Episode 43: Thick at Heart

Wednesday, August 24, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. I live and work in this great and gloomy house, where my life and destiny are bound to the whims of the Collins family—just as is the life of everyone who lives or works in Collinsport.

Bill shows up at the restaurant telling Maggie he wants coffee and conversation. He wants to talk about Sam. He’s worried about him. Maggie thinks Bill worries too much. (She’s either a great actress or prone to amnesia.) 

Maggie isn’t happy when she realizes Bill got Sam drunk.

Bill thinks Sam stumbled on some information that’s dangerous for him to have. This concerns Elizabeth Stoddard, and Bill would sacrifice anything if it would help her.

“I believe you would.” Maggie says this information must have something to do with Burke or Roger, as they’re the only ones who’ve been at the Evans house. She wonders whether Burke was really guilty of manslaughter all those years ago—and whether he’s come back for revenge.

Bill decides to call Roger. He gets in the phone booth.

Vicki arrives. She just came in to sit down after walking into town.

Vicki tells Bill that Liz wants him to call. He says he will. He’s working on something important for her and Roger—if he can ever find Roger. When he does talk to Liz, she isn’t going to like it.

He leaves, and Maggie asks Vicki if she knows what’s going on at Collinwood.

“Me? You don’t think they’d tell me anything, do you?”

“I know, but you have eyes, don’t you?” Maggie says that the whole mess at Collinwood isn’t normal, and even though you shouldn’t talk about the people you work for, it would be all right if it would help them.

Sam seemed to be mixed up with it all, somehow. Maggie had a great childhood, up until the time Sam sold a bunch of paintings for a lot of money ten years ago. He got moody and started drinking a lot after that.

Joe comes in the Blue Whale and tells Bill that Liz is looking for him. People at the plant were wondering where he was too. Joe asks if he’s all right.

“To tell you the truth, Joe, I feel thick—thick at heart.” 

He decides to try Sam Evans’ remedy for his ills. It doesn’t work for Bill. “There isn’t enough whiskey in the world to blot out facts that can’t be faced.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’d be simpler just to sit on the sidelines and just watch life go by. But you can’t. Sometimes you have to become involved. And then it hurts, Joe, because you know you have to hurt others, those you care for very much.”

Joe offers to take Bill home. Bill says he’s not a secret drinker. Sam doesn’t keep his drinking a secret—just the reason for it. Joe says young men can have problems too. Bill says he thought he had problems, twenty years ago, and he thought he licked them, but he didn’t. All he did was dig a hole and try to bury them, like the great lady who lives in that dreary old house on Widow’s Hill.

Joe says his problems are tied up with that house too.

“Carolyn? She’s your girl, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I’m her guy.”

“There’s not another man in town she’s ever looked at.”

“Not until recently. Not until Burke Devlin came back.” He thinks she’s in Bangor with Burke right now.

Maggie suggests she and Vicki have dinner sometime. Vicki leaves. Sam comes in. Maggie says she would have liked to introduce Vicki to him. Sam says he knows her but she doesn’t know him. He’s only met her once. (He met her at least twice when he was played by the other actor.)

Sam says he has a premonition something terrible is going to happen at Collinwood. Maggie says he should join Bill at the Blue Whale, since they’re both being so gloomy. Sam decides to take her advice.

Joe tells Bill about how he went to Collinwood drunk and ranted at everyone. Bill tells Joe he was right about taking Carolyn away. Joe says he doesn’t have much to offer.

“You have yourself to offer.” When Bill was young, he felt the same as Joe, and he put off the offer. Somebody else came along with a lot of smooth talk. “And that was the end of Bill Malloy.”

Sam comes in and says he wants to talk with Bill in private. Joe says he was just leaving. Sam wants Bill to tell him what he said last night when he was drunk. What is it Bill thinks he’s learned?

“Too much. Much too much.”

Joe arrives at Collinwood and Vicki lets him in. The phone rings. It’s Carolyn. She’ll be back in time for dinner. 

It’s clear to Joe from the conversation that Carolyn had lunch with Burke. Vicki says Burke is something new and different now, but tomorrow, he won’t be.

Joe says he gave Bill Liz’s message. Vicki wants to know if he’s going to call her. Joe says he’s not sure. As far as he knows, Bill is still in the Blue Whale with Sam Evans.

“Maggie’s father?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what’s gotten into Mr. Malloy, but he sure is pretty worried about something.” Joe adds that he has to go.

Sam tells Bill that something has been tormenting his conscience for a long time.

“Ten years?”

“About that. It could have been more, it could have been less. Time is not important.”

Bill opines that time is the most important thing about it. He thinks Sam’s torment stems from the time when Burke, Roger, and Laura were in a car that killed someone.

Sam says it’s natural for that to upset him. Burke was a friend of his.

“Your torment would seem a bit more natural if it stemmed from something you had known.”

Sam says that only that afternoon he had gone to Collinwood and tried to tell Liz the whole story. But he couldn’t do it. Sam leaves.

“Perhaps I can,” Bill says.

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

Victoria Winters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alexandra Moltke

Bill Malloy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frank Schofield

Maggie Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kathryn Leigh Scott

Joe Haskell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joel Crothers

Sam Evans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .David Ford

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by John Sedwick

Story created and written by Francis Swann