Roger And Val Have Just Got In (2010) s01e06 Episode Script

Roger? How did it go? Oh, er, very very well indeed.
Very well.
Couldn't have gone better.
So, it's OK? It will be.
I go back on Thursday, with a friend or a supporter, but yeah, really good.
I-I rang the doorbell.
Did you? I'm surprised.
Yes, and then I just, you know, let myself in with my own key.
Of course.
Like to put your coat on the banister? Erm, I'll just keep it with me, please.
I-I can't stay long.
Uh, if you could respect my wishes and not look in the oven - Why? - If you could just not do that, please? Right.
Is it OK to go in the kitchen for a cup of tea, or or not? Oh yes, I've got no problem with that.
I do have an issue with the ringing of the doorbell, I'm glad I wasn't here to hear it.
I was trying not to be rude.
Not as rude as leaving me.
- Yeah, you want to go through? - Yeah.
- Hello.
- Hello.
How are you? - Yes, I'm very - Yeah.
- Yeah.
I'm very - Yeah.
Are you gonna let me tell you how I am or just keep saying "yeah"? Keep saying "yeah" because I know the answer can't be good and that's what I don't want to hear.
Right, well, I was going to say that it's not good at Sue's in the shower.
No? Not at all, no.
I have to go in straight after Sue, and I feel like I'm choking in a peach shower gel fug.
Sue's heavy, hot fug and I don't like it.
So, how d'you feel it went today, Roger? Oh, I was legally astute and stung like a bee.
Er, w-would you like a biscuit? Or Or do you fancy nipping down to the little Italian, actually, Val, to eat? I've eaten them all.
Yeah, I I didn't want one.
I'm going to the school centenary dinner tonight? Oh, yes.
Yes.
You mentioned that last week when you lived here.
Yes, and since then, uh, something has happened.
That's right, yes, you've left me and, er, gone to stay at Sue Turner's.
No, something to do with the dinner tonight.
I know you were referring to the dinner.
I was just trying to get a dig in.
Sue is a woman with a very big mouth that is never shut.
Yeah.
She blurts stuff out of it.
She's a loose cannon and that's what's happened.
Sue has picked up the phone to someone and said, "Val Stevenson and her husband have split up.
" Oh! And when I tackled her about it afterwards, she said, "My house, my phone.
" Whose she been telling? I don't want anyone to think that.
Yes, and and this is the development.
The person that she blabbed to is now coming to the centenary dinner tonight.
OK.
Now, I didn't want you to hear this from anyone else, Roger.
A lot of my former colleagues will be there tonight.
Yeah.
Many, many colleagues who I've worked with over the years, some of whom have since moved away Ian in New Zealand hasn't been in in New Zealand for some years now.
His soubriquet, then it would appear, is spectacularly incorrect.
Yes.
He's been Ian in Carlisle for five and a half years now.
Yeah, and right now I'm guessing he's Ian in a car heading straight down the M6 on his way to the celebratory dinner, or am I way off? No, you're spot on.
Ian in New Zealand will be there tonight.
Oh Right.
Body blow.
OK, let's just take a moment.
Get some rationale.
The two things playing round in my head right now are, "Come on, Roger, you're a liberal feminist.
" And, "Stay, Val, you're my wife and I'm incredibly jealous!" Were I a Quaker, I would walk away from you to avoid conflict.
- No, you wouldn't.
- Yes, I would.
No, you wouldn't! A Quaker would, yes, but you wouldn't.
That's why you're not a Quaker cos you could never be like that.
While we're on the subject, let me tell you something else that Quakers definitely don't do and that's ring a doorbell to a house they've lived in for 20 years, for which they have a perfectly good front door key! You can't possibly know that.
I can know that because they are not a melodramatic people.
But you are melodramatic.
Ooh, you have it in spades, with it to spare.
The doorbell, the Ian in New Zealand announcement, just feeds it, feeds it, feeds it! Oh, dear.
You'd be an extremely unsuccessful Quaker after that display, Roger, which is why I am the person who has won this argument with my phenomenally Quaker-like calm.
- No, you're not.
- Yes, I am.
I'm the person in the big weird hat with the silver buckle, eating the porridge, that's me.
I don't think it is because I don't think Quaker's goad.
The only person goading people here, Roger, is you.
Who am I goading? I'm being told I couldn't be a Quaker! Yeah, that's right and I could and that's why I'm not going to rise to it.
It's all wrong.
This is wrong.
Sitting in the kitchen with your coat on is is just wrong.
I'm trying to be generous.
Who to? To me? I'm the one living off tins of tuna, crying my eyes out.
Eating tomato soup out of the Pyrex jug I heated it up in.
Well, I extend my best wishes to you for an enjoyable evening with Ian.
