As this instalment opens with a long, slow pan of rolling hills and peaks, for a moment I think I'm watching an episode of Jimmy McGovern's brilliant series The Lakes. My wishful dream is broken, though, by the strains of Pulp's Common People coming from the stereo of Stuart's Jeep, as he and Vince playfully fight over a crumpled map while turning the Jeep around, having taken a wrong turn. Watching the scene unfold with me is an old man, standing in the road with a dog and a walking stick, wearing a frown similar to mine as he observes the two men. As he drives the Jeep past him, Stuart blows the old man a kiss; the old guy's frown holds for two beats, and then melts into a smile -- unlike mine.
The Jeep finally pulls up to a church and its attached cemetery -- where Phil's funeral is to be held -- and Stuart is such a crappy, negligent parker that I find myself feeling quite irrationally annoyed. I know it's only a TV show, but parking three feet from the curb on a diagonal is a really bad example to set for a whole generation of kids who are watching this show and growing up to think that that sort of thing is okay and natural and normal. Well, it is normal -- judging by the shitty parking jobs I see all around me -- but it's definitely not okay. Anyway. Stuart and Vince get out of the car, and Stuart takes his shirt off; yes, this is outside the church (I'm just pretending here that you're surprised -- play along, okay?). Then, Vince starts complaining about how he didn't really know Phil that well, and doesn't want to do the reading. "I've only been to his house twice. And who plans their own funeral?" he asks. "It's mad!" Changing into a proper shirt, tie and jacket, Stuart looks at him pointedly. "You've done it," he reminds Vince. "Like I said, it's mad!" Vince repeats. Um, okay, hands up if you think that Vince's funeral will feature a prominent Doctor Who theme. Anyway, Stuart's making it all about him again, so let's get back to it. "That's three," he says. "Three what?" asks Vince. "Three men I've shagged that have died," Stuart answers. "Not a bad ratio, all things considered." As Vince reels from the shock (and the audience doesn't), Hazel and Bernard pull up beside the Jeep, Alexander standing up through the sunroof. "Where's the do?" he asks in typical Alexander fashion.
As they make their way into the church, Stuart is on the phone with Sandra, his secretary, telling her that he can't write any ad copy at the moment, as he's at a funeral. Sandra, knowing not to trust Stuart any further than you can throw his ego, doesn't believe him. "Listen, organ music," he says, holding up his cell phone so that she can hear. Just then, some cheesy 70's era dance music (which I couldn't identify; I'll leave it to someone who was born back then to figure it out) blares from a stereo, and Stuart tells Sandra, "Of course it's not a party. I can't help it if he was cheap, can I?" He and Vince then seat themselves in a pew directly behind a rather delicious-looking boy with olive skin and dark hair. Rowr. Stuart, who doesn't require an invitation, has already begun to size him up. Not getting too wrapped-up in other people's problems, he still manages to think of himself in this time of need. "I'm getting buried," he tells Vince. "People cry more at burials. I want them sobbing their guts out."
Vince, preoccupied with Stuart's earlier revelation, asks him, "So when did you have Phil, then?" He's trying really hard to be nonchalant about it, which only makes his interest and jealousy more obvious. Stuart tells him it was May 1, Election Night. Vince says that he didn't think Phil was Stuart's type. "He wasn't, was he? He was half lard," replies Stuart, obviously not hampered by the custom to not speak ill of the dead, especially if the body's still warm and you're actually sitting amongst the dead's family and friends at their funeral. "I was having that boy...What's his name...?" Stuart pauses the stories of his sexual exploits out of respect for the fact that the pallbearers are now carrying his friend's casket past them. I totally take back what I said about him not having any manners. "Winston," he tells Vince, having remembered this detail after the coffin has passed. Stuart says that everyone else in the room, all six of them, just started joining in, when Phil threw himself on top of the heap. "Phil never said," Vince says. "I thought he hated you." Stuart snorts, "Well, he was all over me." He tells Vince that, while Phil was trying to snog him, he was crying out, "Get off! Get off!" and that someone called Big Bob was in on the act, too. "You've had Big Bob?" Vince asks him incredulously. "If that's what he calls big," Stuart says, leaning forward for the cute boy's benefit, "I'm the fucking...Colossus." The boy, who's turned his head to hear this bit, looks toward the front of the church as the service begins. Both he and Stuart wear slight smiles. "Is there anyone you haven't had?" Vince asks, and I fall over in shock that he even needs to ask.
