Mary has convinced herself that Freda has done away with Norris and just as she is threatening her on the cobbles, a taxi pulls up and out pops Norris himself. He explains to Mary that the urn on Emily’s sideboard contains the ashes of Freda’s hearing assistance dog; that he is engaged to Freda; and he was too scared to face Mary directly about him and his fiancé moving up to Edinburgh. While going through some old photos, deciding what’s to be kept, donated to charity and taken to the tip, Norris unearths some old letters addressed to Mary.
He thinks that Freda hasn’t spotted them but while Norris is out she finds them and takes them to Rita. One of them is open and so she reads it to find a letter from Mary’s old admirer and ex-editor of “The Inexplicable” magazine, Brendan Finch. Instead of giving the letters back to Norris with an ultimatum to tell Mary (as you would expect from St. Rita), she and Freda steam open the rest and find out that Brendan was so in love with Mary that he’d left his wife and was proposing marriage to her, enclosing an engagement ring in the final letter. Mary catches Freda with the letters and sets about reading them all before confronting Norris who insists that he was only doing what was best for his friend and wife.
Mary finds an old mobile number for Brendan and leaves him a message on his voicemail accepting his proposal. In reply she receives a text telling her they have to talk. Brendan’s brother Bernard then turns up to inform her that Brendan had fallen off Striding Edge on Helvellyn 6 months earlier while on a UFO hunt. She’s distraught and takes herself off to the community garden to read the letters from the man who loved her and have a good cry. While there a Robin sits on a post chirruping and she is convinced it has the spirit of Brendan. Freda later dumps Norris and Mary initiates divorce proceedings.
Bethany thinks Ryan should start spinning his ones and twos again and persuades Alya to let him DJ for a couple of hours one evening at Speed Daal. Ryan tries to kiss Bethany but she shies away and he thinks she’s not as interested in him and he thought. Really, she tells her mam, she does like him but she’s frightened of getting involved as there’s been nobody since Nathan. At the “soundcheck”, Ryan is clearly over his rebuff from Bethany as he agrees to meet Alya after his “set” for a drink. Bethany explains her feelings to Ryan who is very understanding and so sleeps with her.
Ryan is late for his DJing performance only just arriving in time to avoid his spot being taken by Geoff and a copy of “Hi Ho Silver Lining”. Quite what Ryan was doing in Ibiza I don't know but he certainly wasn’t DJing. His technique seemed to consist solely of crashing the cross fader from one deck to the other with absolutely no attempt at beat matching. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes as a DJ in Ibiza. At the end of the set Alex puts on “Don’t Look Back Into The Sun” by The Libertines and Alya runs off in tears. Ryan catches up with her in the community garden and she explains it was Luke’s favourite song when he was going off car racing. In return Ryan tells her that he and Bethany are now an item and Alya’s livid as she thought they had arranged a date and threatens to tell Bethany. She doesn’t need to bother as Alex tells Bethany that Ryan’s gone off with Alya and so Bethany gives Ryan the slap he probably deserves.
Robert goes to lunch at a hotel in town rather than in his own restaurant with his estranged partner Michelle, and bumps into a confused and scared Carla. He manages to get her back to the Street but she runs off before he can hand her over to the Connor family.
Tim wins the heart-age bet he had with Dev and Steve but he’s probably spent more than he’s won on designer spandex, sorry, polyester elastane weave, training clothes. Asha misses a test at school so Dev confiscates her phone, though she has another one. And Paula and Sophie are friends again so go off pony-trekking in Spain.
This week’s writers were Damon Alexis-Rochefort (Monday); Debbie Oates (Wednesday); and Ellen Taylor and Owen Lloyd-Fox (Friday). Find out all about the Coronation Street writing team at Coronation Street Blog: Exclusive: All Current Corrie writers online
This week's update written by Sunny Jim as Flaming Nora was away
Glenda Young
Author: Belle of the Back Streets
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