Lionel and Jean are returning by taxicab to Jean's home after a night out. They argue over who's going to pay the bill. Finally the cabbie says if they both keep on like that while the meter is running he'd wind up taking money from both of them. They go into the house and continue the discussion of who should be paying for whom. Jean insists she has money because she owns the secretarial agency. Things will be different when his book is a success, though. He tells her to be realistic. Even though he just sat on the couch, he says he should really go. She tells him he doesn't have to. He's taken aback, asks what she means. She says he might want to have a coffee -- then does a double-take and asks what he thinks she meant. Fortunately Judith walks into the living room.

Judith, as she usually does, says she's sorry for interrupting them. This seems to bother Jean who tells her she doesn't have to apologize every time she walks into the room. When Lionel says he was about to leave Judith feels responsible and feels sure he's leaving because of her. He reassures her: he has to get up early in the morning because he's having a working breakfast with Alistair. He gives Jean a kiss on the cheek and leaves.

Judith notices that at least they're at the kissing stage. Jean wants to know if she's keeping a graph. No, she's not, but if she were there "wouldn't be much movement on it" is Judith's response. She wants to know if Lionel has ever asked Jean back to his house. No, "perhaps he lives in a squat." Jean insists they are just friends and they don't have the kind of relationship that involves going to each other's homes. Lionel was merely seeing her home. Judith tells Jean that next weekend if they are together there will be no interruptions from her because she's going away -- she won't say where or with whom.

Lionel and Alistair are having breakfast in what looks to be a cheap diner, a far cry from the hotel lounge. Lionel brought him there so he could pick up on the vibes of the "people". It is, after all, people who buy books. Alistair seems to feel that Lionel is out of touch with the common folk. He mentions that the book will be published in three weeks time. This requires "commitment with a capital K". There's the launch, the hype, the personal appearances and booksignings. Alistair explains that there will be queues for the signings which they will load with their own people in order to draw crowds. He brought a dummy -- "you're not going to do a ventriloquist act to entertain the queues?" he asks. Alistair shows the dummy book to Lionel and when he sees the cover picture he tells Alistair it was worse than he imagined, vaguely pornographic,in fact. Alistair told him he could keep the dummy and Lionel said he might do so in a plain brown wrapper. This concludes their lunch and Alistair tells Lionel to "bell" him if there are any "probs", but not this weekend because he's going to Paris.

Lionel and Jean are at the secretarial agency. She's looking at the book cover. He tells her it's okay to laugh if she wants to, but she tells him she doesn't want to. Then she laughs anyway ("only a litle one.") Jean thinks he's very self-obsessed. Sandy comes into the office with their lunch and while she's there she takes a look at the book cover. She thinks Lionel looks very butch. She says that it might not say "pick-me-up-and-buy-me", but at the very least it says "pick-me-up-and-have-a-flick-through." She'll never look at him the same way again.

Jean often has lunch in her office, she says. They reminisce about how they used to dream of going to Paris for the weekend. and of having a small room with a window overlooking the streets of Montmartre and a kindly concierge who'd smile on young lovers. There were always accordians in their daydreams. This reminds him that Alistair said he was going to Paris that weekend. It hits Jean that Alistair is probably going with Judith, since she, too, was going away for the weekend and wouldn't say where. Lionel hesitates to speculate - - he is not at all certain that that's the case at all and explains that Alistair could be going with another... He doesn't finish the sentence. Jean's upset because she thinks Lionel was going to call her a "bit of stuff." It IS her daughter after all. Jean wants to know what Lionel used to call her. She's on her high horse. "You used to call me 'Pooh'" He tells her it would be odd for him to call her his "bit of Pooh." This makes her laugh. She tries to bring the subject back around to Judith and Alistair but he advises her to mind her own business. She agrees that that's what she should do, "only I shan't."

It is evening and Jean is lying down on the couch in the living room watching TV. She hears Judith comes in so she turns it off and sits up straight. "No Lionel?" Judith says questioningly. Jean looks under the pillows of the couch and under the couch itself, calling out his name. Judith sees that she's pulling her leg. She asks where Judith has been. Judith looks at her as though it were none of her business. She asks what Jean wants to talk to her about -- the TV being shut off when she came into the room was a "dead giveaway." She wants to know if this weekend is "wise." Judith has no idea what she's talking about. She does tell Judith that she thinks she's going away with Alistair because Alistair told Lionel he was going to Paris. Judith doesn't say yes and she doesn't say no. She just tells Jean that she might as well just have her bugged. She doesn't like the fact that Jean is being so nosy. The bright side is that there will be no-one around to bother Jean this weekend in case she wants to make some plans of her own. Artless.

At the office Sandy tells Jean that Judith is all packed. She points out that Jean will have the house all to herself. "Not you, too," Jean shrieks. She tells her she's "out to lunch" if Lionel calls. Sandy returns to her desk. Lionel walks into the agency and Sandy swoons, still giving him the business. Jean is at a business lunch, she says and wants to know if she can help him. He says that maybe she can: he wants to buy a suit. "We don't sell suits," she says. She apologizes and says she's always facetious on Fridays. Lionel explains that because of the book he will be on show. He doesn't know how to look like an author, but he somehow senses that it involves a new suit. She makes a couple more facetious remarks and he eventually sits down and picks up a newspaper. He's going to wait for Jean. She tries to tell him Jean won't be back for a long time. Jean has an office behind Sandy's desk and although it there isn't a clear window, one is able to see movement in the office. Lionel looks up and sees Jean tiptoe across the room towards her other door. He asks if Sandy would care to explain that. She declines. Since her back was to the glass I'm not sure what she thinks happened. Perhaps she could read it in his expression. She does look foolish, though.

