Chris Marks Jakob’s Card

Paul Venables (Jakob Hakansson)

You will be delighted to know that the rift between Kate and Jakob was healed last week. Kate was driving sister Alice demented – she was all over her younger sister like a cheap suit and not leaving her alone for a second. Kate was saying what great fun it is to have all this bonding time together and Alice has to remind her that she (Alice) does have a job to go to and cannot spend every waking moment with Kate.

The final straw comes when Kate suggests that they both get matching tattoos and Alice tells Jolene that “there’s only so far that I’m prepared to go to humour Kate’s mid-life crisis – she needs a man and I know which one.” When Kate goes to the loo, Alice hot foots it over to Jakob’s place of work and tells him he’s got to go and see Kate and tell her how he feels – now - as Alice is fed up being used as a Jakob substitute and would like her life back.

Jakob does as he is told and Kate doesn’t make it easy for him, but she eventually accepts his apology. “Are we still together?” he asks. “Of course” Kate replies. Chris congratulates Jakob on ‘joining the family’ and then proceeds to fill him in about the Aldridges, predicting that Jennifer and Brian will want him to go round for dinner so that they can inspect him. Jakob says that he doesn’t want to go and they can’t make him go, surely? “Don’t say I didn’t warn you” says Chris. He then tells Jakob that he always felt that Jennifer didn’t think he was good enough for Alice, but they got round this by getting married in Las Vegas.

Spookily, Jakob’s phone rings – it’s Kate, who tells him that they have been invited to dinner by her parents and she feels they should get it over with, or else Jenny will be banging on for weeks. Chris says “This won’t be like any dinner party you’ve been to” and he offers to give Jakob some pointers “because I reckon you’re going to need them.” These tips include what not to mention (top of this list is the recent contamination at Low Mead) and it’s probably a good idea to steer away from farming altogether.

Friday evening arrives and Jenny has made a supreme effort to make Jakob feel at home by preparing a Swedish feast, including a drink made from the sap of Swedish birch trees (“all the tourists buy that” Jakob says). Brian seems to have his Scandinavian countries mixed up and the conversation flows like concrete. Does Jakob like cricket? No – does Brian like ice hockey? Jenny has to go and attend to Xander (Adam and Ian are away at a wedding) and he won’t stop crying. In desperation, Jenny passes the baby to Kate (she has to go off and baste the reindeer or something) and Kate passes the baby to Jakob. Xander stops crying immediately and everybody is mightily impressed. Jakob confesses that this is the first time he has held a baby and Kate says dreamily “there’s something very attractive about a man holding a baby.” “Do you think so?” Jakob asks. “Definitely” she replies. Be afraid Jakob – be very afraid.

‘Afraid’ is a good way to describe how Robert Snell is feeling on Halloween – he and Jim have gone to the bird hide to get away from the Trick or Treaters and Jim introduces Robert to the M. R. James test, which involves reading one of the master’s creepy stories in a room lit by a single candle, in a chair facing away from the door and you are not allowed to do anything until you have finished the story.

Jim then makes up his own ghost story and scares the willies out of Robert, who says he has to go home – he doesn’t like the thought of Lynda being on her own with Trick or Treaters roaming the streets. In fact, he is terrified and, when he does get home, he tells Lynda to stop asking him questions about what he and Jim were discussing. The doorbell rings and, in what seems to be a highly improbable scenario, Robert begs Lynda not to answer it. Why ever not? “Because you never know what might be out there” Robert answers, dramatically. Get a grip, man!

Poor Joe Grundy isn’t yet interred and Alf is becoming obsessed with the possible legacy suggested by the letter from the mysterious Carmen, referring to the fortune that they could make. But just who is Carmen? Alf says that he will hang around until he finds the answer and an alarmed Eddie (who thought that Alf would sod off after the funeral) reluctantly agrees to help his brother, realising that otherwise Alf could be around for weeks, months, or years. Eddie puts out feelers and it turns out that Jolene has heard of a Carmen performing in a pub (the Queen at Hollerton), so Eddie and Alf take a trip out there.

It turns out that Carmen is a drag act (‘Carmen Haveago’ - oh, how we laughed) and he/she takes the mick out of Alf while camping it up. Alf is annoyed, so Eddie goes to see Carmen afterwards and finds out that Carmen’s real name is Gaz (if indeed that is a real name). However, Gaz’s mother’s name is Carmen and Eddie has arranged for himself and Alf to call on her tomorrow.

