The Accumulator

A five race accumulator is a bet in which you pick the horses to win in five different races on a given race day. Your winnings compound from race to race, but if all five horses do not win, neither do you.

Lewis “won” his first ever accumulator. Not impossible but pretty hard to do, especially based on pure beginner’s luck as he so blithely told Leanne. Such a win, whether by a neophyte or a bettor with a good system for picking, is a great day for the bettor and a bad day for the bookie.

Peter guessed Lewis must have known something he shouldn’t have known based on the winner of the fourth race. The combined odds of Allagoggin actually winning and of somebody choosing him in an accumulator were so astronomically long that Peter was suspicious, not just hopeful, that there was something wrong about Lewis’ ‘luck’. Nothing in Allagoggin’s past performance, or form, would suggest him as anything but a very long shot. Leanne didn’t catch it right off the bat because, while she may be a quick study of peoples’ form, she doesn’t know that of horses.

So the moment of watching the security camera tape! Poor Deirdre. And of course Ken would be there. Not that he wouldn’t have found out, but being right there watching the whole tawdry thing! As she said many times, it would have been better if there’d been sound. But, if she remembered all of what she said, it wouldn’t have improved it much.

Manchester Tart

The Barlows confront Audrey at Gail’s farewell do for her and the no-show Lewis. Gail is deranged, turning on Deirdre and all the Barlows, defending all members, real or putative, of her seriously disturbed brood. Then let’s look at the tape. The battery in the remote is low so Peter can’t stop it after they’ve seen Lewis’ fingers in the till, and the kiss unfolds. Deirdre humiliated again, Audrey humiliated anew. A pastry – a Manchester tart – that Audrey had been saving for Lewis instead was thrown by Gail in Deirdre’s face. It was horrible. And Claudia enjoying the whole show. I’m so glad she was there.

But Lewis, gigolo with a heart of gold as he turned out to be, didn’t rip off Audrey. He stopped the transfer from her bank account to their new joint account. He left for Greece with only Peter’s £4,000, but accumulated a new ‘mark’ at the airport.

And Ken! During his and Deirdre’s post-mortem of the whole thing, he shows that his days of contrition about Martha and sympathy about Blanche’s death are well and truly over. “Would you mind finishing that outside?” he says as Deirdre smokes a cigarette in her house. “Why, no I wouldn’t – as I’m passing your bags to you on your way out the door” is what I’d have liked to hear Deirdre reply.

PS – I wrote this after Thursday’s episode. Friday saw Ken continue his ‘my way’ campaign. As Deirdre listens to a pop radio station, he walks past and turns the dial to a classical station. Done without a word to her.