she screams, ‘WHERE WAS YER SELF-ESTEEM?’
‘I’m comin’ ter that,’ Marty says.
As the Naughty Nurse walks along the Parade (I mean, don’t these people have WORK to do), Gaby, still on the balcony with Josh, notices her. Grabbing the gun from Josh, she remarks that this target is definitely one for her aim.
‘Boot she’s a nerrrrse,’ protests Josh, in a high-pitched voice.
‘Correction,’ says Gaby, taking dead aim. ‘She’s a wet nurse.’ And she shoots Nisha squarely on the chest, before collapsing in giggles with Josh.
Across the way, Leanne notices what Gaby has done.
Marty resumes the sad story of his first maddage. When Marty caught Jan cheating, he says, Jan threw herself at his mercy. She told him how she hated herself for cheating on him and that she still truly loved him. Oh, and she wanted to be a better mum as well.
He glances at Dire, who’s shooting sceptical daggers at him with her eyes.
Anyway, he resumes, he and Jan threw everything they had into making the maddage work, playing happy families. When Jan fell pregnant with Antony, he thought they were out of the woods.
Dire screws up her overly-made up face and glares at Marty accusingly. ‘YOU BROUGHT ANOOTHER CHILD INTER THAT VIOLENT HOUSE?’ She hisses.
‘Well, what should I have done?’ Cries Marty, bleakly. ‘Get rid of it?’
Dire’s upper lip curls sardonically. ‘That’s yer usual solution,’ she sneers.
Marty meets her verbal cruelty word for word. ‘Yer an absolute ROCK,’ he chides, sarcastically. Then he resumes his story. Jan hated being pregnant from the off. She felt ugly, miserable. She hated the baby kicking, and repeatedly told Marty that this was all his fault for forcing her to breed like a rabbit.
Meanwhile, over at Bicker-Bicker House, Dan offers the hapless Sean another cup of tea.
No, ta, replies Sean, civilly. He actually feels as though he’s keeping Dan from something more important.
Well, Dan replies, he IS on the night shift.
Glancing about the house ironically, Sean taunts the bounder. Oh, so Dan the Man has the run of the Gordon house then, he remarks. Hmph! Bet ol’Dan doesn’t know whose wotsit ter kiss ferrst - Ma’s or Pa’s.
Actually, replies Dan the Man, standing as stiffly as if he has a poker shoved up his arse, he and Ruth want to get a place of their own. Which is why, Dan adds, he’s all for a 50-50 custody arrangement between Sean and Rabbity Ruth.
‘Coostody?’ Echoes the hapless Sean. ‘She’s not divorced yet.’
Figure of speech, quips Dan, smugly.
Sean eyes Dan suspiciously for a brief moment, before verbalising his suspicions. Why, Dan doesn’t really want Luke, does he? Of course, he doesn’t. It’s too much like hard werrrk!
‘You can skit all you want,’ says Dan. At the end of the day, he wants what’s best for Luke. And after all, Luke is Sean’s kid.
‘That’s a nice moral code, yer have,’ taunts the hapless Sean. ‘Yer home-wrecker!’
Dan approaches the hapless Sean belligerantly. ‘Listen, mate,’ he says, in a low, threatening tone, ‘I was on the scene with Ruth long before you.’
‘Boot she maddied ME, college boy,’ chides Sean. ‘And I’m Luke’s father! I’ll ALWAYS be around - like a bad smell!’
At that moment, the key turns in the front door and the imbecillic Ma Gordon enters. She greets the two men, sillily, as Luke the bunny hops toward her.
Sean remarks sarcastically that he notes that Dan the Man is in training for Stepfather of the Year.
Ma tries to gloss over the remark by focussing her attention on the kid, as no one else is. There’s plenty of Luke to go about, isn’t there? She coos.
Dan fastidiously holds out the fetid blue, plastic bag to Ma, remarking that Sean had brought them a present.
‘Hey, that’s fer YOU!’ Shouts Sean at Dan.
Awwwwwww, whines Ma, did Luke wet the bed again? Well, it was all the excitement, she reckons.
