Coming home at the end of the day should be something to which she looks forward, but for Ruth, that moment when she steps through her front door to a dark and unwelcoming flat is dispiriting.
Her flat is cold, and so her first action is to turn on the gas fire in the living room.
There is no-one to greet her, not even a cat.
There is no hissing of the electric kettle, a sign that her loved one is in the kitchen preparing a pot of tea for them both.
There is no kiss goodbye and no `hello, how was your day?'
Ruth lives alone, and that is the way it's to be. She cannot expect any more from her life .. not now, not ever. People have died, have lost loved ones because of her actions, and so to sacrifice her own happiness is a just penance.
How is it possible for she and a certain person to attempt a life together – to cohabit, bind their lives together, and even more audacious, to seek happiness?
To consider such a thing is beyond outrageous. And yet … she still longs for something with him, some small intimacy when they part at the end of the day; a touch of his hand on hers, the softness of his lips as he greets her each morning.
Having eaten dinner, she is sitting over a pot of tea, her mind grappling with the words Harry had spoken after Ros's funeral, his face close to hers. She had put his proposal down to stress and emotional overload following the tragic death of someone close to him. Even Harry has his limits. Ruth feels a brief moment of sadness that he had not thought to ask her at a time when he'd been happy, and they had been more than just colleagues. So many moments had passed them by, moments which were destined never to be repeated.
Hearing a quiet cough from the doorway to the living room, Ruth looks up, but there is no-one there. That's what happens when she thinks too much about Harry. Odd things happen, things which have her imagining the impossible. She drops her eyes to her cup of tea, and as she does she hears another cough. This time when her eyes search for the source of the sound, a tall, slim figure slowly becomes visible, a female figure with straight blond hair. This is no woman in robes and sandals with a halo around her head; this is a figure familiar to her, a figure who shouldn't be in the doorway between her kitchen and living room. The woman leans against the door jamb, her arms folded, one eyebrow lifted, the hint of a sneer on her lips. Ruth is not so much startled as she is baffled.
"You're supposed to be dead," she says accusingly. This is not a time for small talk.
"Don't believe everything you're told," the woman replies.
Ruth notices that the woman is dressed in her usual work clothes – boots, blue jeans and black leather jacket. She looks annoyed, but that's no surprise. I'd be annoyed too were I dead before my time, Ruth thinks. "What do you want?" is all she says.
"What do you think?"
"How should I know?" Why do people, or in this case, wraiths pretending to be spooks, answer her question with another question? She is irked. "You're not real," she says, offering the figure one of her more contemptuous looks.
"You shouldn't do that to him, you know."
"I suppose you're about to tell me you were there, watching us, listening in. Is that how you plan to spend the rest of eternity?"
"Christ, I hope not. I'd been hoping for harps and cherubs and fluffy white clouds, and a tipple or two of celestial wine, but all I've had so far is visits to the likes of you and Harry." Ros – or what looks remarkably like Ros – rolls her eyes.
"You've visited Harry?" Now Ruth is interested. "How is he?"
"You have a phone. Why don't you call him yourself?"
"Did he … know you were there .. with him?"
"Unfortunately, no. He was on his third whiskey at the time. I hope you're satisfied."
Ruth gets up quickly, taking her cup to the sink. While there, her back is to Ros – or the ghost of the woman once known as Ros – and she takes her time emptying her cup, rinsing it, and upending it on the dish drainer. When she turns around, Ros has taken a seat at her kitchen table. "How can you sit on a chair when your body is in the ground?"
"I'm not here to discuss things existential, Ruth. I'm here to talk you into changing your mind about Harry."
"And you thought I'd listen to … a ghost?"
At the word `ghost', the ghost of Ros purses her lips, glaring across the table at Ruth. "You really know how to hurt someone. Is this the way you talk to him?"
"That's none of your business."
"It's clear to me that you are both as miserable as each other."
"Harry and I are .. fine."
"I beg to differ." Ros glares across the table at Ruth. "You know, Ruth … life isn't complicated, although it's becoming apparent to me that death is. As I see it, you want Harry as much as he wants you, so … what's your problem?"
"I have no problem, other than having my decisions questioned by a .. a .. ghost."
"Here's the thing," Ros says, gazing down at her hands which are clasped on the table top, "this .. visit is not my idea, and nor was my visit to Harry. I was hoping to see my father, but apparently you and Harry require some help."
"Who sent you?"
"How should I know? I ended up at Harry's, watching him wallow, and now I'm here, listening to you avoiding my questions, and making excuses, none of which make sense to any sane person."
"I thought you were no longer a person."
