The Past Is a Foreign Country White Heat

This programme contains some strong language and some scenes of a sexual nature.

Someone said that death might end a life,

but for the survivor, the relationship struggles on,

seeking resolution it may never find.

I suppose we should have guessed that

the death of one of us would bring us back together,

but none of us are under any illusion that time heals.

Ms Pugh?

Ewan Fleming, Gibson and Parks, Solicitors.

It was they who raised the alarm. The police broke down the door,

bit of a make do and mend job, I'm afraid.

Once the post-mortem confirmed death as natural causes,

the police got in a company to disinfect the place.

As executor of the will, you'll need to settle the charge from the estate.

The chemicals, when they sanitised it.

Under the terms of the will, you and the other legatees

can dispose of any personal items as you choose.

Are they coming today, too?

Mmm.

Is it right you all lived together?

"Former flatmates", it says in the will.

We lost touch...over the years.

When probate is complete, the flat will be sold,

all debts discharged,

after which, the estate will be divided between you and the others.

Drop them off at your convenience.

How long was it, before they found the...

Two weeks.

Joy of city life, eh(?)

I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks, bye.

Next six!

The old man bought the lease. Cheaper than shelling out on rent,

which makes me a landlord.

As a paid-up member of the "all property is theft" club,

the joke is on me.

A shared one, three guineas a week,

needs decorating and shit, like the others.

The other single, fiver a week. And the double is across the hall.

Which one are you again?

Charlotte Pugh.

So, Charlotte Pugh...

..do you like what you see?

I like.

I'm not about to lay a load of crap

about cleaning rotas on you,

just set out a kind of modus operandi about living here.

We have a chance to challenge the status quo,

prove there's an alternative socio-economic model to live by

other than the nuclear bloody family,

-by sharing our labour, our energy, our resources.

-Like a commune?

Works for them in China.

Didn't they abolish landlords in China? Execute them?

-Your name?

-Harper. Alan. Alan.

That's OK, thanks.

OK, see what I'm trying to say, Alan, is,

what's the point in social mobility

if we just carry the same tired old values around with us, you know?

So what we do is we construct a model of living based on equality,

based on the welfare of the group,

rather than the selfish needs of the individual.

Up to, and including, sex.

Aren't all relationships just another form of ownership?

What is he on about?

Eliminate the exclusivity of couples, you eliminate jealousy

and all the corrosive shit which goes with it, so we make a rule.

No sleeping with the same person, flatmates included,

on more than three consecutive nights.

What sort of godless set up are you running here?

I want no part of it, frankly.

Better out than in, as they say. Let's take a vote.

All those in favour of the godless set up, as outlined?

OK.

Great.

Message received.

Over and out.

I'll let you know. Send up the next lot, will you?

'Since his stroke, the silent vigil for Churchill's recovery continues

'as the whole country prays for him

'in this, his darkest hour.

'His defiant vow, "We shall never surrender"

'has never been more apt.'

Amen to that, eh?

The girl who owns the flat you saw,

is she at your college, too?

What does it matter?

If I was one of the chosen few I'd have heard by now.

Susan Reynolds from Girl Guides. She has a flat in Marble Arch.

Her mother says she's looking for someone to share with.

She's an air hostess now.

She'll be away half the time. You'd have the place to yourself.

Where's the fun in that, eh?

The point is to be near college for her studies, isn't it?

-Doesn't preclude her having a bit of fun, does it?

-I didn't say it did.

Leave space for the crumble.

Mum's OK about this, isn't she?

If I do move out?

Nothing stays the same.

She has to face that, like the rest of us.

We only have one life, after all.

HER PARENTS ARGUE

MUSIC: "My Generation" by The Who

# People try to put us down Talking 'bout my generation. #

-Hello.

-Hello.