Glaring pointedly at Dan, Sean quips, ‘Is that what it is?’ Anyway, he has to go, he says. As te bends to say good-bye to his son, he admonishes Luke to get Dan to read him a story. After all, Dan’s been ter college.
When Sean’s left, Ma asks Dan if he’s OK.
Dan the Man assumes the air of a martyr. He’ll just have to roll with it, he sniffs, offering to put Luke’s wet clothes in the wash.
It’s obvious no one’s sick in Manor Park today, because the medical staff from the clinic seem to be spending all their working hours swanning up and down The Parade. Now Nisha stands under Bev’s balcony, pointing upward to an unbelieving Dr Parr. Not that he’s an atheist, mind, or even an agnostic. He simply doesn’t believe Nisha when she says she’s been sprayed by a Supersoaker wielded by Gaby the Grin. Nisha takes umbrage at Dr Parr’s disbelief.
Dr Parr protests that he’s not NOT believing her, he’s just implying that Leanne Powell, who witnessed the event, isn’t the most reliable of witnesses.
Nisha encourages Dr Parr to feel the dampness on her uniform at the back. Dr Parr does so and jokes that that’s water on the knee ... Only farther up.
(***Hint: This is supposed to be funny. Ready ... One, two, three ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)
Dr Parr turns toward the balcony, looks upward, and calls for his wife. Suddenly, Gaby the Grin and Josh appear leaning over the balcony and spray them mercilessly with water from the Supersoaker.
Dr Parr is not amused, especially by his inane wife’s giggling. He orders her to keep Josh under control.
‘D’yer believe me now, DOCTOR?’ Sneers Leanne loudly, from the garage forecourt. ‘And I use the terrrm loosely,’ she adds. (Why does this woman consistently get all the best lines?)
Dr Parr continues to glare at Gaby the Grin, demanding to know what she’s playing at.
‘This displacement theory is seriously underrated,’ Gaby giggles. (Not that any of the LCD adolescents populating the Official Forum would even understand what that’s supposed to mean).
As poor Marty Muddie still sits dejectedly at the sitcom table, Dire paces back and forth like a caged leopard. Suddenly, she stops and leans threateningly over the table, her face inches from his and hard with hate. Why didn’t he tell her, she demands, that Jan rejected Antony and was violent with the other kids?
(Well, yer see, Dire, when Ant was born, he had these little horns, a small tail and cloven feet ...)
Marty, near tears, manages to raise his head forlornly and look at her. ‘Why d’yer think?’ He cries. ‘I was ashamed o’meself.’
Then why does Alby, the caretaker from Marty’s old school know so mooch about the story and she so little? After all, she’s been maddied to Marty for nine years.
‘Because he saw me badges of honour,’ mutters Marty, hanging his head low again.
Dire gives him a puzzling look.
Marty explains. Alby saw the scratches, he explains. He saw the bites, the black eye, the tuft of hair pulled out. There were only so many times he could say he tripped over the dog.
Dire now looks at Marty with open disbelief. Is Marty saying that Jan battered HIM AND the kids?
Marty begins to cry. Does Dire know what it cost him to tell her that? He weeps.
Dire, however, gazes down on him with her lip curled in disgust. What’s the matter with him? She cries. He can more than hold his own with a bunch of fellas. She’s seen him do so, herself. Why did he let a woman pull out clumps of his hair, shake a baby and break his son’s arm?
‘She broke me spirit,’ Marty says tonelessly.
‘DON’T GO OPRAH WINFREY ON ME!’ Dire threatens. ‘IT WON’T WASH!’
Marty slowly raises his eyes to look at his wife’s hard, hateful face.
‘Jan’s fists have noothink on YOUR mouth,’ he hisses.
Great! Rejoinders Dire, sarcastically, as Marty gets up and pushes past her into the sitcom lounge. Maybe Marty would stay around another fifty years! Why did he even put up with Jan? She demands.