What's that? What's what? On the ceiling.
It's gravy.
I wonder what you and Ian will talk about? Why is there gravy on the ceiling? What do you care? You've moved out.
Is this to do with what you said about the oven? Yes, it is.
Subjects I think Ian will raise Top of the list, himself, got to be.
All human beings' favourite topic of conversation.
Yeah, you just see him as an idiot in a woolly hat.
Following neatly on from the subject of himself, the conversation might broaden slightly to include New Zealand! Yes, it will.
Because I don't suppose there's that much in Carlisle.
I want to look in the oven.
You can't look in the oven, you've left.
- What is in the oven? - Uh-uh! What is it, Roger?! A Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie, which I tried to heat up unsuccessfully.
It whizzed around the kitchen like an electronic frisbee.
Is that what I can smell, that gravy smell? Self evidently.
It was horrible, actually, like a murder.
I opened the tin and brown gravy blood spattered the walls.
What are you talking about? Did it leap out of the oven? Effectively.
What happened is soberingly ironic.
I'm a scientist, I know about pressure but I was under so much pressure myself I forgot to open the tin before I put it in the oven.
Once I'd wrestled it into the sink and pierced the tin with a knife, it began this awful, primal scream.
So, why is it in the oven now? I was afraid it may melt the plastic bin so I shoved it back in the oven to contain the danger.
Anyway, I want to get back to Ian, the ex-New Zealander.
Other subjects he might bring up.
Ooh Lord Of The Rings.
Ohh Bungee jumping.
.
Sir Edmund Hillary.
I won't just be talking to Ian, will I? There'll be someone on the other side.
Oh, so you'll be sitting next to Ian? Great.
Actually, Val, if he does mention Edmund Hillary would you please make the case for Sherpa Tenzing, who wasn't knighted, by the way? Yep.
- Yep.
- What? The Tensing - Hillary ratio.
It's a potent political symbol.
Well, that's not Ian's fault.
Oh, yes.
Please.
Bring to the defence of Ian.
While we in the West climb on the shoulders of those we exploit but do not include.
Ian is not responsible for the whole of western imperialism, Roger.
Hey, I don't know the guy.
Yeah.
Neither do I.
We're all responsible, Val.
The guy from the developed world who can pay for it, is the one who gets his photograph taken on the top of Everest with his little flag.
- He isn't.
- Yes, he is.
That's not right, Roger.
There is no photograph of Edmund Hillary on the top of Everest.
- Yes, there is! - No, there isn't.
And I know because I saw a documentary on Brian Blessed.
Everybody thinks that's Edmund Hillary, but it's not.
It's Sherpa Tenzing.
Oh! I think you'll find that's not the case.
I think you'll find that Sherpa Tenzing didn't know how to use a camera and there wasn't enough time on the top of Everest in 1953 to show someone how to take a photograph.
It wouldn't have been all, "Ooh, have you got me? "Let's have a look.
God, I look awful.
Delete that and do another.
" It wouldn't have been like that.
Well, well, I didn't know that.
Well then, it's hats off to Hillary along with my apologies.
He is in the picture, of course, in a way.
Cos clearly somebody is taking the photographs.
So, he is in the picture.
He's present by his absence.
Yeah.
So, you've just been eating tomato soup and pies then, have you? - Well, I didn't get the pie.
- No.
But yeah, tins of soup, and a big hunk of cheese.
Didn't eat anything at all yesterday.
Sunday which was miserable.
And it rained.
Did you really not eat anything yesterday, Roger? OK.
Could you eat a cheese toastie now? Where were you on Sunday? Val? You know where I was.
Have you got any tomato so you can have a vegetable? I've got some of dad's tomatoes.
I brought his plants here.
Oh, well, no, keep those.
You can pickle those.
No, I want to eat them.
I'm thinking of planting a tomato plant on dad's grave.
That'd be lovely, Roger.
If you do that though, I maybe wouldn't eat them.
Where's my big silver pan, Roger? It's upstairs.
What Actually what have you done to my kitchen? Where are all my postcards? Did they get spattered? Yes, where are they? Did the pie get them? Thought you didn't have time for any cooking or my hunger, or my needs? I've got 15 minutes, Roger.
I can make you a cheese toastie.
15 minutes.
Is that all you've got for me? Oh, d-don't, Roger.
It's hard enough.
Then why are we doing it? - This is the craziest stunt you've ever pulled.
- It's not crazy.
Don't go near my ear.
There, a bit higher up.
Don't.
Yes, your ear.
Don't go tonight.
I don't know why you've gone.
You do.
You do know why.
I've gone for you I'll can't believe you're in the kitchen.
Cook something.
I am.
