Episode 1 Love, Nina

This programme contains some strong language.

FAINT FOOTBALL COMMENTARY

-Oh, God!

-Come on!

-Do not do this to me!

Bastards!

TYPEWRITER KEYS CLICK

I...haven't...

danced...to the music!

WHISPERS: 55?

'Dear Vic, I know you're my sister and everything,

'but you can be as daft as a brush sometimes.

'To be brutally honest, I don't think you did see

'Shakin' Stevens in the library, for two reasons.

'A, wouldn't he just buy his own copy of The Thorn Birds?

'Green Door was number one for three decades.

'And B, I can just about imagine him in a swanky nightclub in Leicester,

'but what's he doing in Melton Mowbray public library?'

Nina?

Shall I close the door?

Good idea!

'My news is that, unexpectedly, I'm a live-in nanny

'for a busy, working single mum with two boys in north London.

'It's a long story.

'I didn't even tell you about the interview

'because it was months ago, and it didn't work out then, anyway.'

-Tea?

-Lovely.

Breakfast all right?

Erm...yes, thank you.

It was just toast and marmalade, but it was very nice.

-Would you like breakfast tea?

-Is that normal?

Do you mean, is that normal for this time of day, or normal tea?

Normal tea. I didn't know there was any other kind, actually.

CHILDREN'S CHATTER

-Goal!

-THUD

Oh, the boys like football!

Yep. Don't even talk to them about it. They are demented.

Oh.

I've sent them out to play while we talk.

We'll have about five minutes before there's a fight.

Let's go into the sitting room.

Come on, give it back!

Come back! Give it...

Have you just moved in?

No. Does it look like it?

Not at all.

Why do you keep looking at the floor?

I-I've never lived in a house without carpets everywhere.

What's it like?

Not as exciting as one might think.

Do you ever lose things down the cracks?

CREAK

CLATTER

Erm...you haven't worked much with children before.

Just the baby-sitting for my neighbours.

Er...so, why did you reply to the ad?

I wanted to move to London.

Was there a reason you thought I'd be good for the job?

I think the way it works is, you're supposed to tell me.

Yes, but if my lack of experience is a problem,

you wanted to interview me, anyway, so...

Ah! You've worked a lot with old people.

Ahem! Yes, in a care home.

Mm-hm. I was interested in that.

Well, um...we played a lot of bingo

and once a week, a slightly mad lady used to come

-and she'd sing Vera Lynn songs.

-No, no. Um...were they sick a lot?

Medical emergencies and so on?

Well, yes, of course.

Yeah. All the usual.

The worse the better.

Right.

Because we have a lot of emergencies here.

Joe, I mentioned in the ad, he has some medical issues.

Well, I'm not a trained nurse.

I don't need a trained nurse, that's the thing. Um...

Joe's healthy most of the time.

What I need is a nanny that doesn't flap.

Well, all I can say is, I'm capable and I wouldn't be afraid.

Good. Ah, well, um... Well, do you actually like children?

Well, if I didn't, it'd be a silly time to say so, wouldn't it?

-Can you cook?

-I have a bash.

-Are you being modest?

-No.

What sort of thing do you bash at?

On a good day, I can cook a very nice flan, for example.

Joe can't eat anything too chewy, or he chokes.

Well, it's only chewy on a bad day.

Well, you can't afford many bad days.

Could you cope?

Well, I mean, I wouldn't want you to leave him with me this minute,

but I'm presuming you'd give me instructions,

and I'd follow them to the letter.

DOOR CLOSES

-You're such a cheater, Joe!

-Oh!

He cheated, as usual! I beat him, anyway.

I was Arsenal, so I didn't mind losing.

Oh, you lying, bloody bastard! You were West Ham!

You were West Ham, bad luck. So you just beat your own team.

How does he cheat?

Who are you, actually?

This is Nina.

She might be your new nanny.

-She'll do.

-Not so fast.

