Ruth opens Harry's office door without knocking, slips inside, and slides the door closed behind her, being careful to close it quietly.
He's sitting in his chair, his head leaning back against the headrest, his face turned towards her, eyes closed, hands on his thighs, and she can hear his light snores as he breathes in. She stands there for a moment, taking in the sight of him, asleep and so vulnerable. She prays that there'll be no red flash tonight. He'd looked wiped out last night, and she suspects he spent all night on the Grid. At this morning's briefing he'd seemed distracted and out of sorts.
Ruth walks towards him, taking care to be quiet. Reaching his side, she touches his arm. Nothing, not even a stirring. She touches his hand, lightly stroking the back of one hand with her fingertips. Still nothing. She watches his chest rising and falling, slowly and steadily. She thinks of Big Ben, measuring the passage of time for a century and a half; Harry is a bit like a clock which never stops. Until now.
She glances through the window to the Grid to see that everyone else has gone home. There is only she and Harry left, and she can't leave him here like this. He should get home to bed …... to his bed. Were she a different kind of person – a confident risk-taker – she'd be this minute planning to take him home to her own bed. She's not confident, and she's not a risk-taker, so she lifts her hand to his face, and with the backs of her fingers, she touches his cheek. That is about as risky as she'll get.
Harry takes in a sudden breath, and opens his eyes. "Ruth," he says, his eyes widening, "I was just dreaming …..."
"What were you dreaming about, Harry?"
She catches a look – furtive, secretive – and it's clear to Ruth what – or who – he was dreaming about. But dreaming isn't living, is it? Harry doesn't handle `them' terribly well. She doesn't handle `them' well either, so what does that make them? Hopeless, that's what. They are hopeless, and unless they are trapped alone for a couple of days in a locked room with no computers, and no phones or electricity, it's unlikely they'll transcend their current state of hopelessness. Even then, they may need more than two days.
"It was …... it was a nice dream."
That's all he's giving her, but she can fill in the blanks. Harry dreams about her ... she dreams about him. That is the extent of their `relationship'. It is the kind of relationship you have when you don't have a relationship in the real world. It is a virtual relationship, a relationship of the mind, a relationship which occurs in dreams, and as such, it can be rather wonderful.
Not in the real world, though. In the real world – the place where they have to interact, and talk to one another – their relationship is frustrating beyond all imagining.
"Let's get you home," she says, placing her hand on his arm.
He offers no opposition. He yawns, then stands, looks around for his keys and his phone, while Ruth takes his coat from the hook, and hands it to him. He smiles at her, his cheeks still flushed from sleep, slipping on his coat. Ruth has often wondered what he'd be like when he wakes up. He's soft, sweet, and a little absent minded.
"I'm driving," she says, when he goes to open the driver's side door of his car. "You're in no fit state."
Harry hands her the key with no argument, and heads around to the passenger side.
Ruth has been close enough to him to know he hasn't had a drink. He is not affected by alcohol. He is suffering from being bone tired …... out on his feet …... exhausted. She knows as soon as he opens his front door, and struggles to remember the security code, that she is going to have to see him into bed. She views that prospect with equal parts joy and horror.
"Do you need to eat first, Harry?"
He is already about to put his foot on the bottom stair when he turns to look at her, his face showing confusion.
"Eat?"
"You know …... food."
He shakes his head, and again attempts the stairs. She hurries to his side, and taking his elbow, she helps him climb the stairs, and then to his room.
Were she to have formed a mental plan of her role this night, she would have had Harry climbing the stairs to bed, leaving her free to leave the house, and then find her own way home – perhaps by bus. She is already past the limits of her own plan, and she hopes that she will very soon have a clear idea of when she can leave Harry to get himself into bed so that she can go home. She and Harry may be quite close, but they are hardly at the let's-share-a-bed-because-it-might-be-nice stage in their relationship.
Inside his room (a sensible room, one where he sleeps, but appears to not spend a lot of time) Harry sits on the edge of the mattress, and struggles to untie his shoes. Ruth feels sorry for him (even though she knows that by this time, she should be half way to the nearest bus stop), and kneels beside him, so that she can remove his shoes, and then his socks. Once that job is done, she looks up at him, and sees him gazing at her with barely disguised wonder and adoration.
"You'll help me with the rest of it?" His voice is quiet, his eyes on her, his look at once careful and seductive.
"I'll help you with your shirt and tie, but as for the rest of it, you're on your own."
He'd already slipped out of his jacket, leaving it on the floor beside the bed. Ruth picks it up, and finding an empty hanger in the wardrobe, she hangs the jacket, smoothing it unnecessarily, so that Harry's unique scent wafts from it. She closes her eyes with pleasure, for a moment imagining them to be doing this as part of their nightly pre-bedtime ritual.
She turns towards the bed to see Harry struggling with his shirt buttons. He's just too tired to manage. Reluctantly, she stands close to him, between his knees, and slowly opens the buttons on his shirt. His tie is on the floor at her feet, and she makes a mental note to pick it up and hang it somewhere …... once he's safely tucked up in bed. She can feel him watching her, but she can't return his scrutiny. This situation has already gone too far for her …... and she can feel her resolve wavering.
