Somewhere On The Edge Of Sadness
Prologue:
Ruth Evershed was someone who had always struggled to feel happy with her lot in life. It was fair to say that she was not naturally of a particularly happy or optimistic disposition. Life was what it was. Often that meant grey, dull and not particularly interesting. Her work was rewarding enough in its own way. She was good at it, nay, she excelled and took pride in never producing anything that was less than the exceptionally exacting standard she set herself. There was her cat who was also her best friend, because in spite of a slew of acquaintances from university there were few of them that seemed to be worth the effort of travelling halfway around the country just for the pleasure of their company when invariably Ruth preferred her own company anyway. It was a predominantly lonely life outside of work but she had her books and all her favourite characters to keep her company. Achilles and Patroclus, Lizzie Bennett, Danny Champion of the World. Even Harry Potter on occasion and if one weekend Mr and Mrs Carter had managed to persuade her to take Wes to the Harry Potter Studio Tour so they could have a rare day off, well the glee with which she had accepted the invitation was no one's business but her own.
Yet every time she thought she was settling into some sort of state of contentment, some sort of equilibrium in her unremarkable and yet surprisingly turbulent life, something invariably came along to disrupt the status quo and if the last ten years had been anything to go by it would, experience told her, almost always have something to do with a man called Sir Harry Pearce. It ought to come as no surprise then, by this point, that it would of course be the very morning that Ruth Evershed was trying to find a way to discuss the positive pregnancy test in her handbag that the infuriating man chose to reveal the presence of an illegitimate lovechild in the former Soviety Union. The Universe certainly had a sense of humour. It was the one thought going around and around in her head as she lay bleeding out on the pavement some time later. The Universe had quite a sense of humour.
"How is she?" Sir Harry Pearce hovered at the window of the three-bed ward in one of London's finest hospitals. The nurse beside him gave him a placating look.
"Unfortunately I can't discuss Miss Evershed's medical condition with you, Mister Pearce."
Sir Harry looked in the window at the prone body lying out on the hospital bed. He had, by this point in his life, something of an understanding of the various machines and tubes that surrounded Ruth's body but the sight of them there at once gave him relief that she was alive and put the fear of God into him that at any moment that might no longer be so.
"The Doctor was wondering, Mister Perace, if Miss Evershed was seeing anyone at the time of the attack?"
"Hmmm?" Harry blinked as if emerging from darkness into daylight and stared at the nurse without focusing.
"Miss Evershed, Sir. Are you able to tell me if she was seeing someone. Its very important."
"No. No, I don't think so."
"Ok," The nurse nodded. "Miss Evershed has her mother down as her next of kin. We've had some trouble getting in touch with her. Are you able to tell me where she might be?"
"No," Harry shook his head. "Ruth and her mother weren't all that close. They sort of put up with each other for the most part."
"And you say you're a former colleague, of Miss Evershed's?"
"Yes. I was her boss for many years," Harry said quietly, "We grew very close."
The nurse nodded, her eyes betraying a sort of sympathetic understanding that Harry couldn't bear. He looked away to the window again as the nurse said, "Its very important we get in contact with Miss Evershed's mother to discuss Miss Evershed's care and medical treatment."
"She lives in Exeter, I believe, although she may not be the best person to ask. I have a feeling they would disagree about the best course for Ruth's care. Ruth's the sort of person who would have a DNR on her file, her mother's the sort of person who would burn such a thing, by all accounts."
"Okay. And, look I'm sorry to ask again but there's no one else Miss Evershed may have had a sexual relationship with?"
Harry's mind started churning. It was an odd question. A pertinent question, clearly, or the nurse would not have asked it. He sighed heavily, wishing they would tell him more but short of having someone hack her electronic file there was no way of getting any more from them without Elizabeth present and Harry would never ask Malcolm to violate Ruth's privacy in such a way. There were only two reasons, really, for the hospital wanting a sexual history. "Are you about to ask me to take a HIV test?"
"No."
Harry raised his chin a little. He swallowed back a lump in his throat. "How far along is she?"
The nurse refused to answer.
"I asked her to marry me once, you know. She turned me down and she was probably right to do so, because Ruth is the sort of person who will always put herself last. She would put the life of the foetus first, she would – and has – put my life first on more than one occasion and even against my express wishes. She would put the safety of others first and other people's loved ones first...and I on the other hand would burn down Heaven itself if I thought for one moment it might save her life."
i Ruth was angry. Angry at Harry. Angry at Harry for letting her go into exile, angry at Harry for bringing her back. Angry at Harry for George dying. Angry at Harry for existing, because if Harry didn't exist then Ruth wouldn't be cursed to this Promethian-type existence of having her heart continually ripped out as a result of being in love with him and mostly, Ruth was pissed at Harry just for being Harry.
