- Dee is a divorcee with two little boys. Mark is a plumber, also a single parent with a daughter, who comes out to replace Dee's ancient heating system. They date and he introduces her to his parents, Nessa and Joe. Nessa is lovely but Joe knows Dee because she works as a prostitute to help make ends meet and he has seen her professionally. He tells her to leave Mark, which she does, but the truth comes out into the open and the two men fight. Ultimately Dee gives up the oldest profession for domesticity with Mark and the kids.—don @ minifie-1
- Dee (Anna Friel) moves to the street to get a better school for her 2 sons (Luke and Jack), who are being bullied and wetting the bed because of it. Despite working several jobs (including a prostitute), she can't earn the money to improve their lives. Her money issues mean she can't afford to get a proper boiler when hers break. However, her plumber (Mark Raveley) - who falls in love with her - tries to help her and, after some hard to get play, they sleep together. She doesn't tell him about her job, despite telling him not to calling her whilst she's working. She meets his daughter, Megan, and plays football with them - everyone getting on with each other and Megan outpreforming them all. However, Dee keeps pushing Mark away with her lack of trust. They run into some issues when Mark is forced, by his mother Nessa, to introduce Dee to his father, who has seen her 'at work' and even slept with her, building tension. He tells her to dump Mark, but she has fallen in love and seems to refuse refuses. She falsifies an excuse to leave and, outside, tells Mark that she doesn't want to see him any more. A hurt and confused Mark tries to stop her leaving by stopping her taxi and climbing in, refusing to leave. Joe, his father, then ring her after finding out about her meeting Megan and threatens her. She tries to refuse Mark access, upsetting her children, but eventually tires and walks out into the Street, going as far as getting her soldier neighbour, Nick (Jonas Armstrong) to get rid of Mark. He tells him to go, and after a some resistance, returns home. Joe continues his threatening calls, despite Dee fulfilling his wishes. In the morning she takes some of her anger out on her children, slightly upsetting her son when he wet the bed. Dee continues with her daily schedule, with Mark calling her repeatedly to get her attention. When she returns home, she finds a rejection letter for St Peter's Grammar School, the school she hoped to get her sons into. She reveals her upsets to Mark over the phone, including the dropping value of her house and the fact that she's behind on the mortgage. A caring Mark turns up outside of her house, and discusses the school with her, where she reveals that she is going to appeal. Whilst discussing this with her son, he reveals that he misses Mark and Megan - he wants to play football with them. Mark calls her from outside her house with Jaffa Cakes (an on-running internal joke), softening Dee's heart and resulting in them sleeping together. They return to being a couple (without Mark knowing of her prostitution), much to the upset of Joe who continually insults her, whilst Mark defends her. When Dee and Joe meet on the football field (with their children), he tells her to end it with Mark or else he'll tell him. She rebuffs by threatening to tell his wife and he replies by telling her that he'll tell the St Peter's appeal board. They argue for a while until Joe walks away with the line "Finish it for good". With the children outside, she tells Mark she wants to end it. She tells him to leave, and he refuses without an explanation - so she tells him that she's a prostitute. He leaves but returns to see him when she's working as a prostitute. He confronts her and, convinced that she's doing drugs, grabs her arms to check for injection pricks. She rebuffs him and they argue until he asks a key question about how many a night, to which she replies "9, sometimes 10". This upsets him, making him feel insignificant, so he questions her love for him and shouts at her because she made him feel bad about himself. He upsets her so she yells at him, citing her children as the reason she's prostituting herself, telling him that as soon as her kids are in St Peter's she'll stop. He mocks her by wiping a note over her body and telling her all the reasons she'll sell her body and leaves, calling her the pseudonym Ruby, her 'stage name'. In his anger, Mark hits one of Dee's previous clients causing him to get arrested and locked in a jail cell whilst Dee cries. She picks up the money Mark dropped and quits her job - despite her boss telling her that she can't, and refusing to pay her for her shift. She sits in her car, in the rain, and cries when a client comes up to her car, but she tells him to leave. She has to get out in the rain and pump up her tyre (another internal running joke) before she can leave. To get her revenge, she goes to Joe's house, and calls for Nessa despite Joe's pleas. This scares him but she only tells them that Mark was arrested and they bail him out. However, he has worked out that his father slept with Dee, so, in his anger, he smashes the family's plumber van - right outside the police station causing them to get arrested again. Nessa goes to bail her son and husband and calls Dee, asking her questions about her work. She has worked out that Dee is a prostitute but she understands, realising that a mother does whatever is necessary. At the police station, Nessa's ideas are confirmed and Mark is mocked by the police. When he's released, Mark walks off, away from his parents - ignoring their calls. On the day of the appeal, Dee's children are being reminded about the appeal and told to walk because she's selling the car because she lost her 'weekend job'. When they return, Dee finds that Jack has been hit by his bully. She drags him to the Flynn house and, as promised, inflicts upon the mother similar wounds to her son but she fights back. This leads to an all out cat fight in the street, with Jack watching on. They attend the appeal, with immaculately dressed children around them, wounded and bruised. Before allowing the appeal committee to say a word, she explains the bruises. The committee tell her that they no longer accept people who move into the area specifically to get into their school. She pleads with them but she is ultimately rejected. She tells them all that she's lost, "her pride, her self respect, the man she loved" and really pleads. Eventually, a man on the committee approaches her and tells her that she'll accept her children. We next see them in their new uniforms, ready to go to St Peters, with Dee taking photographs. After she waves off her children into St Peters, she sees Megan, with Mark standing behind her. When she turns around, she sees and approaches him. They discuss her begging to get her children in, making some jokes, and asks whether she's still a prostitute. She tells him that she finished it the night he confronted her, to his surprise and refuses a lift from him. However, when it does rain, he calls her and asks her whether she wants him to pick up her children. Amazingly, due to her previous hesitance with him, she accepts his offer and even allows him to enter her house. She closes the door, smiling.
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