She had, as was her habit when they were not in the middle of a crisis, turned up in his office with a pile of documents for signature and his morning coffee. He, as was his habit when they weren't having a crisis, invited her to bring her cup in and wait for the papers while they took a few minutes to engage in casual conversation. She plopped into the chair opposite his.
"More stuff from the bloody National Security Unit, will it never end?" He waved his pen at the pile of folders. "So, tell me about life then Ruth" (nice one Harry he thought – plenty of opportunity for her to have a ramble in any direction, give him her 'take' on what is going on in the office, or in her life, or in the news or whatever. He could probably keep this going till lunchtime if he tried). Her answer was predictably unexpected.
"Life's a bitch, Harry" she said to him.
If it were Adam or Zaf, he might have expected him to finish " …and then you work for one", but Ruth did not continue.
He raised an eyebrow and looked mock stern. "That's a bit cynical, even if Juliet is a little…difficult from time to time"
She sighed. "You're not listening. I said, life's a beach."
Harry's thoughts drifted to him and her on a remote tropical beach – alone- hot sun, and with very little on. Possibilities for applying copious amounts of sun cream , definitely no mobile phones, balmy tropical nights, the stars like her eyes. He thought of lines from Byron.
'She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes'
He sighed, a small smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, his eyes softened.
"Harry, I have no idea where you've just gone, but really, if you aren't interested, shall I just go and have my coffee somewhere else?" She said it gently, more as a query than a reprimand, but it brought him back, fully conscious to the here and now.
(Bloody hell Harry, get a grip, you can fantasise when she's gone.)
He turned his gaze back to her and her stomach flip-flopped. "Sorry Ruth, just let me scribble on these. You were saying?"
"Yes – well…" She was flustered now.
He turned on the full-beam of his charm, put his pen down pointedly, folding his hands together, fingers interlocking, leaned toward her and said quietly
"Ruth – whenever we talk, your conversation is always unexpected, (usually impenetrable, off the wall and occasionally bonkers), but I find it (and you) fascinating and generally worth listening to. You were talking about beaches. Pray continue."
(Oh Lord, it was only meant to be a throwaway idea, and now it was assuming the significance of a JIC briefing)
She could hear the air rushing past her ears as though she were an aeroplane in a steep dive. Maybe it was just the blood pounding through her veins. There was a small something in her brain saying 'Pull up! Pull up!' And she knew when he used that tone, he was expecting some exposition.
She took a deep breath and with a visible effort, dragged herself back to being an actual, thinking, coherent individual, not a gibbering idiot.
"Beaches… right." As she clutched at the thread of her earlier comment, the arguments came back to her and she began to weave the strands of the analogy, becoming more focussed and confident as she spoke.
"OK, well, here we are – not just us, but everyone, people who are at a point in time, beginnings, endings, whatever is to happen or has happened, just is.
The potential is out there, waiting to act upon us, just as the weather and tide are – some is predictable, some not. Things get thrown up – the flotsam and jetsam. We are like beachcombers. Some things we see and can use, some are scattered or buried and we have to dig to find the essential parts, some things are just junk or pretty distractions, and some we never see at all, that float away out of sight."
She glanced up at him, gauging if she was making any sense at all. He was listening intently, a tiny frown around the eyes, but with clear interest. She continued, her hands becoming more expressive.
"Beaches are between. – Transitional. Things not entirely land or water, constantly in flux, shifting. They are waypoints, sites for erosion and deposition depending on the lie of the land and composition of the strata. Some effects are determined by geography and geology, some by time and history, some by occupation and custom and some by pure chance.
Beaches can be many things – sandy and barren, rocky, but full of life. They are ever changing and can be the end of a road, or the beginning of an adventure. Sometimes we are there, up against the bottom of the cliff, with the tide coming in and praying for the miracle that will let us escape; sometimes we are stranded, high and dry; sometimes being tumbled in the surf, confused, exhausted and bereft."
She was transformed now into her role of communicator, visualising the elements of which she spoke, and sounding authoritative, convincing. She was evincing empathy in her audience, taking him along with the tide of her words, as she concentrated on refining the images.
"The settings, the situations we are in if you like, obviously vary. Sometimes there are dunes and grasses, sometimes, magnificent sweeping scenery, sometimes, vast crashing emptiness, sometimes, featureless salt flats, but always, more or less, the water. Then there are the nuances that affect how we perceive the whole, the sensual stuff; deafening noise, or absolute silence, the tang of salt, the prickle of sunburn, sunrises, sunsets, mists and moonshine. Sewage, plastic forks and decomposing fish. These give rise to the visceral stuff, the emotional context. Dramatic, gentle, breathtaking, mundane or disgusting, which drives how we deal with each challenge.