She hadn't planned to come around to his house. It was ten o'clock at night, she should be heading to her own bed in the flat she shared with Beth. In the years she'd been away the London rental market had skyrocketed to the point where she couldn't really afford to live alone and she missed the solitude and the peace. Maybe it was that she didn't want the company of her flatmate tonight. Mabye it was that she needed some sort of outlet to rant and rave where once upon a time Fidget would have happily played agony aunt as long as he got a good snack afterwards. Now the option of a cat and an empty living room to pace and rant to her cat and her house plants was no longer an option. Maybe, and this was the mostly likely thing, she just wanted to yell at Harry for his insensitivity, for his obtuseness, to yell because she was hurting, to yell because she was hurting because of him and to yell because she didn't seem to know how to do anything else any more. Yelling and cutting with a coldness made Harry flinch. He flinched, indeed, when he opened the door. The sound of a Bach string quartet playing softly in the background and she stepped inside with a sharp, 'You don't mind if I come in do you?'
'Ruth,' Harry's plump bottom lip hung open in shock at her presence here. An inward breath indicated his intention to speak, his eyebrows gathering together in a confused inquiry but Ruth got there first.
'What the hell were you thinking?'
A torrent of words ensued. Harry too shocked and surprised to get a word in edge ways. When Ruth stepped forwards, he stepped back until he found himself walking backwards up the stairs as Ruth pursued him and when he hit the wall of the hallway at the top Ruth pressed herself so close to his face that all he had to do was tilt his chin slightly and they were kissing. Kissing madly, kissing fiercely. They grabbed and grappled, handfuls of clothes caught up in the twisting, turning, aggressive dance to the bedroom where Ruth threw him down on the bed and started undressing him.
Harry knew that she was using him. He wasn't sure if angry sex was really angry sex if only one was currently angry. Her words had washed over him, the intense grief and loss she was feeling arousing a deep compassion within him for all she had endured. All he wanted was to hold her, to soothe her, and so she let her slam him down on the bed and unbutton his shirt and pull his trousers off. And when she bent down to kiss him so fiercely he thought his lips might bruise, Harry's hand smoothed through her hair with great gentility, letting her have this. She rose from the bed once he was undressed and cast off her coat, dress and knickers. Wearing only her bra Ruth straddled him and took his penis in hand, working the erection with her hand with Harry gasping underneath her until he was hard enough for her to impale herself. Harry wished she'd go more slowly, wished there was time to savour this but at least his hands could wander her body, could smooth over her waist and hips as their lips brushed against each other with Ruth riding him frantically towards an inevitable and somewhat abrupt conclusion.
Afterwards she lay on top of him, gasping, and Harry ran his hands over her back and kissed her hair and gently unclasped her bra, freeing it from her arms and soothing the raw red lines pressed against her skin. A forehead pressed against his chest, a nose, then wet tears and a heaving sob of catharsis that ran into a flood of emotional outletting until Ruth cried herself out.
Some time after that Ruth tried to get up to leave. Harry asked her to stay a while longer and so they slept. Only in the pale light of pre-dawn did Harry watch Ruth finally rise from her slumber and creep towards the bathroom.
They didn't speak of it. He didn't ask what it meant. Harry knew what it was and his heart went out to her. Ruth didn't mention it at work, she didn't call round again. The fact alone that she had come to him, however, left Harry with a glimmer of hope that in time, things might one day be different between them.
Eliabeth arrived a few hours later. It was hard to tell how long precisely. Time passed oddly here and Harry had found himself standing, staring into Ruth's ward and losing an hour at a time between the infrequent moments when he took pains to glance at his watch. Harry was given a very dark look upon her arrival. Clearly Ruth's mother had received more news over the phone than Harry had in the several hours he had sat out in the hospital surviving on tea and coffee with as much milk and sugar as the vending machine would allow.
"I suppose this is all your fault," Elizabeth announced, staring Harry straight in the face. "Unless I'm very much mistaken and you're not her Harry?"
"No," Harry cleared his throat. It seemed to have been hours since he'd spoken last. "I'm Harry."
Elizabeth sniffed and adjusted the handbag on her arm. "Well, I suppose she's keeping it then?"
"I suppose," Harry agreed. The fact that he had yet to speak to Ruth about the matter seemed at the present time something that ought not to be mentioned. But he couldn't allow himself to think about the possibility of being a father again. Ruth was in there fighting for her life and the shock that she'd suffered was more than enough to cause a miscarriage.
