"Orla Connor, is that you?" I heard a voice say from behind me as I sat in a café in town with Amelie and Tally in August of 2023.
Tally was starting school in a few days, and we had come into town to buy her first pair of school shoes. We had stopped in a café for some lunch as both her and Amelie were rather tired. Amelie, or Amie, as she had become affectionately known was turning 1 in two weeks. The past year really had changed my life and although Mum was right and it was really hard being a Mum, it was also the best thing I'd ever done. She was happy, smiley, always full of energy and an absolute joy to spend my days with. She had started going to Julie's house a couple of days a week over the summer and she absolutely adores her, and Julie feels the same about Amie. The bakery was doing really well, and we'd opened a second shop in Salford at the beginning of the summer. The commercial kitchen orders were piling up and business at the factory was booming.
I turned around in my chair as someone put their hand on my shoulder.
"I don't believe, is that little Joshua Peacock?" I asked as I stood up from my chair and hugged him.
"I can't believe it's you, after all these years in all the places." He said before pulling away.
"Have you got time for a chat, pull up a chair." I said as I sat back down and shuffled Amelie's highchair around the table. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside me. "How are you?" I asked.
"Good, good, yeah, and you?" he questioned.
"I'm really well thanks. What brings you back to Manchester?" I replied.
"I've been back a few years now." He said before pausing. "Wow, I can't believe the Orla Connor I used to kick a football with on the street with Simon is sat right next to me."
"It was me and you and Si and Bethany, wasn't it?" I said and Josh nodded. "Si's my stepbrother, his Dad and my Mum got married, they've got three kids together would you believe. This is one of them, Josh this is my little sister Tally and this is my daughter Amelie. Tal, this is Josh, we used to play together when we were little with Si too." I said.
"Hi Tally, hi Amelie," he greeted each of them and Tally beamed as she sipped her hot chocolate, "Does that mean there's a boyfriend or a husband on the scene?" Josh asked.
"No, no, Amelie's Dad, that's a long story." I said and Josh nodded, knowing it wasn't one for now. "So, what are you doing now? Working? Uni?" I asked.
"I'm still at uni. I'm at med school actually." He said. "I want to be a doctor, like my Dad, well my real Dad. I got in contact with him when I was a teenager after spending however many years growing up in France with my Mum and my brother, I wanted to come home to Manchester."
"And you never thought of coming back to Weatherfield?" I asked.
"I thought about it, but it's a lot of memories of my Dad and I will, at some point, just not quite ready yet." He told me.
"Well, you're always welcome. I'd join you in the Rovers for a pint, I do own part of the place now." I said putting my hand on his on the table. He smiled.
"No way, sorry I didn't even ask, what are you up to now?" he asked.
"I own part of the factory, Underworld which I run with my Mum, and I own part of the pub, which is where I live too, and I also own a few bakeries in Weatherfield and in Salford. We do an epic cake and a great loaf of bread." I told him and he laughed as he squeezed my hand.
"When are we getting my school shoes, Orlie?" Tally said from the other side of the table. I smiled at the hot chocolate covering her top lip.
"Sorry Josh, we best get going before these two kick off. It was lovely to see you." I picked my bag up from out the bottom of Amelie's pram and found one of my business cards, "Here's my number." I handed it to him before we both stood up and hugged each other.
"I'll give you a call and I'll definitely pop by for a cake." He said as he hugged me and kissed each of my cheeks. He said goodbye to both the girls and then I watched as he left the café and walked across the road towards the tram stop.
When I got home that afternoon, Mum and Peter were sat in the back room at the table and neither of them looked happy. Michelle was stood at the doorway of the kitchen looking equally unimpressed. I sent Tally upstairs where I could hear Isla and Ella playing, while parking Amie's pram at the bottom of the stairs. I perched on the arm of the chair behind Peter and waited for one of them to explain what was going on.
"Is anyone gonna tell me why you're all sat here with faces like thunder?" I said eventually. Mum stared out of the window and Peter looked down at the table while Michelle rolled her eyes.
"Will one of you spit it out?" she said, throwing the tea towel in her hand onto the table.
"I think we're gonna have to sell the pub." Mum said calmly.
"What? Why?" I asked. "The business is doing well, isn't it?" I looked to Michelle who was in charge of the day to day running of the pub and she nodded.
"It's nothing to do with the business Orla. It's about us, about our family." Mum told me, barely looking away from the window.
"It's our home Mum, surely that has to matter for something in our family." I said.
