Snow on the Cobbles (Coronation Street Book 3) Read online

  Copyright

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

  Coronation Street is an ITV Studios Production

  Copyright © ITV Ventures Limited 2018

  Cover design by Cliff Webb © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019.

  Cover photograph © Stephen Searle/Alamy Stock Photo (Coronation Street); 2ebill/Alamy Stock Photo (children on front cover); © Topfoto.co.uk (women and children on back cover).

  Jean Alexander Hilda Ogden archive photograph © ITV Rex / Shutterstock Maggie Sullivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008354756

  Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008255190

  Version: 2019-10-09

  Dedication

  To my wonderful nieces Avril and Masha

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Jean Alexander – would the real Hilda Ogden stand up please?

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Maggie Sullivan

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Weatherfield, January 1945

  Hilda Ogden blew the dust off the photograph frame.

  ‘My Stan,’ she sighed. She pursed her lips in the direction of his cheek only drawing back when they touched the cold glass. ‘Come home soon, chuck,’ she whispered as she placed it back on the tiled mantelpiece. ‘The bed’s cold without you.’ But she had no time to dwell on her prisoner-of-war husband right now. While he remained stuck in Italy there wasn’t much he could do to help her, but here at home it was Monday morning, the start of a new working week, time for Hilda to brave the spell of wintry weather that had suddenly hit Weatherfield, and hope that the thin dusting of snow that had already stuck to the wet cobbles overnight wouldn’t seep through the canvas of her shoes. It was time for her to venture out to find a new job.

  ‘We won’t be needing all our workers now, so it’ll be last in first out,’ Al Martin the supervisor at Earnshaw’s munitions factory had said last Friday when he’d handed over her wages, her notice, and a few additional hours’ pay for some extra time she’d put in. ‘Consider yourself lucky the boss was feeling generous enough to give you a few bob besides.’ Hilda had looked down at the added coins, wondering what she might be able to treat herself to from the corner shop on the way home.

  Al was one of the growing number who were convinced the war was going to end very soon now since the Home Guard had been disbanded in December and the Civil Defence was gradually being stood down and Hilda could only hope he was right. The occasional unmanned rockets were still falling in the south but things in Weatherfield had been quiet regarding bombs and sirens for several weeks now and rumour had it that it would all be over in a few months. Not that it would make it any easier for her to find a new job if all the soldiers came rushing home, but Hilda was willing to take on the kind of jobs that most men would avoid, like doing a spot of cleaning, especially if the money was put directly into her hands, no strings attached. She had shrugged as she turned to leave the office, humming in her usual tuneless way.

  She’d wondered about trying for a job at the pub in Coronation Street, The Rovers Return, as it was not far from Charles Street where she and Stan were renting rooms; well, she was renting the rooms – Stan had never even seen them, of course. She’d had the occasional drink in the Rovers, met a few of the locals, but she wasn’t sure about working with the stuck-up landlady, Annie Walker. The Tripe Dresser’s Arms, on the other hand, around the corner from the Rovers, was more Hilda’s style with its bare brickwork, sawdust sprinkled on the stone floors, and its rough-and-ready customers. It had been closed for a while but Hilda had heard it would be opening again soon with new landlords. According to one of Hilda’s friends, they were doing it up and would be needing staff, so she should get down there quick.

  Hilda pulled her well-worn coat round her skinny frame and shivered, watching through the windows as further flurries of snowflakes settled on the slushy paving stones. She knew the thin, unlined material wouldn’t provide much protection against the chilling wind but it was all she’d managed to find in the Red Cross charity shop this winter and she hoped her thin-soled shoes wouldn’t send her slip-sliding across the shiny cobbles. She shook her tightly wound curls free from the curlers she’d wrapped them in overnight and covered them with a headscarf that she tied under her chin. Checking her reflection in the wide oval mirror over the empty fireplace, she pulled up her coat collar and, with a hopeful smile, set off in search of work.

  Lizzie Doyle looked down at the piece of paper in her hand, then up at the house in the middle of the terraced row. Number nine Coronation Street. It looked a lot crisper and cleaner in the black-and-white photograph than the real thing. She peeked into the folds of the blanket-wrapped bundle she was holding closely in her arms and rubbed her finger gently against the baby’s pink cheeks. She felt proud that despite all the shortages the family had suffered recently at least they were as smooth and plump as any six-month-old’s should be. ‘Nothing a bit of soapy water and a touch of elbow grease won’t shift, eh, Sammy?’ She stared directly into his dark-blue eyes. ‘So, how do you fancy living here, then? It doesn’t look so bad, does it? And by the time our ma and the boys are installed and we’ve run up some bits and pieces of curtains and the like, I’m sure we can make it really nice.’

  She put the key in the lock and pushed open the front door. She was about to step inside when the door to number eleven swung open, revealing a young redhead, dressed in a short skirt and brightly coloured home-knit jumper. She looked to be about twenty or twenty-one, the same age as Lizzie. The woman drew on the cigarette she held between two nicotine-stained fingers and blew the smoke high into the air.