"Well, they operated. Seems the glass caused a whole lot of mess but was too blunt to get through the muscle. It will scar badly and it won't look very nice but at the moment her life's not in danger. The Doctor said they're worried about shock causing a miscarriage and Ruth losing more blood. I want you to know that I'm not moving from Exeter to come and look after her."
"Well I know you have responsibilities there. I'm sure we can manage."
Elizabeth nodded. "You're too old for her. You're certainly too old to be fathering children and if you think for a moment I believed all that crap about working for DEFRA all these years you have another thing coming. You're reckless and if you are who you say you are your own children don't even want speak to you, from what I hear, but for some God-forsaken reason my daughter seems to think you walk on water." She paused for breath, "I suppose its too much to hope that you'll do the right thing? Oh, what am I talking about, you're probably married to someone else!"
"I am not married to someone else. But I suspect Ruth would abhorr the idea of getting married simply because she is pregnant. Its not nineteen fifty anymore."
"And wouldn't that be convenient?"
"Elizabeth," Harry said with the force of someone who was fast approaching the end of his tether. "I think for Ruth's sake it might be advisable for us to allow our differences to fall to the wayside for the time being."
Harry decided at that point in proceedings to go outside for some air. He switched on his phone as he stood in the car park by his four-by-four trying to decide whether to go home or stay here. Ruth might need him, but he couldn't let Section D run itself and he needed at least a little sleep to keep going. The decision was taken out of his hands by the phone ringing almost as soon as it was turned on. The Home Secretary, William Towers, was ringing, berating Harry for having his phone turned off and informing Harry that there would be a COBRA meeting in the morning at seven in the Cabinet Office. Harry was to attend and debrief all concerned on the current situation and its fallout, with recommendation on any further action to be taken. Harry considered the whole thing a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it spurred him to get into his car and go home for a few fitful hours of tossing and turning while he worried about Ruth. Even a couple of nightcaps did little to settle him down and so he made do with lying in the darkness and letting his thoughts get the better of him until he finally dozed off some time around four, only to be dragged out of bed two hours later by his driver ringing the doorbell to take him to Whitehall.
Conveniently the meeting broke up just in time for the breakfast news, a line of news anchors and cameras standing behind a barrier across the pavement firing questions at those coming out. Considering the tenor of the meeting, Harry had acquired the distinct impression that the Prime Minister had only called a COBRA meeting in the first place so that he could be seen to be doing something in front of the national media. As the car took Harry back to Thames House afterwards, they passed a BBC news anchor standing on the lawn outside Westminster Palace announcing in an overly-dramatic voice that the Prime Minister had just finished chairing a COBRA meeting on yesterday's incident with the Russians and they had just received information that the Russian Ambassador was to be summoned to the Foreign Office later that morning.
All the right noises made in all the right ways for the country at large. It would die down in a day or two. The brink of war had been averted. A new crisis would unfold soon enough. The news media after all had the attention span of a goldfish.
On the Grid they were surprised to see him. Erin led the charge by asking after Ruth and he told them the operation had gone well. Harry knew that a more detailed assessment of her condition would wait until after she had gotten through her first couple of nights. Which she would, because she was Ruth. Ruth would get through; anything else was unacceptable.
In his office, Erin seemed to have started coordinating things. He sat down at his desk and listened to her debriefing him. Harry tried to concentrate but all he could think about was Ruth lying in her hospital bed. When Erin was trying to tell him for the third time about the inter-agency cooperation she had initiated, Harry realised she more than had things in hand. The coat that he had only just taken off went back on his shoulders again and he told her that perhaps he had best go home after all. Erin asked him to sign a few bits of paperwork and then sent him on his way.
At home Harry slipped off his coat and hung it on the line of hooks behind the front door in the hallway. He ascended the stairs to his bedroom where he sat down on his bed and untied his shoes, which he got up and placed in the shoe rack in the wardrobe. His jacket Harry hung on a hanger, his tie was hung on the wardrobe door handle to let the creases fall out overnight. His trousers he clipped and hung. Belt, cufflinks and watch went in their assigned place. Everything else – shirt, socks, boxers – was dumped in the laundry basket in the bathroom. Naked, he went to the toilet and brushed his teeth before crawling into bed.
It was at times like this, lying in the dark as sleep threatened to take him, that idle thoughts swam through his head. Did Ruth prefer sleeping naked or in pyjamas? He didn't really mind sleeping in pyjamas if Ruth preferred pyjamas. If he was going to look after Ruth, he had probably better buy some at some point. She couldn't very well sleep at Beth's when she got out of hospital and Harry was pretty sure that going to Exeter to be looked after by her mother was probably somewhere below going into exile again in her order of preference. Therefore, Harry concluded, he would just have to find a way to persuade her to sleep in his spare room.