He runs out of the office and catches Jean as she walks out into the street. He wants to know what she's doing. She says she forgot something, but she can't remember what. He wants to know if she's been drinking. Only a glass of wine. She remembers that's what she forgot -- shopping. He'll come with her, he says. He needs a suit and she can buy what she wants and he'll buy what he wants and later they can have some tea. She says she's too busy, she's got a lot of work to do. He reminds her she was going shopping, but she said that was before she remembered that she had a lot of work to do. He accuses her of behaving strangely.

They come into the office and Jean asks Sandy if there have been any calls (she mouths "thousands"). Sandy tells her that there were thousands of calls. Lionel is totally mystified. He was sitting there with Sandy and there were no calls at all. She claims that the calls were all that morning. Lionel wants to know why she's asking about the calls now since she would have already known about them if they were made to her office in the morning. Jean tells him to stop behaving like the FBI. She apologizes for being so busy and he asks "what about tonight?" She tells him she's busy working with Sandy that night and will, in fact, be working with Sandy for the whole weekend. She hopes he finds a nice suit. Then she walks into her office and closes the door in his face. He asks Sandy if she knew about this weekend and she says she did. He leaves.

Sandy walks into Jean's office and Jean tells her that she feels totally stupid. Sandy says she WAS stupid and transparent to boot. She wants to know if Jean is giving him the old heave-ho. Judith walks in and says she just saw Lionel and he looked very "terse". Sandy describes what happened between Jean and Lionel earlier. Judith talks to her as though she will have to be resigned to being an old lady. She says goodbye and leaves for her weekend out. Jean says she wants everyone to just leave her alone.

Lionel falls asleep on the couch while watching television. The sound of the doorbell wakes him. It's Alistair. He says he brought a package for him. Lionel wants to know if he's working for the post office these days. Alistair always acknowledges Lionel's witty remarks -- this time he says "dry, Li, dry," but usually it's just "good one, Li." Whatever his response it's a brief acknowledgement and he always wants to move on quickly. There's no verbal sparring between them as there usually is between Lionel and Jean. The package is a little kit that Alistair has put together to answer any questions Lionel has about the book tour. He tells Alistair to think of it as a Bible. It'll tell him what to say, how to dress -- if it isn't in his kit, says Alistair, it just isn't worth knowing. He has to leave because he has a "face" to meet. Lionel asks what happened to the Paris and Alistair tells him that important business prevented him from taking that trip. Lionel wondered if Judith were disappointed. Alistair clears up that misconception. "Judith was never on the agenda," he says. Although, she may be in the future. He assumes that Lionel has big plans for the weekend with Jean. "A shower, touch of mousse, splash of "God-you-smell-sexy, into something smooth and Hello Jean." Lionel tells him that he is not going to see Jean and Alistair cannot believe that they're not taking advantage of this opportunity to be alone. Lionel tells him that he has a one-track mind. Alistair says "I'm just trying to be a mate, mate." When Lionel says that Jean was acting hysterically earlier that day, Alistair tells him that she had "big match nerves." Lionel said "Goodbye, Alistair." When he's alone, Lionel begins to think about what Alistair has said.

Jean's doorbell rings. He stands at the door and asks if she's busy. She looks surprised -- tells him she's cleaning the oven. He wants to know if Sandy's helping her or if she's got Sandy doing the sink. He's clearly annoyed with her and he tells her there are a couple of things he wants to tell her. She makes no attempt to invite him in. He tells her she could shut the door and he'll just shout what he has to say through the letterbox. After telling him that she didn't appreciate his sarcasm she let him come inside. When she told him she didn't expect to see him that evening he said he could tell by the way she was dressed. She said he wasn't very gallant. He confessed that no, he wasn't. In fact he was angry. Jean told him to help himself to a drink while she fixed herself up a bit. He said he'd better not drink -- he gets very amorous when he drinks and there's no telling what he might do if the two of them were alone in the house. Obviously he's figured out what's going on. She comes into the living room telling him she feels very foolish about if that makes him feel better. Lionel says for a while he thought she was either trying to get rid of him or worse, that she had become temporarily deranged.

She said that it was all so set up that it made her nervous. Lionel was upset because Jean didn't trust him. It seems everyone around them has been smirking about the thought of their being alone on the weekend. Lionel told her that Alistair was doing the same thing when they were together earlier. He tells her that Alistair didn't go to Paris after all and "Judith was never on the menu....agenda." Jean doesn't understand why Judith led her to believe that she WAS going to Paris with Alistair, but Lionel reminds her that Judith is a grown woman with two husbands behind her and she was old enough to make her own decisions. Jean wonders where Judith went. She realizes that Judith was just giving them space for "the big match." Now they need that drink and now he understands what Jean meant when she said it was a set-up. She wants to know if he's still angry. He thinks so. He doesn't like being taken for a middle-aged predator.

LIONEL: You trusted me when we were young.
JEAN: No, I didn't.

Judith looks exhausted and probably feels badly that she's walked in again on Jean and Lionel. Jean wants to know where she's been. Pangbourne, she says. Not with Alistair, and certainly and not to Paris. Jean and Judith hug one another. Jean was right in her suspicions -- she went so that she could give them some space. She specifically went to Pangbourne because she always liked the sound of the word "Pangbourne", but there was a sales convention and the people there were noisy and "wishful thinkers" and it looked as though Jean didn't want to be alone with Lionel anyway so she came back home. She could leave if they wanted her to. Lionel said that their embarrassment factor would shoot through the roof if she left. "What happened to your cold feet?" she wanted to know. Jean informed her that they were going to be adults and that they had to be left alone to make their own plans. When she asked what those plans might include, Lionel told that they've already gone as far as deciding to make dinner.