# Just because we get around Talking 'bout my generation

# Things they do look awful c-c-cold Talking 'bout my generation

# I hope I die before I get old Talking 'bout my generation

# This is my generation

# This is my generation, baby

# Why don't you all f-fade away Talking 'bout my generation

# Don't try to dig what we all say Talking 'bout my generation

# I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation

# Talking 'bout my generation

# I'm just talking 'bout my g-g-g-generation

# Talking 'bout my generation

# This is my generation

# This is my generation, baby... #

'First US combat troupes deployed in Vietnam have...'

'All day long there's been a sort of pilgrimage to Sir Winston's house.

'Families have come in from the country, young couples...'

No, sorry, no, north, the signal comes from Alexandra Palace.

Damned thing isn't thickening.

That's it.

Everyone, this is Lilly. Lilly, everyone.

-Hiya.

-Lilly's studying painting at... Where was it?

Hornsey College of Art.

-I'm Jay.

-Hi.

-Hi, I'm Charlotte.

-Hi.

Come and get it.

You know what, I've just clocked it! I've just clocked it!

I've just clocked why he's chosen us.

Jack, why he's chosen us, in particular.

We're his guinea pigs!

-His what?

-Exactly.

His socio-economic mix.

Think about it,

he's got the class thing covered, hasn't he?

Race, you know, and you.

He's got the professions covered -

computing, medicine, English, law,

art and...

Psychology.

Yeah, and that. So he's hand-picked every one of us,

to conduct his social experiment.

Well, I'm not sure anybody is quite that cynical.

Do you want to bet?

ALL: Cheers.

KNOCKS ON DOOR

Jack?

Grubs up!

Hold it in, don't exhale.

It's crap what they say, how it's an escape from reality.

You know when you get the feeling life is utterly bloody futile?

You light up, it lifts you up.

Instead of looking into the abyss,

you're standing on the edge of the world.

You're invincible.

Feel anything yet?

How about this?

Is that part of your social experiment, too?

It's about being in the moment.

Seeing where it takes you.

It's quite a drop. Be careful.

Oh, I will be.

INTERCOM BUZZES

You know the way.

Lilly.

God, is it really 20 years? I don't believe it.

Anyone else here yet?

Uh, no.

I'm going to make a start in the kitchen,

so maybe you could do one of the bedrooms, upstairs?

Is that where it happened?

Mmm.

Charlie?

There's not been a day when I haven't regretted what I did to you.

Not a day.

MUSIC: "Downtown" by Petula Clarke

Bloody hell! Wish we'd never started the damn thing!

It's supposed to be smooth like a mirror,

give an illusion of bloody space.

Right, I'll see you later! Good luck with it!

-Bye, love.

-Bye.

Where do you reckon it is she goes every evening?

Library, she says. Maybe it's confession.

Do you know what her mother told her?

That periods are called the curse,

because it's God's curse on us for Eve eating the apple.

So much for your benign deity.

You been seeing anyone since coming to London?

You?

How about back home?

Only a few local lads, from school and that, you know.

No-one special.

So you didn't...

Do it with any of them?

HE SNICKERS

Go the whole way?

The first time was my 16th birthday present to myself.

I couldn't wait to get it out the way, see what the fuss was about.

You?

A girl in my class at the high school.

In the middle of her O-levels, she suddenly drops out of school,

drops out of sight.

I had this Saturday job at the local supermarket, on the till.

There was always this endless queue of women with their kids,

stretching back as far as the eye could see.

They all looked so...

..tired.

One day, I looked up, she was one of them.

Pushing a pram.

There but for the grace of a benign deity...

Still, all good things are worth waiting for, eh?

Then again, maybe I'll die chaste and virginal, like Orla.

It may not be worth the wait, love.

Trust me, it's just not the big deal everyone says it is.

KNOCK ON DOOR

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

Rent time, girls.

Oh, hold on, I left my bag downstairs.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thing about your benign deity...

It works in mysterious ways.

Thanks.

MUSIC: "Needle In A Haystack" Dusty Springfield

BELL RINGS

Derivative, vacuous, pointless.

You want to paint by numbers, go do it in someone else's class,

better yet, go work it out in a gym.

Is that what you call "constructive criticism"?

