If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor. (Sit Down, James)
Bernie and Paddy trudged over to the big yellow bin marked GRIT and awkwardly sat down.
The first few minutes were spent concurring that the county's police force had seen better days and concocting a strongly worded email, that would be sent to the commissioner the following morning. A thick silence had then settled between them, just as a fine mist also began to settle on the road.
Paddy was the first to break the tension.
"Are you really not going to London. Ever?"
"I don't know about ever Paddy. That actor from Holby is switching on the Oxford Street Christmas lights this year, might go for that. Or I might just go to Leeds Christmas shopping with Val and have cocktails at Harvey Nic's, to see that bloke from Emmerdale do their lights instead."
"Bernie," Paddy was growing impatient.
"I am not going back to London to live, if that's what you mean, at least not for the present."
As they sat on the creaky cold salt container. Bernie explained that Phyll had offered her a promotion combining caring and admin and Bernie had accepted. Phyll was also going to lend Bernie money for a deposit on a cottage to let in the village and act as referee and guarantor. The Matron's dual purpose was to help Bernie finally put down roots in what would be the first home of her own. This would also ensure the cottage wasn't used as a holiday let or commuter retreat by an incomer.
Paddy had stayed silent and took this all in. But eventually couldn't help himself,
"You know you could always come and stay with me and Tim for free. We would love to have you. Tim is crazy about you."
Bernie sighed, "I think you're confusing me with Lucille. Paddy you are not listening to me, nothing has changed. I am still Bernie."
Paddy let out a tiny gulp of hesitation. Bernie continued, "I still believe God has a purpose for me and I want more than anything to do his will. I have just come to realize I can do that here in Poplar just as well as in London."
Paddy found his voice from somewhere, "What changed your mind?"
Bernie paused for a moment and then continued, "You did." Paddy smiled and then frowned as she continued, "You and Julia and Trixie, I suppose."
Paddy decided not to interrupt this time,
"You were right I was waiting for God to tell me what was required from me in an e-mail or a text, something unmistakable and obvious."
Paddy shuddered, "Bernie, I am really sorry, if I could take everything I said back I would." He fiddled with the metal bracelet that was keeping them together.
"You were right though Paddy. Reverend Julia said the same thing, just a little gentler," she gave Paddy a sly glance, watching his colour change. "She made me realize that God had been talking to me over and over again, I just wasn't listening."
Paddy nodded to let her know he was listening, if not quite understanding.
"God spoke to me through you," she was facing Paddy now and he turned to look at her.
He blushed, "Me, are you sure?"
"Yes through you and Phyll, Antonia, Delia and Val and..."
"Val?" Paddy exclaimed, "God spoke to you through Val? Are you certain that was God?"
Bernie was about to correct him, but found herself taken over by a wave of giggles. Paddy always got lost in her giggle.
"So what did we or rather God say?"
"The fact that I love my job, sorry jobs. That I love the place that I call home and I love the people I spend time with, could be reason enough for me to believe this is where God wants me."
"That makes sense to me."
"I will need both jobs if I am to rent now," Bernie said tentatively.
Paddy reassured her that he wanted her back behind the bar at the Crown.
"I won't be a nuisance, I promise," he added.
"I've thought a lot about my future recently. I want other things, things I hadn't dared think about before. A proper home, a family maybe, if that's even possible for me." Bernie was lost in her thoughts.
Paddy's eyes were like saucers, "You said I was moving too fast."
"I didn't necessarily mean with you," Bernie garbled suddenly sprung out of her melancholy, alarmed at Paddy's response.
Paddy determined not to let this new development in their conversation escape grabbed the moment.
"I don't know what part I play in this future, but I will have something to say if you start having children without me," he admonished.
Bernie was about to protest but noticed the twinkle in his green eyes and the lopsided sometimes slightly over-confident grin and the giggle won out again.
That did it for Paddy, he could no longer suppress his fraught mind and aching heart.