Marty whirls to face his selfish wife, who’s showing, at last, her true colours. ‘Because I looved her!’ He cries. ‘And when yer loov soomone, yer stand by them. Joost like a battered woman who stands by her man, yer think yer can change’em.’ Then he starts to explain his position in the union. A battered person, he says, comes to think the violence is his fault - something a person’s said or done.
HOW MANY BATTERINGS DID THE CHILDREN HAVE TER TAKE BEFORE MARTY REMEMBERED HE WAS A FATHER! Shrieks Dire.
Back on The Parade, Gaby the Grin and Josh walk in the direction of the garage. Gaby suggests that they go for an ice lolly, and Josh corrects her, saying the term is ‘lolly ice’. Anyway, Josh wants to squirt some people again, but Gaby denies him that pleasure, again suggesting an ‘ice lolly’. Josh is getting frustrated with what he perceives as Gaby’s mistake in syntax, and in the distance we see the vague figures of Dr Parr and Nisha approaching the two.
Gaby tells Josh that only people from Liverpool refer to ice lollies as ‘lolly ices’. Gaby’s not from Liverpool, she tells him. She’s from the South.
At that moment, Nisha calls out to Gaby and she turns around to face the nurse. As she does so, Nisha squirts two giant syringes of water all over Gaby and Josh. As a drenched Gaby and Josh recoil in surprise, Nisha informs them that the syringes are, in fact, bladder syringes - only used once, unfortunately.
‘Ooooh!’ Grimaces Josh. ‘Yer mean they’re full o’wee?’
Nisha nods, smiling evilly, but Gaby assures Josh that the syringes are sterile, just as Dr Parr steps in to stop the fun.
Of course, Leanne has witnessed the whole episode.
‘Yer norronly maddied ter an animal,’ she screams at Dr Parr. ‘Yer werrrk wi’one as well. It would be handier if yer were a vet.’
Dr Parr ignores her and takes one of the paper towels from the forecourt with which to wipe Gaby.
‘And them towels is fer payin’ coostomers!’ Warns Leanne, with a final note. As Dr Parr wipes the water off Gaby the Grin, he says the escapade was worth it to see her smile.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!
As Ma Morgan slinks skulkily around the Bicker-Bicker kitchen, pretending to try to fix dinner, she remarks to Dan the Man that she never thought she’d see the day that he and the hapless Sean would share a cup of tea.
Dan shrugs sullenly. Sean only stayed to wind him up, he maintains.
And did Dan let him? She wants to know.
Not really, he says, smugly. Although he DOES understand why Sean is the way he is, he adds. After all, Dan IS with Sean’s wife and child.
Well, remarks Ma Gordon, stupidly, she thought that Dan the Man did really well.
Then Dan begins to play on Ma’s simpleton nature. He asserts that Sean was about to chin him.
‘D’yer think I’m daft?’ Ma asks, disbelievingly. (Well, actually, yes, we do - and we’re sure Dan the Man does as well).
Dan then says that he truly doesn’t want to turn Luke against his father. In fact, he’s of the opinion that Ruth and Sean should share equal custody of Luke - 50/50.
Awwwww, coos the idiotic Ma, her white trash face breaking into a smile. She knows Dan has Luke’s interests put first. That’s why she knows he and Rabbity Ruth will go the distance.
As Ma turns her attention to trying to figure out what TV dinner to take out of the freezer, Dan smiles contemptuously behind her back at her craven stupidity.
Dire again walks from the sitcom kitchen into the sitcom lounge, still followed by a desperate Marty, attempting to explain his former marriage woes to her. Dire has to try to understand how it was for him, he begs. He’d given Jan an ultimatum, when she was about to go for Plank again, when the cops were called out. They saw the couple had taken a pop at each other and assumed that Marty was the culprit.
Dire’s face hardens coldly.
The WPC who came along looked at poor Marty as though he were soomthink brought in on her shoe, he remembers.
‘Spare me the self-pity,’ snaps Dire. ‘Joost the facts.’
‘OK,’ replies Marty. FACT: He told Jan he would report her to the police and the social if she didn’t go. FACT: He tried to keep his family together as long as possible until it became too dangerous for the kids -
FACT: Interrupts Dire. And when Marty was satisfied he’d given it a fair go with Jan, he had a scout around for a ready-made stepmother. And there Dire was thinking Marty and his kids were soomthink out of The Waltons (plug for a show that’s repeated on Channel 4).