He could clear her some space in the bathroom. She would have things that she would need to put in the bathroom. Things, like her razor and tampons and moisturisers. Ruth would probably cringe at having her personal items in his bathroom and he would have to decide whether it was better to say nothing until the matter went away or whether he ought to reassure her that everything was fine until she believed him. He should speak to Beth and get her some things from home tomorrow. Or at least find out which brands she preferred so he could get her things to bring to the hospital.
At some point during his idle thoughts over the minutiae of welcoming Ruth into his home and the growing list of things he must remember to purchase – pyjamas, toilettries, new cleaning supplies, flowers for the guest bedroom, skimmed milk – Harry must have fallen asleep. He awoke to his alarm clock and phoned into work to check all was OK. Beth was just finishing up the night shift and would sign off at about seven. Harry was welcome, she said, to stop by the flat on his way into work.
When he arrived, dressed in his tailor made suit and a warm winter overcoat, Beth was polishing off some tea and toast and struggling to stay awake. Harry had hoped that as Ruth's flatmate, Beth might be prepared to offer him some assistance. However Beth was intent on going straight to bed as soon as Harry was in the door and told him to take what he needed and let himself out.
"Put the snib on the door, won't you?" Beth said. Standing up, she transferred her dirty dishes to the sink and walked past Harry to head to her own bedroom and collapse into bed.
"But I won't know what to take," Harry said. An air of harassment hung around the way he scrubbed at his short hair. "Beth..."
"A few knickers, a few tampons, a bra and a toothbrush. How hard can it be?"
The last view Harry had of Beth was a jaw-cracking yawn that exposed the fillings in the back of her teeth and then a closed bedroom door. It was, therefore, fairly easy to work out that the other bedroom was Ruth's. The first thing he noticed was the books. Lots of books. Shelves of them. Many of them looked like they'd been purchased in second hand shops. He'd had a moving company pack up her things and sent it all to a storage warehouse while Ruth was in exile. There was a small collection of hardy houseplants on the windowsill. One of those trite wooden signs with a meaningful, well-coloured saying on it. There were cushions of assorted sizes and patterned that looked like they'd been picked up in a street market somewhere and exactly the sort of mismatched, well-loved furniture Ruth would choose. It felt earthy and homely and he sat on the bed for a moment and let his eyes wander over her bookshelf, the scarves adorning the handles of the wardrobe, the postcard from Nico that had pride of place on her dressing mirror along with a small passport sized photograph of Nico and George.
The table beside her bed contained a pile of books: the Illiad; a book of E.E. Cummings poetry and Persuasian by Jane Austen. To his great surprise it also contained a picture of him. It was framed in gold and he was dressed in a short-sleeved casual shirt, sitting in sunshine and laughing. For the life of him Harry could not think where the picture had come from or how Ruth had gotten it. The man in the picture looked, Harry thought, like a completely different man. As if he had an identical twin of a completely different and optimistic disposition. No wonder he and Ruth were so at odds if this was the ideal image of him she kept so close. He opened the bedside cabinet drawer, wondering what other personal curiosities he might find only to immediately view a selection sexual lubricants and three dildos. Harry slammed the drawer closed. That was more than he needed to know and certainly put his mind to thoughts that he had no business thinking while Ruth was laid up in a hospital bed.
Harry sat there a moment, composing himself and trying to gather together a mental list of things Ruth might need at the hospital. A nightgown, or pyjamas. Toilettries. Comfortable clothes that were easy to put on. A bra. Slowly, out of curiosity, he pulled the drawer open just enough to make an assessment of the size and then told himself he was being stupid and he had nothing to be ashamed about and to pull himself together.
Finding a bag wasn't too difficult. There was a hand-luggage sized case on top of the wardrobe which he brought down and began filling with his best guess at Ruth's requirements. A pair of soft flannel pyjamas, a skirt he knew Ruth wore regularly, a plain button-up blouse that would be easy to get on and off and her favourite boots. There was a pair of very comfortable looking slippers with the words 'UGG' printed on the soles. Her dressing gown took up rather a lot of space so he opted for the lighter weight summer waffled gown that hung at the bottom of the pile of things hung on the back of her bedroom door. He was sure it would be perfectly warm inside the hopsital if his own recollection of many a week spent there over the years there was anything to go by.
It was with great trepidation that he opened her underwear drawer once again and told himself not to snoop. Yet he couldn't help but notice, really, that most of it was practical t-shirt bras and cotton underpants. There was a single sexy set of lace under-things buried at the bottom along with a silk neglige that had Harry groaning as he ran his fingers through it. Harry wasn't a spy for nothing though and he decided to pick out the most thoroughly washed items, deciding they must be ones that Ruth deemed comfortable for a typical sixteen hour day. He opted for several pairs of underpants, a singe bra. Harry dithered over whether she needed socks and tights while he considered those annoying bandage things the hospital insisted on patients wearing over their legs to avoid DVT. In the end he concluded that Ruth detested cold toes as much as the next person and put some in anyway.
