The week that followed Christmas at the vicarage was broken into segments, each of which cemented what was already their forever relationship. Harry knew it and Ruth knew it. They laughed and they cried, but above all and without restraint they talked about anything and everything. Pre conceived ideas about Harry's failed marriage to Jane and Ruth's brief relationship with George were brought out into the open and when Ruth answered what was for Harry was the only unanswered question, put to bed. George might have been dead, but he was still the spectre at the feast that haunted the recesses of Harry's mind and he needed to know the answer.
'Did you love him?' he asked her again. A question loaded with so much more than four simple words.
'I reason that I feel guilty, she whispered, 'is because I led him to believe that I did, and that was unforgivable,' she told him, going on to explain that it was the pace of life and the quiet but most especially Nico that she'd loved and still missed.
'Forgiving ourselves is the most difficult thing to do Ruth we both know that, but we have to do it to survive,' he told her, repeating what she had so often said to him.
Two out of three on her wish list they had, the pace of life and the quiet and her love of Nico certainly explained her obvious bond with the children. Whether it went deeper than that and she actually wanted a child of her own or with him, he had no idea. That though was a question for another day when they weren't emotionally charged, but if she did, he would do his damnedest to make it happen he could promise her that.
Determining that they should put the past and what for now they couldn't change behind them, their priority was that Harry needed to regain his fitness. He'd never liked walking, in fact he'd avoided any type of exercise like the plague, but with Ruth's insatiable encouragement and the threat that she'd run away with Ron if he didn't, he bought himself a pair of walking boots, a small haversack and a map of the island. Muffled up to the nines and looking every bit the part should anyone meet them which of course they didn't, they walked at some point every day, sometimes for miles, exploring where up to now Ruth had studiously avoided. Stunningly beautiful was how Harry described the view in front of him and her, when tucked under an outcrop of rocks to shelter them from the prevailing wind, Ruth sat pouring their morning coffee.
'And I suppose you think you're Richard Hannay striding across the Highlands?' came with a glowing smile.
'And you're losing your memory Ruth, I don't stride, I pace, remember?' gained him an extra biscuit.
It was how it was and always should have been, in a relationship that had been so unnecessarily complicated but had been unpicked to be perfect. He didn't care that Ruth was organising him, on reflection she always had. He felt better, he felt re energised and the fact that he hadn't touched a drop of whisky for over a week, said a lot about his state of mind.
Their first of two trips into Stornoway had seen them returning Harry's hire car and visiting several garages to enquire about part exchanging Ruth's, what Harry described as a shoe box, for something larger. Besides which it had been Dolby's and a recent call from Callum had assured them that he was long gone. The lease on the cottage had given Ruth the option to buy and it didn't take long before Malcolm and Tariq had worked their magic so that without any formalities or payment, the cottage belonged to her. Stop gap it might be, but they had a home that was theirs and they were revelling in it.
Harry still woke early, finding it difficult to break the habit of a lifetime and had taken on the jobs of re stocking the fire and making their first cup of tea. Why everyone still insisted ringing them first thing in the morning was a mystery, given that those who did it must have known that there was every possibility that they might be busy.
'Bollocks,' was the latest expletive, when three days before New Year's Eve just after he'd climbed back into bed, the phone rang.
'I'm sorry if I've disturbed you,' said Rose, 'but the children are driving me crazy. If you look out of your window you'll know why.'
An hour later having rushed breakfast, Harry had stopped muttering. They were back at the vicarage watching Robert racing downhill on the new sledge, whilst Ruth was helping Rory and Maisie build a snowman. A hot toddy in his coffee and some toast was helping, plus a call to say that their new car had arrived and would be delivered later that day.
'If you can drag your eyes away from her for a minute,' said a voice in Harry's ear, as Rose joined him on a seat in the garden, 'I've got a proposition.'
Harry had been back in his favourite bubble, where Ruth dressed in anything was a turn on and on this particular morning when she was dressed for the occasion in a padded jacket and bobble hat that matched the colour of her eyes, he'd been miles away. She looked so vibrant and so bloody happy that he was finding it hard not to rush over to her and to hell with any propriety.
'Please say that you'll come with us,' Rose pleaded, having explained that every New Year's Eve, she and Michael were expected to attend a dinner dance in Stornoway and that her brother and his wife who usually went with them, had rung and cancelled. 'It's in a hotel and you can stay overnight,' was a carrot that Harry couldn't resist. He'd already planned to persuade Ruth that they went somewhere for the evening, but not knowing Stornoway had so far failed to decide where. 'She's got the dress, I was with her when she bought it,' continued the insistent Rose, forgetting that Harry had already seen Ruth in it, 'and once the dinner's over you'll be able to dance with her,' was the proverbial straw that broke his resolve.
In all the years that he'd known Ruth, it wasn't until the last few days that they'd touched each other as they did now and he'd never danced with her other than in his imagination. The prospect of being able to do so and then take her to bed, on what in Scotland was the most important night of the year was more than enticing. To Harry it was the stuff of dreams. The only problem was that his penguin suit had been abandoned in London, not that it would have fitted him, now that he'd lost weight.
'Heaven forbid,' a surprised Rose told him, going on to explain that a smart suit or better still a kilt if he fancied it would be the order of the day, the latter of which he inwardly declined. Richard Hannay or not, it was only Ruth who got to see his legs.
Promising a hesitant Ruth that he'd make it a night to remember and the children that they'd spend a whole day with them as soon as they got back, he rang the garage to say that they'd collect the car in person because they needed to come back into Stornoway.