I'm making a cheese toastie.
Start heating it up.
Roger, no.
Roger Stop it, Roger, we've split up! It's difficult not to notice the difference between the noble mountaineer and his close but idiot cousin, the high-wire walker.
What? What do you mean? People who string up tight ropes - there's no point.
There is a point.
In France, those people are revered as philosopher gods.
What are you doing? Finding another outlet for my energy.
Oh good, cos that needs a good scrub.
So, please give it one.
Yeah, the mountaineer is essentially noble.
He conquers what the planet throws at him, and so, feeds the human spirit.
Well, so does the high-wire walker.
Otherwise your legs wouldn't go funny when you look up at them.
No, Val, no.
His skill merely conquers a problem of his own making.
A wire he's strung up himself.
And that's what you've done.
You've strung up a tight rope between here and Sue Turner's.
Are you calling me a high-wire walker? Yes, I am because that's what you are.
You're a sideshow to my father's death.
Roger? Plants only matter when you're OK.
You know? - Roger, Roger, put them down.
- No! - Put them down.
- No! Plants have done nothing to you.
They are inanimate.
But I am animate.
I have blood, they have phloem.
Y-Yes, I'm just trying to save the plants, Roger.
All right? Now, how do you see this going? I'll drop the plants.
They mean nothing now.
All right, a-and what do you think Is there any way that this could end happily for you? - Yes.
- Right, how would that be? I need you to stay, to make me not drop the plants.
Right, how best might I facil Don't talk to me like I'm insane.
Please, Val.
I'm very upset.
And by the way, it's not insane to be upset about your dad dying.
It's normal.
Yes, it is.
Your dad's death is normal.
Death at the end of life is normal.
Death ends life, I think, we can all agree with that.
You know what I mean.
Death at the beginning of life is not normal.
It's terrible.
It's so terrible, I can't be around all this.
Yes, it is terrible but I have to be upset about my dad dying, so what can I do? Well, drop them.
Drop them.
Because we can never ever put this right.
We can put this right! You're so melodramatic! Right, I'm going to go now, Roger.
Because frankly this visit has not turned out as well as I might've hoped.
See you, Roger.
Talk to you soon.
Uhh Yeah, right.
Just double-check you've got everything.
You know Bag and keys I just want to give you this.
What? What? What?! What is that?! It's gravy.
- What have you done? - I need you to not go.
Well, I am going.
I didn't even care what I was gonna wear tonight.
Now you give me no option.
I've got to go and get changed, which I will do cos I'm in our house and I've got loads of clothes upstairs.
So this this has failed.
Hasn't it? And I am going as soon as I've got changed.
Never ever did I think I'd be smearing gravy on you in this bleak and desperate way.
Other ways, yes.
Wiping it off your chin, savouring it with you.
In countless ways.
D-Don't go in the spare room! I'm not.
I'm going in our room.
Of course.
Erm, I'll just clean up.
Val, there's something I forgot to say.
I know you've changed in the three days we've been separated.
Well, so have I.
And I-I've cleared I've cleared up the space in the loft and below the stairs.
It just took, you know three days.
Just put on my coat.
Val, please, come back.
- That's impossible.
- What is? - To come back.
- Why do you say that? Do you yourself not see how melodramatic you are? You left because you decided I wanted to have a child with someone else, which I don't.
And by the way, I always think it's a good thing to check these things first.
You can't know that, Roger.
And that's why I sit on that awful, awful sofa bed at Sue's, just thinking about how things have turned out.
I've got tears streaming down my face.
It doesn't have to be that way because I want you back.
It's impossible for you to know that, Roger.
No, it's not.
Because the thing that's tipped me over the edge is Ian in New Zealand.
Nothing happened with Ian in New Zealand.
Well, that's not quite true, is it? No, something happened with Ian but that's all it was, Roger, the crisps in the pub.
Yes.
After the staff ramblers' away day.
What did happen, then? Because if tonight you walk out of this house back towards his crisp-proffering fingers, I'd really like to know.
Ian said to me at some point in the evening, "Would you like a packet of crisps, Val?" And I remember saying yes.
I meant nothing by it.
When he came back to the table, he had changed.
There were cheese and onion and that's when he started with the muttering.
You know put a crisp in your mouth and lick your lips, things like that.
And I should have said, "I'll get my own crisps, thank you.
" But I didn't.
And then he started cramming the crisps in my mouth as much as I could get in there and and they all started to spill out.
"No, Ian.
I am a married woman, please stop," is what I should have said.
But by that time it was too late and my mouth was full of crisps and so he just didn't understand what I was saying.
Are you Are you planning on taking a packet of crisps along tonight or are you just going to move on to the starter, main course and the pudding? No, there is no starter and the pudding is a cake baked in the shape of the school badge.
