Had intended to give myself and the rest of us a day off from angst but then this came upon me.
Set post 9.1ish.
"Harry's dead."
Ruth looked at Dimitri.
She continued to look at him. She wasn't processing what he was saying.
"Ruth. I'm so sorry," said Beth.
Why was Beth apologising, she didn't understand.
"Ruth, do you understand?"
She stared at Dimitri. He was still speaking.
"Harry's been killed. His plane went down. "
"His plane," she repeated finally breaking her silence.
"Yes, the plane crashed over the North Sea. No one survived."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, we're sure," he looked to Beth who nodded.
"We should tell Malcolm," Ruth said after a moment.
"Malcolm?"
"We'll need a reading, he'll have something picked out."
"Ruth are you ok?"
"Yes, Dimitri, I'm fine, I'll be fine."
She picked up her pen and began making a list.
They gathered for the memorial service.
The small church was surprisingly full. It seemed Harry had had more friends than anyone might have expected. Had he been there he would have explained that half of them were far from friends and probably just wanted to make sure the old bastard was dead and gone.
Catherine sat on the front pew with her mother and brother. Only she seemed genuinely upset.
Ruth and the others sat at the back.
Malcolm stood and read
(from A Valediction: forbidding mourning by John Donne.)
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th'other do.
And although in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.
The choice of the poem may have been lost on many but those who truly knew Harry and Ruth recognised why Malcolm had chosen it. They were as two feet of the draftsman's compass moving always together, but apart. Orbiting each other and yet completing the circle.
The church emptied, Ruth remained. She was as still, as calm, as practical as she had been all week.
She said she needed a moment.
They had watched over her since it had happened, all of them vigilant on the grid and Beth vigilant at home. Ruth was in shock, they knew that more than she did. They were waiting.
Beth looked at the others, they had left her alone for long enough, she turned back through the church doors.
Ruth was sat at the foot of the altar. Her two hands clenched over her mouth halting the scream that burned in her throat. Her eyes were wide as the tears flowed from them. Her face was a mask of pain as she sat and gently rocked herself back and forth, crumpled on the cold stone floor.
Beth ran to her and held her and told her to let it all out.
Feel there may need to be more as I'm too depressing to end it there.