Nathan, meanwhile, is sitting in class, staring at Christian Hobbs and sketching the boy with serious concentration on Christian's bum. Donna, sitting in the desk to Nathan, looks over at him and sees what he's drawing. Her eyes grow wide, but she just looks to the lecturing teacher at the front of the class and ignores Nathan's furious ass-sketching. Hah, I used to do that when the girl sitting to me in freshman English would spend the whole period writing sex notes to her boyfriend, except I think she drooled a little less than Nathan currently is.
Back at the funeral, the vicar calls Vince up to give the reading. At the altar, a very nervous, uneasy-looking Vince tells the congregation how Phil had discovered a bruise on his leg the year before, and had started freaking out that he was dying; that's when he planned his whole funeral. They all titter in the right place -- when Vince reveals that Phil had merely banged his leg on a stepladder -- and listen intently as he gives the reading: "D-I-S-C-O. I say, D-I-S-C-O. She is D, delirious. She is I, incredible. She is S, superficial. She is C, crazy, crazy. O -- oh, oh." Is that funny? It must be, because the people at the funeral sure are yukking it up. I, it must be said, cannot muster the will. It wasn't funny.
At Phil's mother's house, after the funeral, Alexander is telling an assembled audience that he was with Phil on the night he died. "Not with him, with him," he clarifies, then worries that if he had been with Phil, he too would be dead. "I have to say, I think I'd get more of a crowd," he says as he minces off. Stuart and Vince are in another room eating crudités when they're approached by a clean-cut, older (than them) man who speaks with a slight Australian accent and introduces himself as Cameron, Phil's accountant. He tells them that Phil spoke of them all the time, and Vince responds that they were just pub friends, and only went out drinking together. "What do you do with your real friends?" Cameron asks. "Go out drinking," answers Stuart, en route to a tête-à-tête with the cute boy from the church, whom he's just spotted across the room. Cameron watches Stuart walk away, then says to Vince that Phil used to go on and on about Vince. "I'm Vince," he informs Cameron. "Oh. It's just that Phil said -- everybody said -- that Stuart was the better looking one." Vince looks taken aback, and I wonder what kind of planning it takes to come up with a line as obviously rehearsed at that one.
At school, Christian Hobbs is sweeping the locker room floor when Nathan appears in the doorway and offers to "give [him] a hand." Foreshadowing has apparently cashed in all the air miles it earned jetting between the New York and L.A. productions of every American television show on the air, and has chosen to use them on a trip to Manchester. Why, I do not know.
Phil's mother is telling his friends that she'll be going back to his house to sort through Phil's things, eventually putting the house on the market. Stuart's cell phone rings and he -- for once -- is courteous enough to turn it off. Hazel looks at him approvingly, her smile disappearing when Mrs. Delaney says to her that she, too, must have said goodbye to many dreams she had for her son when he told her he was gay. "No weddings, no grandchildren," she laments, adding that she still never planned her own son's funeral. Hazel -- and everybody else -- looks very uncomfortable. But Stuart, not one to wallow in his overwhelming grief, is immediately on the phone to Sandra, dictating the copy for an ad. Let's just say that it has something to do with not planning your own child's funeral. Sandra dutifully types the copy up in Word as Stuart pulls a set of keys from a bowl on the table in the hallway. Finally twigging that he is, indeed, at a funeral, Sandra calls him a bastard and slams the phone down. Stuart crumples into a little ball and sobs. Which part of that do you think I made up? Anyway, Vince goes into the kitchen and tries to reassure Mrs. Delaney that Phil wasn't a drug user, and that the night he died was a complete one-off. She tells him that she "know[s] [her] own son," and asks him if she saw who Phil was with that night. Vince says that there was a big group of them, and that he really couldn't say. Mrs. Delaney wonders aloud if Phil would have suffered the same fate if he'd been with a woman, and Vince says that it has nothing to do with being gay. Mrs. Delaney asks him if he thinks Phil would have found himself at thirty-five, taking heroin with a "casual fuck" if he had been straight. "He could do," Vince answers, rather unconvincingly. "What would I know?" Mrs. Delaney asks, thanking Vince and leaving the room, saying that she has people to see. Vince looks absolutely shattered.
