Maggie Sullivan - Christmas on Coronation Street - The perfect Christmas read

‘Don’t you dare bloody cheek me!’ he yelled. ‘I’ll make you pay for this.’ Now her father grabbed hold of her shoulders and pulling her in front of him began to shake her violently. ‘Pick ’em up, I said,’ he shouted into her face. ‘Now!’ The cocktail of alcohol fumes, stale tobacco and the odours from his otherwise empty stomach, compounded with her spinning head, made her retch. Flinging her arms wide to fend him off, she raced out of the door and ran round the back of the house and across the tiny yard. She was heading for the midden they shared with four of their back-to-back neighbours, praying none of their snotty kids had noticed her plight and would deliberately block her way.

Fay Grimshaw at the age of thirteen was still officially part of the Weatherfield school system, although not many of her teachers could attest to that fact for she played truant from her classes at every available opportunity. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to learn; she simply didn’t believe the teachers in her school had anything left to teach her. They never seemed to talk about anything that related to her life, they weren’t interested in understanding her problems and they certainly had no notion of her secret ambitions. If they had, they might have been impressed; for Fay wanted to better herself, to climb out of the Back Gas Street hellhole she and her eight siblings had been born into. But they never showed her any practical ways in which she could do this. They offered no help, gave her no guidance, so she saw no point in attending what she thought of as unnecessary and pointless lessons.

The fact that it was called a Church of England school and they regularly taught lots of religious studies was another mark against the teachers as far as Fay was concerned. No one in her family had anything to do with religion and she could only wonder that her parents had ever considered such a school appropriate. Elsie, her older sister whom she adored and looked up to, had certainly not been to any kind of religious school and she was now getting along very nicely in her working life without having owt to do with the church. Not that Fay had much to do with it herself. On the occasions when she and her classmates had been expected to go to a church service, she had managed to avoid it. And she would continue to avoid it. The only time she might consider entering a church was when she eventually got married. And then she would only agree to having a religious ceremony if her father promised not to attend and if she could guarantee her mother wouldn’t turn up pregnant – again. Even as it crossed her mind now, her face flushed at the thought of her mother having yet another baby tugging hopelessly at her shapeless breasts like there had been for the last several years. It was bad enough to think that in a few months’ time little Jack would no longer be the youngest member of the family. The thought of the same thing happening year after year put her off wanting babies of her own.

But the thought of her having a wedding at all made her smile. A big white wedding like she’d seen once or twice at St Mary’s in Weatherfield. For it was something she and Elsie talked about a lot, her big sister being adamant she wouldn’t set foot inside a church even for that. So maybe she should follow in Elsie’s footsteps. It wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, would it? Although, if she was honest, she would like to have a better job than her sister. It was true Elsie seemed happy enough in the textile factory, loading yarns on to the huge reels to be woven into different patterns of cotton fabric. But Fay had different ambitions. She was almost two years younger, she’d probably never be as big as Elsie, and she’d certainly never have Elsie’s striking looks, but then she would be happy working somewhere quietly on her own. She wanted to do a college course and become a secretary.

When she was about eight years old Fay had seen a Charlie Chaplin film at the local picture house about a bank secretary, and she had fallen in love with the idea of working in an office. As usual, she and Elsie had sneaked into the cinema through the door people usually came out of, after one of their mates had left the emergency bar on the latch for them. Near the end of the first showing of the main feature they had slid in and gone to sit in the cheapest seats so they wouldn’t be noticed while they waited until the film was shown again. She had eventually come out of the cinema, eyes blinking in the strong daylight, her mind full of the glamour of the important role the secretary had played within the bank and she had decided then that was what she wanted to do.

Fay liked the idea of working somewhere quiet and comfortably furnished, somewhere that was well organized and ordered. In the film and in offices she knew everything was neat and clean. The secretaries’ desks always looked so tidy and there was even room for a potted plant or two. She admired the stylish way all the girls she knew who worked in an office dressed, and the way they came out of work looking relaxed and unflustered. Most had a smart coat and a pert little hat. So different from the way Elsie and her workmates came pouring out of the hot, noisy and horribly smelly factories where they worked. They were swathed in overalls and shawls and had untidy headscarves covering their curlers. No, the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t wait to leave school, though she had no idea how she would manage to pay the fees to enrol into a secretarial college.

‘You don’t want to be fretting about that,’ Elsie had chided. ‘I’ll help you find a job so you can earn some money before you start.’

‘Could you?’ Fay was excited at the idea.

Elsie shrugged. Then she had suddenly looked serious. ‘Of course the old man mustn’t find out about it or you’ll end up with nowt. And our mam must think you’re still going to school, or she’ll make you turn your wages over to our dad like I have to do.’

‘Do you really think I could get away with it?’

‘You, young lady can do anything you set your mind to do. You’re pretty. You’re not too skinny and you’ve got all the best features our mam must have had when she was a lass.’

‘Do you really think so? Like what?’ Fay was surprised to hear her sister talk like that.

‘Well, for starters you’ve got our mam’s lovely brown eyes, but yours always seem to be smiling. And look at the way they match the colour of your hair.’ Elsie put a hand out to touch it. ‘And the way your hair curls without ever having to put it up in rags. I’m dead jealous. You don’t always have to drag it all back off your face, you know.’ She gave her sister’s ponytail a gentle tug.

‘I know but it keeps it out of the way.’

‘But there are lots of other things you could do to make yourself pretty. A bit of flesh on your bones, a spot of pink in your cheeks, rub some beetroot juice on to your lips and you’ll have all the lads chasing you before long.’

‘Nay, but I’m too small for anyone to want to bother.’

‘Don’t be so daft. You’ll grow. And soon. Though you wouldn’t really want to be as tall as me, now would you?’

‘One thing, I’ll never be as old as you,’ Fay retorted and both girls fell about laughing.

‘Seriously, Sis,’ Elsie said, you’re going to make something of yourself. I just know it.’ She smiled as she looked away into the distance. ‘The important thing is to hang on to the dream.’

Fay thought a lot about that dream and how she might be able to keep such a secret from her parents. She might even apply for the waitress job she had seen advertised in the café window in the centre of Weatherfield. As far as she knew, it wasn’t a place either of her parents frequented so she wasn’t likely to be found out. And though she had no idea what a waitress’s weekly wage might be, she began to picture piles of threepenny bits, sixpences, even shillings and the odd half-crown being added to the few pennies she already had in the biscuit tin that was hidden under the bed. She might even have some money left over to buy presents for her siblings: a pair of silk stockings for Elsie, a new toy car for Jack. Soon she’d be able to leave home and find a room to rent, like she’d read about in a book once at school. It all sounded so romantic and so grown-up; she couldn’t wait.