"Look at me, right?" "And look at the Queen." "I was never a fan until it occurred to me how much me and Ma'am have in common." "Bringing up kiddies you can't remember the names of." "I know she's not a single parent but she might as well be." "Plus, the pair of us, we've stuck to our guns, her literally, sometimes, and flagshipped a dying breed." "Admired and despised equally, not for never lifting a finger." "No!" "For setting examples through extremity." "And whether you're a bigwig on her end or a bigwig on mine, you've still got all your dickheads in the middle to deal with, snip snip snipping at your benefits." "I mean, she can't not be looking at me and thinking," ""What's your secret, Frank?" I got shot of my kids yonks back, whereas she's yet to see the back of a single one." "Fine!" "I've had to get out of bed on occasion to make ends meet, whereas she... she's done the whole thing from a chair!" "Oh, a drink for the lady." "Oh sure, there's perks." "But look at her lot." "Brian May prancing about on her roof!" "Now, look at my lot." "We know how to throw a proper fucking paaaarty!" "'If you knew what other people thought of you, 'would you behave the same?" "'The way I see it, 'there's two versions of yourself." "'There's that you that everyone else sees, 'y'know, what they think of you." "'How they see you." "'Then there's that you that you 'see, what you really think about yourself.'" "It's all about the rights of people, the rights of men, the rights of women, not just about tarts under horses at the derby." "'And sometimes, 'those two versions, they're really different.'" "Twat!" "Dickhead!" "'But sometimes, they're the same." "'It's all right being exactly what people think you are if you're cool, 'like Rambo or the Terminator, 'but who'd want to be Billy Tutton?" "'No-one, that's who.'" ""No experience" ""required, make up to Ј1,000 per week and car included"!" "D'you really think I can do it?" "No!" "Fix it or I'll have your balls." "Right." "Go on, then." "Ask me one of them questions." "What's going on?" "William here's sick of being bone idle." "Since when?" "So William, what are your strengths and weaknesses?" "I've been knocked unconscious maybe seven or eight times, and I've got no permanent brain injury." "My weaknesses?" "Err..." "OK." "I'm not a very quick learner, but when I get it, I've got it." "And not even a crowbar to the skull will make me forget it." "What d'you think?" "I wouldn't build your hopes up." "Besides which, you've already got the most important job in the world, bringing up little Miss Poo-poo Pants." "Yay!" "Go to Daddy!" "That's more your style, lad." "Shit patrol." "What happened?" "I've got a strong personality." "Kids struggle with that." "Which kids?" "I can't help if you won't tell me." "You can't help anyway." "There's a case of lager if you can clear that before the council finds out what we've been dumping." "All right, two cases of lager." "So how would your colleagues describe you?" "What?" "Oh, right, erm... well, no-one really pays much attention to me." "But this sales job would change all that cos people respect you if you're good at summat." "What you doing?" "That's hanging, bro!" "Now smell it." "No!" "Go on, give him a kiss!" "No, man!" "Just imagine, people thinking I done all right, my wife looking at me, proud." "Little bastards!" "I want to be more than balls-deep in shit." "You peddling hummus?" "It's a private matter, Mimi, so." "When you going to spit it out or do I have to go and listen to me wire in Vernon's office?" "Thalia's having problems with other kids." "Well, tell her to punch them." "We're not fighting pitbulls!" "This is delicate, Mimi, and delicacy - no offence - isn't really your thing, is it?" "She was happy till we moved her here." "I failed her." "My son's been stoned for a year." "I know failure." "There's no reason to pick on her." "She's only been here a few months and it's not like she's fat or ugly." "We take bullying very seriously, extremely seriously." "It's just, we can't do very much about it." "So..." "I want something done, and if I have to go to the papers, to the" "Education Department..." "No!" "No, no, no, no, no!" "You