The bathroom was even worse than the bedroom for tantalising glimpses of what life with Ruth might entail. A pink razor, shaving gel, shampoo, shower gel, conditioner, a toothbrush, dental floss, toothpaste, a half-empty packet of sanitary pads. He searched for any relevant medication and finding none, went back to the bedroom and added her favourite perfume to the toilettries. There was a selection of make-up but as Ruth rarely wore any and she was currently unconscious, he decided it wouldn't be highest on her list of priorities. A book however, might be and impulsively he added the postcard from Nico and the copy of Persuasian from the nightstand.
As he walked back out to his car, having been careful to put the snib on the door on the way out, Harry made a mental note of the bra, clothing and foot sizes Ruth wore in case he needed to go shopping for her.
Upon arriving at Thames House he left Ruth's things in the car and did his best to apply himself to work, allowing himself to be briefed by Erin before attending a meeting with the DG, followed by a quick trip to Downing Street via the back door to update the Prime Minister before returning to the Grid in time for lunch. The meal itself, however, he hardly had time for and entailed nothing more glamorous than sending a junior staff member out to the nearest Marks & Spencer Simply Food for same vaguely edible sandwiches that he ate while trying not to get mayonnaise all over the large pile of paperwork in his inbox. By the time he'd made an appreciable dent in MI5's attempt to use up the rest of the rainforest it was five o'clock and with no more major disasters on the horizon, Harry left on time for once and headed straight over to the hospital, getting there just in time for dinner.
To his great surprise, Ruth was awake and sitting up in bed looking markedly better than the last time he had seen her. He stood outside the window and watched with soft eyes as Ruth glared daggers at her mother and refused the offered assistance with dinner. Or what passed as dinner in an NHS hospital. When Elizabeth tried to get Ruth's attention Ruth looked away, staring out the window to find Harry staring back and in that moment their eyes met and they drowned in each other. Harry's hand rose to the window, his fingertips touching the glass, wanting to touch her.
"Harry..."
He saw her lips form the words and he could wait no longer. His hand pushed against the door and he stepped inside. Clutching the bags in one hand, Harry gravitated towards the bed where he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, drops of his tears and her tears mingling as they kissed a wet, sloppy kiss and sighed against each other. Ruth's hands pressed into the back of his shoulders, Harry's fingers smoothed her greasy hair away from her face.
"You need a bed bath," Harry told her and of all the irascible things Ruth could have said to such an insensitive comment, she said nothing but merely looked up at him with very tired eyes. "Volunteering?" She said.
There was an exhaustion in her words that worried Harry and he glanced at Elizabeth who immediately got up and stalked out of the room, announcing that she was going outside for a cigarette.
Harry watched her go and sat himself down in the vacated seat. "So," He started.
"So," Ruth replied.
Silence hung between them.
"I was going to tell you-"
"When were you going to tell me?" They both spoke at the same time, over each other.
Ruth looked down at her hands, folded in her lap in the bed.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be insensitive. I was very worried." Harry said in rather a gruff manner before his composure broke and he exclaimed, "God, Ruth, I thought I'd lost you! What the hell were you thinking?" Harry scrubbed at his forehead with one hand, an indicator of Harry's stress levels that Ruth knew very well. "Sorry," He took in a deep breath.
"No, you're not. Look, I don't know what I was thinking. The truth is I wasn't thinking much of anything. I saw him lunge for you and I jumped in the way. It was instinct."
"Well I'm banning you!" Harry said firmly.
Ruth actually smiled at that. "You're banning me," She queried.
"Yes," Harry insisted. "You have someone else to think about now."
"Oh, so I'm keeping it as well now, am I?"
"Aren't you?"
"Well yes, but that's hardly the point," Ruth reached out a hand and Harry took it firmly.
"Ruth I saw you stabbed before my eyes, I cried for you, I grieved for you. I arrived at the hospital to find out I couldn't get update because I'm no longer your boss and I'm not next of kin. Then I find out you're pregnant and they're worried you'll miscarry and I know from their silence its probably mine. I've been at a COBRA meeting, on The Grid, dealing with your mother..." Harry trailed off.