If it's any comfort, I'd not put myself out

unless I thought you had something going for you, would I?

Please, God, say you're not falling for that crap.

This is the one place a woman can take her clothes off

and become invisible.

Sitting there all day, you see things, hear things.

You won't be the first notch on his belt, dear...

..or the last.

Could be your heating element...

..or the capacitor and, if it is, I'm wasting my time.

Here she is!

Mum, Dad.

We came down to pay our respects to Mr Churchill.

Near on 300 people there were. Some had stood there all night.

That's unusual.

He'll pull through yet. He's nowt if he's not a fighter.

This is Victor, he's on a law scholarship from Jamaica.

Sorry.

Excuse me.

-You never said you were sharing with a...

-With lads.

We need to talk, love. Is there somewhere we can...

No, no, look, I've got things I need to do upstairs.

So I'll... It was very nice meeting you both.

Don't jump down our throats. Just hear us out.

It's your Aunt Helen. She's, erm, she's broke her hip.

She needs somebody to help her out in the shop.

And she says if you, if you come back, she'll train you up

and when the time comes, she'll sign the lease over to you.

It's the only drapery in Heaton - guaranteed custom, regular clients.

Set you up for life, a place like that.

If I did that secretarial course

you said I could go to art college, that were the deal.

You can still do your art and such on Sundays, can't you?

There's no future in it, love.

It's never going to put food on the table, is it?

It's not for the likes of us.

When the novelty of it wears off, and it will, you'll wake up,

see the world as it is, not as you wish it to be.

It may be too late. You'll have burnt your boats.

Bridges.

It's burning bridges.

And they're mine to burn.

When I was at school, my mam and dad used to go on at us,

"You've opportunities we never had.

"Work hard, get your exams, get ahead."

It was all fine while I was doing my degree up in Newcastle,

but when I moved down here for me post grad,

it was a whole different tune.

"Newcastle wasn't good enough for me anymore.

"Now that I lived down here, I was above them all."

They thought I was leaving them all behind.

They were right.

'In the four hours since the last bulletin

'there has been no further deterioration.'

'It was about an hour and a half ago that Lord Moran,

'Sir Winston's personal physician came out...'

CHANNEL SWITCHING STATIC

'..and the essay, The Personal Is Political, do you think that means

liberation for women lies in our personal experience?'

'It means we'll only realise our potential

'if we transform our relationships with men.

'The contraceptive pill has given us the freedom

'to explore sexual intimacy, without fear of pregnancy.

'But so long as it's only available to married women, the rest of us,

'the majority of us, are denied that freedom.

'And if our sexuality is stifled, so is our potential.'

Orla?

'I started off in the hotel kitchen,'

dishwasher and dogsbody.

Now I've graduated to the heady heights of chambermaid.

You have a grant, don't you, like the rest of us?

Most of it goes back home.

You have to eat too, Orla. They can't expect you to just...

They don't expect it.

I choose to do it.

In Belfast, if you're a Catholic...

Six years my father's been without work.

My mum holds down two cleaning jobs

and it's not enough, with four wee ones to feed.

Don't be worrying about me, I'll get by.

How? Slinking around eating our scraps?

I don't want the others knowing, Jay.

I embarrass them enough as it is.

I don't always feel I belong here.

Don't give away too much of yourself, Orla.

There'll be nothing left for the rest of us.

-Night.

-Night.

-Morning.

-Morning.

That tea dead?

Any chance someone can cover my shift cooking tonight?

-I'm late on an assignment.

-I can, if it helps.

You're a saint, Victor, so you are.

All right.

-Are you done?

-Yes, thank you.

You don't have to do that, Victor.

Wait on us.

Just doing me share.

Have you heard? Did you hear?

'It's said that Sir Winston died.

Churchill's died...

'..shortly after 8.00 this morning.

'Parliament will meet tomorrow to authorise a state funeral,

'the first held for a commoner in this country.'

Some commoner, with his title and his country pile.

'For a generation, he led his people through the darkness of war.

