Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) is learning the hard way that you do not mess with Emmerdale icon Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley).
The affable vet recently dropped a bombshell on his girlfriend Mandy when he decided to be honest and upfront about kissing his ex-wife Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) in a highly emotional moment when he was trying to support her over her cancer treatment.
Mandy took that revelation fairly well, and it wasn’t until she learned that there might be more to the story than Paddy had let on that she became really upset.
At Marlon (Mark Charnock)’s birthday party she found out that it was Chas who’d broken off the kiss and not Paddy, as he’d told her. For Mandy that was a step too far and it brought all her insecurities about Paddy really being in love with Chas back to the surface. She got extremely drunk and made a massive scene – and it seemed that her relationship with Paddy could be over for good.
Us when Mandy kissed Liam
Paddy is certain that Mandy is the woman he truly loves, however, and he wanted to do whatever it took to win her back. He asked her to meet him for food at the Woolpack, hoping they’d be able to talk things through.
As soon as Mandy arrived there was a difficult atmosphere between them and everything Paddy said was landing the wrong way. Predicting that she’d order fish and chips because she loves Marlon’s fish and chips annoyed her, although she did end up ordering fish and chips.
They agreed to share a bottle of wine and Paddy said they should be nice to each other.
‘It shouldn’t really be an effort, though,’ Mandy pointed out. He said that was hardly his fault, and once again they were in bickering mode.
‘How can we make this feel like a fresh start?’ Paddy sighed. ‘If you’ve any ideas, just say.’
Mandy had an idea. As Liam Cavanagh (Jonny McPherson) walked past their table en route from the loo back to his date with Ella Forster (Paula Lane), Mandy jumped up from her table, grabbed the GP with both hands and planted a very firm his on his lips.
Poor Liam looked stunned. ‘Why?’ he asked Mandy, before hurriedly heading back to his table.
Paddy knew why but Mandy spelled it out. ‘There you go. Fresh start, starting now. How do you feel? How do you feel about that?’
It was a beautiful piece of revenge and payback for him kissing Chas, but quickly Mandy realised that she’d overplayed things by humiliating Paddy in front of his friend. Paddy silently got up and walked out of the pub, leaving poor Mandy thinking she’d messed things up completely.
Is there any way back for these two?