Marty shakes his head uncomprehendingly. ‘Yer’ve lost me,’ he admits to Dire.
‘Quite possibly,’ she retorts. Then she accuses Marty of being in desperate need of someone to put him back together when he met her.
Surprisingly, Marty admits that Dire’s reckoning is true, but, he adds, it was only a by-product of him falling in love with her.
Dire strides past him, walking in the direction of the sitcom kitchen once more, but stopping short before entering that room. Adele used to wet the bed for years, she recalls. Dire used to torture herself thinking that Adele did that because she was missing her mother. In reality, she surmises, Adele was pissing herself at the thought that Jan might come back. Honestly, she puts her hands on her hips belligerantly, she thought Marty’s kids were sad when she met them, but really, they and Marty were simply battered. The kids were battered because their father stood by for years and did noothink, she shrieks at the top of her voice.
By now the noise level of her voice is deafening.
‘Shout it through the wall, why don’t yer?’ Marty snaps. ‘That would go down REALLY well!’
‘That’s the roob of it!’ Laughs Dire, nastily. Marty’s just wuddied about what other people would think.
Marty holds his hands out to Dire, beseeching of a modicum of understanding. He only cares what SHE thinks, he says, wearily.
Dire’s goggle eyes are, by now, filled with spiteful hatred, and she wastes no words on telling him what SHE thinks. ‘I think our maddage is a sham,’ she begins, harshly. ‘ And I think YOU’RE a spineless coward who puts himself before his kids. I’m GLAD I’m not carryin’ yer child, because I don’t think you’d lay down yer life fer it!’
(Ta-DAAAAAAAAH! I feel vindicated. Proof positive that Dire Muddie is, at the end of the day, a selfish bitch with one thought in mind - to have a baby at all costs. Poor Marty, the walking sperm bank, when he couldn’t come up with the goods - by her reckoning - she reveals her true feelings re the marriage).
‘How could you?’ Marty murmurs, aghast at his wife’s reaction.
‘And,’ Dire continues, ‘I think you saw me coomin’.’
Maybe she would have preferred it if he DID have cancer, Marty sighs.
Well, she didn’t know all this for the nine years they’ve been maddied, Dire comments, sarcastically. Who’s to say what else she doesn’t know?
Marty narrows his eyes and stares at her icily. ‘I didn’t kill Imelda Clough, if that’s what yer mean,’ he says.
Oh, she knows he didn’t, huffs Dire, expansively, simply because Marty wouldn’t have the bottle to do soomthink like that.
Now it’s Marty who looks at Dire contemptuously, laughing grimly as the truth about his wife is finally vested fully on him. And she think’s HE’S a revelation, he marvels. ‘Gather ‘round, church-goers!’ He exhorts, dramatically. ‘Saint Di’s a walking miracle! She wants everyone ter believe she’s got a bleedin’ heart, when she’s survived the past 38 years (well, 41 actually) with a swingin’ brick fer a heart!’
The truth isn’t lost on Madam, who begins shoving and pushing Marty towards the foyer. ‘GERROUT!’ She cries.
Marty shakes her hold off, roughly when they reach the bottom of the stairs. He’s going upstairs fer a bath, if she doesn’t mind, he announces. Maybe she wants to come upstairs with him and hold his head under the water.
‘That anoother one o’Jan’s party pieces!’ Sneers Dire.
‘You’re sick!’ Marty exclaims, shaking his head.
‘GERROUT!’ Dire screams again, shoving him out the front door. ‘What’s the matter, Big Man? Can’t get yer words out? Well, maybe the fresh air will clear yer head!’ She shuts him outside, leaving Marty to hammer on the door, demanding entry. Inside, she slams the inner door so hard that the glass shatters, and she turns away, wincing in pain.
I hope it hurt.
Carmel Morgan wrote this. Flashes of brilliance, but not one of her best.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002