  ‘Morning,’ she said peering beyond Lizzie into the hallway of number nine. ‘You movin’ in?’

  ‘When me ma and brothers gets here with the cart, we will be, yes. You live next door, then?’

  The young woman put out her hand. ‘Elsie Tanner’s the name. And I do indeed live here at number eleven. Welcome to Coronation Street.’

  Lizzie transferred the baby into the crook of her other arm
and shook Elsie’s hand. ‘Ta,’ she said, ‘I’m Lizzie Doyle.’

  ‘We was all wondering who’d be brave enough to take it on,’ Elsie said.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Lizzie felt a jolt of alarm. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Oh, there’s nowt really wrong, I can assure you. And I’d know as I’ve lived next door for nearly six years now. But you know how it is, when a house has been empty for a while – folk like to make something of it, and by the time everyone has put their two penn’orth in there’s all kinds of rumours flying around, even when there’s no truth to them.’

  ‘Has it been empty that long? No wonder it smelt musty when I opened the door.’

  Elsie leaned back against her own front door. ‘Nowt to fret about, the last of the Todd family departed not long since.’

  Lizzie didn’t say anything. They couldn’t afford to be choosey. They needed this house and her ma would never let any neighbourhood gossip put them off. ‘I suppose folks need to keep themselves entertained,’ she said eventually. ‘There is a war on.’

  ‘Aye, though maybe it’ll be over soon, eh? Let’s hope.’ Elsie pulled herself upright. ‘And let’s hope you’ll bring a bit of luck to the place.’ She grinned, and coming down off the front doorstep, tried to peep inside the blanket. ‘That your nipper?’

  ‘My baby brother,’ Lizzie said quickly, pulling the blanket back from Sammy’s face. Elsie chuckled him under the chin.

  ‘And the rest of the family are following on with all your stuff, then?’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘All our worldly goods. Not that there’s much to ’em, but we manage.’

  ‘How many of you is there?’

  ‘There’s me ma, Cora Doyle, the twins Seamus and Tommy – they’re seven – and little Sammy here; he’s not yet six months.’

  ‘Gosh, your poor mum’s got her hands full there.’ Elsie laughed. ‘I’ve got two little ’uns, so I know what it’s like. They’re five and two and they’re always getting under my feet. No doubt you’ll hear us all yelling at each other – the bricks are not so thick.’ She knocked on the wall that joined the two houses to prove her point.

  Lizzie grinned. ‘I don’t think we’ll be any better. The twins are quite a handful when they’ve a mind. At least, Seamus is, though they think I can’t tell the difference between them. And this one can do his fair share of screaming.’ She beamed down at the baby who rewarded her with a toothless smile.

  ‘Have you come far?’ Elsie asked.

  Lizzie hesitated, unwilling to go into detail about the family’s comings and goings. ‘The other side of Weatherfield,’ she said eventually.

  ‘I tell you what, then,’ Elsie said, ‘when your lot get here why don’t you all pop in for a quick brew? I don’t suppose a kettle, or coal for the fire will be the first things you’ll have to hand.’ She turned to go back indoors. ‘I’ll go and get the water up. You knock on when they arrive.’

  Elsie’s house looked well lived-in. There were several chairs and a large wooden table and every surface was covered with toys or discarded clothing. Elsie was tending the fire at the kitchen end of the long room when they arrived and she went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up the stairwell, ‘Linda, Dennis, get your arses down here now! We’ve got visitors and there’s nowhere for ’em to sit. How many bloody times do I have to tell you?’ She gave a resigned smile and threw her hands up in a gesture of despair.

  Lizzie looked round the cluttered room. It was the same shape as the one they had just piled their few belongings into but Elsie had made some changes, like the wall behind the two-seater couch in the living area that was papered from floor to ceiling with pictures of film stars cut from magazines.

  ‘Don’t you just love him to death?’ Elsie said, making a brushing motion on the moustache on the enlarged face of Clark Gable. ‘My Linda would have been called Clark if she’d been a boy. But I had to settle for Linda Darnell. Which was just as well, I’m not sure Clark’s quite right for a kid to be saddled with round here and he’d certainly not have thanked me once he’d got to Bessie Street school.’ She gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Here, don’t mind these.’ Elsie picked up a little girl’s vest and a liberty bodice and stuffed them behind a threadbare cushion that looked as if it had been punched into a corner of the couch.

  ‘Sit anywhere you like,’ she said, gesturing aimlessly round the room. ‘The kids won’t care what you do with their things. They never know where anything is anyway.’ As she spoke, she swept the items from two of the chairs onto the floor before hurrying back to where the kettle had begun to whistle on the hearth. Lizzie removed the dubious remains of a knitted bunny and what was left of its fluff-ball tail from the upright chair that was closest to her and sat it down on the table, indicating that her mother, who’d taken charge of baby Sammy, should sit down.