-What's wrong with her?

-We don't know anything about her.

-Mum does, presumably.

-She'll only know boring stuff.

Anyway, I'll leave you to it.

I promised them they can interview all prospective nannies.

They're the ones who have to get on with you.

'I didn't know what they were going to ask me.

'I thought it'd be about discipline and custard and so on.'

Are you a virgin?

'Which got us off to a tricky start, as you can imagine.'

Not your business. Next question.

Do you think that means she is, or she isn't?

-How old are you?

-I'm 20.

She shouldn't be by now, so if she's not telling us, it means she is.

'I mean, what would you have said?

'If you were me, that is.'

Move on, please.

-What's your favourite ice-cream flavour?

-Strawberry.

-This is a fix. Mum's told her.

-No, she hasn't.

There's only three, really, and no-one ever says vanilla.

-Starsky or Hutch?

-Do you really care?

Exactly!

Which team do you want to win on A Question Of Sport?

I have to admit, that is a good question.

Mm. What are the teams?

Willie Carson or Bill Beaumont!

If it helps, I'm Carson, he's Beaumont.

It doesn't help, really. I think I'll stay out of this one.

All right, then, which football team do you support?

I don't know anything about football.

-You'll HAVE to learn.

-And you have to say a team.

Well, I come from Leicester, so, um...

I suppose I'll have to say Leicester City.

Ugh!

What?

Joe hates Leicester.

I didn't think anybody hated Leicester.

-Joe does.

-I do.

-Why?

-I hate everything about them.

-Their players, their stadium, their shirts...

-Oh, dear!

Well, um...if they win, I won't cheer. How about that?

No good. MUM!

Hang on.

-Well?

-Leicester City supporter.

I told you not to talk about football.

I didn't know how to get out of it.

Well...too late now.

CLOCK TICKS

Hello?

CAT MIAOWS

BELL TINKLES

CAT MIAOWS

'So, in London, as far as I can work out,

'you're expected to talk to children about the state of your hymen,

'but you must never, ever mention Leicester City.

'So I didn't get the job.

'And then, after six months, George left a message saying

'that the nanny who got the job was a disaster,

'and was I still interested?

'So here I am, at 55 Gloucester Crescent,

'London NW1.'

-Tag!

-Tag!

-'The boys are clever and funny...'

-Bastard!

'..although you and Mum would be horrified by their language.

'Joe's medical condition involves the most complicated

'list of symptoms you could imagine.

'Eyes, chest, temperature, stomach.

'Head-to-toe anxieties, really. But it's different.'

RADIO PLAYS

SHE SIGHS Hello!

-BOTH:

-Shh!

-ON RADIO:

-'And some of the concerns of this new collection are,

'unfashionably, the concerns of the middle-aged intellectual.

'Do you think that you can make yourself relevant

-'to a new generation of poetry-readers?'

-God, no!

Please, we're trying to listen!

-ON RADIO:

-'I understand that poetry demands attention,

'and attention is in short supply to this Johnny Rotten generation,

'who are more used to gyrating their bottoms

'than to close, solitary reading.

'But, you know, do we take the view

'that evolution has gone into reverse

'and that people are turning back into apes,

'or do people with intellectual ambition keep trying?'

-HE SIGHS

-'I say we keep trying.'

Who is this miserable old sod?

-ON RADIO:

-'Malcolm Tanner, thank you very much.'

-HE SIGHS

-Oh, dear!

-Nina, um...this is Malcolm.

-Hello, Malcolm.

And why did he keep going on about young people's bottoms gyrating?

Malcolm...Tanner.

Oh.

Yeah. You'll be seeing a lot of him.

Good.

WHISPERS: Oh, shit!

'Does the name Malcolm Tanner mean anything to you?

'Me neither.

'I thought I recognised him from the TV,

'but I might've been getting him muddled up

'with someone from Coronation Street.

'One of Elsie Tanner's husbands, maybe.