The definitely maybe that had been Ruth's response about the New Year's Eve dinner, changed in an instant when Harry suggested that they had their lunch at the hotel to see what it was like. It in no way resembled the imposing places that they'd been forced to endure, during the endless list of events that they'd attended in London. It was warm and it was welcoming but above all it wasn't pretentious. That wasn't to say that it wouldn't have been somewhere that Harry would have chosen to take Ruth because it was. Still bedecked in its Christmas Decorations it had atmosphere in what Ruth would have described as a good way. With a few couples and a family already eating, they were shown into the dining room and to a table by the fire. There was no talk of a Grand Tour or the nervousness that had over ridden their first meal out together, they were relaxed and they were happy. Their hands that in another life had crept towards and then receded from each other, met without question as Harry held her tiny hand in his, not even moving when the waiter brought them a menu and asked them if they would like anything to drink.
'I could get used to this,' she told him, just as she'd thought the first time but would never have dared say.
'Harry and Ruth Pearce,' Harry told the young receptionist, when they'd finished their meal and before they headed back outside into the cold, he'd asked if they could see the room where they'd be staying in a couple of nights. He was determined that Ruth would feel comfortable when they arrived and that there'd be no surprises. She did and the room was lovely.
He didn't like shopping but this was different, it felt magical and he still wanted to buy Ruth a belated Christmas Present. He knew what it was and he suspected that she did too, as at breakneck speed in search of the elusive suit she dragged him past jeweller's windows. Two could play at this game he thought, smiling to himself at her earnest face. He could wait, she would say yes in the end, he certainly wasn't going to rush her.
With the light starting to fade and the temperature dropping even further they were both at the point of admitting defeat when they spotted what in London would have been described as a gentleman's outfitters. It was tucked in a side street away from the hubbub of the main shops and they would have missed it if it hadn't been for a small child that was pointing to a bedraggled and long overdue Santa that had walked passed. Unusually for shops in this day and age, a bell rang when you opened the door and they found themselves stepping back in time into an Aladdin's cave of drawers, shelves and rails.
Why do people always assume that? Thought Ruth knowing full well the answer, when the elderly shopkeeper who looked like something out of a Dicken's novel tottered off in search of a glass of something to warm them up, telling Harry to listen to his wife because women always knew best. Twice in one day, it was becoming the norm.
In the end, Harry settled on what Ruth described as perfect and they headed back out into the now packed streets in search of the new car. When he bundled the parcels onto the back seat and then opened the door for her, there was a tinge of the old days, when on the odd occasion, Harry had succeeded in getting Ruth to accept a lift home. It was long before she'd gone to Cyprus and he'd become Sir Harry and had been assigned a permanent driver, but just as she used to then, she leaned back in her seat and watched the lights of the town flying by. Pull yourself together she told herself as nostalgia and regrets about wasted time threatened to overwhelm her. This evening there would be no hesitant goodbye when he opened the car door for her and if he wanted to kiss her which he'd so obviously wanted to do then, he'd do it.
'Ruth, are you alright?' asked an equally nostalgic Harry, worried as to why she'd gone so quiet, as they turned off the main road and into the darkness across the now snow covered landscape, that less than a week ago he'd driven alone.
She did what she'd always done, she turned to watch him. He always drove with his head to one side with his lips slightly pouted as though he was thinking. It was one of the things that had always fascinated her about him and made her wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Well now she knew. Rose was right about it being exciting when it was new, it was totally intoxicating.
'What do you think?' she answered him, running her hand gently down his thigh, causing him to smile.
The cottage was warm and welcoming and having carried in a basket of logs before they'd left that morning, there was nothing to do other than to relax and spend a quiet evening together. Whilst Harry went upstairs to hang up his purchases, have a shower and change, Ruth headed into the kitchen to make some tea and think about what to eat later.
On the few evenings that they'd been afforded time to spend alone, they'd avoided the TV and instead had generally listened to music. They'd always had similar tastes and on this particular night when all was well with their world and they'd done their talking, they did what they always did and gravitated towards the sofa. With nothing but the firelight to see each other by and an all - night love song programme playing in the background, they settled down. One of the things that Dolby or presumably his now widow had got right was that the sofa was large and sumptuous, although probably until now had never been put to such good use. Even with Harry stretched full out which he had taken to doing there was still plenty of space for Ruth, although on this particular evening she chose to lie at the other end so that their legs were intertwined.
He was just about to suggest that as a thank you and to give Rose a break that they should invite the children to spend a day with them, when Ruth's organising him took on a whole new dimension. Ruth who had been planning their evening ever since they'd been in the hotel ran her foot along his leg towards his groin. Had he not been so surprised and emitting a groan, he'd have said something, but she'd rendered him speechless, he was on fire.
Always shy, far less experienced than Harry and until now reticent when it came to taking the lead, Ruth needed to do this. She knew if she lost her nerve and stopped that Harry would take over as he always had, but that tonight it had to be different. She needed to prove to herself as much as to him, that she was no longer the shy and naiive girl that she had once been, but also that this was a first. Every inch of him she told herself and that was exactly what she did, until every barrier that she had erected around herself for so long came thundering down. From where Harry lay completely spent, which was now on the rug in front of the fire where they'd somehow arrived together, it was exquisite.
'Stay there,' he told her, pulling her closer as she started to roll away from him. He needed to keep her close before he closed his eyes.
Ruth wasn't tired she was just blissfully happy. Harry lying fast asleep in front of the fire without a stitch of clothing to cover his nudity was more than beautiful. It completed her and had banished forever her previous life. Kissing him gently, so as not to wake him, she covered him with a blanket and then headed into the kitchen. It was only seven thirty.
Assuming that it was Rose enquiring as to how their day had gone, she answered her phone. She was going to tell her about Harry's suggestion that the children spend a day with them, before she made some sandwiches and some more tea.
'Ruth, it's Catherine, can I talk to you for a moment?' said the voice at the other end.