"Rub it in, why don't you. I try to help Andrew out of the hotel, and next thing I know I'm visiting you and Harry. You can tell anyone who'll listen that Heaven doesn't exist, but hell certainly does." Ros sighs heavily, staring at Ruth across the table. "I'm beginning to wonder if you're the right person for him. He needs someone who can offer him kindness."
"I'm kind," Ruth says defensively. "I'm kind to him."
"You were not kind to him today. Why did you turn him down? I thought you loved him."
"That's none of your business," Ruth says, avoiding the eyes of this … apparition. For all she knows, were she to give this ghost eye contact she could end up as a pile of ashes on the floor. "It's between Harry and me."
The ghost of Ros sits back in the chair, her hands on the table as if she's about to stand. "Well, I tried, and I failed. I can do no more. You'd have to be the stubbornest person I've ever met."
"Like you're not stubborn," Ruth snaps.
"By your own observation, I'm not a person, so whether I'm stubborn or not hardly counts."
"Now who's discussing things existential?"
Ros quickly stands and begins to walk towards the living room door, before she turns back to Ruth. "It's been nice knowing you, Ruth. Please think about what I said."
And then the ghost of Ros moves to the doorway and promptly disappears. "Ros?"
There is no answer, no cough, no sound of any kind. Ruth is once again alone in her flat, and she doesn't even know if what just happened had happened at all. Maybe it was a waking dream. Maybe she's losing her sanity.
Then, for reasons she barely understands, Ruth feels a kernel of emotion growing inside her chest, until it reaches the back of her throat, where she can no longer contain it. With her forehead resting on her hands, she sobs quietly – for Ros, for everyone else she has ever known who has died. Last of all, she cries for herself and Harry. It takes some time for her grief for a love that can never be to run its course. When she can cry no more she heads upstairs to the bathroom, flings off her clothes, and steps under the shower. Perhaps a cleansing is what she needs, now that she's to spend the rest of her life as a spinster.
Ruth is again in her kitchen, but this time she is making herself a drink before bedtime. She is dressed in a pair of pink pyjamas and her favourite dressing gown, the one with rainbows and smiling sheep all over it, while on her feet she wears bright pink slippers. Ruth is comforted by her ready-for-bed clothes.
She has only just sat at the table with her mug of hot chocolate when she hears the front doorbell. She quickly glances at the clock on the cooker, and decides that 9.06 is far too late for her to be receiving visitors, so she remains where she is. Surely whoever is at the door will eventually leave.
No such luck. Her visitor keeps ringing the doorbell, and she continues to ignore it, until her phone rings. By this time she has a fair idea who it is harassing her. When she grabs her phone from the counter top in the kitchen, she answers wearily. "What is it, Harry?"
"We need to talk," he says, "and to do that it's best you let me in."
"We had the whole drive back from the funeral to talk, and -"
"We did talk, Ruth. We talked about work, but mainly we talked about Nicholas Blake. It's time we talked about us."
"Why?"
"Because it's the one subject we always manage to avoid."
He has a point, so remembering Ros's words, Ruth lets Harry into her flat. It is 9.12 on a Thursday evening, and she is entertaining Harry in her PJ's.
Harry is dressed in the same clothes he'd worn that day, except that he'd removed his tie. As she'd let him into her flat she had smelled whiskey on his breath.
"You didn't drive here, I hope," she says, leading him into the living room where it is warm.
"I came by taxi."
They stand in the middle of the room together, glancing at each other before moving their eyes away. It is what they do when neither knows what to say.
"Sit down," Ruth says, waving her arm in the direction of the sofa.
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Will you sit with me … on the sofa?"
"I'm dressed for bed," Ruth replies, suddenly embarrassed. She has let Harry into her flat, and she is dressed for bed. Perhaps she has given him the wrong message. "Would you like a hot chocolate? Coffee?"
"Coffee will be fine, Ruth."
Ruth makes a coffee for Harry and a fresh hot chocolate for herself. When she re-enters the living room with their drinks he is sitting on the sofa, so she pulls up a chair so that she sits near him, but not too close. They each sip their drinks in silence, and Ruth wonders will they ever be able to talk about the personal elephant in the room.
"I'm sorry about today," Harry says at last. "My timing was -"
"Awful."
"Yes. And when I thought about it afterwards, I realised how much of a shock it must have been for you."
"It certainly was a surprise, yes."
"But … you already know how I feel about you, Ruth. It can't have been that much of a surprise."
"There's a rather large gap between caring for someone and wanting to marry them. I … don't think we need to be married."
They both fall silent. Ruth is worried by Harry's lack of response. Is he here to argue with her? Convince her? Fight for her? If so, he's barely making an effort.
Suddenly Harry gets to his feet and begins to walk towards the door to the hallway. "I'd best go," he says. "This was a terrible idea."
