Manpreet Sharma (Rebecca Sarker) made a desperate bid to save her relationship with vicar Charles Anderson (Kevin Mathurin) in Tuesday (June 18)’s Emmerdale after he told her their relationship was over.
In the aftermath of the death of his son Ethan (Emile John), Charles has shut down and refused Manpreet’s attempts to comfort and console him. She spent a night at the B&B but hoped that after he’d had some time to reflect he might give her another chance.
Charles’s mother Claudette (Flo Wilson), who has warmed to Manpreet over recent months, told the GP that there was still hope for her and Charles and begged her to fight for her relationship.
Meanwhile Bob Hope (Tony Audenshaw) was telling Charles pretty much the same thing when he saw him in the graveyard, and Bob also told Manpreet to have one last shot at convincing Charles that they had a future together.
So she found Charles in the church and told him she could help him with his grief, because she’d also loved Ethan. She repeated what Claudette had said about fighting for the relationship.
Charles wasn’t going to be swayed. He told Manpreet that he didn’t trust her – in fact he hadn’t trusted her since she left him at the altar 20 years ago.
In 2021, when Manpreet and Charles got together, it was revealed that they’d known each other 15 years previously.
‘They were due to get married,’ Kevin Mathurin told us at the time. ’It was all going so well as far as he was concerned. On the wedding day, Manpreet didn’t turn up. That’s the last time Charles saw her. Ethan was there and it was just the two of them.’
There were more revelations to come, as Kevin explained.
‘She was already married to somebody! We were having an affair so to speak and that was her escapism from an abusive marriage. Something happened where Charles didn’t know about this other life – she was married and had a daughter. He threatened her with not seeing her daughter again so Manpreet had to make the decision to go back to her unhappy life.
‘It’s unbelievable – this woman he was absolutely in love with, he questions if any of it was real or if it was all a lie.’
At the time Manpreet left it was also devastating for Ethan, and clearly in the wake of his son’s death Charles has been thinking about Manpreet’s role in his life.
More recently, Manpreet has had a flirtation with Billy Fletcher (Jay Kontzle), something which didn’t really go anywhere but which raised again Charles’s insecurities about the relationship.
He told Manpreet that she wasn’t really in love with him and their relationship was no good to either of them. He said by ending it he was setting them both free.
Is this the end for the couple?