misunderstand!" "Of course, we'll do everything we can." "There's Government grants for all this anti-bullying caper." "Mimi Tutton..." "Mimi Tutton?" "Bullying's right up her alley." "What d'you know about sales?" "I've sold things before." "Drugs, Billy, not security systems." "Drugs, house alarms." "Once you get to know your product, you know how to sell it." "I've got transferable skills!" "It's not like we need the money." "It's not about the money." "I'm supporting us both fine, aren't I?" "Yeah, but..." "You don't want for nothing." "There you go." "You all right, love?" "I've got a job interview at ten next door." "Today's your day!" "Everyone expects me to fuck up." "Try that thing where you imagine the interviewer sitting on the toilet with their pants down, like everybody else." "Wait!" "What if it's a woman and I get a stiffy?" "You're here cos you're all little shits." "You target the weak, the pitiful and that little bald weirdo with the alopecia." "Let me be clear." "I don't give two figs." "But you gave Thalia Blanco a proper shiner, and her mam's got a gob the size of Africa." "So who was it?" "Who was it?" "Thalia made fun of Jones." "That kid with the bowel disorder?" "And he spazzed out and punched her!" "Let me get this straight, Thalia Blanco bullied a vulnerable child?" "Aarghh!" "Fuck!" "Get out!" "And don't come back, you smack addict!" "Methadone, my balls!" "You all right, love?" "Interview not go well, then?" "Not your day either, is it?" "We need to remember bullying hurts everyone, not just the target, but the bully as well." "Schools have a duty of care to protect kids, and maybe that should mean excluding bullies." "Yeah, believe me, if it was that easy to get rid of them..." "This is serious." "Yes, of course it is." "If Thalia engaged in bullying, you'd support excluding her?" "100%." "Are you sure?" "Yes!" "Thalia's a bully." "What?" "The kids don't like her because she..." ""repeatedly engages in planned" ""and orchestrated attempts at character assassination"." "Oh dear!" "No, no!" "there must be a mistake." "She wouldn't... she couldn't..." "She did." "But..." "Esther, there's no need for denial any more." "We're not here to judge." "Three full English, table two please!" "Hey Billy?" "Yeah?" "You're doing fucking marvellous!" "I'm employed!" "Serious?" "Serious!" "I'm a cook in the cafe next door!" "You're a cook?" "Yeah." "Make 150 squid a week!" "In cash." "That's it?" "And you have to go every day?" "Yeah, but..." "You're earning peanuts for shovelling grease!" "Mimi'll proper respect you now!" "Oi!" "I look like a salesman, don't I?" "So?" "So who's to know any different?" "If I tell her I'm a salesman, I'm a salesman, aren't I?" "Ha ha!" "Boosh!" "Ha ha!" "Mr Hard Lock Security at your service!" "You're joking!" "They hired you in a recession?" "With no skills, no experience, no training, you got a job?" "I blew the fucking roof off, babe!" "Boosh!" "I'm Billy Tutton... ..and I'm a cook." "What are you doing out here on your own, love?" "Frank nicked me keys." "What's that?" "Oh, it's broken." "It's stuck on this channel." "It's foreign." "Aerobics channel." "You haven't been impersonating some poor girl as The Minger from Notre Dame?" "But she is a minger." "Wait, I've got a picture." "OK, she's not very pretty, but that's not the point!" "Thalia, you shouldn't make fun of people!" " You do." " I do not!" "Yes, you do!" "Come anywhere near me with that knob and I'll rag it off you and I'll ram it up yer arse!" "Oh Derrilee, Sherrilee, Sherrilee..." "Anybody seen me bloody glasses?" "Ah, well, yes but... it was wrong." "If someone's ugly, don't point it out." "Just say how nice her dress is instead." "What if her dress is minging, too?" "Just say it's pretty anyway!" "It's the teeniest lie." "The truth's the truth, isn't it?" "There you go." "What, really?" "I can have 'em?" "Three days after the sell-by date, but if you cook 'em well..." "You all right, love?" "It's nothing, just... ..thanks." "Six across." "The Egyptian President, died 1970?" "Sheik Kebab." "How d'you spell it?" "Any way you want, love." "Nobody can know everything." "Aarghh!" "Nits, Lillian!" "Bloody