Carmen is a prickly character and less than welcoming to the Grundy boys, but she eventually invites them in and they have a drink to Joe’s memory. Carmen laughs when Alf suggests she and Joe were having an affair and says that they were just kindred spirits. For ‘kindred spirits’, read ‘piss artists’ and it seems the accent was very much on the ‘spirits’. Their great discovery was a hangover cure and, after getting the Grundys to sign a paper promising half of any profits to Carmen. She gives them the secret recipe. Alf declares it a waste of time but Eddie’s not so sure and ropes in son Edward to help him assemble the ingredients, all of which sound disgusting. So disgusting in fact that neither of them can bear the thought of tasting the concoction and yet they need a guinea pig. Ed has a lightbulb moment and we hear him on the phone to Jazzer, asking the Scotsman if he fancies a session down at The Bull tonight?

You will not be astonished to learn that Jazzer is well up for it; even more so when he realises that Ed and Eddie will be paying for the lion’s share of the drink. Jazzer enthusiastically throws himself into the role of guinea pig and, as Ed watches drink after drink disappear down Jazzer’s throat, he mutters “this is going to cost us a fortune.”

Come closing time, Jazzer is completely out of it and has to be helped home by the two Grundys, who beg him to be quiet. They get him inside and it’s now time to administer the miracle cure, but the trouble is that, so drunk is Jazzer that he is unconscious and nothing seems able to wake him up. This is a blow, as the cure has to be taken the same night that the drink is consumed, so it would appear that Ed and Eddie have spent a lot of money to no avail. Still, Jazzer seemed to enjoy it; before he passed out, that is.

Despite this setback, Eddie can see the funny side of the evening and muses about what Joe would have thought about the whole episode – Eddie can imagine him looking down and chuckling (given Joe’s past, I reckon looking up would be more like it) and Eddie vows to pursue the idea, saying “Don’t worry dad – we won’t give up on your hangover cure – this is just the beginning.”

It wasn’t a very good week for Freddie – Shula is writing her autobiography as part of the pre-ordination process and Freddie keeps dropping not-very-subtle hints about how he would like to read it, as he is intrigued about what Shula did in her life when she was younger. Shula makes it plain that it is a private document for the church’s eyes only

So what does Freddie do? He reads his aunt’s draft and, in the pub later, he asks Kenton for further details about some of the incidents. Kenton wonders how Freddie came across these details and, in the end, Freddie tells him about reading the autobiography, but begs his uncle not to tell Shula. Kenton doesn’t actually do so, but, when he is on the phone to his twin, he asks her lots of questions about their childhood and adolescence and it quickly becomes apparent that he has been given inside information by somebody.

Shula is, by turns, angry that Freddie went against her express wishes and very disappointed that he did so after all she has done for him since he was sent down for dealing – she feels very let down and shuts herself in her room, telling Freddie to go away when he comes to apologise. Freddie is very sorry and says he feels terrible about what he has done. 

This is typical of Freddie – he blunders around, not thinking that his actions might have unfortunate consequences; in fact, not thinking full stop. “I’m such an idiot!” he wails, and five million listeners nod in agreement. After much grovelling, Shula accepts his apology (pity, really, as I reckon he was this close to ritually disembowelling himself) but makes it very plain that he has betrayed her trust and that she is very, very hurt.

If you cast your mind back a few weeks, you may recall Toby telling Helen about his idea for making milk gin, using the whey left over from making cheese. Last week, Toby spent a fair amount of time keeping out of Helen’s way and not answering her calls, as he has made a fundamental error in his calculations and costings and left a zero off somehow. As such, milk gin is a non-starter (and a good job too, if you ask me – it sounds worse than Joe’s hangover cure).

Kenton observes that Toby cannot avoid Helen for ever and he should be a man about it, so Toby metaphorically girds up his loins and tells Helen the bad news. To his surprise, she is perfectly OK about it – amused even – and makes a joke about it. Now, what can we learn from this incident? Firstly, we should ask ourselves how come Toby, who was a banker in the City, doesn’t seem capable of adding up figures correctly (although this would explain the financial mess we were in a few years ago) and, secondly, from Helen’s reaction, it seems perfectly obvious that, deep down, she never really expected the scheme to come to fruition, anyway, in keeping with so many more of Toby’s bright ideas.