Back in the locker room, Nathan and Christian Hobbs are sitting on a bench in front of a row of lockers, shooting the shit about women and sex, and the lack thereof in their lives. Christian closes his eyes and leans back, clasping a hand over his crotch. Nathan -- either taking some kind of hint that I couldn't see or taking a huge risk which I did actually spot -- puts out his cigarette and reaches out for Christian's zipper. He undoes it with one hand and proceeds to -- quite expertly, it would appear -- give Christian a hand job. And I, uh, had to hit rewind about twelve times just to make sure I got the sequence down right, if anyone asks.
Still at Phil's mother's house, Stuart is standing on the stairs, chatting up the cute boy. Vince, clearly very fed up after his chat with Mrs. Delaney, finds him and asks if they can go. "Later," Stuart says, turning his attention back to his prey. Vince sighs heavily and stomps down the stairs, obviously annoyed. Stuart, for one shocking moment putting someone else's wants and needs in front of his own want and need for cheap sex, tells the cute boy that they'll continue their conversation some other time and gives him his card.
We then get a rather amusing shot of Christian Hobbs tearing out of the locker room, completely flustered and tucking his shirt into his trousers, quickly followed by a very pleased, grinning Nathan. He makes a beeline for Donna and tells her what he's just done. "No!" she exclaims in disbelief, something she's gotten quite used to doing, I'd imagine. Later, as the two of them skip across the schoolyard, Donna tells Nathan that he's like Mozart, doing everything young. "And I've only just started," Nathan replies confidently. "Sick of you!" Donna shoots back, and the audience responds with a chorus of "Hallelujah!" -- though I'm pretty sure Donna said it in a much more playful tone than the rest of us would have. All of a sudden, Christian Hobbs and some other boys run by, chasing a younger, pudgier kid. They back him into a corner underneath a staircase as Donna and Nathan look on; Christian turns to face Nathan, then calls the little kid a queer and pummels his face with his fist. Okay, so, did Queer as Folk nick the repressed-homosexual-as-gay-basher thing from American Beauty, or vice versa? Answers on a postcard to the forums, please.
Once in the Jeep, Vince tells Stuart that he just wants to go home, but Stuart says that they've got things to do. Using the key that Stuart lifted from the bowl in the hallway, they go to Phil's house to get all of his porn out of the way, so that his mother doesn't have to see it. "I didn't think you cared about your shags," Vince says, betraying his attempted casual demeanour over the whole Stuart-fucking-Phil thing. Stuart momentarily ignores his comment, telling him to take care of the videos and he'll do the rest. He says to Vince that he's going to get a spare key for his flat made, so that if anything happens to him Vince can come in and clean out all of the pornography. "Come and save me, Vince," Stuart implores. Are we supposed to read something into that? Because I totally did not lose consciousness from the force with which that was beaten over my head. Oh, wait, yes I did. Vince replies that he'll make a key, too, and give it to Stuart. "Like anything's gonna happen to you," Stuart scoffs, laughing off the suggestion. "I told you," he says, sitting down and booting up Phil's computer, "He was a crap shag -- came in two seconds flat." See how he acted like a jerk for the entire day and then assuaged Vince's fears right before he reached the breaking point? That's just the kind of guy Stuart is.