'He was an inspiration, rallying them to victory...'

God, what bollocks!

Show a bit of bloody respect.

What do you want? A chorus of Rule Britannia?

We'd be in a damn sorry state without him.

Tell that to people in the East End and Coventry.

When the Germans invaded Belgium,

did he order them to bomb the Panzers? No, no.

He sent them to bomb innocent civilian German cities

and he calls Coventry in "The Blitz war crimes".

Call that heroism, if you want. Me, I call it hypocrisy.

You know what they say, takes one to know one.

# There'll always be an England

# While there's a country lane

# Wherever there's a cottage small

HE INCREASES RADIO VOLUME

# Beside a field of grain!

# There'll always be an England

# While there's a busy street!

# Wherever there's a turning wheel

# And a million marching feet

# There'll always be an England

# And England shall be free!

# If England means as much to you

# As England means to me! #

HE LAUGHS

-Do you know what, Jack?

-What?

I have never, never met anyone so full of pre-digested crap

as you are.

Victor, give it a bloody rest!

Slavery is over, haven't you heard?

You are a truly unique human being, Jack. One of a kind.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Victor?

He's right, I'm full of crap.

It's like Malcolm X said, man...

.."No-one will give you equality, you have to take it."

I'm sorry, I lost the plot.

Am I proud of it? No.

Will it happen again?

Almost certainly.

What's the thing in The Third Man, Harry Lime says,

"If one of those dots stopped moving for ever, what would you feel?"

If you feel nothing, what does that say about you, about your humanity?

Or is all altruism just self-serving bullshit?

It's because you feel, you get so angry.

That's the proof of it, surely.

Married how long?

Six months.

And your husband agrees to you taking oral contraception?

It's my decision, not his.

You wouldn't credit how many girls come here

wearing a curtain ring from Woolworths,

hoping to get the contraceptive pill.

They must think I'm a bloody halfwit.

MUSIC: "King Of The Road" by Roger Miller

We need to talk about your mother, Charlotte.

She's...

She's suffering.

It's the change. She's just not coping with it.

She seems fine when we talk on the phone.

She doesn't want to be a burden, you know how she is.

It's the empty nest thing.

Keeps saying her life is over.

I've got so much going on at work. I'm home all hours and...

So...I thought, perhaps, if you could come home,

just for a couple months, until she's through it.

Why me? Why can't Adam or Peter move back?

Your brothers have their careers to think of, don't they?

You can commute, like you did your first term, can't you?

It wasn't so bad, was it?

I'll lose my room at the flat.

You can get another room later, once we've sorted your mother out.

If I thought I could meet her needs, then I would.

But I can't, not in this.

If you think that's easy to admit, think again.

Will you be going home at all this year?

Well, erm, my scholarship barely pays for my fees and my maintenance,

so sadly, no.

You know all Jack's talk about poverty and inequality...

He knows nothing of them.

They are theoretical to him.

It's all just a way of him parading his radical credentials.

Dad!

It's 6.00 somewhere in the world.

Can you stay the night?

I've a lecture first thing.

Dad will be sorry to miss you.

He's home late, some panic at work.

This is a nice surprise.

Out of the blue.

I saw Daddy in London the other day, actually.

He was with someone.

From work?

Who knows?

I was with someone, too. A boy.

It's not just girls sharing the flat. It's boys, too.

And one is your boyfriend?

No. I just...

..thought you should know.

Why the secrecy?

Or do you think I am so stuck in the dark ages I can't deal with it?

I used to blame the war for stealing my youth.

Then your father, for stealing my future.

I never blamed myself, naturally.

Someone, somewhere, is out there living the life I should have had,

because I gave it away to the first man I met.

DOORBELL BUZZES

Hello?

Jack Walsh about?

Who wants to know?

His father.

He's just getting up.

On my way to the funeral.

I should have known he'd be dead to the world.

-Churchill's funeral?

-Mmm-hmm.

Hoping to get there myself later.

Can I get you a cup of tea?

If there's a cup free from infection.