nits!" "See, what you've got to make clear to the client is you're not selling security." "You're selling peace of mind." "And can you put a price on that?" "But you're not selling security." "You're flipping eggs." "This job has changed my life." "Maybe I should buy cufflinks." "D'you have a shirt that needs cufflinks?" "No, but just the thought of buying 'em makes me feel proud, like I'm a man who needs cufflinks." "But you don't need 'em!" "You don't have a shirt cos you don't have the job!" "Yeah, but nobody knows that, do they?" "I made it, all right?" "Billy Tutton has finally become a man." "So talk me through how you do it." "Sell me security." "Once you've got 'em sold on cameras, you can flog 'em dead bolts, window guards." "Give the windows a shake and look grave." "Shitting themselves is exactly where you want 'em." "I get 'em shitting their pants," "I shake the windows and then look grave." "You look fitter than James Bond in that suit." "Lucky me, eh?" "I've got me very own Hard Cock consultant." "I had started believing, y'know, that I might actually be nothing." "A nobody." "Having a job doesn't make you somebody." "You do that." "Well, how am I somebody?" "Well, you've got a heart the size of a horse, you pillock." "You mean... it wouldn't matter if I didn't have the job, the suit, just me'd be enough?" "I loved you penniless in trainers, didn't I?" "Nice having the new car, though, eh?" "Oh, yeah." "Yeah, the car..." "What you playing at?" "A car?" "Well, how am I supposed to make my sales without wheels?" "Billy, you're not a fucking salesman!" "That's why I'm only renting it." "It's just a midrange hatchback, nothing flash." "How much?" "200 quid a week." "You only make 150!" "What's the point in being a hotshot salesman if I'm not flush with cash?" "But you're not flush with cash!" "I know that, Einstein!" "I've got to project an image of success, han't I?" "Can I come in?" "Oh, sorry, pet, but kids are full of filth." "And I can't have that in my brothel." "Sorry." "Your best champagne." "Not got any." "Lager then." "He's got a car now." "I'm wet with excitement." "I'll have a lager and a double vodka chaser on Billy, seeing as you're flush with cash." "Drinks on Billy!" "Nice to see a Chatsworth lad making something of himself, not like the rest of you inbred, lazy fucks." "What you doing?" "For the drinks." "You're fucked now, Billyboy." "You're going to have to rob a bank to keep this up." "'Have to rob a bank to keep this up.'" "'Have to rob a bank to keep this up.'" "Really, though?" "Well, where else are you going to get it from?" "You don't use your keys, you dick." "Well, how else are we going to get in?" "Like that." "Stop messing about!" "Start acting like a burglar!" "What you doing?" "!" "Burglars don't respect property, do they?" "My aunt Harriet gave us that for our wedding!" "Well, seeing as the burglar don't know your Aunt Harriet, he wouldn't give a fuck, would he?" "Me keeping it real's well going to save our arse!" "Right, right, right!" "Make it look real, just hurry the fuck up about it!" "Maybe I should just shit on the bed?" "No!" "Well, piss in the sink?" "Making it real means cash, jewellery, things people would steal." "What you doing?" "I said no pissing!" "You said not in the sink." "This is just the hallway." ""Lie," she says!" "What happened?" "I did just as you said!" "I said be nice to people." "How were you nice?" "I told Stuart that Bec probably liked him cos he likes her." "He were well happy." "What's wrong with that?" "Bec kicked him in the balls when he tried to kiss her." "So she doesn't like him?" "Course not!" "He's a skidmark!" "But how d'you think Stuart now feels?" "This is how he feels!" "You are a terrible mother." "Almost two grand." "I'm laughing." "Right, what we're going to do is keep the gear here till it's safe to move and..." "You'll have to find somewhere else to put all this shit." "You'd have to be a fucking idiot to want any of it." "Can you not go any faster?" "My legs are shorter than yours." "Just make yours go quicker!" "Fuck off!" "You all right?" "You all right?" "You all right?" "I heard you need a new TV." "No." "Cos yours is