'He writes very clever poems and books and plays,

'and I'm hoping he doesn't make me read any of them.

'Anyway, it turns out he comes to eat with us nearly every evening.'

What do you think?

-About what?

-About nuclear war!

-Ow!

-Joe!

Joe gets very upset if anyone mentions nuclear war.

Well, it's an upsetting subject.

Have you been on any of the marches, Nina?

No. I'm not sure we've had any in Leicester.

Well, people travel from all over.

Oh. How do you find out when they're on?

-Well, what newspaper do you read?

-My dad took the Mercury.

Well, that's the local paper.

You're unlikely to read about the marches in there.

Unless the Russians are targeting Nuneaton(!)

That wouldn't be the Mercury. Nuneaton's got the Tribune.

-Ah...

-It's pathetic that we're never allowed to

mention nuclear war, ever.

Um...it's an inappropriate subject for the dinner table, anyway.

Thank you!

What about in the event of a nuclear attack? Can we talk about it THEN?

If you see a mushroom cloud out of the window, you may point it out,

calmly, before putting your plate in the dishwasher.

Can we please not talk about this?

I'm guessing that when Nina asked what we thought,

all those hours ago, she was referring to the dinner.

-My new favourite, I think.

-Yesterday, you said macaroni...

-MALCOLM:

-Well, I have to say that, despite my reservations,

it's really not bad at all.

Thank you.

But if you're asking for tips on how it could have been improved...

I wouldn't use tinned tomatoes next time.

Right.

Actually, the recipe said tinned.

What was the recipe for, actually?

It's called hunter's stew.

Oh, well, all the more reason to use fresh. Hunters would.

I'd have thought hunters would only worry about the meat side of things.

They don't go around shooting tomatoes.

It doesn't matter, anyway.

Because we're all going to die in a nuclear war.

Trevor Brooking!

-I don't think I know who Trevor Brooking is.

-God.

He's a West Ham player, and he's not God, he's average.

Ooh, I have some gossip.

Ooh! Good!

It's for your mother, when you go up to do your homework.

She'll pass it on to us. She always does.

I pretend I do. You don't know the half of it.

-What's the other half?

-Sex stuff.

-Not interested.

What people do with their privates is their own business.

Well, this IS sex stuff.

Right, boys, you can get down.

-Isn't there any pudding?

-There's rice pudding.

Tinned?

No. Home-made.

Ohh. I like tinned.

'Honestly, Vic. This is what they're like.

'They're very clever and everything,

'but you'd drive yourself mad trying to work out

'which tinned goods are acceptable.

'Who's more likely to know how to cook a hunter's stew?

'Him, a bloke who can't be bothered to cook his own tea,

'or the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook?

'Once the kids go to bed,

'Malcolm and George like to have a good gossip.

'They're never nasty,

'but I'm always intrigued by the subject matter.

'Tonight, it was venereal disease, specifically crabs.'

-He's been fucking the lady in the dry-cleaner's.

-Ohh!

Hang on, which dry-cleaner's? The one we go in, or the other one?

No, it's the other one.

Thank you!

I've started going because I wanted to look.

Is she worth it?

Hmm, well, she's no Gina Lollobrigida.

Surely Gina Lollobrigida isn't Gina Lollobrigida any more.

As was. Anyway, he seems regretful now.

Hmm. I wonder if she gives him a discount.

It's kind of a false economy if she does,

-what with all the prescriptions and the shampoos.

-Yeah.

Can't they get into your clothes?

Well, yes.

And your bedding.

Well, don't you see?

-Huh?

-I'm not sure that we do.

She's creating her own dry-cleaning.

The bedding, the clothes..

Oh, no, she can't be that devious, surely?

Maybe not. But the benefits of the discount... Pff!

Oh, yes, yes.

Long gone.