Ruth was exhausted just hearing him. She wanted to say something back, but she was getting tired and so she just stared at him. The energy it took to exist and be alive and be awake seemed to be all that she could muster as the last of the general anaesthetic wore off. They had warned her she would take at least a week to recover from going under and three months for her muscles to heal properly. The thought of new scar tissue and a growing baby bump gave her pause for thought but she would deal with that when it came. Right now, Harry was here and he had that worried, harassed air about him but he seemed to have pulled himself back from the brink of ranting at her about her lack of concern for her own personal safety, at which Ruth could only feel relief.
Gruffly he cleared his throat. "I brought you some things. Clothes. Pyjamas. Toilettries. I've probably brought the wrong things."
"Bring it here," Ruth said.
"You're tired," Harry objected.
"Harry," Ruth looked him straight in the eye with a voice that said, 'What have I just said about telling me what to do?' and so with a sigh Harry got up and fetched the case, handing over the toilettries first for Ruth to rummage through.
"You forgot deodorant."
"Right," Harry made a mental note, wondering how he could have overlooked such an obvious daily necessity.
"What are these doing here?" Ruth pulled out her razor and shaving gel.
"I thought you might need them," Harry shrugged.
"Harry, I'm hardly likely to shave my legs in my current position. I couldn't reach them if I tried with the way my belly hurts."
"How bad is it?"
"I'll tell you once the painkillers wear off," Ruth quipped, before pulling out the packet of sanitary pads.
"Yes, well, I sort of forgot you're pregnant. I don't suppose you'll need them either now," Harry said. He was now feeling rather self-conscious about his packing choices, now that they were in front of Ruth and he had to watch her picking the bags apart. Not to mention the personal nature of the contents of her toilet bag. They may have cared for each other for many years but he had never been privvy to such personal information as the rhythm of her cycle other than what he had been able to observe on the grid, like the fact that every so often she would take extra sugar in her tea, or indulge in a packet of chocolate hobnobs instead of her usual healthy snack of apples or those little bags of almonds they sold in Tesco Metro.
"No, I'll need those," Ruth said as she continued to examine the bag, "I've been spotting."
"What's that?"
"Bleeding, Harry."
"Bleeding?"
Ruth sighed, "The Doctor says its nothing to worry about. Its normal until my hormones settle down."
Harry stood up, "I want to speak to the Doctor. How can bleeding possibly be nothing to worry about?"
"Harry, you have two grown children," Ruth sighed, "The ins and outs of pregnancy can't be a complete surprise to you."
Instead of agreeing with her, however, Harry turned an interesting shade of pink.
"Harry?" Ruth pushed. Eventually Harry shrugged and sat back down, now looking somewhat dejected. "There was a lot that Jane preferred not to 'worry me' with."
"The Doctors know what they're doing," Ruth insisted, "We need to trust them."
Harry's lips pouted, his jaw pressed together so hard a muscle began to twitch. Just as he was considering going to talk to the Doctor anyway behind her back, there was a knock on the door and a nurse came into check on Ruth. The man had a kind, calming disposition and he smiled harmlessly at Ruth as he checked her wrist band and noted down her patient details on his sheet.
"How are you feeling Ruth?"
"A bit better. Tired."
"I see you've got a visitor," The nurse commented, nodding in Harry's direction.
"This is Harry. He's the baby's father."
"Pleased to meet you then."
Harry watched as the nurse took Ruth's wrist for a moment and stared at his watch, checking her pulse.
"Pulse is normal," The nurse announced. "How's the nausea?"
"Gone."
"Good. And you've been passing urine normally, I see. Excellent. Do you mind if I check the bandages?"
Ruth's belly was swaddled in white gauze. A little blood was seeping through in patches. Harry wondered if he should excuse himself, if Ruth wouldn't rather he was out of the room for all of this.
"That looks fine just now but we'll need to change that before bed. You say you're still spotting a little but Doctor Cartwright doesn't think its anything to worry about for the moment. Do you think you can manage to eat some dinner?"
Harry couldn't blame Ruth for not feeling too enthused about the food on offer. The selection looked dry and overcooked with jelly for pudding, but he knew it would do her good to eat something.
"Try," The nurse urged. "We'd like to keep you in another night for observation and we'll see how you're doing in the morning, ok?"
Harry hovered in the corner as the nurse chatted to Ruth, checked her over and then left for his next patient.
"Come out of the corner, Harry."
"Perhaps I should go."
"Harry, we're having a baby together. You're going to have to get used to a few squemish bodily functions."
"Am I?"