She opens the last button – uncomfortably over his groin area – and slides the shirt from his shoulders. She is at once relieved and disappointed that he wears an undershirt, which he'll no doubt wear to bed, and so she'll not have to be tempted by his skin. She longs to see the skin of his chest and shoulders, but she knows she shouldn't. Such a revelation will change their non-relationship forever. She notices that Harry has already opened the buttons on his trousers, and all it requires now is for him to lower the zip. Surely he can manage that. She takes his shirt, and reaches down to pick up his socks and his tie, and places them on a chair under the window.
"I'll go now," she says, turning to look at him. She'd not looked into his eyes the whole time she'd been removing his shirt. She now sees sadness and fatigue and longing in his eyes.
Please don't, she thinks.
"Please stay," he whispers.
Ruth looks away. She notices that she hadn't closed the wardrobe door, and so she heads towards the wardrobe, when Harry speaks again.
"Just for tonight, Ruth. Please stay with me." He sounds lucid, not tired.
Ruth turns, her hand on the wardrobe door.
"Leave it," he says. "Stay with me …... at least, until I fall asleep."
Ruth sighs, knowing she hasn't the energy to oppose him. "Alright, but I'll lie on top of the duvet."
"Under it. Beside me. In bed with me."
She turns to stare at him. He must be tired – and disoriented – to have suggested that. Surprisingly, he appears calm, and in charge of his thoughts. His eyes are bright, not with mischief, but with something else …... anticipation, muted joy. She can't say no. She can't disappoint him. She's already hurt him enough.
"Alright," she says, and then turns to close the wardrobe door.
"My trousers," he says quietly. "They'll need hanging up."
Ruth can't watch him removing his trousers. She wants to, but it wouldn't be right. She concentrates on removing her boots and tights. She considers the wisdom of lying in bed in her dress, but she has little alternative.
"The second drawer on the left has some t-shirts of mine, if you need something to wear to bed."
She looks up at Harry, to see his trousers on the bed beside him, while he is crawling under the covers, wearing only his undershirt, and his trunks. She catches a glimpse of a strong thigh, and feels a tipping and turning inside her lower abdomen.
Ruth keeps her eyes down as she takes his trousers from the bed and hangs them in the wardrobe, and then opens the drawer Harry had indicated, and chooses a pale blue t-shirt, and takes it to the bathroom where she'll change and get ready for bed.
So much for her resolve. So much for self-restraint. So much for catching a bus home. So much for keeping Harry at arm's length.
But she doesn't want to, does she? She doesn't want to keep him at arm's length any more than she wants to cut off her own arm.
It is then that she admits to herself that one of the things she most looks forward to each morning is seeing Harry. It is not the only reason she enjoys going to work, but it is one of them. Perhaps the main one. Definitely the main one …... and it has been for some time. Perhaps for as long as since a couple of months after George's death. And that makes her feel bad.
But then …... she is thinking hard while taking a pee before joining Harry in bed …... how long should she avoid Harry, reject him, ignore him? And will avoiding him somehow validate George's horrific death? She knows that she is denying Harry and herself out of guilt – her guilt, her remorse, her self-hatred. And how much self-denial will it take to redeem George's death? One thing she now knows is that denying she and Harry will never bring George back.
By the time she has flushed the toilet and washed her hands and face, she knows what she must do.
Returning to the bedroom, Ruth slides under the duvet, hoping she won't wake Harry. Almost without thinking, she seeks his feet with her own. She craves physical contact with him. She always has. Who wouldn't? It's just that she'd been afraid he'd think she was just after him for sex, and that's never been her primary motivation.
Suddenly she feels Harry's feet entangle with hers, and his arms reach out for her under the duvet.
"Come here," he says sleepily, his arms encircling her and pulling her close to him.
Tentatively, Ruth reaches out with her own arms, and slides one around his waist, and she rests the other against his chest. His body feels warm and safe. She breathes out heavily as she lets her head come to rest under Harry's chin, and she relaxes against him. She feels his heart's steady beat against her chest, as his breathing becomes deeper and slower.
"I love you," he breathes, the last words he speaks before sleep takes him.
Ruth takes a long while to fall asleep. If the situation itself is not extreme enough, Harry's last words before he fell sleep have left her with tumbling, confused thoughts. She doesn't know why it is Harry's late night confession of love should disturb her so. She knows he loves her. He has loved her for at least three years, maybe even four. And, if she's being honest, she also loves him. But she and Harry don't do `I love you's'. They don't do cuddling and open adoration and sex, and the reason they don't is because this is what they have always done. They have always done love-from-afar. To do it any other way would interfere with their ability to work together …... wouldn't it? When Mani had accused them of their relationship being `frightfully out-dated, Brief Encounter', he'd been right on the money. She and Harry do share an old-fashioned kind of love, a chaste, out-dated, Brief Encounter kind of love. And isn't that exactly what they both want?
Ruth lies against Harry's chest, and if she thinks about it, she can feel his chest moving as he breathes deeply in sleep. She can feel his chin move occasionally, as he moves his head in sleep. She can feel his feet entangled with hers, his warm feet wrapped around her cold feet, now slowly warming. She can feel his belly resting against her stomach, his rounded, middle-aged belly pressing against her, and she feels safer because of it. As Harry has slowly repositioned himself in sleep, she can now feel his genitals against her thigh. He is soft and warm there, through the fabric of his trunks. She is reassured by that. They feel safe enough together to press their bodies close, their most private parts resting against the body of the other. She feels herself inch closer to him, as she presses her own private area closer against his belly.
This is safety. This is trust. This is where she belongs – right here, right now. This is love.