'So it turns out that there are two people in the street called Jamie,

'and I have absolutely no idea whether it's Jamie One or Jamie Two

'who is the carrier of the crabs,

'and I didn't feel it was my place to ask.'

But what do you think the chances are?

On a scale of one to ten?

-Zero.

-You can't have zero on a scale of one to ten.

And anyway, it can't be zero, can it?

If there were no nuclear bombs in the world,

then you could say zero. But there are. There are loads.

-Shut up, Max.

-You brought the subject up.

-You're influencing her scoring.

-How?

You're telling her there are loads of nuclear bombs in the world.

Now she might think, "Oh, I'd forgotten about that,

-"I'd better say eight."

-I know there are loads of nuclear bombs.

-I still say it's one.

-What happened to zero?

Max said I wasn't allowed zero.

Ignore Max. This is our conversation.

All right, zero.

Max's right. That's stupid.

-There are loads of nuclear bombs.

-Two, then.

We've gone from zero to two in two seconds.

It's like the Doomsday Clock.

Do not tell him about the Doomsday Clock.

What's the Doomsday Clock?

I'm going to kill you, Max, you little bastard.

SHE SIGHS

# This time

# More than any other time This time

# We're going to find a way

# Find a way to get away this time

# Getting it all together

# We'll get it right. #

-Hey, Joe, do you want to go and play Subbuteo?

-Yes!

Uh, no!

You're not finished yet!

-We are!

-We are!

Oh, hell.

DOOR BELL RINGS

SINGING CONTINUES

Oh, hello...Jamie.

Is George in?

No. She should be back soon.

Oh.

-Do you want to come in and wait?

-Thank you.

I am starving.

Right, um...

Well, there's all sorts in the fridge.

Thank you.

I'm not sure that, um, you're allowed to...

Oh, George is used to me helping myself.

She doesn't like it much, but she's used to it.

Where are the boys?

Upstairs playing Subbuteo.

Do you want to go up and have a - what do you call it? -

um, with the...? A flick?

Are you a flicker?

Not really, and that's an illegal action, by the way.

-Illegal?

-Yep. You're not allowed to use your thumb

as a springboard. Look it up.

-There's a big grease stain on your shirt.

-I know.

I've only just picked up my laundry from the dry-cleaner's.

-They're good there, aren't they?

-Yeah, they're all right.

Better than all right, su...surely?

Good, I think.

The ones on the right as you go down the hill.

Mmm.

But I suppose it depends on

what you're looking for in a dry-cleaner.

If it's just the cleaning, then...

I'm sorry, would you mind washing your hands, please?

Thoroughly?

Joe, he has a range of complex health issues.

I didn't think it had anything to do with germs.

So you're saying you'd rather leave the germs on your hands

and just hope for the best?

-No, of course not.

-Right, well, then, thank you very much.

It just reduces the worry, you see.

I'm a terrible worrier.

What are you worried about?

Um...

nuclear war.

An, um, hygiene, obviously.

Loose morals.

What's your definition of loose morals?

Just the same as everyone's - shoplifting...

..sex.

Is that all sex, or just some of it?

Not all sex, no. Um...

Just sex with people you don't know very well,

or who you've only met in a sort of business or retail environment.

Business or retail environment?

Yes, um... Sorry, I'm just thinking off the top of my head here.

But is that something that's rife?

Sex between people who have only met

in a sort of business or retail environment?

I'm going to go and hang some washing out.

'I know I don't give you handy hints very often, Vic, but here's one.

'Never wash a frying pan in TCP or other antiseptic liquids.

'You'll never get rid of the smell.

'I had to chuck it out and find one exactly the same.

'Nobody ever talks about the hidden costs of promiscuity.'

-I used fresh tomatoes.

-So I noticed.

He doesn't like the skins.

The thing is, you can use tinned tomatoes for Bolognese.

The sauce disguises the tinniness.

SIGHING: Right.

But if I use fresh in the hunter's stew,

then I should skin the tomatoes.

You'll soon get the hang of it.