5,000 at the rehearsal yesterday.

More heads of state clogging up Westminster than us bloody MPs.

Oh...you're an MP?

For my sins.

Wilson was sandbagging De Gaulle over dinner last night,

about producing some Anglo-French supersonic airliner, so he claims.

Softening him up about the Common Market, more like.

Best of British with that one.

Thank God for Gallic obduracy, I say.

HE LAUGHS

Ah, good morning. We were just talking about Churchill.

I assume it's a vain hope you'll come with me to the funeral?

God, all that xenophobic pomp? My stomach couldn't take it.

As you've no doubt you will have already observed, Alan,

my son's respect is reserved for malodorous dictators,

like Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh.

Pleasure meeting you, sir.

You, too, son.

Your mother ran into Mr Bradfield at the bank last week.

He tells me you're overdrawn again.

He's no right discussing it with you.

He's the manager and I am your guarantor. That gives him the right.

Blame it on the cost of living in London.

You did choose to forego your place at Balliol.

Spare me the dreaming spires litany again...

Balliol would have opened doors for you, just as it did for me.

Doors which you have voluntarily elected to slam closed.

Debts are like children,

begot in pleasure,

bought forth in pain.

Courtesy of my son, I seem to have a spare ticket.

It's a reserved seat at St Paul's, for family and friends,

if you're interested?

If you're sure, sir?

We could grab a bite at my club on the way.

And it's Edward.

-Morning.

-Morning.

KNOCK ON DOOR

DOOR OPENS

Posh car.

So what are you, an earl,

the right honourable someone?

My father and I, our disappointment in each other is mutual.

And terminal.

Join the club.

Best leave me to my own devices, Charlotte.

MUSIC: "Here I Go Again" by The Hollies

Daddy?

Someone's birthday?

House warming.

Hardly the best taste, today of all days.

Or that, either.

When did you start doing that?

Why are you here, Daddy?

I was up for the funeral, thought we might get something to eat.

Oh, is what's-her-name not available, then?

What?

The tart in the mini skirt I saw you kissing.

And don't insult me by telling me it was nothing. I know what I saw.

Tell me,

all the work trips over the years,

all the late nights at the office,

is she the first? Or the 21st?

It's not like that.

What is it like? She was my age, Daddy! Younger, even!

I'm human, Charlotte. I made a mistake.

Have some compassion, can't you?

Compassion?

Where was yours when you tried to talk me into moving back home,

so you could shag your way around bloody London?!

Whatever I've done, I'm still your father.

I deserve some damn respect!

Respect! There's a word!

We'll do this some other time.

Tell me, Daddy, what do you think?

Is it too short?

Too sluttish?

But I'm your daughter, aren't I?

Different rules apply.

From now on, I make my own rules.

MUSIC: "Hang On Sloopy" by The McCoys

Fun day?

Aye.

MUSIC: "For Your Love" by The Yardbirds

Happy pill?

Huge personal sacrifice, but since it's you...

MUSIC: "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks

Orla! Orla, please, let me in! Let me in, Orla!

Orla, open the door.

You can't tell anyone, Orla!

Please not a word, promise me.

It'll finish me if you do.

MOANING

Fuck.

PANTING

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck me.

What's the deal on that?

We'll never get equality in the boardroom

until we get it in the bedroom, will we?

You know how long I've waited to meet someone like you?

I mean, finally...

Finally, a girl who doesn't confuse a bit of uncomplicated sex

with the romantic crap about commitment and love.

I'd like a pound for every time

I've been sucked into that particular hell.

Bloody hell, I'm famished, aren't you?

INTERCOM BUZZES

Victor!

-Charlotte?

-She's at her folks tonight.

Doesn't it ever get to you, the way he goes with other girls?

Live dangerously, it's New Year's Eve!

ALL: Happy New Year!

It'll be all right, Orla.

We'll make it all right.

Show your abhorrence for American aggression in Vietnam!

Make a stand, for once.

CROWD: Ho Chi Minh! Ho Chi Minh!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd