‘Hello? I’m Bethan Abbott, from Inspirational Lives. I’m here to talk to Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Porter.’
The young television researcher spoke anxiously into the intercom by the front door of a large house in the suburbs of Oxford.
‘That’s right,’ came a rather indistinct male voice, ‘push the door and come in.’
Bethan obediently pushed the green-painted door and stepped cautiously inside. As her eyes became accustomed to relative darkness after the bright sunshine, she saw, emerging from a room to the left, a man in an electric wheelchair. She immediately recognised him as the police detective who had won fame and admiration for returning to work successfully after suffering a gunshot wound that had left him almost completely paralysed.
‘Chief Inspector Porter?’
‘Jonah, please. Now if you don’t mind closing the door behind you …’
Bethan did as she was asked.
‘Come through here: this is my study. We can talk without being interrupted here.’
With a slight movement of his left index finger on a joystick, Jonah manoeuvred the chair round and retreated back into the room from which he had come. Bethan followed.
‘Sit down.’ Jonah inclined his head towards an armchair. ‘Now, can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Or do you only drink water, like so many of you young people nowadays?’
‘No thanks, I’m fine. There’s no need …’ Bethan trailed off, unsure of the correct answer. How could he produce the offered beverages, given his disability? But would it be patronising to decline his hospitality for that reason? She was saved from further embarrassment by the arrival in the room of a woman in her late fifties with short grey hair, who put her head round the door and announced in a strong Liverpool accent, ‘Hi! I’m Bernie. I’m just about to make a brew, would you like one?’
‘Miss Abbott?’ Jonah looked up at her enquiringly. ‘We always have a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon – won’t you join us?’
‘Yes. Thanks. And call me Bethan, please.’
‘Right. Won’t be long.’ Bernie’s head disappeared and Bethan made an effort to gather her thoughts. She opened her bag and got out a notepad and a pen.
‘Now Chief Inspect – Jonah,’ she corrected herself, ‘I think my colleague explained to you the format of the Inspirational Lives series? It’s a new programme to fill our Sunday afternoon religious spot. The idea is that one of our presenters interviews someone whose life could be seen as an inspiration to others: people who have achieved great things or come through difficult situations or succeeded against the odds. They talk about their lives and what inspires them; and they choose their favourite hymns, which we get our choir to sing for them.’
‘A sort of religious “Desert Island discs”,’ commented Jonah with a smile.
‘Yes – something like that. Now,’ Bethan consulted her notes. ‘First, I’d just like to check some basic facts. You’ve been paralysed since being shot in the back of the neck eight years ago – is that right?’
‘Apart from three fingers, that’s right,’ agreed Jonah, illustrating the point by wiggling his left thumb, index and middle finger. ‘But it’s amazing what you can do with three fingers – plus voice recognition, of course. And I’ve been lucky to have lots of help from people around me – designing this chair, for example. I can go almost anywhere in it, and this screen gives me built-in internet access and videoconferencing and if there’s anything I can’t deal with myself I can summon help in an instant!’
He pressed a button on the arm of his chair and a few seconds later the screen lit up showing a picture of Bernie’s face. ‘You rang, milord?’
‘Just giving Bethan a demo of my emergency support system; but while you’re on, how about bringing her a piece of that ginger cake that Lucy made yesterday?’
‘Already on the tray. Now, if you’ve quite finished playing games, maybe I could be permitted to fill the teapot!’
The screen went blank and Jonah looked up at Bethan’s face, which displayed an expression of mild amusement. She hastily rearranged her features and returned to business.
‘Perhaps you could start by describing what happened. I mean, how were you shot?’
‘Nothing much to say, really. Our garden backed on to a golf course. Not here, of course – we had a house over Reading way in those days.’
‘Was it your disability that meant you had to move?’ Bethan asked, keen to understand the impact on Jonah’s life of his sudden injury.
‘Oh no – that was years later. We made all sorts of modifications to that house – a lift, an automatic front door and intercom system (like the one we have here), all sorts of things. The house wasn’t a problem at all; but after my wife died it just made more sense to move in here with Our Bernie and co.’
Bethan opened her mouth to ask another question, but Jonah continued with his story.
‘Anyway, someone must have walked across the golf course and waited until I was in the garden on my own and then shot me from behind. Clearly pre-meditated, but I’ve no idea what the motive could have been.’
‘And the perpetrator has never been brought to justice – does that make you feel bitter?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say “bitter” – more just puzzled, I suppose. What did I do to make someone hate me enough to try to kill me? What were they expecting to achieve by it?’
‘So no resentment that you are effectively serving a life sentence while the person who shot you has got away scot free?’
Jonah smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m not sure that I agree with this idea that every victim of crime is serving a life sentence. Plenty of people have life-changing events that aren’t the result of a crime. The way I see it is that it’s up to me to make the most I can of my life whatever the circumstances, and brooding on the injustice of it all doesn’t help. Every policeman feels frustrated when a case can’t be solved, but I can’t feel resentment against someone when I don’t know who they are or why they did it.’
‘Do you think you were targeted because you were a policeman?’
‘That’s what we’ve always assumed, but who knows? The only concrete suspects were connected with a gang rape case, which was due to come to trial a couple of weeks after I was shot. We’d caught two of the group and they were remanded in custody, but we knew that there were others whom we couldn’t identify. My evidence was crucial to getting a conviction, so the theory is that the other gang members were trying to prevent me giving it. In the event, my written reports and records of interviews with the suspects were sufficient to send them down; so if that was the motive for shooting me, it didn’t succeed.’
