Roger And Val Have Just Got In (2010) s01e02 Episode Script

Nnn.
Nnnnn.
Oh, hi.
I didn't know you were back.
Where's your bike? Oh, the bike's in the garage.
I've put it away.
In its proper place.
- Are you OK? - Me? Fine, yeah.
You? Yeah.
Great, thanks.
Good, good, good.
- Kettle on? - It should be, yes.
It's just boiled.
Right, Val, erm There's something I want to talk to you I don't want to cause a row or any unpleasantness but I I feel I need to say something.
W-Would now be a good time? Yeah.
Now's as good a time as any.
Erm, I came home tonight Well, I got in first, as you must know, as you can tell Yes, I would concur with that first point.
Right, don't I came in here to check on my bonsai seeds.
To do so, I had to open the fridge which I maintain in the conservatory for that purpose and that purpose alone.
- As I did so - Have I put some food in your plant fridge? Yes.
A packet offish fingers and some frozen peas.
Yea.
That's the tea, so sorry.
Right, but that's not See, the issue here is that I have asked you many, many times not to do that and you have.
And so now I feel we need to, um, grow up an agreement.
Grow up an agreement? - Draw up an agreement.
- You got your words wrong there, Roger.
Erm, you know, I I don't need to agree to anything.
You are the transgressor, you the active force.
You're the one that needs to be quelled.
I-I'm in the agreement only because because I exist.
No, hang on a minute, Roger.
I exist.
And my own fridge exists and sometimes it overflows with food, which exists, even if there's no room and another fridge exists right next door.
So no, sorry, I do not agree.
This is about my co-existence with you and your repeated bastardisation of the tightly controlled environment of my refrigerator in the conservatory.
Val? Yep? - What are you doing? - I'm sitting in here.
- Have I upset you? - Not at all.
Well, I obviously have upset you, because you're sitting in here and not in the kitchen.
Are you basing your assumptions on where I am in the house? Yes.
That and and your tone of voice.
You have just said I need to be quashed, and that is a horrible - I said quelled, not quashed.
- Oh, come on.
Quashed, quelled.
You don't know what you said, you were so wound up.
- I can recall precisely what I said, I said - You said grow up an agreement.
- I recall that.
- No, because Grow up your agreement No, because when you quash someone, you flatten them.
When you quell them, you're calming the storm, and that's what I said, I said quell.
Over some fish fingers! Yeah, well you say fish fingers like it's unreasonable.
I'm talking about the wider moral Yes I do say fish fingers, because you are pompous! Pompous? I haven't got a pompous bone in my - Wait, I see what you're doing.
- Do you - You're tweaking it around.
- No, no, no.
- Yes, you are.
- I have come in to a series of world lectures A series of world lectures? What on earth is a series of world lectures? - I've never heard of it.
- You know what, I'm glad I don't work for you, because you make one tiny mistake and there you are, - waving your flag of righteousness - Again? I've never heard of that either.
Do you know what I really, really know about you that is really, really annoying? You have been sitting at that table ever since you got in preparing your big speech.
- I know you have.
- Yes, I have.
- Yes, I know you have.
- I have, yes.
- Oh, I know you have, don't worry.
- I'm not worried, I was worried when I came in my seeds might be dead.
- Right, well, they're not.
- Well, we won't know that, will we, till - Right, I'm-I'm going - Yes, go! To put the car in the garage.
And the orange light's on again in the car, so that's not fixed.
Oh! OK, I've come back.
The orange light was on in the car, you're absolutely right.
Yes, that's very good, actually, Val, that you noticed that.
Mm.
I feel I, er, overreacted.
- Right.
- Right.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Bad day at the jungle.
Again.
Right.
Well, if you're gonna stay in here, you've got to try to be normal, Roger.
- Just try to be normal.
- Right.
I shall sit down now.
How was your day? OK, till I got in.
How was yours? Rubbish.
What's for tea? Fish fingers.
Strange sensation, sitting in here this time of the day.
Normally you feel the sitting room's shut till around, ooh, seven o'clock-ish.
No, I don't feel that at all.
I often come in here before you get in.