"I will go to church if that will make you happy."
"Paddy don't, it won't make me happy. I didn't think I was welcome for a while, something else I misheard. Julia has asked for my help and I am pleased to offer it. If you wish to attend to hear me sing or listen to Tim play, then please do, but don't come to please me."
"You have told me all about your future. You have told me about your career, your job at the Crown, your new home, your church, your hopes for a family. You haven't told me about us."
Bernie shuffled her bottom against the uncomfortable plastic container that Chummy had rather over optimistically ordained as a loveseat for two.
"Paddy about us, I just don't know if there can be an us." Bernie eventually confessed, regret edging her fractured voice.
"Bernie of course there can, there already is an us, you can't change that," Paddy argued hopefully.
"That's it nothing has changed Paddy, that's what I am trying to tell you." Bernie pleaded with him for some level of understanding.
"Everything has changed, you are staying. I understand things better now. Bernie I will wait forever for you." The earnestness in his voice nearly broke her heart, but he had unwittingly in his sincerity hit a nerve.
"That's just it Paddy you don't believe in forever, so how can you wait that long?" She threw this back at him it seemed out of nowhere.
And Paddy was thrown,"What?"
"I've heard you, talking over the bar, you say 'when you're dead, you're dead'." Bernie had started now, she couldn't go back.
"Bernie that's just an expression, bar banter, you know that." Paddy really didn't know how to defend himself.
"You see that's the difference." Paddy didn't see, but let her continue, "I know there is a forever Paddy, I couldn't be more certain of it," tears started to fall without permission down Bernie's cheeks, "and the thought of not spending forever with you breaks my heart, even now. How am I going to feel after loving you, living with you for 30 years or more?"
Paddy had been surprised by a lot of things in his life, quite a few of them from behind the bar at the Crown, but he couldn't remember ever been blindsided like this before. He wanted to tell her he would storm down the gates of heaven and hell to get to her, but he knew she would feel patronized. He went to get up forgetting about his temporary siamese twin for a moment and was dragged firmly back down again
He felt in his pocket for his vape pen but realized he had left it at home. Even though her hands were shaking Bernie took out her roll-up tin from her pocket with her free right hand and offered it to Paddy. Who flicked it open with his left hand. Bernie rested it on her lap. Paddy took out a paper and held it flat as Bernie filled it with baccie. She put it to her lips and licked the paper, Paddy looked away. She deftly rolled the ciggie with her liberated hand and handed it too Paddy to hold. Freeing her to dig in her pocket for her matches. She pushed the box open and Paddy took out a match. He nervously placed the ciggie between her lips, she tilted the closed box and Paddy struck the match, it lit first strike. Paddy took the flame to the paper and tobacco and Bernie inhaled. She removed the cigarette and handed it to Paddy who took his first drag in over a year.
"I don't know what you want from me," Paddy eventually said passing the fragile fag back to her, "Bernadette you are right, I don't know about forever. I have probably said things that have offended you without realizing." Instances he had always assumed innocent flashed through his mind.
He considered before continuing, "I am not completely as certain about these things as I was before Marianne died. Stuff happens, coincidences, music, phrases, atmospheres even scents that I can't explain." He could do with some of Mazz's magic right now he thought. "But you're right, I can't promise you forever, but I can promise you right now, right here in Poplar, at the Crown. I can promise you the rest of my life, Bernadette if you would just..."
Bernie interrupted sharply, "Please Patrick, don't say anything, don't say anymore. I am not certain I can give you the answer you want."
The little ciggie moved silently between them, until Paddy found the words,
"I will be honest, I had never considered re-marrying or having more children. I hadn't thought of sharing my life with anyone but Timothy. That was until you came home, until you returned to Poplar. But, you are not the only one who is not certain that I can give you what you think you need Bernadette."
The roll-up was spent, Bernie stubbed it out on the road with her boot. Way off in the distance emerging through the mist was the faint sound of a police siren becoming clearer and clearer.