In microcosm, there are the pools that are the whole world of the creatures that live there – every high tide is a possible Armageddon to them, elemental forces acting on them bringing in new threats and benefits and changing their existence; every low tide a stranding, with the potential for stagnation and starvation. Predators, prey and the daily fight for survival."
She finished speaking, suddenly aware that she had just expounded on a whole internal viewpoint that made absolute sense to her, but which probably made her seem quite, quite mad. Harry was sitting with his elbow on the desk, worrying his bottom lip between forefinger and thumb. She looked at him nervously. He smiled.
" That's really quite something Ruth. I had never thought of it like that, but I get the idea, and it's certainly something to ponder."
(Oh God, he does think I am mad)
"But," he continued "in the meantime…"
His eyes were twinkling and amused .
"if we are creatures of the beach, what role are you casting me in?."
"You Harry? I..I hadn't really thought of assigning characters – it's just a line of thought, not the Little Mermaid."
" Indulge me! Have you cast me as Neptune, raising the tempest and wafting my trident around?"
She blushed slightly as she decided to play the game. (Now who was mad?)
"Oh nothing so grand! No, I don't think we are the ultimate divinities deciding fates, we just operate on our bit of the beach, doing what we must."
She thought for a moment and her dimples briefly showed.
"If I have to assign you a role, I would cast you as a crab, capable of existing in air and water, armoured against attack, watching for opportunities. Hiding under a rock tasting the water and pouncing at the opportune moment."
"A crab?" He laughed out loud at the absurd idea and mimicked pincers with his hands. "Are you casting aspertions? Heavens, Ruth! Are you being rude about your boss? There are rules you know. Did you have a particular genus in mind? "
"Yes, Mr. Crabby" (He could make of that what he would. So there). "A Ghost Crab. I think there are about 20 species of them."
"Quite appropriate for a spook." He paused. (Had she just been very cheeky?). "How about you?"
"Probably something irritating and persistent. A sand fly."
"Oh no, Ruth. You are so much more attractive than a sand fly." (That came out with far too many sensual overtones. Damn.)
He saw her tense, aware that they had little time before the world would intrude and he didn't want to scare her. He decided to be kind, keep the mood light.
"You, Miss Evershed, are a prawn, rushing around in the rockpool, going everywhere, including some places that you probably shouldn't. You have a thin carapace for protection, but you get away with a lot because you are generally well liked, and very sweet. You are, also, very clever and lucky, because crabs usually eat prawns for lunch."
He tried to look a bit threatening and mimicked the pincers again.(Good. She giggled.)
"No they don't Harry, they eat seaweed and stuff they filter from the water."
"I don't, I often have prawn sandwiches" he protested with just a tiny little pout.
"Oh, I'm not scared of you Harry." (Actually, I am scared of me and what might happen if I let it, but it's really hard to hold back when you pout like that)
As if on cue, the telephone rang and continued insistently. He nodded towards it.
"That will be Ursula."
"Who?" She said it with her eyes.
"The evil sea witch."
She still hadn't got it.
"Juliet"
"Ah. How…?."
"Wes. It was his favourite video for a while."
She grinned and exited leaving him hunkering back under his rock.
As she made her way across the Grid to her desk, she had a feeling that she had escaped – this time-, but it might not be all that bad being nibbled by a crab, who, whatever he wanted the world to believe, would be quite a delicious treat, once you got the shell off.
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It had been a tempestuous 36 hours, with the sense of elemental forces moving inexorably against all his effort or will. It had begun with him foolishly feeling in control, taking care of people and business, playing his spooky games, finding the third way to outmanoeuvre the evil and unprincipled Cotterdam plotters, but that had dissipated at the point when he had been visited by Adam in the police cell just after his arrest and he realised that he had blown it. Stupid, stupid man.
From then on, most of it had been empty waiting, interspersed with short interludes of hope, high drama, sick fear and the one thing he would never be able, never want, to erase, the single point in this whole bloody mess, when he was simultaneously elated beyond the ability to move, breathe or think and in complete and numb despair. She was alive and she had kissed him and she had gone.
Finally, here he was, standing on the muddy beach of the ebb-tideThames. It was chilly in the growing dark of evening; bleak. The City bustled around him, but he felt nothing in his bubble of misery, immune to the exodus of the office workers on their way to the main transport hubs, homes and hearths; the people arriving seeking diversion, entertainment and nourishment; the lights illuminating the historic and modern, the sacred and profane. The rhythms that always pulsed through London (as far as he could tell now) were silent. He thought it might be because his heart had stopped.
He faced toward the sea – where she had gone - while the faint smell of damp decay and marine diesel hung in the air, the swirl of oil-slick water a dark and tenuous ribbon between the helpless and the hopeless. Tomorrow's inevitable inundation overshadowed today's drownings, the official one, cold in the Lambeth mortuary and the other. He had always been too far out all his life.
He thought back to that morning when the tide had taken her and he had stood watching, not waving and remembered that life is a beach.
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