Just to get away from the kitchen.
Interesting, interesting.
Of course, the work/home division in your case has to be extremely, erm, strict, because you also teach, erm, cookery and home-making skills.
Can we please try to be normal, Roger? Or do you want to go at it like this? I want to be normal, I want to be normal.
I didn't know you didn't like sitting in the kitchen.
I only move to the kitchen when you come in.
- Well, that's very surprising.
- Are you tense? - I don't know.
- Mm.
You seem tense.
Why were you making those funny noises at the table? - What noises? - Like, "Nnnnn.
Nnnnn.
" - You were doing that.
Did you know? - I have no memory of that at all.
It must have been unconscious then.
You had your head in your hands like that, and you were going, "Nnn," you were doing that.
All the time you were doing it you were going, "Nnnnn.
" - Wow.
- "Nnnnn.
" - Wow.
- Yeah.
- Oh, maybe it was the plant lamp.
- What? The noise.
I've been cheering up some cabbage seeds.
"Nnnnnn.
Nnnnn.
" Was it like that? - Yes, but it was you.
- No, no, no.
I'll show you.
Come on.
- No - Come and look, it's very interesting, Val.
It's a plant lamp that has a very, very similar frequency to the human voice.
- An impression of a lamp? - Let me show you, let me show you.
I know what it was.
I know what I heard.
Shh.
Val.
Is that what you heard? No.
It was definitely you.
- Yep.
Well, I am tense.
- Yeah, you must be.
I just said I am.
Well, in that case, Roger, what about, tonight, maybe, we have a takeaway to relax? Mm.
Cos I really fancy one.
- Do you? - Mm.
Some people order a pizza, Rog, and then, when it turns up, they apparently get the box and open it, and they turn away from the delivery man and they say, "I'll just check it's the right topping", and they go Like that, and hand it back to him and say, "No, it was the wrong one.
" Like that, and they've just eaten the topping and that's all they've ever wanted out of it.
They just wanted the topping.
Roger? - Roger! - No, yeah, yeah.
- Sorry, I was meant to be - Meant to be listening to me.
Do you know what, Roger? Don't worry.
Don't worry.
Not a problem if you don't want to listen.
One little thing I try and say Val? Oh, don't do this.
What is wrong with you today? Val? Val? Val? Val.
I've got home and it's this.
It's not this, it's not.
I'm sorry.
At the staff meeting this evening, I said that the kids were coming late to food tech because of swimming and Peter said, "Yeah, but swimming's important" and everybody laughed.
- What? He said what? - Apart from me and Sue.
And then I said, "Yes.
So is food technology.
" Oh, so so, Peter, excuse me.
So I was sitting in the sitting room thinking we should never have gone for the brown settee.
Because when you've had a row and you're looking at the brown settee I just don't think it would be as bad with a cream one.
No, it probably would.
When I was in the sitting room I picked up the photograph.
And I could see my reflection in it and I thought that this - This line here, under my chin - Where? Here.
That I sometimes used to see when I was very tired, is there all the time now.
- What line? There is no line.
- Yes there is.
There.
And the flap of my cagoule kind of covers it.
Like that.
That's why I love my cagoule.
Cos it hides it.
- You look great in that cagoule, babe.
- Mm! Somebody moved to New Zealand because of you in a cagoule.
15 years ago, and it wasn't because of me in a cagoule.
Anyway, there is no line.
And it's on a beautiful face.
- Why have you brought up lan? - Don't call him lan.
Please call him lan in New Zealand.
Word association.
Cagoule.
Nothing ever happened with lan in New Zealand as I see it.
Well, for a start, it didn't happen in New Zealand.
It happened in a pub along the Pennine Way, where Ian in New Zealand was feeding you cheese and onion crisps.
Which I didn't want.
We've talked it to death, I don't want to go on about it, but both of us know it wasn't just the cheese and onion crisps.
Those crisps were the height of my infidelity.
Well, that's fine, but no one's ever moved to New Zealand because of me.
Well Well, apart from people at work who might move there to get away from me.
Roger! No, it's no good.
I can't I cannot I cannot shake this.