'But why should I get the hang of it, Vic?

'If I'd been told from the off that I'd be cooking for two children

'and an internationally acclaimed poet and novelist every evening,

'I might have thought twice about taking the job.'

I'm sorry about your visitor this afternoon.

Oh, that's all right.

Oh, he didn't, did he?

No, no.

-Oh.

-Didn't what?

It's not relevant.

Jump on you.

He only did it the once.

With you? MAX SNORTS

No. Don't be rude, Max.

-It was your predecessor.

-Is that why she left?

No, no. He's harmless.

It's the wandering in and helping himself to a fry-up

that's much more irritating.

It actually made me feel really uncomfortable.

Really? Why?

Well, it's the thing you didn't want to talk about the other night.

What thing?

The, um...

(The medical condition.)

Were we talking about a medical condition?

There's a medical condition called "two ducks"?

Wasn't that one crab?

Yes! One crab.

-One crab?

-Except more than one.

You know?

More than two?

Just plural, I'm not thinking of a specific number.

-CRABS.

-Yes!

-Oh, I see!

That's what we were talking about.

Perhaps if you don't want the children to know,

it's best not to use a children's game to impart the information.

I didn't think you'd be so slow.

Why is it called "crabs"?

I suppose because the lice resemble crabs.

Can we please not talk about this at dinner?

The point is, I wasn't happy with him in the kitchen,

putting his hands all over the pots and the pans.

It's... Eurgh.

Oh, no, no, no. It's not... It's not him.

-It wasn't him?

-No!

-SHE CHUCKLES

-It wasn't him?

-No, no, no, not that one.

No. No, God, no.

No, he's...

Well, put it this way,

-he doesn't require the services of a dry-cleaner.

-MALCOLM CHUCKLES

He had a big grease stain on his shirt.

I was speaking metaphorically.

Oh, God.

I asked him to wash his hands.

Well, it's never bad advice.

What do you mean, they look like crabs?

I suppose because they have little pincers.

-And they bite your thing?!

-I don't think the pincers are relevant.

I think, well, you just itch in your pubic regions, I don't know.

-But you really don't have to worry.

-Not yet.

(Christ.)

He's terrified of crabs.

There we are, then.

-Where are we?

-We've found Max's nuclear war.

Sexual disease!

Um, have you made your rice pudding?

I got tinned.

-TUTTING:

-Oh.

'I hope this gives you a flavour of intellectual London life.

'It's all tinned versus home-made rice pudding...

'..tinned versus fresh tomatoes,

'a lot of discussion about when you're allowed to mention

'the impending nuclear apocalypse and, on special nights,

'games where you have to guess the name of the venereal disease.'

-Hello, Joe!

-Hi, Jamie!

'Oh, talking of which, or of whom,

'we ran into the culprit, and the boys behaved very badly.'

I've got crabs, I've got crabs!

I've got crabs, I've got crabs!

-Boys!

-You're slowly going to die of radiation sickness,

-and so will everyone else you know.

-Crabs, crabs, crabs!

'I think I might be happy here,

'even though the best-looking boy in the street

'already thinks I'm hopeless.

'Which I am, most of the time.

'Will you send me your recipe for cheesy tuna pasta?

'That might help.

'Love, Nina.'

'PS, I have been giving the boys little homilies,

'I think they're called, just like Mary Poppins.'

Look, Joe, that cloud looks just like the FA Cup.

Oh, yes.

Well, the League Cup, anyway.

Ha-ha! You just trod in dog poo!

Oh, Trevor Brooking!

Ah! Joe, no, listen.

Never stop looking at the clouds,

no matter how much dog poo is beneath your feet.

Ha-ha! Pooey Joe!

-Poo!

-Just wipe it off, come on.

-Pooey!

Stop it, leave him alone.

I've done it loads of times, and I've got no shoes on.

Pooey Joe, pooey, pooey, pooey Joe!