Episode 16 - The Rescue part 2

Note: due to artistic differences and knackered legs, the inanimate object which played 'clifftop' has resigned and been replaced by a new, differently coloured clifftop which Plastic St fans will agree can only enhance this superior soapblog experience.

Ray rushed to the door but Mary grabbed his arm.

"Don't go with him! It's a trick!" she hissed.

"A trick? What do you mean? Are you saying that Brandon is deliberately pretending his Grandad has had an accident so he can lure us to the edge of this... abyss place, and push us off?" Ray rolled his eyes at Brandon and laughed dismissively.

"I mean," said Mary, putting her hands on her hips, "that this is Brandon Gold, the lead guitarist from Gore Hell Vandals and our chief rival in the Plastic St Battle of the Bands! He's trying to distract me so I can't practice my jazz hands!"

Ray shook his head. "Hormones! Come on, son. Show us where the trouble is."

Brandon, still clutching his side in pain, looked past Ray and Mary into the house. "I'll need at least four people to help," he said.

"Well, there's only the children..." Ray said doubtfully.

"They'll do!"

"I'm sorry, but Farmer Fun and the Funtime Furry Friends is on in five minutes," Mary said firmly. "There's no way Tom will leave the house."

Brandon's face darkened. "I can persuade him."

"I think we'd better get to your Grandad and not waste any more time," said Ray. "If we need extra help, Mary can get the rest of Uterus."

"But -" began Brandon.

Ray hustled them through the doorway. "Lead the way, Brandon my boy! I must say," he added to Mary as they walked through Plastic St on to a road he'd never taken before, "life is getting very exciting. I admit I've been a bit... down recently. Felt a bit lost. I imagined myself at the end of a road, facing a drop - all metaphorical, of course - whoooah!"

Ray looked down into the abyss.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Plastic St just ended, and then it was the end of the world.

His mind raced. They had moved here from somewhere so there had to be another place, another town. But where? Where had they come from? He had a vague memory of packing boxes, nothing more. He felt giddy and slid to the floor.

"My god... there's nothing out there..." he groaned.

Beside him Mary smiled. "What a lovely view. It makes me so happy to think we live in such a beautiful place. I think I want to stay here forever, don't you, Ray?"

Episode 15 - The Rescue

"Now push. Push!"

"I can't!"

"Yes you can, you're just not trying! Now breath!" Ray Plastic puffed rhythmically into his wife's face.

She reached up and slapped him. "For the last time, I am not in labour!"

Ray sat back on his heels, red in the face from exertion. "You had a show."

"No, I said I was going to be IN a show. The Battle of the Bands, remember? With Uterus, the menopausal girl group?"

"But you said you had a contraction!"

"No, I said we had a contract. Now give me a hand getting up off this floor."

With difficulty Ray pulled Mary to a vertical position. "So you're just going to go ahead with this, are you?"

"Didn't you hear what I said, Ray? We have a contract. We're going to be famous. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Ray shrugged. He didn't really have a concept of fame. The only person who seemed to be well known around Plastic St was Granny Gold, and that was because people just didn't like her. It was more a sort of infamy, really. Of course there were the newsreaders as well, those vague head and shoulders that popped up on the television reading exactly the same news report day after day. Come to think of it, he couldn't remember what the news report actually was, which was rather odd as it never changed.

Quickly he sat down in the armchair on a button which automatically activated the television. The tinny theme music blared out.

"What...?" began Mary, but Ray hushed her.

"The news!" he hissed.

After a few seconds the television switched itself off. The news was over.

Ray shook his head. "Nope. I've still got no idea what they're on about."

"Ray, look at me. Look at me. What do you see?" demanded Mary.

Ray turned round and looked at his wife. "I see a..." He peered at her stomach. "Is that your belly button? It looks like a gear stick!"

Mary's face crumpled. "Well, the record company see a star, and that's what I'm going to be. With or without your support." She waddled off towards the front door.

"Wait! Mary! You can't! I'm sure I glimpsed the head while I was down there! Mary, come back!"

Mary put her hand on the door and looked back at him. She opened her mouth to say something.

The door swung open.

"Mr Plastic! Come quick!" Brandon stood panting on the doorstep with a wild look in his eyes. His hair stood on end and he clutched his side as though in pain. "Grandad's fallen down the abyss!"

Episode 14 - Brandon Takes a Beating

"And so it begins," said Granny Gold, exhaling deeply. A look of intense relief passed across her face.

"Eurgh, no - you haven't..." began Brandon.

"I was talking about my evil plan, not my evil bladder!" snapped Granny Gold. She took a sip of her tea. "I have set the bait. The rest is up to you now."

"Fine. Anything to get out of this schoolhouse," muttered Brandon. He hated sleeping at the school. Even worse, tomorrow it was time to let another family have a turn. He would be walking the streets or trying to sneak into the hospital. Granny was right: why should the Plastic family have the only house in the street?