stuck on foreign aerobics?" "Just take it!" "Early Christmas!" "Since I got you a new TV, maybe we could be friends?" "Come on." "It's OK." "No, Billy, it's not OK." "I had no idea that locket meant so much to you." "It's the only thing me mam ever gave to me, the only good memory of her that I've got." "When I find the fucker who did this..." "It's in the past now, babe." "Just forget it." "I'll never forget this, Billy." "Someone has taken a massive dump on our lives." "It was just a little piss." "I got the Febreze straight on it." "When I find the fucker who's done this," "I'll rip him apart, limb from fucking limb." "How did they know where the money was?" "Tonight's about emptying your mind of worries." "Turn this shite off." "It's more irritating than a bloody yeast infection." "It's someone who knows us." "Who knows we wouldn't be home, knows we've got cash." "I bet it's one of those bastards from the Jockey." "Can't we just pretend like none of this happened?" "Probably bought the fucker a drink." "Well, drink up, sunshine." "Because you'll be lucky to shit through a straw when my boys are finished with ya." "Just forget it now." "You'll never find them." "We'll find them." "If we have to rough up every scroat from here to China." "We'll find them." "They know!" "Who knows?" "Jamie and Shane - we're fucked!" "If they knew, Mimi'd know, and we'd already be dead." "If I could just give her back the locket." "Oh, yeah, sign your own death warrant?" "Say I found it in the house somewhere." "The burglars dropped it on their way out." "So now we're not just burglars, we're shit burglars?" "Sound!" "Where is it?" "Maybe you did drop it, you useless dick." "Don't call me useless!" "Anyway, you call this secure?" "I'm not the cunt who works in security, am I?" "Just dump the lot somewhere no-one'll ever find it." "Dump it?" "So I take all the risk hiding the stuff, and now I'm supposed to walk away with nothing?" "What do you want?" "A grand." "Fuck off!" "That's my wife's money!" "Which we stole 50/50." "That's not even a hundred quid!" "Please, just get rid of it or we're dead." "But it has to be someone from round here." "Or how'd they know to target our house?" "We've tried all the usual suspects." "Nothing." "Salmonella Sam's screwing some bird that's not his wife, but he definitely didn't rob ya, and he doesn't know who did." "Steal the biscuits as well, did they?" "It's probably just kids." "How do you reckon that?" "It's hardly some mastermind criminal, is it?" "What sort of fucking idiot steals a toaster?" "It's the place mats that get me!" "Might have been a fucking idiot but looks like he's got away with it, and right under your noses." "What?" "I'm just saying." "I've tried every pawn shop in Manchester." "No-one's tried to shift the gear." "No-one's used the money to pay off any debts or buy anything flash." "Maybe we should just move on now, eh, babe?" "Put it behind us." "Not till I feel safe again in me own home." "Get Hard Lock round, I want the works." "Hard Lock?" "Security so tight even a fart can't slip out." "You've done your best but my social alienation is bigger than both of us." "We need to talk solutions." "Home school." "No, Thalia." "Just until I'm 18 and then I'll move to Israel, where I'll be safe." "Home school kids are friendless freaks." "I am a friendless freak!" "Why do you think they call me "Saddo Saddo No Friends Blanco?"" "You are a great kid and you will make friends, I promise." "Even the bald kid has more status." "You do impressions of people and make friends, but when I do it, they hate me." "But I don't do it to their faces." "So I don't hurt their feelings." "So that make's it all right?" "No!" "That's not what I meant." "I'm honest and upfront and you sneak around being cruel to people behind their backs." "You know what..." "You're right." "Maybe we both need to say sorry." "What can I get you?" "I'm here to say I'm sorry." "What for?" "I do this impression of you behind your back." "I'm not proud of myself and I want to apologise." "Impression?" "The point is, I'm sorry and it won't happen again." "Wait a minute." "What?" "Show me." "Show you?" "No, I'm not doing