She did not answer.
He wondered whether to repeat himself but the look on her face persuaded him not to.
"You just happened to be in the same pub, did you, Harry?"
"I just thought…"
"What? That you'd trap me into this?"
"Ruth, I'm sorry."
"You could have just spoken to me, Harry."
"And you wouldn't have stopped me?"
"No."
His eyebrows were raised in mild disbelief.
"We need to have this conversation," she said after a moment.
"Then let's."
They sat, both ready for the conversation they'd never really had, the conversation that had been hanging over them for years, the conversation they had both held in their own heads time after time after time.
Neither spoke.
Malcolm, who had not even made an attempt to buy another round, lingered by the bar and willed them on, as if as if by willing it, it would happen.
"It's going very well so far," said Harry, after the silence had grown even heavier.
Ruth smiled, despite herself.
"So much to say," she smiled.
"But where to start?" he looked at her and held her gaze.
"You love me," she said simply.
"Yes."
He hadn't needed to say it, it was writ large upon his face, but it was good to say it.
"And you love me?" Harry asked quietly, needing the reassurance of hearing it again.
"Yes," she said, without the hesitation he expected.
"Despite the past?"
"Yes."
And once more they sat.
In silence.
Both absorbing the thing that everyone else knew.
For Ruth it was an acknowledgement of what she had known already.
For Harry it was the knowledge of what he had always hoped, but feared he had lost.
"I need you, Ruth."
"I know."
"Can we be together?"
She didn't answer.
"Is that what you want?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Can it work?"
"Yes, Ruth. It can work."
"But how can you know for certain, Harry?"
"I don't. But I'd hate to think we never gave it a chance."
She looked at her hands and sighed.
Harry wondered if she knew that the rest of his life lay in those hands, cradled, waiting for her decision.