Over at Chez Maloney, Nathan is sitting in his room, drawing in the notebook with 'STUART' written in big, red block letters and little sketches of Stuart's face all over the pages, listening to Placebo (You Don't Care About Us -- oh, the drama). His mother, Janice, knocks on the door, but Nathan doesn't hear her, so she turns down the stereo, prompting Nathan to whip around so violently that the resulting wind throws his mother against the door, while he not-very-smoothly attempts to conceal the contents of his notebook. Janice tells him that she's going to the cash-and-carry and wondered if he'd like to come along. "Like, I'd rather die," Nathan replies, the requisite amount of teen angst and fury in his voice. Say it with me again, now, people: "Oh, the drama." But when Janice offers to let him drive, he beats a fast path to the car. His mother tells him that if they get stopped by the police, he should just say that she's a diabetic and he's taking her home. As Nathan drives, his mother starts babbling on about her first car, and her first boyfriend, failing miserably at making a dovetailing segue into the subject of Nathan's sexuality. Speaking of the boyfriend, she says, "He works at the Midland nowNathandoyouhaveaboyfriend?" Just like that, all rapidomente and shit. Nathan says he doesn't, and is clearly angry that the subject has been broached. Janice tells him that she doesn't mind if he does have a boyfriend, and that she's only worried because he's fifteen and she has no idea where he is at night, since he's not at home and he's not at Donna's, and she has no idea what he's doing. "I'm not doing anything!" Nathan shouts. "It's not about being gay," Janice says, telling him that she really doesn't mind. "I'm not!" he yells. "So who's Stuart?" she asks him. Nathan, being the thoughtless, selfish little prick that he is -- hey, he's learned from the best, no? -- gets out of the driver's seat while the car is still in gear and takes off running down the road. See, Stuart's pretty bad, but he hasn't tried to kill someone in an automobile accident…yet. Nathan flees to Donna's house, where she leans out of a second story window and tells him his life is like a novel. She advises him to tell his mother all about Stuart, because she obviously already knows he exists, and that he really doesn't have any other choice. "I can do what I want," Nathan shouts, backing down the sidewalk. "I'm Mozart! I'm fucking Mozart!" Yes, Nathan, and I'm fucking Mrs. Walter Mitty, but we all have to get over ourselves sometime.
As Vince pores over Phil's collection of porn videos, Stuart comes downstairs with a huge pile of magazines and tells Vince soberly that he found dirty pictures of children. "Some of them are babies. It's disgusting," Stuart says, spitting out the words. "Ha ha," Vince replies, and Stuart collapses with laughter. Because paedophilia jokes are a hoot. But anyway, Stuart gets all serious and tells Vince that there is something he needs to say to him, and that he shouldn't take it the wrong way. Phil, he says, had about three dozen photographs of Vince all over his room. Vince has a look of half-disbelief, half-flattery on his face, and finally says, "He hasn't." Stuart holds his straight face for a moment and then breaks into a smile. "Of course he bloody hasn't, you twat!" Vince is visibly irritated, and tells Stuart to piss off. "As a matter of fact, I'm dead good-looking. I was told," he says, referring to Cameron's lame-ass line from earlier in the day. Stuart puts his hand on Vince's shoulder and says quietly, "Well, you are." Vince, looking startled, is silent for a while before responding. "Oh." Stuart gets up and suggests they get going, walking down the hall as Vince looks after him, still bewildered. Later, entering Romey and Lisa's house, Stuart hands Romey a video. "Presents from Phil. There you go, Power Tool One -- see what you're missing." In the front room, Stuart holds baby Alfred and sticks his pinkie finger in the baby's mouth to calm him. "It was great," he says of the funeral. "Good buffet." Romey hands him a cup of tea and tells him that he's allowed to be sad. "I won't tell anyone," she whispers conspiratorially. Stuart, whose favourite song actually is De La Soul's Me, Myself and I, launches into a diatribe against Phil for being a "bastard" and dying, as Stuart doesn't need reminding that he's seventeen weeks away from his thirtieth birthday. "I'm dying in front of everyone," he says. Oh, Stuart, how do you know my most naughty fantasies? "How old was that student you had on Monday?" Romey asks him. Stuart tells her that he was twenty-one. "You're as young as who you feel," Romey says with a grin. Vince, slumped in a chair and looking miserable, laments his Monday night experience. "What happened to me? Fighting off that bloke with the leg. Another shit night. We're getting older and there's nothing to stop us, so we don't. We never bloody stop," he says, disgusted with himself and with Stuart, who says that he plans to be walking down Canal Street when he's sixty, knocking back Viagra. "I'll be there, chasing after you," Vince tells him. Yes, I think I will put my money on that one, guv. "Pathetic," he says disdainfully. "I think it's brilliant," Stuart shoots back. "I wanna die shagging." Vince winces. "Yeah, Phil did that."
