Harry's House – Saturday November 1st 2008 - evening:

The house is in darkness as he closes the door behind him, and resets the alarm. He stands for a moment, revelling in the stillness. It is familiar, safe, but he senses something different in the air, something he cannot quite place. He picks up the post from the hall table – where he'd left it the night before, and had meant to go through it once he'd eaten a late dinner. It is the usual stuff – advertising catalogues – and one slightly oversized white envelope with overseas stickers and stamp. For a moment he feels a fluttering in the region of his stomach, but then he focuses on the word `Palestine' in block letters across the top of the stamp. How like Catherine to remember his birthday. He takes off his coat, and hangs it on the hook beside the hallstand.

In the living room, he removes his jacket, pulls off his tie, and opens the top two buttons of his shirt, kicks off his shoes, and pours himself a generous measure of whisky, before he sits in his favourite armchair, and again picks up the card. It is a simple card – plain white with an image of a green olive tree on the front, and blank inside, apart from Catherine's written greeting:

To Dad,

I hope this birthday brings you everything you want and all you deserve,

love, Catherine x

Harry sits and stares at her words. For a moment he wonders whether the irony was intended. Perhaps he does deserve to be alone on his birthday. Perhaps he deserves to have had this day overlooked, perhaps forgotten by everyone he knows, other than his daughter. Even the one person he had hoped and expected to acknowledge the occasion has remained silent. He takes a hefty gulp of his drink, the alcohol warming him, providing him with temporary, but much needed comfort.

It has been over two years since she left. His first birthday after she'd gone into exile had been only three months after that terrible day, and so she'd not acknowledged the day, and nor had he expected her to. The following year, during the last week of October, he'd been sent a series of postcards at his home address – all unsigned, but he'd known they'd been from her. The first – an image of the Venus de Milo - had arrived seven days before his birthday, and after that there had been a postcard from Rome, then one from Athens, and lastly, one from Istanbul, which had been signed simply - R x. Those cards had lifted his spirits, and his hopes. Clearly this year she was otherwise occupied. Maybe she had forgotten him at last. He could never forget her.

The alcohol buzz at last hits him, and he leans back in his chair, and closes his eyes. It is then that he realises that the heating is on, and he can't remember having reset it. He performs most of his domestic duties while on auto pilot, so why not resetting the timer for the heating?

Thinking about Ruth – remembering Ruth – has unsettled him. While at work, he can push thoughts of her to the recesses of his mind. While in endless meetings, he can imagine she doesn't exist, and never had existed, and perhaps had only ever been a manifestation of his deep loneliness. In the privacy of his own living room, it is as though she is standing just outside the door, waiting to be invited in. It is when he thinks of Ruth that he is most aware that he has a body. Harry looks down at his hands, and as he stretches his fingers, he wonders how her skin would feel under his fingertips. Suddenly feeling warmer, he removes his cufflinks, and places them on the side table, next to his whiskey glass, and rolls up his shirt sleeves to just below his elbows. He lightly runs his fingers over the skin of his forearm, imagining the touch to be from the fingers of another. The hairs on his arm lift, and he experiences a frisson, like an electrical current which travels up his arm to his shoulders and throat, and then to the middle of his chest. Realising that his thoughts are heading in altogether the wrong direction, he quickly gets up, and moves through to the kitchen.

He'd eaten a sandwich at work, so he is not terribly hungry, and the whisky has satisfied whatever signals his stomach had been sending him. It is when he switches on the kitchen light that he sees that someone has been in his house. On the table are three items which were not there when he'd left for work that morning. He steps closer to inspect them …...

A stoneware casserole dish with a glass lid, inside which is something with what looks like chunks of beef with vegetables.

A birthday cake – a small one – inside a clear plastic container, and written in fine white frosting on the chocolate frosting is the message: Happy Birthday Boss.

An over-sized birthday card, which he picks up and opens, to find that every one of his senior Grid staff have signed and left brief messages, while at the bottom, Jo has written: Your birthday gift is upstairs. We love you xx

Upstairs? They've taken his gift upstairs? Why?

Harry then decides that he's actually quite hungry, so he lights the oven, and turns the temperature dial to 350º. Then he rereads the card. What he can't understand is why all the secrecy. Why hadn't they given him the card and cake while they were on the Grid? No-one at work had said a word about his birthday, and they had all acted like they'd forgotten.

What could possibly be upstairs? His mind can't get past a pet of some kind. Scarlet had died only five months earlier, and his team had been aware of how his grief from losing Ruth had been compounded by the death of his small canine companion. But were they to give him another dog, surely he'd have heard it, and wouldn't it have been better to have left it downstairs?

Harry washes his whiskey glass, and places it upside down on the dish drainer. It is then he notices another glass on the drainer. He hadn't left that there before he'd left for work. He always leaves the kitchen tidy, with no dishes or utensils left lying around. He quickly turns, and heads for the stairs.

