Bernie Winter-Alahan (Jane Hazlegrove) got a shock at the start of her shift at the cafe in Monday (February 2)’s Coronation Street when the electrician Roy Cropper (David Neilson) had employed appeared in the cafe.
It was only Mal (Tim Treloar), the man she’d spent a night with at the Chariot Square Hotel.
To be clear, this wasn’t a ‘spent the night with’ in the fullest sense of the word. What happened was that Bernie went out and got very drunk as she struggled to process her grief after Billy Mayhew (Daniel Brocklebank)’s funeral. She met Mal at the hotel bar and they continued drinking together, before going back to his room and popping a pill.
Viewers already knew that Mal was the husband of Alice, the woman Roy had been writing to and he’d already punched Roy after accusing him of having an affair with his wife. He was drowning his sorrows because she’d left him.
On a couple of occasions in the hotel room Mal tried to kiss Bernie, but she rebuffed him and reminded him she was married. But back at home her husband Dev (Jimmi Harkishin) was frantic with worry when she didn’t come back all night, and when she did reappear she obviously wanted to pretend to herself that the whole thing hadn’t happened.
This is going to be difficult with Mal sorting out the electrics at her workplace. Bernie tried to convince Roy to hire someone else but he feels guilty about contributing to the break-up of Mal’s marriage and insisted on keeping him on.
Trying to put recent hiccups behind them, Bernie and Dev decided to have a date night and headed to the Rovers. Unfortunately Mal was also there.
While Dev was otherwise occupied, Bernie had a quiet word with Mal and reminded him that she was happily married. He said that Dev was a lucky man, which made her feel very uncomfortable.
Mal assured her that they’d had ‘one really great night,’ and it had helped him with his own problems, but he had no intention of getting her into any trouble and once he’d finished the job at Roy’s she’d never see him again.
Warily reassured, she thanked him. But when her back was turned the look on Mal’s face changed, leading us to believe that he’s perhaps not as nice as he’s pretending to be.
Is he really going to keep his word to Bernie? Ominously, Corrie producer Kate Brooks said this storyline would prove to be a test for Bernie and Dev.
‘It’s a big test for them, it’s a big story for Bernie. Roy’s embroiled in that story as well. It’s a really interesting one to keep an eye on because it’s going to be quite a big start to the year for Bernie.’
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Mal certainly has the power to throw a huge grenade into the Winter-Alahan marriage, and it’s possible he still has an issue with Roy, too. Has the cafe owner let him into his life too easily?
With Mal still to reveal his true colours, it looks like there could be trouble ahead for Bernie and for Roy, too.
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