Ruth hurries down the hallway after him. He can't leave yet. He hasn't tried to change her mind. When he reaches the door Harry stops suddenly, his hand on the door knob, his body slumped.
"What is it?" Ruth asked.
"I'd forgotten that I first have to call a taxi," he says quietly, his head bowed.
"Then come back inside. We still haven't talked."
Harry follows her into the kitchen, where she opens the cupboard next to the cooker, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. "It's not single malt," she says, "but it's wet, and alcoholic."
"My favourite kind of drink," Harry says, taking the bottle from Ruth, and pouring a little in each of the two glasses Ruth places on the counter.
This time they sit at the table in the kitchen, and Ruth decides that she'll not let Harry go home until she's had her say.
Ruth watches him as he lifts the glass to his lips and sips his drink. It is clear he drinks whiskey regularly, and for him, drinking it is an art in itself. She watches his fingers on the glass, and his eyes as they focus on the surface of the drink, and then his Adam's apple as he swallows.
Ruth needs to ask herself is this man someone she would like to share breakfast with each morning, and a late night drink each evening before bed. The answer to those questions is one she has often pondered, and her answer has always been the same.
Of course she would. But should she?
"Why do the clouds on your dressing gown have faces?" Harry says at last.
Ruth glances down at her dressing gown, and then smiles. "They're not clouds, they're sheep. For counting before one falls asleep, I imagine." When she looks up, Harry is gazing towards her with an expression she hasn't seen from him in some time. Even earlier that day, when he'd suggested she marry him, his eyes had spoken of loss and desperation rather than love.
"You know," he says quietly, "you say the most amazing things. When you talk … I could listen to you all day long."
Ruth can't help the smile she gives him. "And I could watch you all day," she says before she takes a quick sip of whiskey … for courage. "Your face is like a landscape. It goes from anger to softness to joy, and then to outrage all in the space of a few minutes."
While she's been speaking, Harry has placed his glass on the table, and he's coming around the table to stand beside her. She looks up at him to see that same joy in his eyes. He reaches out with his hand, and so she places her hand in his.
Before she can decide that this is a really bad idea, his arms slide around her and he is kissing her. She gives in to the kiss, because all along this is all she has wanted from him. She has wanted to know that he desires her enough to take a risk with her.
She has wanted to know that he wants her for more than her superior organisational skills.
She has wanted to know how it would feel to be warm and wanted in his embrace.
She has wanted to know how he would kiss her, and now that she does, she doesn't want the kiss to end.
But it does. Very slowly, Harry ends the kiss. His eyes are shining into hers. She really hopes hers are shining back. "I didn't want us to … go too far tonight, Ruth."
Why not? she thinks boldly. Why not take this all the way to the bedroom? I'm all dressed and ready. But she also knows he's right. They need to step into this carefully and consciously. She nods.
He is still holding both her hands in his, and he stands so close to her that each time they breath in his stomach presses against her breasts. "You could stay with me tonight," she suggests hopefully.
"As much as I want to, I need to go home." He watches her closely. With one kiss everything has turned around. Is that all they'd needed? Just to kiss, and to hell with the consequences? "I'm tired, we're both ..."
"Overwrought?"
Harry smiles. "We attended Ros's funeral today, and if we … went to bed together that would be … hanging over us."
Not only that, but chances are the ghost of Ros would be watching. Harry's right. Another night would be best.
"Saturday night, Ruth. Can I take you to dinner?"
She lifts her eyes to his and smiles. "Yes, please."
"And then afterwards .." he says, watching her closely, as if expecting an objection.
"Here, or at yours," she replies, "or wherever."
Harry has called a taxi, and they are standing at the front door wound together in a proper goodnight snog when his text message tone sounds. Reluctantly, he pulls out of the kiss, his hands still at her waist, grasping the soft material of her sheep and rainbows dressing gown. "That's the taxi," he whispers. "I have to go."
He quickly kisses her again, his lips soft and warm and full of promise, and then he is gone. Ruth leans her forehead against the closed door in an attempt to get her breath back.
"That was touching," says a voice from behind her.
Ruth whirls around to see the ghost-of-Ros leaning against the door jamb between the hallway and the living room. "I thought you'd gone."
"I'm just back to let you know that if you renege on Saturday night, then I'll visit you each evening until you give in."
"I won't back down," Ruth says defensively. "I want this … with him."
"Good. Then I'll be off." Ruth watches as Ros's eyes move the length of her body. "Nice dressing gown," Ros adds. "If I'd had one like that I might have pulled more often."
And with those words Ros is gone, hopefully forever. Ruth watches the spot where Ros had been, but nothing is out of place, or unusual. As much as she'll miss her, Ruth hopes never to see Ros again.
She climbs the stairs to bed. She'll need her beauty sleep.