Ruth said nothing, leaving Harry's comment hanging as a rhetorical question. It was only in the time since her return from exile that Ruth had truly begun to understand the mental scars that his relationship with Jane had left him with. He had, by his own admission, been perpetually unfaithful and there was no question that in hindsight everyone involved seemed to consider the entire marriage an ill-judged disaster from start to finish. Harry himself was not without fault, yet Ruth could not help but notice his reticence in contacting his children, his insistence that his presence was not wanted and his tendency to bury himself in his work. She wondered how many times she had turned up at Jane's house to meet the children and been told it was 'not a good time'. How many rearranged days with his children he had organised cover at work for only to hear Jane announce at the last minute that some prior engagement had been forgotten about and the children would not be able to meet with their father after all. The divorce, for Jane, had not been enough. She had gone on punishing Harry through the children for the rest of their acquaintance and Ruth had developed the opinion that a certain amount of the difficulty they had had in their relationship had something to do with Jane's treatment of Harry after their divorce. Anything more than a one night stand was just too fraught with fighting back pavlovian responses and had Harry questioning and second-guessing his every move.
"I'm not Jane, Harry. You have a right to be here."
"Its not about having a right, Ruth, its about being welcome."
"You are welcome," She insisted. A sigh escaped her which developed into a wide yawn.
"Is there anything else you'd like?"
"Come and see me tomorrow."
"Of course," Harry nodded, acknowledging the dismissal. "I'll bring you deodorant."
"Dove, please. The spray stuff."
Harry nodded. Focus on the practicalities, hoe told himself. He stuffed his hands in his pockets lest he reach out and touch her. Outside night was drawing in, the cold damp of the Essex marshes creeping up the Thames to settle upon the City of London. The warmth of the corridors and the bright flourescent lights could not disguise the way the hospital was winding towards night time. Staff preparing to finish their shift. Lights being turned off here and there, unneeded.
Ruth watched him turn for the door and reach out for the handle. Wet drops of water clung to the window, highlighted by the yellow of the artificial lighting outside, standing out in the darkness through the venetian blinds. She wished he would open up just a little. A touch, a kiss. Something.
"Harry," Ruth called after him.
Harry's fingers paused on the doorhandle.
"A goodnight kiss?" Ruth requested.
Harry looked surprised, but happy. He carefully stepped forwards. One pace, two, three, and stopped at the head of her bed. His eyes searched hers, looking and waiting for the rebuttal that Ruth realised he now expected from her. Perhaps it wasn't just Jane that had trained him to be reticent.
"I'm sorry," She said quietly.
"Ruth," Harry's voice cracked, "You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I was an utter bitch to you, Harry. Don't deny it, I was. The truth is, I was a mess after Cyprus. I'd spent years imagining you finding me. I never imagined it would come at that price."
"Everything comes at a price, Ruth."
"Do we come at a price?"
"I expect so. You can't say these last seven years have been easy on either of us. Politically and personally we've paid lots of prices, Ruth, and we'll probably pay more in the future. The question is not whether or not there's a price, its whether we're willing to pay it."
Ruth knew the answer to that one. Albany gave her the answer to that. Her exile gave her the answer. No matter how much it cost them, they would pay the price, not because they chose to but because they had to, because something inside compelled each of them to sacrifice everything required to save the other. In some ways though, the sacrificing was easy. They both knew the price and they both knew, now, that each was prepared to pay it. It was everything else that was difficult. The grand gestures were all very well but the little things, the everyday, the mundane, flummoxed them at every turn. The effort it took even just to hold hands or agree to have coffee seeming almost superhuman in the face of all they'd endured. But they had to start somewhere, Ruth did not want this child growing up as Catherine and Graham had grown up, no matter how things worked out between its parents. Ruth lifted a weary hand and raised it towards Harry who at once stepped forwards and clasped it between his own. They stood that way for a few long seconds.
"Ruth, may I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"I'm not sure I can be happy with you."
Ruth flinched and drew her hand back.
"Ruth, I don't mean to say I don't want to be with you, I mean to say, I'm not sure, I even know what happiness is anymore and I'm not sure that I can be the man I once was, the man that you expect me to be."
"You don't think I feel the same? You don't think I worry that after everything all we know anymore is misery?"
It seemed to Harry that they had reached an impasse. In trying to open up to her he had driven her away once again and so he tried to change the subject. "Did they say anything?" Harry said, "About the baby?"
"They've done some tests. They gave me something when I first came in to reduce the chance of a miscarriage. They're not too worried now, I think but they're going to monitor me overnight." Ruth said and finished off with a shrug.
A muscle twitched in Harry's jaw and he pressed his lips together, staring at the ground as he ruthlessly suppressed the welling worry in his chest. All they could do, Ruth was telling him, was wait and see. They sat in silence for a while, Harry holding Ruth's hand until Ruth began to drift off.
Once Harry was sure Ruth was asleep he stood up and gently kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, Love." Harry stepped towards the door. His hand pressed down on the handle.
"Harry? Where are you going?"
"Shhh...Go back to sleep."
"You're not leaving?"