Roger, Roger Tell me what the matter is.
- Is it Phil? - See, the terrible thing is, I can see it's I mean, yeah, I'd laugh.
I've put all this onto the fish fingers, all this upset.
OK.
- They've got two new water voles at work.
- Mm.
Two new males, and they don't get on.
And the amphibians team have named them Roger and Phil.
Oh, no, that's awful.
Yeah.
Who cares? Not me.
No, I've got to shake this.
No, no, no.
Roger, I hope you are the vole that doesn't cause any trouble, and is friendly with all the other voles except for Phil Val, don't don't.
The Phil one is the trouble-maker.
But Roger just responds to his aggressive behaviour and fights back.
And to say "it takes two to tango" is, I think, a really unfair phrase when you're the person who's in the right in the row.
- Does Phil know? - I've been up to see him about it, yeah.
It was somehow embarrassing, I don't know.
Yeah, well.
Because in a situation like that, it's a real life Wind In The Willows.
- That's effectively how I felt.
- Mm.
So it's good news that I wasn't there in a big checky suit.
Yeah.
What does Phil think about it? Oh, he finds the whole thing "highly amusing", apparently I.
e.
he's the one with the sense of humour so he wins that.
Right.
Right, Well, we've got to start getting your signals out there.
Otherwise you'll be a man with an aggressive vole named after him.
I am that man, Val.
One of them is called Roger.
Right.
Well Well, if I was you I would Actually, I'm at a loss, Roger.
You've got to object, in the strongest possible terms.
It's a tough one, certainly.
Or Or you go in there tomorrow and you say very loudly, "Hey! You see that water vole over there? "Well, I've found out that he's not aggressive, "he's actually an activist and he stands up for all the other poor water voles "who get squashed by Phil! "Yeah, I've just heard!" - Something like that? - Actually, that's a very good idea, Val.
Yeah.
Do that.
And then, maybe, Roger I'd just leave it.
I had another run-in with Peter at lunch time today.
Yeah? You see, someone like Peter, he is aggressive.
Well, he's left Jason Hughes off the football team again.
I said, "Could Jason Hughes in my class not just have one game?" See, people respect you, Val.
You can walk into a staff room and, yeah, Peter might laugh at food tech, but nobody laughs at you.
- Well, nobody laughs at you.
- Yes, they do.
Roger, Roger.
Can you not just accept Phil as another misfortune in our little bit of time and space on this planet? No, Val.
I can't do that.
Because where I see injustice, I will speak.
Roger, you work in the Winter Gardens, there is no injustice.
You have just dug your own grave with that morally barren statement.
You see, that's what they mean, right there.
- Just turn it down a notch.
- Oh, so you're agreeing with them now? So I'm wrong? I've just wasted 17 years? Nobody said that.
Who's said that you've wasted 17 years? - Me.
- Well, that's a massive overreaction.
- Yeah, go ahead, go on, say it.
- Oh! I've been there 21 years and for the last 17 I've put everything into it.
- That's why I'm like this.
- Roger.
- Roger.
What's this look? - I've no idea.
Well, it's my silent and subtle "Let's get a takeaway" look.
- Come on, ditch the fish fingers? - Yes.
Then I can have a really trite end to my day, neatly sorted out by you.
- I'm not doing that.
- Yes you are.
It's what you do.
It gives you something to do.
I am at least right about that.
As opposed to all the things you're wrong about.
Yes.
I'm wrong about everything.
Wrong about work, wrong about me.
- Yeah, wrong about me? - Tomorrow, I can tell my dying father that the only thing named after me is an aggressive vole.
That's all I've got.
Can you neatly sort that one out for me as well? Do you know what? I can see exactly why they've done it now.
I might go in there tomorrow and I might feed the Roger some fish.
- Yes, give it those fish fingers.
- Why don't I chuck them at its head? That'll only hurt if they're frozen and they'll be defrosted by now.
No, I'll have put them back in the freezer section of your pointless fridge - where they fit, that's why they were there.
- Not in my fridge you're not.
- Aren't I? Aren't I? - No.
- No you're not.
