You have to hand it to Tracy – she might not have been first in the queue when the brains were being handed out, but she has a kind of low cunning and she certainly has an eye for the main chance, as was demonstrated last week. She also has quite a good sense of humour.
This last characteristic is just as well, as she and her two children are living in Bert Horrobin’s (Tracy’s dad’s) house, along with her idiot brother, Gary. Bert has a number of disadvantages – he’s deaf, so the TV is wound up to level 11; he’s lazy, so expects to be waited on hand and foot; plus, of course, he is a Horrobin (‘nuff said, I think). Tracy is cooking all the meals (when I say ‘cooking’ I suspect we are talking packets, e-numbers and a very active microwave. I will let you into an irrelevant secret here – Neil regards the microwave as the invention of Satan and won’t have one in his kitchen, so if you are invited round for a jacket potato, be prepared to wait a while). [At least it will be a proper one! - Neil]
But back to the Archers. Given all this workload, Tracy is being run ragged and, when she is trying to sort out the disaster area that is her kitchen after breakfast, the last thing she needs is a phone call. Guess what happens? I can’t get much past you, can I? The phone rings and it’s sister Susan, who is stressing about a comment someone made about her Radio Borsetshire show, complaining about Susan’s squeaky voice.
“My voice isn’t squeaky” Susan says indignantly, giving Tracy the ideal opportunity to say ‘sorry, I didn’t catch that – there’s an annoying squeak on this line’, but she didn’t. Instead, Tracy asks if Susan would like to help look after their dad a bit more than she does at the moment (ie, more than sod-all) – for example, would she have him visit for a week or two; after all, there are just Neil and Susan in a four-bedroomed house and Tracy really needs a break. Susan suggests that Tracy gets idiot Gary to lend more of a hand, but Tracy scotches this idea, pointing out that Gary couldn’t find his own bum, using both hands and a road map.
Susan reminds Tracy that she is living in her dad’s house and Tracy replies “Genius! Me and the kids will come and spend a couple of weeks at yours” and she rings off before Susan can reply. Later that day, Tracy turns up at Susan’s, lugging a big suitcase (“just a few things I’ve brought to keep the kids amused”), telling her sister once more that Susan and Neil’s house will be ideal for her and the children. Tracy asks if Susan would like to see what she’s brought and opens up the case. It’s empty, and Tracy dissolves into fits of laughter – “Your face!” she gasps. I didn’t think you had the time for this sort of jolly jape, Tracy.
Fast forward to Thursday, and Susan is hosting her radio show, offering her services today as an Agony Aunt and inviting listeners to call in with their problems. Just what qualifications Susan has to be an Agony Aunt are not specified, but I suppose you could argue that listening to her (squeaky) voice is agony and that her daughter has offspring, so that ticks the ‘aunt’ box.
This feature has a trail, during which we can distinctly hear a jingle for ‘BBC Radio Borsetshire’ and a telephone number to ring. This number is 01632 960000, but I urge you not to bother to dial it, as all you get is the BT ‘you’re having a laugh, aren’t you?’ message. Oh yes, I tried it – really, the things I do for you. So it is strange that Susan gets a call from a woman called Trudy, whose voice bears an uncanny resemblance to our Tracy. Tracy’s (sorry, Trudy’s) – and Susan made the same mistake when talking to her listener - question is (and I am paraphrasing here) ‘How can I get my bone-idle sister to pull her weight when it comes to looking after our dad, who should really be put down?’ Trudy then goes into quite unnecessary detail about how unpleasant it is to have to wash Bert’s underpants.
Susan’s reply is that there are two sides to every story, but Trudy interrupts and says they should put it to the listeners – what do they think? Trudy insists that Susan reads out some of the Tweets she has received. These vary from (and I am paraphrasing again here), ‘completely selfish; she should be pleased to look after her old dad’ – obviously from someone who has never met Bert – to ‘string ‘er up’ (as above, with knobs on).
I would love to say that Susan rang Tracy back and said ‘I realise I am not pulling my weight and I would be delighted to have Bert here for a few weeks to give you some respite’ but you, dear listener, know Susan better than that, plus Neil (and that’s ‘Carter’, rather than the detester of Microwaves referred to earlier) would have his shotgun loaded and with the safety catch off, ready for the second that Bert entered his land.