"It's not our family Orla, it's not our family, it's me." Peter said, still fiddling with his fingers on the table. I looked at Michelle who gave me an encouraging nod as if to say let him talk and so I waited for him to continue. "I can't do it anymore Orla, I can't stand out there and serve people drinks and watch them drinking when all I am thinking in my head is that I want to take a bottle off the side and go and drink it on my own. I know I shouldn't say that after everything that happened with my liver transplant, but I can't help it anymore. It's been two years of us living here and running that pub and I don't think I can take it for much longer." I got off the arm of the chair and walked behind him, putting my hand on his shoulder.
"He hasn't finished Orla." Mum said as she turned and looked directly at Peter.
"Carla, how many times? I didn't drink it, I promise you, I put the bottle to my lips, and I stopped myself." Peter replied.
"But you could have done it, you could have ended your life right there and then and left me with three children on my own and you know, you know how hard that would have been for me, let alone your children." Mum said as tears welled in her eyes and dripped down her face. I looked at Michelle, who now stood behind Mum and put her hands on her shoulders as Mum wiped her eyes.
"Surely Mum, it shows a massive amount of self-control that for two years Peter has resisted having a drink when he was surrounded by it every day." I said, trying to argue his point.
"Whose side are you on?" Mum asked, as she looked at me.
"The side of peace and harmony." I said. Mum smiled as Peter put his hand on mine and squeezed it. "Would it really be the worst thing in the world if we did sell the pub?" I asked.
"No." Michelle said as Mum and Peter both shook their heads. "We're all busy people and it would be nice if just once we had a weekend where we weren't changing barrels and cleaning up smashed glasses and actually spending time with the kids, instead of chucking a film on for them while we served pints."
"She's right." I agreed, moving around the table and sitting on the sofa.
"But it's our home. It was Dad's home, he left it to us." Mum said, beginning to sob again.
"Don't you think Gramps would rather we were happy instead of keeping a business afloat when we'd rather be spending time together as a family?" I suggested. Mum wiped her eyes again and then looked at me. I thought she were about to shout and scream and say how could I possibly say that. But instead, she just nodded.
"I think she's right love." Peter said. "Not only would it be the best decision for the pub, but it would be the best decision for us, all of us as a family."
"But this isn't just the pub, this is our home, our kids' home. Where would we live?" Mum said. She made a good point. One of the things I loved most about being here was the fact that all of my favourite people lived under one roof, all together and I never had to go far to find one of them to make my day just a little brighter.
"I'm sure with the money from the sale of this place and us all clubbing together a bit, we could find a house that could fit us all in somewhere." Peter said.
"But it wouldn't be here, would it? Our lives are here, on these few streets, our businesses, our friends, our kids' schools are all here. I don't want to leave here." I said. Mum and Michelle both nodded in agreement.
"I know this may seem like a crazy idea and it is no instant fix but hear me out." Michelle said after a long silence was held in the room. "There's two houses for sale on Mawdsley Street next to each other." This was the street opposite that backed onto the ginnel. "We always talked about living in a house with our separate bedrooms upstairs and downstairs was shared, didn't we?" Michelle said to Mum and Mum nodded. "It would take some work, but we could buy both and knock the downstairs through to make it one house. It would give us the space, enough bedrooms for all of us and it would mean the kids all stayed together, they adore being with each other all the time, despite the odd argument."
"And us, we'd get to stay together. I'm not ready to leave you all." I added.
"You're right, it would take some work, but I'm willing to wait if it means our family can stay together." Peter said. Mum reached her hand across the table and held onto Peter's.
"Me too, that is all I want, for us to be together and for us to be happy." Mum said.
"Hey, I was hoping I'd find you in here." Josh said to me as he walked up to the bar in the pub a few weeks later, just after Amie's first birthday. I smiled brightly as I walked around the bar and hugged him, with Amelie on my hip.
"Hey, you alright? You finally come to see the place?" I asked as we pulled away.
"Yeah, it's been, weird, really weird. But I knew I'd find a familiar face in here." He said.
"Well, can this familiar face get you a drink?" I asked him as Amelie got restless in my arms and reached for Josh. He smiled as he put his hands out and took her from me. His tall body and long arms made her look tiny, but her giggles lit up the room as he stuck his tongue out at her.
"Actually, I was hoping you were free to go for a little walk. Just wanted someone to reminisce with." He said. I was slightly speechless, partly because of what he was asking but also because I was in absolute awe of how much Amelie was enjoying his company.
"Yeah, yeah of course. I need to pop a few things over to the bakery on my way, but we would love to." I told him.