- Aren't I? - Val, you're not putting them in my fridge.
- You just watch me.
There'll be nothing to watch, cos you aren't doing it.
- Aren't I? - No, you won't.
- You watch me.
- I won't.
There's nothing to watch.
- You're not going anywhere near it.
- Just you wait and see.
- Get off my fridge! - No! What? Look where you've left them! - Get off Get off my fridge.
- Oh! No, you get off.
- Get off my fridge! - No! No! - Give me - Nnnnn.
Why are we standing here, two grown people, having a row about fish fingers? This is the second row I've had tonight about fish fingers.
Well, it's obviously not about the fish fingers.
- They're merely a symptom of my malaise.
- Which is what? I don't know what to think with Dad dying, it's I don't know what to think to all of it, now.
I have terrible dreams.
- I I don't want to be like this with you.
- Well, don't, then.
You make me want to sometimes, be cruel.
- You're so brave, I hate it.
- Well, be cruel.
Leave me for someone else, go and have a child with them.
- No.
- No, please do.
And I'll book a flight to New Zealand.
I walk around at work all day, looking at the amphibians, thinking, "Hey! I'm better than you, pal! "I'm an upright, thinking male on two legs.
" And today, one of those creatures was named after me.
Yes.
Wrongly.
Was it? Come on, Val.
What was my behaviour on arriving at the house tonight? It was primal.
Why don't I just spray the fridge with my own urine? It'd be more honest.
What are your bad dreams? Are they a hooded figure? I once dreamt that I was being chased by a caterpillar made up of snooker balls with a giant white one for its head.
It rolled after me everywhere it went, and it was the Ofsted.
Come on, Roger.
Can we have a takeaway? Eh? - Come here.
- What? - Come on.
- What? What? Look.
When you look into a photograph, because of the dark and shade, all you can see are lines and folds and dark shadows that aren't really there.
- Mm.
- It's the opposite of a buttercup.
That's why people like buttercups, because they light the face from underneath.
Mm.
I like it when your eye make-up's smudged.
- Do you? - Mm.
When you came in from the garden on Sunday like that, you looked debauched.
- Did I? - Mm.
- Oh, I feel much cheerier now.
- Hm.
I could put in some more foxgloves, they look wonderful here.
Hm.
We've allowed that tree to take over the whole patch.
That's 17, nearly 18 years ago, Val.
- I don't know.
- And we could put some more in the front.
So when you come home from work and you come in here, you can see them.
- Aah.
- I'm sorry I didn't know you did that.
Hm.
Cos I don't do that.
I just said I did cos we were having a row.
- What, you don't come in here? - No, of course not, no.
Well, I've missed all that, then, - from start to finish.
- Oh.
God, this room feels much more cheerful now, doesn't it? TheThe pall cast by the brown settee seems somehow much lighter.
- Your nail varnish looks good.
- Oh, does it? Thanks, yeah.
Did you see it during the row? When I was grabbing for the fish fingers? - No, I didn't notice it.
- Oh.
I always have tunnel vision when I'm in a row.
- Oh, well.
Anyway, never mind.
- What? Well, do you never wish we had more glamorous rows, Roger? No, I don't.
I wish we never had rows.
And by definition, I don't think rows can be glamorous.
Oh, they can.
Oh, they definitely can.
If we were more like this sort of this sort of couple.
You know, more like this.
So that my expression when you came in would be a sort of smirk about how bad things have got between us.
- Oh, right.
And what would I be? - You'd be more kind of You'd be Go out and come back in again and I'll show you.
- Right.
- OK.
- You ready? - Yep.
OK, come in.
Right, and you give me a sort of cold a sort of cold glance in my direction.
Well, don't look right at me, Roger, because you look like a villain.
Look kind of past me, as if you can't bear to look at me but you can, kind of thing.
Right, hang on.
Yeah.
"I need a drink.
" "You don't need a drink, you need a bigger fridge, you bitch.
" "Don't tempt me.
" - Nobody rows like that.
- Yes, they do.
No, they don't.
Name me one person we know that rows like that.
Clive and Linda Watson.
