A/N: This opens a few days after Harry and Ruth meet at the beginning of 8.02.
He knows this is a very bad idea, and that his presence at her home – this sanctuary he has found for her – will only add the kind of volatility which could blow them apart forever, creating a chasm neither would ever be capable of crossing. Something has made him come to see her – away from the Grid, away from crowds of people going about what it is they go about every day with such energy and fervour, the babble of thousands of conversations spilling over into the delicate space between them. She had laughed – hardly a laugh, more like a scoff – when he had defended his efforts to reach her by saying: "Ruth, I'm trying …... with all my limitations." It's been so difficult for them both, but so much more difficult for her. For him, he has only lost a chance at something he never really had, while she has lost her life partner …... a man she lived with, slept with, confided in, cared for. Even if Ruth hadn't loved him, this George had had something with Ruth which Harry had only ever dreamed about. Harry wonders – as he has often wondered during the past week – what George had that he himself didn't. Why was it Ruth had fallen into George's bed, joined her life with his, and yet she'd run from Harry each time they got close to one another? Each time he's entertained the idea, he comes up with the same answer. George was a doctor – an honourable profession, one with no necessity for secrets. George was handsome and young, and probably quite virile. Harry is relieved that he hasn't a problem with virility, but he is not young, and nor is he handsome. He certainly knows his limitations.
Harry sits in his car outside the flat he had chosen for Ruth. He couldn't bear the idea of her stuck in a soulless safe house on her own, her partner dead, and her beloved step-son back in Cyprus, surrounded by his extended family. He chose the flat, out of many less salubrious dwellings-for-rent. Ruth's flat is a few rooms in a large, old Victorian home, which had been divided into flats post-World War Two, at a time when housing was in short supply. Most small flats for rent are to be found in sky-high tenement buildings, and he can't bear the thought of Ruth living in one of them, negotiating lifts which are either out-of-order, or soiled with excrement and vomit. He couldn't bear the thought of her living somewhere which may be frequented by drug dealers, or men who terrorise their wives and girlfriends, raising their hands and their voices. He'd thought of offering her a room in his own home, but that thought had been quashed rather quickly. The nearer Ruth is to him, the more danger she is likely to face.
There is a light on in the front room …... not the main light, but a gentle glow from the lamp on the low table. He'd chosen the lamp himself, believing that the Ruth he knows – knew – would likely enjoy the diorama of images from a Chinese folk tale which decorate the lampshade in tones of pale yellow and muted pink.
He is sure she will slam the door in his face. This is all he deserves. Perhaps she'll call the police and have him arrested for harassment. He is almost to the front door when the light in the front room is switched off. He waits. It is only 9.30 pm after all, not exactly late. Then the light in the front bedroom is turned on. She is retiring for the night. Harry stops, his hand about to grasp the knocker on the front door. He pulls back his hand, and steps back from the door. Phew – close one.
Harry turns and walks back to his car. With his hand on the door handle, he looks up to the window of Ruth's front bedroom. The light is now off, and he is sure he sees the curtain move, as though someone had been looking out, but then let the curtain fall back to ensure they are not seen. Harry stands there for a moment, and watches the window. He wills her to again pull the curtain back, but two minutes pass, and nothing happens. And nothing will until she hears the motor kick over, and then she hears me drive off.
Harry gets into his car, starts the engine, and drives away, casting one last look back at Ruth's flat before he turns the corner, and leaves her street. He tries to empty his mind of thoughts of her by turning the radio on to a talk-back station. Callers are talking about racial violence on the streets of Manchester and Birmingham. He blocks the voices of the callers, and in his mind conjures the sound of another voice – the voice he had not heard for nearly three years, the dearest voice he knows. The trouble is that in his head all he can hear is this voice turned on him coldly, her words angry and accusing.
Once she hears Harry's car leave her street, Ruth feels safe enough to turn on the light in her bathroom, so that she can perform her before-bedtime routine. Bloody Harry. He just won't give up. She cleans her teeth with more vigour than usual, as she watches herself in the mirror above her hand basin. She knows that she's blaming Harry unfairly, but she has to have somewhere to put her anger …... and she has a lot of anger. Jo has been trying to call her, and Ruth has taken to turning off her phone, just in case she is tempted to answer …. as she was when Harry rang. She hasn't answered a call in days, not since she agreed to meet Harry four days earlier.
Ruth knows it is too early for her to be contemplating returning to work on the Grid, but she has to do something, and she'll have to think about doing that something quite soon. The service will pay her rent for a while, but they won't keep her forever. They will soon find an intelligence analyst who is younger, quicker, more savvy than she, and then where will she be?
Ruth acknowledges, as she sits on the toilet peeing, that she has missed everyone – especially Jo. Before she decided to go out with George, she missed Harry terribly. Now …... now, she has no idea. In the space of hours, she lost the safety and gentleness of her life in Cyprus, she lost George, she lost Nico, she lost everything she had. And now? Now she has nothing. She has the shadow of a life she'd once lived, but it feels like she is stepping back …... into the shadows, into the role of a lurker, a watcher-of-others, into the abyss ... and she doesn't know if she has the strength to do it all again.
Once she's finished in the bathroom, Ruth crawls under the duvet and lies on her side, facing away from the window. It's taking her some time to get used to again sleeping alone, and more than anything, Ruth feels lonely. She misses her life in Cyprus. Perhaps she misses her life there more than she misses George, but it is difficult for her to unravel that life, and to separate the pieces into their component parts …... George, Nico, her job, the people – so welcoming – the climate, the ocean, swimming, the market. Everything in her life there was interwoven, and every single piece was of value to her. It's just that now that life is behind her, she can't determine which pieces were the most dear to her.
Ruth pictures her typical day in Cyprus, and then the tears fall on to her pillow …... first a few, and then twenty or so, then a hundred, and eventually, thousands. She falls asleep exhausted.