However, in paragraph one, we said that Tracy has an eye for the main chance, and this was demonstrated on Wednesday, when Philip Moss opened a letter, which turned out to be from a firm of lawyers, saying, in effect, ‘we are going to sue the goolies off you’ for the explosion in the Grey Gables kitchen. Was it from Lynda Snell, who was seriously injured? No. Was it from Oliver Sterling (who, let’s face it had the most to lose, financially, at least)? No, it was on behalf of Tracy, and claimed “devastating psychological distress” – three words that I would wager a lot of money on that Tracy could neither pronounce, nor spell without outside help. I suspect that Tracy was contacted by a ‘have you been injured at work; no win, no fee?’ organisation and thought ‘why not?’
To say that this came as a bit of an (unpleasant) surprise to Phil is a classic understatement, as a) Tracy was not hurt in the slightest and b) anything that could cause her “devastating psychological distress” would have to be in the order of a house brick on the head, at the minimum.
In the last couple of paragraphs, we have, unfortunately, touched upon the fact that Phil Moss is back working. Actually, that is not fair – I have no problem with Phil, apart from the fact that he sired Gavin. One plus-point of the lockdown was that Gavin had been living in the flat with co-workers Blake, Kenzie and Jordan – or, as Gavin refers to them in his caring, employee-friendly way, “the horses”. But now, Gavin has moved back in with his dad and Kirsty, and we can only assume that she is in tears – and not of gratitude, I suspect.
There is a song recorded by The Hollies, which entered the charts in September 1967, called King Midas in Reverse (it got to number 18) and is about a person who – whatever he touches – it goes nads up. And that is Gavin in a nutshell – he was just telling his dad how he was going to work all the hours God sends to build up the business to the same level – no, better – than it was before the Grey Gables disaster, when Philip opened the letter threatening them with legal action.
Enough of the Welsh connection – this week’s title is ‘Sibling Rivalry’ and, after Susan and Tracy, we are looking at Emma and Christopher. Setting the scene briefly, Ed was miffed at being sacked by Brian for a mistake of Alice’s and harsh things were said on both sides. It was sorted out and Ed was reinstated. Feeling bad, he went to see Alice and swiftly realised that she was as the newt in mid-afternoon. This left him in a quandary – should he keep quiet, tell Chris or hold a watching brief on Alice?
He decides on the last option and goes to see Alice again, telling her that they are mates and he is always there for her if he’s needed. Alice takes this the wrong way and thinks that Ed has a crush on her. She is a one-man woman and rehearses what she can say to Ed when they next meet. She tells Ed that he’s just a mate and Chris is her only love and, when Ed tries to explain that she has got the wrong end of the stick, she thinks that he was ‘devastated’ at being rejected and has gone off in a huff, carrying a torch for her, if that isn’t mixing too many metaphors.
Whichever, there is a major misunderstanding by both parties and the potential for future disaster is enormous – and growing. Ed goes back to Emma and eventually the story comes out; Emma is incensed that Alice should think that Ed fancied her, and Ed spills the beans that Alice was totally trolleyed and that this was not a one-off. Emma (Chris’s sister, remember) thinks that Chris has a right to know that his wife is a lush and goes to confront her brother, and Alice – it is interesting that Ed isn’t there to back up his wife.
The two women are talking at cross purposes – Alice thinks Em is there to complain because Ed fancies her, and Em says, no; it’s because Alice is a drunk, and she tells the pair how Alice was definitely the worse for wear when Ed talked to her in the afternoon. Alice denies this and, in a phrase which he repeats often, Chris says to Alice: “You didn’t tell me about this.” Chris also says that Emma is barking up the wrong tree, as it was him that broke the couple’s no-weekday-drinking pact. Emma (in for a penny, in for a pound) says that so did Alice, except she never bothered to mention it.
“Are you calling my wife a liar?” asks lightning-quick-on-the-uptake Chris. “Yeah – a liar and a drunk” his sister replies – I’m surprised she didn’t spell it out in upper case letters. Chris thinks that his sister should leave, but she says it’s obvious what’s going on; Alice is an alcoholic. I should point out that, at various points in these exchanges, we can hear Alice’s voice saying “excuse me, I am still here, you know.” The conversation becomes ever-more acerbic, with Chris accusing his sister of being jealous of their lifestyle and saying “If you can’t be civil to my wife, maybe we should keep our lifestyles completely separate.” “Is that what you want?” Emma asks and Chris replies “No, but I think it might be for the best.” “Absolutely fine,” Emma answers, “but don’t come crying to me when it all falls apart.” Chris assures her that this won’t happen, but Emma says “Yes it will; I promise you.” Now, whether this means that Emma will make sure that it all goes wrong, or whether she’s just convinced that it will all end in tears, we don’t know, but look on the bright side - that’s at least two fewer Christmas presents that both couples will have to buy.
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