While he was speaking, the door opened and Bernie reappeared with a tray containing a small jug of milk, a basin of sugar cubes, a cup and saucer and a plate, all in matching bone china. On the plate lay a single slice of ginger cake. Also on the tray were a large teapot in a knitted cosy and a plastic cup with a lid and a long straw. She put the tray down on a coffee table in the centre of the room and turned to Bethan, waiting for Jonah to finish speaking, before addressing her.
‘Milk?’
‘Yes please.’
Bernie poured some milk into the china cup and topped it up from the teapot. Then she repeated the process with the plastic cup, replaced the lid firmly and put it on a small tray attached to Jonah’s chair, adjusting it carefully to check that he could reach to drink from the straw.
‘Only one cup?’ he asked, looking pointedly in the direction of the coffee table and then up at Bernie’s face.
‘Things to do,’ Bernie replied, heading for the door. ‘Call me if you need anything.’
‘She’s very protective of my independence,’ Jonah explained as the door closed behind her. ‘She’s afraid that if she stays you’ll start speaking to her about me, instead of addressing me direct – the “Does he take sugar?” phenomenon.’
‘And does that happen a lot?’
‘Well, in my work I’m generally the one asking the questions,’ Jonah smiled. ‘But, yes, sometimes people do still find it difficult to know how to talk to someone in a wheelchair. Shopping tends to be the worst – in fact I do most of my shopping online these days.’
‘How does it make you feel?’
‘It doesn’t bother me – certainly not as much as it bothers Our Bernie! I know it’s not malicious and I’m quite capable of speaking up for myself and getting noticed. People are understandably nervous about speaking to someone with disabilities because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing and maybe upsetting or embarrassing them.
‘Take trying on shoes, for example,’ Jonah went on, warming to his subject. ‘It’s unreasonable of me to expect the shop assistant to know how to go about putting shoes on to someone who can’t move his feet. And what do I say if they ask me whether they feel comfortable when I haven’t been able to feel my feet for eight years? Actually, in that situation the most useful input is going to be from a carer who’s had the dubious privilege of looking after my feet and can say things like “I think they’re going to rub that patch of damaged skin on your right big toe”.’
Bethan smiled. ‘So, do you have any advice for people who might be anxious about how to approach someone with a disability?’
‘I suppose only the obvious – ask them how they’d like to be treated. Then it’s up to them to tell you enough about their needs for you to get it right. But ask them direct – don’t start out by addressing the carer, as if you assume that anyone in a wheelchair is incapable of speaking for themselves.’
Jonah paused and smiled to himself as he recollected past experiences. ‘It used to drive Margaret – that’s my wife – mad. It got so’s I didn’t like going to places with her in case she launched into her lecture on the evils of infantilising the disabled! Our Bernie’s more subtle – she just doesn’t answer anyone if they ask her questions that she thinks they ought to have asked me.’ He chuckled. ‘Now there’s a thing! “Our Bernie” and “subtle” in the same sentence – I doubt if that’s ever happened before!’
‘Why do you keep calling her “Our Bernie”?’
‘Everyone calls her “Our Bernie” – in recognition of her linguistic roots.’
‘Meaning?’ asked Bethan, puzzled.
‘You must surely have noticed,’ Jonah was smiling broadly, “that she speaks a dialect of English known technically, I believe, as “Dead Scouse”!’
Bethan still wasn’t sure that she understood, but decided not to pursue this line.
‘Tell me about your wife.’ she prompted. ‘It must have been a dreadful shock to her when you were injured.’
‘Yes,’ Jonah agreed, ‘and all the worse for her because she also had the boys to worry about. Well, I say “boys” but Nathan had just finished his first year at Oxford and Reuben was married and working as a junior doctor in County Durham. So they were young men really, but still completely shocked at what had happened. I think that, as far as they were concerned, it felt as if my life – or any life worth living – had ended.’
‘And didn’t you feel like that yourself at all?’
‘Well, if I’m honest, there were times when I was pretty down – and probably in those early weeks, the times when I wasn’t may have been more due to not really being able to believe that it was happening to me – but, no, I think that Margaret (and other friends) managed to keep me believing that I still mattered and could make a contribution. She was a real pillar of strength, particularly during those first few weeks.’
‘So it must have seemed like a particularly cruel blow when she died?’ Bethan suggested gently.
‘Yes – and no.’ Jonah paused to think. ‘Yes, of course I’d come to rely on her a lot. She was my main carer when I wasn’t at work. And she was my best friend and the one person whom I never needed to worry about saying the wrong thing to. But, I actually think that it might have been more difficult to have lost her if I’d still been able-bodied.’ He paused again, trying to find the right words to explain.
‘Before I was shot, Margaret and I were very much a couple. We had friends, but none of them were particularly close. We each had demanding jobs and when we came home we liked it to be just the two of us. One of the benefits of becoming disabled was that we both had to learn to accept help from other people – and it was amazing how many people wanted to help. By the time that Margaret died, we’d gathered around us a wonderful group of friends who were there to support me through her last illness and beyond. It was like having a new family – although,’ he added hastily, ‘of course some of them, my mother and sister, the boys and so on, were already actual family members.’
Bethan nodded. ‘I think I understand. Now, would it be OK for you to tell me some more about your wife? How you met – that sort of thing? And do you have a hymn that you particularly associate with her memory?’
‘By all means. Sit back and eat your cake and I’ll recount the story of our romance.’
Bethan looked at the single piece of cake, doubtfully. ‘What about you?’
‘I fear not,’ Jonah said ruefully. ‘Got to watch my weight, I’m afraid. Can’t burn off the calories the way I used to, and I’ve got to think about the people who have to lift and carry me. Go on – tuck in! Lucy will be disappointed if you spurn her confection.’
Bethan smiled, picked up the cake and bit into it.