Right, well, thanks for telling me.
I'll be here alone with my tortured imaginings.
Like you were alone on Sunday.
What do you think it would've been like if it had been different? We'd have been together.
No No, I mean if it had been his 18th birthday.
There'd be vomit and bleach and massive hung-over teenagers needing a lift home.
And we'd be all worried about, ooh, was his behaviour just this side of an asbo or or typical for a teenage lad? Because often the difference is slight.
Oh, we would have had a row with him.
We never had a row with him, did we? Never.
No.
All he ever saw was a smile.
Yeah.
Yes, Val, that's right.
And that's why I can't come back.
I should have been with you on Sunday.
But it's all, it's just it's all too big.
No, you're wrong.
Think about the little things.
We're good at that.
I-I really think we are.
They're why you can come back.
I-I don't know.
I I just I don't know anything at the moment.
I don't know if I want to be here.
All I know is that I had to get changed and I've done that, so I'm going.
No, Val! Don't expect Ian to notice or laugh at any funny thing like I do, he won't.
I know that.
- So, you're still going? - I've got to.
- You're absolutely still going then? - Yes.
You don't think you can stay here and sort this out? I can't, I've got to go.
I've got to go.
I'll have to play my trump card.
Please don't go, Val.
I've been sacked.
- What? - Yes, I have.
Roger! Yes, I've been sacked.
- Oh, Roger, when? - Just now.
They informed me of their decision before I left.
So much for the tough guy act.
What reason did they give? Have they got a reason? As far as I'm aware, you didn't have any union representation.
I thought you were to go back on Thursday with a friend or supporter? That would've been an option had it gone that way.
It didn't.
Oh, well, right.
This is a personal vendetta from Phil.
Phil is a two-headed monster.
And I'll tell you something, Roger, his other head is Esther from Legal.
Oh, she really is.
Well, good.
They got what they wanted.
Well, good, cos we'll see them in the European Court of Human Rights.
Well, good because we will win.
Well, I-I thought about a tribunal, Val, but I really don't think I can face it.
You, Roger Stevenson? You should've prayed all your life to be sacked because this will be your finest hour! Imagine all the legal detail you'll be able to go into.
You'll be brilliant.
No If I had to take a friend or a supporter on Thursday, who would I have taken? Me.
You'd have taken me.
I would've come.
Would you? What's happened to you?! You weren't here.
Come on.
Don't go.
You've come this far.
We're at base camp.
- What, the stairs? - Yeah and the summit is I don't know where the summit is.
No, you don't know where it is.
You've got what sends people crackers up a mountain.
You've got that.
You should be wise about life because the biggest thing in life has happened to you.
Your baby died.
And you went on.
So, you are a noble mountaineer.
Well, most people make it to base camp.
Brian Blessed made it to base camp.
It showed him in training on that documentary.
All he did was throw a stick for his dog in proper cords and a jumper.
You haven't done that.
You're a Chris Bonington.
You've had 18 years' hard training and that's what separates your Boningtons from your Blesseds.
Yeah.
I know where your silver pan is.
And your postcards.
And that photograph.
Where? - Did you do this on Sunday? - Yes.
- You should have come.
- I know.
All our little things.
Yeah.
Here we are, Val.
Big glass of wine.
He's present by his absence.
So he's still here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we do have a photo taken on the roof of the world.
Taken by your dad.
Yeah.
To Dad.
- He's in it as well.
- Yeah.
So, are you here now? Yes.
First woman up Everest.
Actually who was she? Mrs Valerie Stevenson.
In this house, anyway.
Sod it, Roger.
I'm not gonna go tonight.
I never thought you should.
What about Sue? Can't leave her with all that.
- Can you? - Can't I? Let me just think what Sue would do.
Actually, I think, I can let Sue down, after all.
Yeah, you know just say, "My husband's lost his job.
" - Roger, you've lost your job! - Yeah, I lost my job.
- Oh, you've got the sack.
- That's right.
Oh.
Though crucially, they've granted me leave to appeal.
- Because I'm bereaved.
- Yeah.
And recently separated from my wife.
Yeah.
You've gotten an incredibly rocky marriage.
So, there's no way you could've been in control of your faculties.
Say that.
I will.
I will, at the tribunal.
- Oh yeah, the old me is kicking in now, Val.
- Yeah.
I've laid politically dormant for about half an hour.
- That's not like you.
- No.
And I will come as your friend or supporter.
Sherpa Valerie and I'll say to them, "Listen, Roger has been in training for Everest "and you can't have two jobs at once.
Ask Chris Bonington.
" - What d'you think they'd say if I said that? - Nothing.
Just fail to understand the brilliance of you.