Nathan, scouring the pubs and bars of Canal Street in search of its patron sinner, spots Donna and his mother looking for him frantically. He bolts and runs as fast as his little legs can carry him to Babylon. The bloke at the desk tells him that they don't open till 10PM, and Nathan says that he just wants to renew his membership. When the guy scans his card -- which is actually Bernard's -- Nathan reaches over and turns the computer monitor so that he can read Bernard's address, then legs it out of the club. Hazel and Bernard pull up to the house, just getting home from Phil's funeral, and Nathan is already sitting on the stoop. "Aye, aye, Bernard -- one of yours," Hazel chides. Vince, putting Alfred into the back of the Jeep, answers a call on his cell phone. "Who did? He's done WHAT?" he roars, shooting a scornful look at Stuart. "What?" Stuart asks innocently. They drive to Hazel's, where Vince gets out of the Jeep and stares hatefully at Stuart, who remains seated, staring into space. Vince picks up the baby carrier and Stuart finally follows him into the house. "How the FUCK did she know my name?!" he demands of Nathan, who blames Donna. "Nathan, you have made a big mistake," Stuart says quite seriously. "You've actually imagined that I give a shit." Hee! Nathan getting yelled at = good, even if it is by someone who's equally deserving of a telling-off. I'll take what I can get, here. Anyway, Vince is sitting in a chair, holding Alfred and looking very pissed off. Stuart tells Nathan to go back to his "schoolboy life" and leave everyone else alone. Nathan looks to Hazel and Bernard and tells them that he can't go home because his mum told his dad that he's gay, and was furious. "He called me 'poof' and threw me out! He'll hit me if I go back!" Bernard says that no, his dad won't hit him, because he (Bernard) will take it upon himself to sort him out, and report him to the police if necessary. He asks Nathan where he lives, and Nathan refuses to tell him. "What's his surname?" Bernard asks Hazel. "Maloney," answers Vince. "Right, I'll call every Maloney in the book till I find him," Bernard threatens. Nathan, not being the most seasoned liar, cries out, "It wasn't me dad! It was these boys. It was these boys at school, they said they'd kill me. I can't go back or they'll kill me!" Join with me in the all-too-familiar refrain: "Oh, the drama." Vince laughs derisively and remarks, "You can't believe a word he says." Nathan asks Stuart if he can stay with him. Wow, I totally expected Stuart to welcome him with open arms, didn't you? Needless to say, he tells Nathan that no, he can't stay with him. Nathan responds by threatening to run away to London. "I don't care, I'll be a rentboy and I'll be murdered!" he shouts. Hazel laughs
and says, "You know you're getting older when the drama queens start looking younger." Indeed. Nathan appeals to her to let him spend the night, just for one night. "He's stupid enough," Vince comments. "He could run off." Bernard glances at Hazel and says, "Christ, does that mean I'm sleeping with you?" Hazel looks at him and makes a face like Mick Jagger kissing the air. It's cute. Hazel rules. Nevertheless, she does let Nathan stay, and he goes up to Vince's old room and starts looking around. Downstairs, Stuart tells Hazel to "pack him off home." Vince looks at him evenly and says, in a voice that's suddenly and scarily gone down about eight octaves, "You do it. It's your problem." I have to say, I'm really proud of Vince for finally getting on Stuart's case in a thoroughly non-joking manner. All we have to do is eliminate his little Dalek jones and he'll be well on his way to non-lamity. Stuart gives his standard response: "Fuck off, Vince." He gets up and walks towards the stairs, saying that he's going for a piss. Hazel is determined to get an address and phone number out of Nathan, and Bernard tells her that the problem is not gay, not homosexual -- it's cock. "You're fifteen, and your mother knows you like cock." He pauses to take a drag on his ciggie. "Fair dues -- it is revolting."
