Again, thanks to all for lovely reviews.
"Yes, George was tall, handsome, strong… loving."
Harry really didn't need the last recommendation.
"He made me happy."
For a moment she seemed immersed in memories.
"When I felt lost and lonely he was there. When I told him 'no' he laughed and said I'd change my mind. When I told him I wasn't interested he was persistent…so persistent."
A smile crept across her features.
"Being with him was easy and Nico, well, Nico gave me something I'd never known, something wonderful. Life was so…"
"Simple and elegant?" he suggests.
She looks at him recognising her own words. Recognising too the pain he is trying to hide, the pain she sees all too easily.
"Harry do you know the difference between 'love' and 'being in love'?"
He nods.
"What?" she prompts.
He looks away.
"My wife and you," is his answer.
And it is as close as he has ever come to telling her and yet so far from how he would want it to be and he, Harry, is so far from being him, George.
"I didn't know," she says, "not really. But I found out. In Cyprus I found out."
He doesn't want to be here anymore. The catharsis that was their conversation is no longer so. It is pain and hurt and he would rather be suffering with a bottle of scotch.
"I understand, Ruth," he says quietly, hoping she will stop.
"No, Harry you don't," and she does not stop.
"George taught me compromise. George taught me that I could be happy with a loving man. You taught me what it was to want to give up everything to save someone. To save the man I had fallen in love with somewhere along the line. Somewhere, some moment, I don't know when or how, but there, somewhere. You gave me that Harry. George gave me love and a life. Do you understand now?"
He gazes at her, at the admission, at the understanding, she sees the pain ebb away and then flow back.
"And I destroyed the love and the life."
She looks at him.
"That's what I did, Ruth."
"No, Harry, that's what I did."
He gazes at her, confused.
"I lived a life that was a lie. Lived as a person I wasn't. Lived the legend. I tried to love a man, whilst wishing for another, wanting another. And in doing so I killed the man and destroyed the life of his son."
"No, Ruth, you can't blame yourself for that."
"I can and I do."
"Mani killed him. Not you."
"But I can't get rid of the guilt, Harry."
Sorry this is short, more to come tomorrow.