Upstairs all is quiet and dark. He enters his en suite bathroom from the hallway, and heads straight for the toilet, where he urinates, then flushes the toilet, and washes his hands and face. He stares at his face in the mirror above the hand basin, finding it hard to believe that he's made it to 55 in one piece. He slides his hands down over his face, and once again stares at his features - not bad for his age, but not overly attractive, either.

Leaving the light on in the en suite, he opens the connecting door to his bedroom, and as he steps towards his bed, the light catches a figure sitting in the armchair in the corner, the place where he throws his clothes as he undresses. For a moment, he is on high alert, and adrenalin pumps through his body. For that moment, he has forgotten about his `birthday gift upstairs.' It is when the figure speaks the words, "Hello, Harry," that he knows there is no danger.

The person in the chair stands, and steps fully into the shaft of light beaming through the door from the en suite. Harry can barely believe what he is seeing. He lifts his hands to his face, and draws his palms down from his eyes to his chin. The figure is still there, not moving, but watching him warily. His eyes have adjusted to the dimness, and he can see that she is afraid …... of what, he is not sure, but in that moment, he makes a decision, and immediately acts upon it.

Without a word, Harry strides across the room, and grasps her shoulders in his hands, and then he pulls her against his body, and wraps his arms around her tightly. "Ruth," he says against her hair, "I have missed you so much."

They remain in a tight embrace for some time. He has pulled her close to him so that her head nestles under his chin, and she has wrapped her own arms around his waist, her palms radiating warmth to his lower back. When he feels her lips on his throat in a light kiss he almost loses his composure. After a while, Harry begins to notice the places where their bodies touch, and he feels a slight stirring in his groin. Very reluctantly he pulls out of the embrace, and looks down at the bluest eyes he has ever seen, and in which he sees the shine of tears unshed.

"At the risk of sounding crass," Harry says at last, "are you my birthday present?"

Ruth smiles then, and reaches up to place her fingertips on his lower lip, where she runs them along the flesh of his lip, all the while maintaining eye contact. "I am. You have your team to thank for me being here, Harry. They've been planning this for the last six weeks."

Harry nods, smiling, and takes her hand in his, and then very gently kisses the tips of each of her fingers. "You cannot possibly know how good it is to see you," he says, his voice low, so that it resonates into the air around them. "Are you hungry?" he adds.

"A little."

He watches her face as she watches him. He can barely believe this is happening. "Are you back ….. for good?"

It is then her expression changes from a soft smile to sadness. "Sadly, no. I only have until tomorrow night, and then I have to fly back, but Malcolm is working on getting my name cleared. He has hopes that by the new year …..."

Her voice trails off, but Harry understands what she means. He wants to kiss her – so very much – but he knows there are more practical matters which beckon.

"Can you stay here …... until then?"

Ruth nods, her eyes travelling over his whole face, remembering him for a time when they will again be apart.

They stand – still close, with her fingers clasped in his – their eyes each on the other. Harry watches her, waiting for her to show some sign that she does not want what it is he wants. He sees no such sign. He grasps her hand in his, and leads her downstairs. The needs of the body should begin with a meal – breaking bread and sharing stories. They have so much to talk about.

Harry's house – Sunday November 2nd 2008 - morning:

Harry opens his eyes to see the door to the en suite very slightly ajar. He never leaves that door open. Then he remembers the night before – finding Ruth in his bedroom; eating dinner downstairs with Ruth; talking until long past midnight; Ruth singing `Happy Birthday' to him in her contralto voice before he'd blown out the ten candles on his cake; licking chocolate icing from his fingers, and then licking icing from the corner of Ruth's mouth; kissing Ruth on the stairs on the way to his bedroom; undressing each other beside the bed; making love in his bed; falling asleep beside Ruth, experiencing absolute contentment for the first time in decades.

Harry turns over to find the bed empty. He experiences a moment of panic, followed by pain, and then from behind him he hears the toilet flush, followed by the water running in the hand basin. He breathes out heavily, and then slowly lifts himself to a sitting position, his back resting against his pillow. Ruth, dressed in only his dressing gown, enters the bedroom, and when she reaches the bed, she leans down to kiss him, while he slides a hand behind her head, entwining his fingers in her hair.

"It wasn't a dream, then?" he says, once they pull out of the kiss.

"No, Harry. Last night was very, very real."

"Come back to bed," he growls, grasping her hand.

"I intend to. We have a lot to -"

"- catch up on."

Ruth allows Harry's dressing gown to drop to the floor, and nothing more is said for some time. They speak without words, and their language is the oldest language in the world – the language of love.

As Harry lifts himself above Ruth, and gazes into her eyes, he thinks that 55 is perhaps the best age of all, and most definitely worth the wait.