  ‘Linda!’ Elsie shrieked from the scullery. ‘What have I told you about leaving that mucky old rabbit lying around? If I find it down here one more time I’m going to chuck it straight into the dustbin.’

  A little girl with sandy-coloured hair wound round strips of rags, had come down the stairs and was busy putting a one-armed doll to bed under a handkerchief. At the sound of her mother’s shriek she grabbed the offending animal from the table. ‘He’s mine,’ she said, pushing the stuffing back into the rabbit’s chest, ‘and you can’t have him!’ And she abandoned the doll and bounded back up the stairs.

  ‘Tell that brother of yours to come down and shift his bloody things before I give ’em all to the rag ’n’ bone man,’ Elsie yelled after her. ‘Honestly. Kids!’ She turned to her visitors and shrugged in frustration.

  Cora grinned her agreement. ‘Don’t let these two fool you, them looking as if butter wouldn’t melt,’ she said, indicating the twins. Elsie put down two steaming cups, not seeming to care about the new scorch rings they seared onto the table. Then she brought in her own drink and sat down to join them. There was no milk or sugar on offer.

  Lizzie’s gaze was drawn to a photograph of a young couple that stood on the mantelshelf in a wooden frame. She recognized the woman as Elsie, though in the picture she looked no more than a girl. She was smartly dressed in a tailored costume and was smiling confidently into the camera. Her hair was coiffed in the latest style and she was holding a small bunch of flowers. The man was considerably taller, with broad shoulders that were made to look even wider by his double-breasted suit. He had a moustache that drooped over his scowling mouth.

  ‘That’s Arnold, my lumbering hulk of a husband,’ Elsie told Lizzie. ‘Though thank goodness, he’s been away at sea since the start of the war. He says he likes me to keep the photograph on show to remind me I’m married.’ Without thinking, she rubbed her arm ruefully. ‘But not for much longer, if I have my way.’ She picked the frame up and stared at it for several moments. Then, with a defiant look, she put it back on the mantelshelf, face down. ‘But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my family nonsense.’ She turned to Lizzie’s mother. ‘So, Cora, is your husband away fighting still?’

  Lizzie was about to cut in but she had to bite her lip to stop it quivering.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’ It was Cora who answered, the hint of her Irish brogue still apparent. ‘He’ll not be coming home no more, at all.’

  Elsie’s cheeks coloured. ‘Me and my big mouth. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Cora said softly. ‘You weren’t to know. And it’s something we’re all learning to live with since we got one of those dreaded letters from his captain. It was at Christmas, would you believe,’ Cora said, looking away as she tried to stop her voice trembling. ‘It was filled with all the usual nonsense. Died bravely, didn’t suffer, blah, blah, blah. I’m sure everyone’s told the same thing.’

  ‘And just so’s you know, my Joe was taken the year before,’ Lizzie added quietly and she couldn’t look at Elsie either as she struggled to control her breathing.

  It was Seamus who broke the m
omentary silence. ‘But that wasn’t the same as losing me dad. Yous wasn’t even wed yet, so it doesn’t count.’

  Lizzie’s cheeks flamed.

  ‘And he was American.’ Tommy joined in now.

  ‘Actually, he was Canadian,’ Lizzie said, her voice cold. ‘And let me tell you, every single person who fights for us counts when there’s a war on.’

  ‘But it wasn’t as though he was like, one of us,’ Tommy said.

  ‘No, he was a whole lot better than either of you two! Honestly, you do say some of the most idiotic things Tommy Doyle.’ Lizzie’s voice had begun to rise.

  ‘Will you shut up, both of you!’ Cora suddenly shouted. She pointed a shaking finger at the twins. ‘As you two don’t know what you are talking about, as usual, I’ll thank you to keep quiet and to show a bit of respect to your sister. You were far more interested in going out to play and causing havoc than paying much attention to Joe. Not that you saw much of your da either for that matter, except when he was home on leave, which was hardly ever.’

  ‘You always say that,’ Seamus said with an angry toss of his head, though his eyes were filling as he spoke. ‘But you’d be surprised what I remember.’ He scowled at Lizzie, who stared at him in alarm while Cora glowered angrily. ‘I’ll thank you two boys not to interfere in grown-ups’ conversations, so sit down and be quiet.’

  ‘But you always said Joe wasn’t really—’ Tommy persisted.

  ‘Enough!’ Cora cut in, her voice sharp now. ‘Mrs Tanner doesn’t want to be hearing any more of your nonsense and I won’t have you upsetting our Lizzie.’

  ‘I suppose we’ve all had it tough,’ Elsie said. ‘One way or another, we’ve all lost loved ones at some point.’ Elsie sighed. Then her lips twisted into a smile. ‘Though as far as I’m concerned, I can’t pretend I’m sorry my man is overseas. I don’t care if he stays there. I’m lucky I’ve got my kids. They make up for a hell of a lot.’

  ‘Yes, they do,’ Cora said, suddenly hugging Sammy close to her. ‘When they’re not trying to get above themselves,’ she added rubbing her finger under her eyelids.