It was always going to be hard for Emmerdale newcomer Rose Jackson (Christine Tremarco) to be accepted in the village. After all, she’s the woman who walked out on Will Taylor (Dean Andrews) and their young daughter Dawn (Olivia Bromley).
Rose’s presence in the area was only discovered after she ended up in hospital after an accident and Will was contacted by the staff because he was down as her next of kin. Their meeting was not an amicable one, and during the conversation we learned that Rose had decided parenthood wasn’t for her when Dawn was still very little. She walked out on the family, headed to Benidorm and started a new life – and she’s been there ever since.
When Dawn later met Rose at the hospital after taking her son Evan there after a fall, it was obviously a shock to discover that she was talking to the mum she’d never known. Like Will, Dawn’s reaction was one of anger and she didn’t want Rose in her life.
It seems that Rose is a determined woman, however, and Monday (April 29)’s episode she turned up in the village to see Dawn.
The first person she met was Marlon (Mark Charnock), and she asked him how far it was to Home Farm. Despite the fact that he was pushing Ivy in her pram at the time, when Rose found out it was a bit of a walk she asked Marlon, ‘You couldn’t dump your grandson and give me a lift, could you?’. Awkward for all kinds of reasons and an early indication that Rose is the sort of woman who expects people to do her bidding.
With Marlon unwilling to ‘dump’ Ivy, Rose had to make her own way to Home Farm, where she let herself in – much to Kim (Claire King)’s annoyance. Kim told her to leave but Rose wasn’t about to go anywhere until she’d seen Dawn.
Dawn agreed to talk to her but wanted Kim to be there: ‘This is her home and she’s been more of a mother to me than you’ve ever been.’
Rose started by saying sorry to Dawn about the circumstances of their meeting at the hospital, but as far as Dawn was concerned that wasn’t the main issue – it was the fact that Rose didn’t recognise her because she hadn’t seen her for so many years. She had so many questions growing up, and no answers but she wasn’t interested in Rose’s offer to answer all her questions now.
‘You not being there tells me everything I needed to know,’ Dawn said. ‘That you’re a selfish, heartless bitch and I want nothing to do with you.’
Rose was shocked by this, but she had to agree that she was ‘all of those things and worse.’
Then she shared a poignant memory of when she sang Rock-A-Bye Baby to Dawn in her ‘little bed’ and said she wanted to know everything that she’d missed in the years in between. She begged for a chance.
Dawn branded that a ‘fake apology’ and said she wasn’t going to let Rose poison her and her family after she’d struggled to make a good life for herself despite Rose.
‘Do what you’re best at and leave us alone,’ she concluded. ‘Have a nice life – I will.’
Sadly we know that Dawn’s life is about to become very difficult as she and Billy (Jay Kontzle) face the horror of their son Evan having leukaemia. Will Dawn decide she needs her mother in her life after all?