"I want you to run up to the Plastic house and call for help. They'll all come running - they're that sort of people." Granny Gold looked disgusted. "Tell them your poor doddery old Grandad has fallen down the abyss. You must lead them there. They'll be sure to attempt a rescue - a rescue that is bound to go disastrously wrong."

"Okay," Brandon shrugged. "By the way, where is Grandad? Have you hidden him out of the way so it won't spoil the plan?"

"Something like that. I think it's called killing two birds with one stone. It's definitely called killing, anyway. Oh, wait a minute, Brandon." Granny stopped Brandon at the door. She tripped him up and kicked him a few times in the ribs.

"What was that for?" Brandon yelped.

"Firstly, because I enjoy it, and secondly because you need to look battered and bruised. You've been trying to help your Grandad and are injured."

"Right," gasped Brandon.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the..."

"The what?"

Granny pulled a face. "Too late. Now go, go, go!"

Brandon slowly shuffled out of the door, clutching his side. He had to admit it, Granny Gold was a genius.

Special - The Making of Plastic St

"It really is an enormous amount of fun," says Lou Treleaven, producer, director and internet visionary, when I ask her about the making of the famous blog-soap, Plastic St. It turns out she is actually speaking to someone else, on her mobile. After ten minutes I am able to ask my question again.

"It really is an enormous waste of time," she says.

What?

"A waste of time to ask me, I mean. It's a real team effort, this production. It might be just my name on the credits, but you're talking script editors, casting agents, costume, makeup..."

So how does a typical week pan out when the team is getting ready to produce the polished gem that appears every Wednesday?

"Well, first I draft out a rough script. I know what I want to happen and how I'm going to get from A to B, but that's about it. Then I meet with the script team who come up with some humorous dialogue, a few gags, oh and there's even a double entendre specialist."

Really?

"Yes, at a moment's notice he can whip one out and thrust it in to the script, leaving the audience satisfied and exhausted."

And when you're happy with the script?

"Then it's read-through time. All the cast for that episode meet with the script team and we sit round a table going through it like a radio play. The script is still up for revision even then. Sometimes the actors can come up with dialogue we never thought of. Particularly Rufus (Ray Plastic). He's hilarious."

What about Dame Margaret Montgomery (Granny Gold)?

"Oh, we make sure she has a large print version."

No, I mean does she ever need anything changing?

"Well, her private nurse sees to all that. We'd rather not get involved."

No, I mean -

"I did it once. Never again."

How much rehearsal time do the actors get?

"Not much, because by then it's usually Tuesday and the episode has to be ready to go out the following day. The crew film from the off and we use the best takes. Usually the first ones are the freshest."

You mean they just turn up, do it and go home?

"They're made of plastic. How much rehearsal time do they need? Anyway, if they get something wrong I just threaten to melt them down. I'm joking, I'm joking!"

And lastly, is there anyone on set you've grown particularly fond of? Anyone you're close to?

"Nope."

Could I please have a box set of the first series signed by all the cast?

"Clear off."

Episode 13 - Goodbye Grandad Gold

Grandad Gold lay on his back in the Abyss. It wasn't too uncomfortable, he thought to himself. It helped that he couldn't actually feel anything.

"I'm off, then," Granny Gold called down to him. She looked very far away up there, just a tiny head peering at him.

"Right-y-o. Off to get some help."

"No, just off," Granny Gold said.

"But I'll see you again in a minute - with the ambulance crew?"

Granny Gold smiled. "You can think that if it helps. So long."

"Wait!" Grandad began to call to her, but realised he had no idea what her first name was. He had always called her Granny Gold. How odd. "Wait a minute... Granny Gold... Goldy.... Goldykins..." He racked his brain for a suitable pet name. "My little nugget. My eighteen carat darling. My -" he stopped abruptly. She had gone.

He waited for the ambulance. He knew there was one in Plastic Street - a square, shiny white thing that occasionally emerged from the hospital, did a few pointless laps and returned, empty. Strangely he had never seen any patients in it. No one was born or died. Was that unusual?

His thoughts drifted back to his own childhood and for a moment he was lost in memory. Only for a moment, though. He only had one memory of his childhood: a dazzlingly sunny day in a park throwing a ball and laughing, vague blurred figures standing just out of the picture representing his parents. He realised with a sort of dull inevitability that he didn't know their first names either.

He supposed it was age. Other people probably had great childhood memories. But at least he had his love for Granny Gold - oh, it was absurd. How could he not know her name after all this time?

And then it hit him.

"Plastic St is our past, present and future!"

There was no time. She was Granny Gold, he was Grandad Gold. It had always been so. He couldn't remember his childhood because he had had no childhood. The one memory meant nothing; it could have been a picture he once saw, or even a false memory conjured up to represent what he imagined his past must have been like.