Upstairs, Nathan is looking at all of the photos of Vince and Stuart that are tacked up on the corkboard when Stuart appears in the doorway. Nathan looks terrified to see him, and nervously asks if that's him in all the pictures. Stuart stays silent and slowly walks over to where Nathan is standing. "How old were you there?" Nathan asks, pointing to a photo. "Young," Stuart replies. Then he grabs Nathan and gives him a passionate snog, undoes his trousers and proceeds to strong-arm one of the most violent, painful-looking handjobs I've ever…well, not been on the receiving end of, I guess. Not having a penis, I don't know if it hurt, but it looked like it did, though I'm pretty sure those were cries of ecstasy that Stuart had to muffle with his hand over Nathan's mouth. Stuart then pushes Nathan to the floor and -- there's no pretty way to say this -- administers a forceful face-fuck (say that five times fast). Sixteen seconds later, he and Nathan smile at each other and Stuart walks to the loo and flushes the toilet for effect, returning to the conversation downstairs. Nathan follows him after a few moments, sans shirt. Stuart stares at his bare torso, and Vince catches him, starting to twig what -- or, rather, who -- Stuart was doing upstairs. He looks at Stuart in disgust, then asks Nathan what he wants. "Can I have a towel?" he asks, smiling at Stuart, then at Vince. As Hazel toddles off to get him one, Nathan says to Vince -- who has just about had it -- "Nice room. Thanks." He knows he's twisting the knife. Vince, fed up, says, "It was a funeral. Cos you didn't even ask. You think we're wearing black cos it's the fashion? It was Phil. You met Phil." Nathan looks at him and says, "Yeah," clearly not giving a shit. "Well he's dead," Vince tells him. Nathan shrugs and says, "Sorry," but the way he says it is more like, "Sorry?" Like he's asking Vince if this is what he's supposed to say. Here, my distaste for Nathan reaches an all-time high. I really wish that Vince was the violent type at this point. "Is that it? SORRY?!" Vince cries. "I didn't really know him," Nathan says. "I just had a drink with him." Ooh, does this remind you of the part at the funeral where Vince kept trying to downplay his own relationship with Phil? Because I think it's supposed to; call it a hunch. Hazel brings Nathan a towel, and he smiles at Vince. "I'd better clean up," he says, turning on his heel and going back upstairs. Hazel asks Vince if he'll go with her to Nathan's house once they get the address out of him. Vince once again looks at Stuart. "It's his problem -- his fault," he says, really spitting out the T in "fault." Bernard says that to show up with Stuart, "Manchester's champion shagger," would be asking for trouble. Vince laughs incredulously and says that it must be okay to take him (Vince), then, because he's harmless. Having finally had enough, he gets up and says he's left some things in the Jeep. Vince walks out of the house, past the Jeep and keeps on going. Stuart comes after him, hopping in the Jeep and driving beside him, asking what's wrong and begging him to get in the car. He offers to take him for a drink, or do whatever he wants, but Vince remains silent and furious, walking faster and faster up the road. "Fuck off," Stuart says. "I'm going! Please just get in the car!" Vince breaks into a run, sprinting down the curiously empty street. I don't know if running away is the first step in getting a backbone, but I guess he's got to start somewhere.