- Clive and Linda Watson? - Yes! - They will have rows like that.
- Oh, you can't know that, Val.
Yes, I can.
Last time we were at Romano's, when they were leaving he said to her, "I think you're coming home with me.
" No, no.
More like, "I think you are coming home with me.
" Like that.
And then she looked up at him and she went, "Huh.
" Like that, like a sort of laugh but without a laugh in it.
- Clive Watson? - Yes! Clive Watson.
He's He's got a sort of mocking oh, something, - a kind of silent man of the world - He hasn't got much to say for himself.
- I'd agree with that.
- Mm.
He ordered the mussels and Ooh, I don't know.
And the finger bowl was no problem to him at all.
He just dipped his fingers in, then he just kind off licked them to dry them off.
- Absolutely no mess.
- Jesus Christ, Val.
And then when she ordered a salad, he just smirked at her and said, "A salad?" Like that.
"A salad?" Yeah, they'd definitely had a row.
And she's got that sort of burgundyish kind of swishy hair.
- Yeah, it's dyed, though.
- Yes, I know it's dyed, Roger.
Interesting that you should know.
Very interesting.
Yeah.
Interesting that you should see Clive and his fingers.
- Well - Anyway, they might think we're glamorous.
- What? - Yeah, they might be at home right now analysing what we were like at Romano's.
No, they won't! They have absolutely no interest in anybody else.
It's the Clive and Linda Show all the way.
I heard they were on the verge of splitting up.
Exactly.
But they haven't, have they? Why? Because the attraction is too strong.
No, I don't think it's that.
I think it's that his shop almost went bust and he got very depressed, didn't he? - Well, I honestly don't know.
- Yeah, yeah, that was it.
Mind you, they've pulled it round again now, but they were on the verge of closure.
- Don't spoil it, Roger.
I don't want to know.
- Yeah.
Not so glamorous now, eh? A pile of three-piece suites and leather recliners nobody wants.
- All at a third of what he paid for them.
- Ugh, don't tell me about his shop.
- That's not what I mean.
- Anyway if you want a row like that, catch me after my cheese and biscuits.
Snaffle my last bit of brie and a Hovis, see where that gets you.
Now.
Dinner.
No takeaway.
- I'm cooking.
- Right.
Can I just come clean and say I really would like a pizza? Oh, come on, Val.
It's important to me that we deal with these fish fingers.
They've caused a major disruption.
It's important to me that we cook them and we eat them.
Right.
Actually, I've Where are they? Yep.
I've got these.
Ooh, chocolate! Yeah.
Peppermint creams.
Sue makes them with the kids.
She does strawberry hearts as well, but these are peppermint.
- Mm.
Great.
- She makes packets and labels with them.
- She's good, isn't she? - Are they from Sue? No, this is from Jason Hughes.
Aww.
I might ask Peter to find him a spare strip.
- What do you think? - Oh, you'll be lucky.
Well, let me see, let me see.
- Oh, Val, that's lovely.
- Mm.
Always has to be planted in a pot, peppermint.
- Mm.
- You are beloved of many people.
Oh, I am gonna make the, er, fish fingers with my special dill sauce and potatoes and peas all from the garden.
- How does that sound? - Mm.
Inventive.
Deliciously served with the vinegar of Southern Europe, the lemon! He did some for his gran as well.
Did I tell you that Sue does the cards too? Yes, you told me that really boring story about Susan and her cards.
- Roger! - You know what? I'm getting really bored with all of this, you bitch.
I think I might just leave, then stand there and watch you being brave.
Roger, that's awful.
No No, no, it's not.
I'm being Clive! - No, you weren't.
- Yes, I was.
- Isn't that right? - No! Very wrong.
It's what you were doing in the sitting room.
No, it isn't! That was completely different with a proper voice.
Right.
- Well, it's just not my day, is it? - No.
I'm disappointed.
I had this great bit about my shop being on skid row and wanting to take it out on you.
- Did you? - Yeah.
In your nail varnish.
In the bedroom.
- Valerie? - Mm.
That's not wrong.
That's actually rather good.
Yeah, all right.
But don't say anything else, Roger.