It had just stopped raining. It was dark and the cobbles were glistening under the street lights. Peter Barlow had had a horrendous day at work but right now, work was preferable to going home because, well, home didn't feel like home anymore. His girlfriend, Toyah, had just been given more bad news about her IVF treatment. She was distraught and Peter no longer had the stomach to convince her that there was still light at the end of the tunnel. Any hope that Peter once had, for his partner to become a mother, had faded away. For months he had been at the receiving end of Toyah's frustration. She loved Peter but her desire for a child of her own was always going to come first. You could say that she was obsessed.
Peter couldn't help but feel resentful. He didn't sign up for any of it and after months of misery and hostility, he may as well have been serving time in prison again! After all, that's what it felt like now. Technically, he was a free man but in some ways, he was still trapped.
At least being a cab driver meant that he could get away for a bit. Mr Barlow was getting really good at listening to other people's problems, and somehow, it had become a kind of escape from his own dismal life…