A'N - With 2019 imminent, I decided to take a break from decapitated bodies and perhaps worse, by scribbling a two chapter lighthearted bit of fun. Thanks to all of you that have supported me with your reviews and friendship throughout 2018, and I wish you a Happy and Healthy New Year.
'I don't know, I haven't really decided yet. Maybe a bit of housework, some washing, but I'm definitely going to bed before midnight with a good book,' had been the sum total of Ruth's suggestions as to how she was planning to spend New Year's Eve, which had prompted an exasperated Beth to take matters into her own hands and contact Harry's daughter. It had been over two months since Harry had returned to the grid after his enforced suspension and he and Ruth had been skirting around each other as though they were trying to avoid a coiled snake, rather than doing what everyone knew they wanted too, if she'd only let him kiss her.
'Lucas was dead, sad, yes of course it was, but it happened in their line of work and it wasn't as though Ruth had really liked him, so why the guilt trip?' Had been Beth's somewhat unfeeling but well-reasoned argument that she'd put to her colleagues over a few drinks in The George, during what she'd described to them as a survival exercise.
'Go for it I say, if you think that you'll still have a job at the end of it?' Had been Dimitri's less than helpful advice. 'Rather you than me, but by all means give it a try, if only to put us all out of our misery,' from Alec and ' as long as you don't expect me to get involved, I'm already in trouble,' from Tariq, had approximated their blessing.
Two evenings later after another fraught day on the grid.
'If they don't get it on, on New Year's Eve, when will they?' A phrase that Beth frequently used when she was describing her multiple sexual experiences to her friends, made Catherine want to remind her that this was her father that she was talking about, as they strolled alongside the Thames in the direction of the restaurant where Beth had booked them a table. Harry had spent a good deal of the time during his enforced exile from his beloved Ruth and Thames House with his daughter, who despite her efforts to get him to open up as to why he'd been quite so down in the dumps, to the point of threatening to quit his job, but not doing so, was now on the verge of finding out. Despite listening to Beth who up until now she'd never met, being overly blunt, to the point where Catherine was wishing she'd just change the subject, she was curious to hear more about this Ruth who was apparently breaking her father's heart and how Beth, with her help, was planning on changing it.
'They're always on the grid hours before any of us arrive, and the thing is we all know why, but for all the good it's doing them they might as well arrive at the same time as normal people. It's awful, it's worse than watching paint dry and believe you me I know what I'm talking about,' Catherine didn't doubt, as Beth moved up through the gears. And don't get me going about the morning briefings, they border on torturous,' and Catherine was tempted to tell her that she wasn't going to. 'He fancies her, she fancies him, so just do it and be done with it is what I say. I know they're older but for heaven's sake, but how difficult can it be?'
Catherine had never and really didn't want to imagine her father in bed with anyone, never mind engrossed and enjoying himself, but Beth seemed hell bent on telling her, as though it should be an every day occurrence. Doing her best to gloss over the image, she was given a short break as Beth indicated that they'd arrived, before it all started again. By the time the wine waiter arrived to take their order, after which they'd consumed two gin and tonics and half a bottle of white wine and were tucking into their main course, Catherine had changed her mind and was well on her way to being convinced.
'Repressed, as bad as each other and having an on and off love affair which has apparently been going on for years,' were just some of the many things that Beth had been spilling the beans about. She'd even described how her father had given her a second chance when she'd messed up, which given the conversation that they were having, Catherine could well imagine happened frequently, even though Beth hadn't gone into specifics. When Beth called the waiter over and ordered herself another drink, which Catherine politely refused on the grounds that she needed to keep a clear head to keep a full grip on what she was hearing, she was well on the way to believing that Ruth was lovely, even if she was a bit different, which in all honesty described her father, and by the time that their coffees arrived, she was fully invested in he and Ruth as Beth kept telling her, getting it on.
'Well we know the when, we just need to decide on the how and the where?' She told Beth, finally getting a word in edgewise and ordering herself another coffee and at the same time ringing for a taxi to take them back to hers. With only one day to go, they could hardly discuss what Beth was planning, in what Beth had described as the lovely house that Ruth owned and where she apparently rented a room. Besides which, despite being curious to the point of being excited, she wasn't quite ready to run into this Ruth. Not yet anyway.
In contrast to his daughter who was beginning to see him in a new light, on the grid where two desk lamps were all that were preventing it from being in complete darkness, Harry had been sitting alone in his office in one of his 'if only' moods, gazing across the few metres to where Ruth was sitting, her head bent over a pile of files that as far as he knew were just designed to kill some time. He'd bollocks it up as usual by not trusting her and taking her seriously when she'd told him that Lucas was in trouble and he was paying for it with a silence and politeness that was exhausting in its nothingness.
'It wasn't fair of you to love me,' she'd said, recognising that he did. God almighty what more did he have to do to prove that she was right, in addition to risking his career to save her, apart from taking matters and Ruth into his own hands and to hell with the consequences? Had there ever been a time when he hadn't loved her? If there was, then he certainly couldn't remember it? The pain and the gut - wrenching heartache were testament to that and still he'd come back for more, rather than telling Towers he could stuff his job and find someone else. So even with New Year's Eve approaching and what better time was there to take the woman you were in love with out, the thought of yet another smack in the face was holding him back.
Had he known that the subject of his longings had spent the entire Christmas weekend alone, berating herself for not being brave enough to pick up the phone and ring him, in the hope that he'd forgive her and arrive on her doorstep like a Christmas miracle, he'd have raced across the grid and be done with it, but of course that involved communication, and neither of them were big on that if it crossed into the personal.
She knew he was looking at her, she didn't have to be a genius to know that, she just didn't have the courage to look up and meet his gaze in case she melted, or worse still made a fool of herself and started to cry.
'Get a life for heaven's sake, stop mooning around after Harry and move on,' Beth had said to her, something which she tried her best to ignore and pretend that she hadn't heard. How she or for that matter how Harry felt about each other, was none of Beth's business. It was private it was theirs. With every breath of her being she loved Harry, she always had and love conquered all didn't it, if only you knew how to go about it? How difficult could it be to get up from her desk and walk those few yards across the grid to his door? She did it often enough during the working day, but then that was work or at least on the pretext of work and this wasn't. She just wished he'd just switch off his lamp and go home, but she didn't, because that meant that she wouldn't see him again until after New Year, another wretched holiday that she'd be spending alone, while Beth was out enjoying herself with the thousands of other revellers that flooded into London to enjoy the festivities.
She turned another inconsequential page in the hope that he couldn't read her mind and knew that she was sitting there just so that she could spend a few more precious moments close to him, before spending another heart -breaking evening with nothing but Fidget and a bottle of wine for company.