that." "Come on." "I can take a joke, can't I?" "What can I get you?" "Fuck's sake, Karen, I can take a joke, can't I?" "And then you do your nostril thing." "See!" "You're doing it right now!" "Yeah." "Good one." "People want to forgive, Thalia." "They just need to know you're sorry." "I started in the biz doing impressions." "Go on, then, let's see what you can do!" "Voice of an angel, me." "Beyonce can rim me!" "As I said, I'm very sorry." "They can't refuse a mosque cos little fat skinheads march from one dole office to another, the bald little twats." "That went well." "Can I come in?" "No, pet." "Oh, you shouldn't have, sweetheart." "Thank you." "Now can we be friends?" "You need friends your age or you'll end up a weirdo." "And believe me, I know." "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" "Aghh!" "Fuck!" "So how much did all this cost?" "Two cameras, hard locks for the front and back door, and this." "Er, about 800 quid." "Isn't that your car?" "What?" "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Billy." "Where you going, bro?" "!" "You should've kept up the payments." "That's my car, you dick!" "Aghh!" "That your car?" "Yeah, it's just going in for a checkup." "Oh." "Surprise!" "Welcome to your newly-secured home." "Got the Hard Lock crew in today." "If it weren't for Billy, I'd have gone mad." "Nah, I haven't done much really." "You've been a bloody rock, staying calm, fixing up the house safe." "I'd have pummelled the first scally I thought looked at me funny." "Could be somebody we know." "Maybe even someone here." " What can I get you, darlin'?" " Vodka and coke, please." "Where d'you get that?" "What?" "That's me ma's locket!" "What?" "What you on about?" "Get off me!" "Where d'you get it?" "!" "No lies or I'll have your twat on a barbeque." "Where d'you get it?" "What d'you know about this?" "My locket?" "No!" "My locket!" "Is she giving 'em to everyone?" "I thought I was special." "That's my TV!" "Who gave it to you?" "You can't be angry with her." "She didn't mean..." " Who?" " Stella." "A six-year-old didn't smash my front door open." "Or carry that." " Where d'you think you're going?" " I didn't do anything!" "Ey?" "Then why the fuck are you scarpering then, eh?" "You stole from me?" "From your friend?" "Billy?" "That's the lowest, most despicable..." "Break his arm." "Billy made me!" "Why would me own husband steal from me?" "Tell him, Billy." "He's insulted you, he's insulted me." "Tell him." "You wouldn't, I know you wouldn't." "Babe, babe." "Babe, just stop!" "Why?" "Cos..." "Like, when you think of the great men in history." "like Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Roy Keane." "What the fuck you on about?" "They stood for something!" "They did... things." "That's why I became a salesman." "Well, a cook." "Is anything you've told me true?" "I love you." "I believed in you, Billy, you fucking idiot!" "I know, babe, I'm sorry." "Even though I knew I shouldn't." "You, a salesman?" "You?" "I just wanted to show you, the way you looked at me when you thought..." "It felt good, like, I might be a man." "Anytime you wanna be a man, Billy, you know what you have to do?" "Don't play at it." "Just be one." "If it isn't the littlest Supreme!" "This an encore performance?" "What do you know about living with bipolar?" "And then I guess, Dad went inside, she just lost the plot, you know?" "And then that's when she went off her meds and the drinking really started." "I think when she started sleeping with Frank for comfort." "Oh!" "Allah be merciful." "Yeah." "Rock bottom." "But she'd never ever have done it if she hadn't been completely off her tree, so can you forgive her?" "So you got my things back?" "Most of 'em." "Can't even fucking do that right." "Didn't have to bother with the juicer - it never worked." "It does now." "I fixed it." "I'm going to pay the rest back in instalments." "I think we should..." "live apart for a while." "I need...space." "This is the life, innit?" "A night in with the lads - a few beers, a few laughs." "I bet she expects me to come crawling back." "You know, slither in on my belly, beg her for forgiveness." "Never apologise, never explain - words to live by." "Well, I tried to explain, but she wouldn't listen." "So try again - women love persistence." "Calling your right hand Sue doesn't make you an expert on feminine nature." "I'm a master of my own destiny at last, answering to no-one." "This is my opportunity to grow." "Wonderful!" "Now fuck off and grow somewhere quietly, I've got company." "Ah!" "We meet again, my Pussy Galores." "Ready to shake and stir your cocktini!" "It's none of my business, but are you OK?" "It's none of your business." "You don't ever hear a woman say that, do you?" ""I fucked up but it's all your fault cos I didn't feel woman enough."" "Bollocks!" "What use is "sorry" anyway?" "Nothing ever gets wiped clean." "Then they disappear before you can leave 'em first." "Am I meant to apologise for being a strong woman?" "Well, he can shove his sorrys up his good-for-nothing arse." "Fuck him!" "Fuck him." "Fuck him!" "On the house." "Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of." "It's...not?" "Thalia, don't be angry with her." "The way she's holding up, she's a little trouper." "She's told us what you've been through." "We are all 100% behind you." "I'll get a drink." "If you've got a psychiatric disorder, people are falling over themselves being understanding!" "But did you have to say I was bipolar?" "You can't always lie your way out of trouble, you know." "I know, but they felt so sorry for you." "And you should have seen their faces when I said you were shagging Frank." "What?" "Billy said I should return..." "Actually, it was more my idea but..." "Celery and kiwi." "I've got into juicing." "I'm sorry about...you know." "The piss in the hallway was only meant for it to be realistic." "There was no...bad feelings behind it." "I'm completely on your side, you're better off without that dumb prick." "I told Billy from the beginning," ""Mimi's not going to be impressed by sales."" "So the only reason he went for that job was to try and impress me?" "And then the thick twat got himself in deeper by renting a car." "Of course he couldn't afford it on his cook's salary." "He really is a cook?" "So the only solution he's got is to rob from his own house." "Table number six says compliments to the chef." "It was only beans on toast." "Well, how did you do the beans?" "In the microwave." "Must've been the way you spooned 'em." "Yes, darling...coffee?" "You look cute as a chef." "I like it better than the suit." "If you'll let me explain..." "I know I'm just a cook, but I'm good at it." "It means a lot to me, to be good at something, and if you just listened..." "Billy, shut up." "Do you know why I need you?" "Because you're the only thing in my life that makes me feel like a woman." "Not a mum or an old carcass to be tossed on the scrap heap." "You make me feel beautiful." "You don't ever have to lie to me." "Cos when I look at you, I don't see nothing." "I see the person who saved me and keeps saving me." "That doesn't mean that what you did wasn't stupid, but you don't see many men putting in that kind of effort to impress their woman, do you?" "You know what this is?" "What?" "This is what it feels like when you've made it." "Lucia, this is my wife." "Hey!" "Hiya." "Nice to meet you." "I've heard a lot about you." "The guys, Jeff, Tom..." "'Growing up?" "I guess it's about making your own way." "'Knowing what you've got and what you need.'" "Ahem!" "'Saying you're wrong 'when you'd rather say nothing at all." "'Or maybe the secret to growing up 'is knowing when it's OK to let someone else look after you." "'Those two versions of yourself - 'who you are and who you'd like to be." "'I guess you're a success when they come a little closer together." "'When you can look at yourself and say," "'"I know who I am and it's OK."" "'"I'm OK."'" " It's your big chance, kid." " Her days of karaoke might be over." " Louis!" " Pat!" " So you stole the money?" " Yeah, I stole it." "Fuck are you playing at?" "!" " You're barred." " What?" "I want you to kidnap my daughter." "We should never have taken it." "This is all you fucking care about!" "Don't!" "Oh!" "Also a funny story..." "Fucking pervert!" "Billy's really matured now, you know."