Joe seeks comfort and Lexi seeks employment

Radio Times: Jazzer tries to help and Jim takes the plunge

Characters: Adam, Emma, Jazzer, Jim, Joe, Lexi

• Jim’s tolerance with Jazzer is in short supply when Jazzer makes adverse remarks about Jim’s taste in music and demonstrates table manners which fail to come up to Jim’s standards. Jim’s thoughts are on Nic’s death. Perhaps he should follow his childhood dream of learning the piano before it’s too late. Jazzer is not convinced.
• Joe’s grief is overwhelming. He is not eating, and refuses to come indoors despite Emma’s pleading. Instead he is barrowing ‘things’ to be rid of them; they are not what matters. Emma comments that George thought Will’s house was a mess. All Joe can say is that Will’s house must be full of Nic’s things. How can he bear it? Emma begs him not to blame himself for the scratch which caused Nic’s death; she is as guilty as him, but Joe tells her to leave.
• Adam brings yet more of Jennifer’s baking to Lexi, who receives it with remarkably good humour. She asks Adam to stay and help her eat it, and takes the opportunity to ask if he knows of any work. Surprised, Adam says she can have a few hours at the polytunnels. Lexi is very grateful; she is bored with no job and wants to pay her way. Clumsily, Adam suggests that this will change once she is pregnant. Lexi is not pleased to hear this.
• Jim seeks Joe out with an offer of lunch at The Bull, but it is swiftly rejected. Instead he asks Jim to drive him to the Methodist Chapel, Unfortunately he has no opportunity to speak to the Minister. Trying to ease Joe’s pain, Jim repeats hat his mother used to say; only the good die young. This leads Joe to tell Jim what Nic’s dying words were. Meanwhile he does not want to go home.
• Alone on The Green, Joe encounters Jazzer, and to that young man’s surprise, Joe refuses a pint. Joe asks if Jazzer believes that only the good die young. Jazzer thinks people say what they think others want to hear. Poor Joe can only think of Will bringing the children up on his own, as Joe did when Susan died. How can he look Will in the eye. Thoughtfully, Jazzer tells him to put one foot in front of the other and let the rest take care of itself.