Emmerdale’s Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) was walking an eggshells around his daughter April Windsor (Amelia Flanagan) in Monday (February 10)’s episode.
He wanted to be able to support her in the aftermath of her terrible ordeal of giving birth to a stillborn baby in a gym toilet after weeks of living on the streets – but he was terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing.
Marlon and Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry) decided they needed advice about how to approach the situation, so they went to talk to Lydia Dingle (Karen Blick). She knows something of what April is going through, having given birth to a stillborn son, Toby, when she was living in a children’s home.
Lydia said that when she lost Toby it was the ‘darkest time’ of her life because she had no home or family and no one to love her.
She’d felt deeply ashamed at the time, but said that when she thought of Toby now she was ‘just full of love.’ She couldn’t give any advice about April’s situation other than to say she had to be allowed to open up in her own time – which might be years away.
Rhona wondered whether it would be a good idea for April to go and see the baby at the hospital and say a proper goodbye. Lydia didn’t know, but said that it ‘meant the world’ to her when she was able to scatter Toby’s ashes.
Rhona and Marlon asked April whether she would like to go to see the baby and she agreed, and asked Marlon to come with her.
They went into the room where the baby was lying in a tiny wicker basket. April was only able to stay for a few moments and then left. On his own with his stillborn granddaughter, Marlon broke down emotionally. He told the baby he was sorry he never got to meet her and that she would always be a part of their family. He said they’ll never forget her and they love her.
This might have been what Marlon needed to say and do, but he was shocked when they got back home to find that April was furious with him.
She said she’d only gone to the hospital to shut Marlon up and she’d hated being there. She felt that Marlon was watching her and waiting for her to ‘cry or something.’ She insisted she hadn’t felt anything, whereas she knew that Marlon was upset for a baby he hadn’t even met.
Marlon said that he was upset for April and she curtly replied, ‘Don’t be,’ before going back into the house.
It’s obviously going to take April a long time to even begin to come to terms with everything that’s happened. Meanwhile Marlon is also trying to navigate a changed world, as Mark Charnock told us:
‘Her life has changed so much in ways that Rhona and Marlon can’t begin to comprehend. They’re going to have to deal with an entirely new human being or try and access the bits of her that they used to know and bring it forward.’