Harry hesitated. Did she want him here. Was he welcome, after he had so poorly tried to convey his struggles before, his own concerns about his own emotional limitations. He remembered the Ruth who had first come onto the Grid. Smiling and happy, her love of life shining from her face. She would talk of the books she was reading and choir practice and her adventures in loose-leafed tea and Harry would smile with warm fondness of such simple joys and so fine a woman. But that was a long time ago and a lot of death had walked between them in the years since that time.
"Harry?"
"No, no, of course not."
"You'll stay?"
"Of course, Ruth. If you want me here."
"I do. I'm sorry to be so needy."
"You're not needy, Ruth."
"Its better when you're here."
"Is it? Why's that?"
Ruth's eyes searched his. She looked half asleep, like sometimes when you wake in the night and you're so close to unconsciousness you have no recollection of it come the morning. "The sadness. When you're gone the sadness is here, Harry and when you're here the sadness is there. Just over there, I can see it but its not here. When you're here it makes it a little easier that's all. Its like when we're together, we exist somewhere on the edge of sadness instead of right in the middle of it. Does that make any sense?"
Harry felt tears well in his eyes. "A lot more than you'd think," he said on choked breath. With careful, measured steps, Harry walked back towards Ruth. He attempted a smile and she attempted a smile back. By the time he returned to her bedside Ruth's eyes were falling closed and her breath was evening out and as he looked at her and tucked her in and sat on the bed and took her hand Harry wondered if they'd been taking the measure of themselves the wrong way all along. Maybe it wasn't happiness that Fate intended for them. Maybe it was just a port in a storm. Maybe it was just something a little less worse and a little more better than going it alone.
Maybe it was existing, living, loving, somewhere on the edge of sadness. And maybe for them that was ok.
Epilogue:
Harry returned home when visiting was over, his thoughts full of her. Internally he began wondering how many bookshelves would fit in his bedroom. Where the cot would go at the foot of the bed.
Graham came to mind and Harry let out a long, slow sigh. He remembered the boy's laughter as a child, the way his eyes would dance when he giggled and smiled. His risque behaviour, the drugs and the going out late and the parties. An old-fashioned heterosexual part of Harry had deliberately blinded himself, he knew, to what was going on. Jane had made it clear that his behaviour was unacceptable and instead of reaching out when Graham had looked to him as a teenager, Harry had flinched in expectation of rejection. The moment when Graham was about to tell him, for Harry knew then what was going on, and he had failed him as a father. When Graham had needed one person who understood, one person he could turn to, one person he could ask questions of Harry had stepped back. No one had ever taught Harry how to deal with a gay son. It was talked about, it wasn't discussed. He had no idea how to have 'the talk' about gay sex, he had hoped Jane would deal with that but it was increasingly clear to Harry that Jane only accepted Graham so long as he kept the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll politely stashed in the cupboard when she was around.
Sleep came, for a few hours at least. Some time around four he woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. At half four he rose, showered and shaved and took the car into work. He did his time on The Grid, he went to Boots to buy Ruth deodorant and called by the hospital after work. Elizabeth was gone already and Ruth didn't seem terribly sorry that her mother was already on her way back to Exeter. The parting glare Harry received in the car would stay with him for the rest of his life. It wasn't that Harry had corrupted her pure, precious daughter, it was that Harry was confirmation of the very fact that Ruth had never been pure or precious for a long time. She had been her father's daughter and Harry's presence only confirmed that to Ruth, her mother was nothing more than an inconvenient satellite. He wondered about that, about the relationship Ruth had with her mother and the relationship Harry had with his son. Elizabeth, Harry could see, was naturally a slightly self-serving sort of person. He got the impression that having a child was an inconvenience for her that took her away from her husband. Was it any wonder Ruth didn't look to her for comfort. Harry hoped he had never been so self-serving in his attitude towards his son. He hadn't been there for Graham when Graham needed it but Jane had always created the impression that he was unwelcome and unnecessary in their lives, that they managed just fine without him.
This time when he entered her room her eyes brightened as he entered and Harry felt his heart lift a little at the sight of her sitting up, the back of her bed raised. The colour of her complexion was better, her eyes were brighter and she was eating lunch and as he entered the room and looked at her and Ruth looked at him back Harry knew she was going to be ok then, that they were going to be ok. Perhaps they would never be the life and soul of the party. Perhaps the weight of all those gone before them would always weigh heavily in their relationship. Perhaps they would always exist, as Ruth had said the night before, somewhere on the edge of sadness. There was a melancholia there that had not been there a few years before but as Ruth's hand reached out for his and he took his place at her side, for the first time in his life Sir Harry Pearce felt ok with that - as long as they had each other.