Brandon coming to live with them; that was the only thing that had changed recently. Oh, and falling off this cliff.

Slowly, gingerly, he tried to move. To his surprise, after a few false starts he was able to climb up to a standing position. It must have been the shock of the fall that had paralysed him. He felt himself all over, then looked round for his Elton John glasses. There they were just a few feet away. He put them on. He felt good, like Elton John. Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road. Goodbye Plastic St.

He glanced up at the cliff, then turned his back. Looking through stars, he began to walk.

Episode 12 - Back to the Abyss

"You dropped your Elton John glasses into the abyss?" Granny Gold repeated.

"My bright red ones, shaped like stars -"

"Yes, I am aware of the optical extravagance of Elton John, thank you!" Granny Gold snapped. "Well, we'll just have to go back and get them, won't we? Sorry to break up the happy family reunion. Come on, Brandon."

"I'm not going all the way back there," snarled Brandon. "And I thought the abyss was bottomless? How can Grandad get his glasses back?"

Granny Gold smiled nastily. "I'll find a way."

"Dad!" cried Richard suddenly. "Don't go with her!"

Grandad nodded compliantly. "Go with her, you say? Come on, dear." He shuffled off behind Granny Gold, who was still smiling.

"Dad! No!" Richard ran in front of his parents and pulled his father's arm. "You don't realise. You never have. She's evil! She doesn't even like Elton John!"

Granny Gold took Grandad's arm and marched him quickly away. "Say goodbye to your father nicely, Richard," she called over her shoulder.

"Dad!"

Richard's cries soon disappeared. Granny and Grandad Gold walked back through Plastic St until the road abruptly stopped. There was the abyss, in all its glorious nothingness.

"Can you see them?" Granny Gold asked, pushing Grandad Gold towards the edge.

"No, I need my close-up glasses for that," Grandad muttered, rummaging in his pockets yet again.

"But you look so handsome without them!" Granny Gold cooed. "It's just like when we were first married."

"Really?" Grandad Gold beamed, turning to look at her.

"Yes, I wanted to push you off a cliff then, too. Goodbye for ever!"

Granny Gold gave her husband an enormous shove. She just couldn't resist it this time. Silently he fell off the edge, and after a few seconds Granny Gold heard a distant thump. Cautiously she made her way as far forward as she could and peered over.

"I've had a bit off a fall," said Grandad Gold's tiny voice. "Do I have a personal panic button which instantly alerts the emergency services, like the fictional Mrs Hope in the old magazine ads?"

"No," said Granny Gold.

Episode 11 - Ray Gets a Grip

"Nice boy, that Brandon," murmured Ray to himself as he wandered back into the house.

He had a new vision - he was going to be the father and husband he'd always hoped to be. Not this vague, dispirited version of himself he'd become, constantly searching for meaning in a meaningless world. He would bond with Tom, get him to grow up a bit. They would play football together. He would try to persuade him to put down his plastic train and behave like a normal teenager.

And Sara. The poor girl was scared of her own shadow. Scared of any shadow, in fact, but particularly her own as it seemed freakily to follow her around. He would be a strong role model and show her the world was nothing to be afraid of.

As for Mary - well, it was about time she had that baby. He was beginning to suspect it was just a pillow she'd stuffed up there when he wasn't looking. He'd never seen her without her maternity dress. Perhaps they were sold as a unit: dress with fake bump, ideal for the wife who has run out of excuses. Well, excuse time was over. That baby was coming out.

He marched into the living room where Mary lay sprawled on the only chair, rubbing her bulging stomach with absentminded affection as an over-familiar news programme blared out. He was relieved to see that the other members of Uterus had left.

"Fancy a curry, dear?" he suggested lightly.

"Oh, no thanks," said Mary. "I'm not really in the mood."

I know that, thought Ray glumly. "Don't be silly, love. I'm offering to cook. A lovely hot curry - yum yum. I'll go out and get the ingredients -"

"Ray, it's summer. I don't want a curry. Besides, I want to rehearse some more tonight. Joss has thought of some great dance moves. I don't want to be full of heavy, lumpy curry."

"But you're full of a heavy, lumpy baby. How can you be contemplating pop stardom in your condition?"

Mary dragged herself up and planted her hands where her hips should have been. "Are you saying that woman with babies shouldn't have careers?" she demanded.

"No, I, er..." Ray blustered. "Not when they're about to give birth!" he burst out.

"You male chauvinist pig!" Mary shouted. "Come on, children! We're going out. And we're leaving your father here until he comes to his senses - which could be a long time."

"Good, maybe you'll finally have had the baby by then!" snarled Ray.

Tom and Sara clambered down from upstairs. Sara let out a shriek and pointed at Ray.

"Yes, I know," said Mary, nodding. "He's a living, breathing anachronism."

"No!" wailed Sara. "It's not that! It's his shadow!"