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After that, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when a couple of weeks later Angie invited Bernie for Sunday lunch at our house after church. I wasn’t best pleased to be honest, because I preferred to have Angie to myself whenever we were lucky enough both to have a day off. With her being a nurse and me being a police officer, we could sometimes go for several weeks without our off-duty coinciding.
I noticed that Bernie no longer wore her engagement ring. Angie told me afterwards that she had continued to wear it as a way of signalling that she did not consider herself available, but that the incident at the church had made her decide that it was better to appear unattached than to provoke enquiries about her fiancé.
At first I didn’t like Bernie much. She seemed to me to be rather loud and aggressive – which I now realise was a defence mechanism to avoid evoking people’s pity. She didn’t like to talk about herself and it was some months before she confided to Angie what had actually happened to Stephen. It gave me quite jolt when I heard that he had killed himself only a few weeks before they were due to get married. It somehow changed my ideas about Bernie completely. I couldn’t imagine how I would have felt if Angie had committed suicide.
I probably ought not to have done, but I got hold of the police file on Stephen’s death and read up about it. I wanted to know if there was any reason why he had done such a strange thing – especially at a time when he should have been blissfully happy, looking forward to his wedding day. Not that the file told me much. The one thing that was completely clear was that no one at all had seen it coming or could think of any reason for what he did.
I was surprised to find that Bernie hardly featured at all. There was a lot of concern for Stephen’s parents, but Bernie seemed to be lumped together with a list of also-rans: fellow-students and staff from his college who had been interviewed in case they could throw any light on his state of mind. It didn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that the boy’s fiancée might have been in need of any support. I like ot think that we would handle things better these days.
Having said that, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. I can’t honestly see Our Bernie submitting to counselling if it had been offered to her – that would have been too much like admitting that she couldn’t cope on her own.
We realised years later that Jonah had actually been involved in a minor way. He was the first police officer on the scene (as a humble PC – insofar as Jonah was ever a humble anything – before making the transition into CID) and was responsible for keeping the public away while they cleared up the mess. He confessed to having found it tremendously exciting because it was his very first suspicious death and he had visions of it turning out to be a murder enquiry. As it was, it was simply a “routine” student suicide.
Jonah was appalled when I told him how Bernie had been side-lined in the investigation and I could see that he thought of himself as one of the people who didn’t think to do anything for her. There was a time when I would have enjoyed seeing his discomfiture – I used to think he was too full of himself and needed taking down a peg or two. But, since his injury, I’ve got to know him better and I realise that he’s quite vulnerable in his own way.
Since Jonah would be mortified to think that I’d changed my opinion of him because I feel sorry for him – although, of course I do (as anyone would) and he will just have to like it or lump it – and he will quite probably read this, I’d better add that I don’t meant that I like him better now that he is dependent on us in so many ways. It’s simply that having him living what us has given me the chance to get to know the real Jonah Porter and not just the super-efficient DCI. And part of that is realising that, if you believe in your own abilities and much as Jonah does, every small mistake feels like an abject failure, because you think that you ought to have got it right.
But I digress. This was supposed to be a chapter about Our Bernie and how Angie and I got to know her.
In fact, I don’t think I did get to know Bernie until a few years later. She and Angie were soon thick as thieves. I think Bernie was the first really close friend that Angie made since coming to Britain. Of course, she had plenty of friends amongst the nurses at the hospital and the people at church were all very friendly towards both of us, but Bernie was the first person (apart from me) that Angie came to rely upon and to confide in. I have to admit to being a bit jealous at first because I didn’t really think she ought to need anyone except me!
Anyway, Bernie became a part of our life and she often came round for meals or I would find her sitting with Angie when I got home, if Angie’s shift finished earlier than mine. To be fair to her, she always made herself scarce as soon as I arrived, so that e cold be alone together. And then, it wasn’t long before we had something much more significant to think about – Angie was pregnant and we started to look forward to a new stage in our family life.