Birchington-on-Sea – Thursday 15th August 2013:
As soon as the words leave Harry's mouth, he wants them back, safe and unspoken. Ruth has stood and quickly covers the short distance between the table and the sink, where she stands, staring through the window. "Perhaps you should go now," she says quietly, and Harry is aware that his words have hurt her.
Harry quietly gets to his feet and takes a couple of steps towards her, still keeping his distance. "I shouldn't have said that, Ruth -"
"No. You shouldn't."
"But I was hurt when you had a man – a lover – while you were in exile. I only kept seeing Roxy because I was lonely, and I missed ... what we'd planned to have."
Ruth slowly turns towards Harry, leaning her back against the sink. "Do you love her?"
"In a way. I love the way she looks after me. I love it that she cares for me, even though I'm not a very good partner to her."
"But do you love her?"
"I do, but not in the way I loved you."
"Loved?"
"We're both different people now, Ruth. You've had to fend for yourself, while I've been grieving your death. We can't simply step back into being the way we were the day Sasha Gavrik stabbed you."
Ruth sighs heavily, looking around her kitchen as if seeing it for the first time. She notices the tea towel flung over the edge of the sink, and she grabs it, and stuffs it into a drawer next to the cooker.
"Ruth …... that night in May when you sat outside my house and watched as I arrived home with Roxy ….. that was the first night I invited her to stay at my house. I hadn't been able to take her there …... and be with her in the same bed in which we'd made love. I did it because I needed to move on …... to spend my time with the living, rather than the dead. Taking that step …... it made me feel alive again."
Ruth nods, the fire having left her. To Harry, she appears to be resigned to the way things are. "This is the one thing I feared happening, and it's the reason I'm living here – away from London. I just couldn't …... see you, or talk to you …... not after seeing you take another woman upstairs."
"I …. believed ….. you'd died."
"I know that, but I can't help the way I feel."
Harry steps away, and stands behind the chair he'd been sitting in. It is then that he realises that he and Ruth haven't yet touched, and he really wants to touch her …... to determine that she's real. "Perhaps I should go back to my B&B," he says, "but I'm not leaving and going back to London. Not yet. We haven't finished with one another, Ruth."
"Haven't we?" She looks and sounds weary.
"No," he says, slowly shaking his head, his eyes holding hers. "I think we've …. said enough for one night. I don't want either of us to say anything else which might hurt the other. I don't wish to hurt you, Ruth."
"I know." She smiles wanly.
"I'd like to see you tomorrow if I may. After you finish work? Once we've slept on it, things might appear ... different ... clearer."
Ruth nods.
"At 5 o'clock?"
"It's Friday tomorrow. I begin at 1 and finish at 7. I'll be home by 10 past 7."
"I saw an Indian restaurant on Station Road. I'll bring the food, and some wine."
"I can get the wine, Harry."
"You're providing the house, so I'll bring the food and the wine."
"Alright. That sounds …. nice."
"I'll go now …... get out of your hair."
Ruth nods, then as Harry turns to leave, she calls him back. "Harry …... would you kiss me ….. please?"
An olive branch. That is what he has been waiting for from her, ever since she'd told him about having seen him and Roxy enter his house and stay there. He turns to face her. He knows her well enough to recognise a peace offering. Very slowly he steps towards her while she takes a few steps away from the sink and towards him. When they are almost touching, Ruth puts her hand against his chest, and he briefly closes his eyes as he enjoys the warmth which radiates from her palm. He then opens his eyes to see a worried look on her face.
"Are you alright?" she whispers.
"Yes. I'm ….."
And then he leans down and places his lips on hers. It is a chaste kiss, a gentle kiss, and it only lasts a few seconds before he is the one to pull away. He finds that he has placed his hand on her hip, and that in the time between the kiss beginning and then ending, Ruth has slid both her hands under the lapels of his jacket and both her palms rest against his chest, with only the fabric of his shirt separating skin from skin. He smiles into her eyes, and then she quickly reaches up to kiss him again.
"We'll be alright, Harry," she says. "I didn't go through another period of exile only to throw you out of my life. That would be …."
"Pointless."
"I was thinking more of cruel …. to both of us."
Harry nods, and then steps away from her, breaking contact with her. He doesn't wish to be pushing his luck. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says.
On the way back to his B&B he buys fish and chips from the shop on the corner of Ruth's street. He eyes off Enzo – much younger than he, and possibly younger than Ruth, swarthy, quite good-looking – and decides that Enzo is no threat at all. He'll bet everything he owns that Ruth has never asked Enzo to kiss her.
Margate – Friday 16th August 2013:
Harry spends the next day in Margate. He'd been there once or twice as a child, and then when his own children were small, he'd taken the family there for a week one July. It had been during a time when he and Jane were living almost separate lives, and the trip to the seaside had been his attempt at building bridges. One afternoon he'd taken the children to the beach to give Jane a break from them, but had lost track of time, so that by the time he got them back to their rental apartment, both children had been badly sunburned. Rather than building bridges, that holiday had set fire to any bridge-building.
Harry walks along the promenade, breathing in the sea air. It is wonderful to get out of London. It is freeing to be wearing something other than a suit and tie. It is delightful to have a recent memory of kissing Ruth to keep him going throughout the day. He considers visiting the Turner Gallery, but he'd rather do that in Ruth's company. It is joyous to once again have something rich and real to look forward to.
And that thought reminds him of Roxy. Did she not make him happy? Did he not look forward to seeing her? Was his relationship with her worth getting out of bed for? He has no clear answers to any of these questions, so he decides to ring her. She spends most of her day in the office at Waterfield Security, so she should be free to speak to him.
"How did it go?" she asks him warily, without offering any kind of greeting.
"It's still going. I'm in Margate for the day, and I'm seeing Ruth again tonight …. for dinner."
"And …. afterwards?"
"That's entirely up to Ruth."
"But you'll definitely be up for it."
"Of course I will. I've never kept from you my feelings for Ruth."
"Then why are we having this conversation?"
Harry hesitates. He hadn't seen Roxy as jealous or vindictive. Roxy is calm ... and wise ... and reasonable. One of the many things he admires about her is her ability to rise above a difficult situation and to see it for what it is. "Because I still care about you," he replies.
"We'll see. Ring me when you get back to London, Harry. I don't require a blow-by-blow description of your time with Ruth. Just a final decision will suffice." And then she hangs up.
Harry takes his phone from his ear, and holds it away from him, looking at the screen, finding it hard to believe what had just happened. It wasn't like Roxy to behave in such a way. She is a woman who handles everything with maturity, wisdom and aplomb. He sits for a while, looking out to sea, soothed by the sight of the ocean, the blue sky above, and the regular squawking of the seagulls, which are now approaching him for food. He distracts himself from the phone call to Roxy by breaking off pieces of crust from his bread roll filled with ham salad. He watches, fascinated, as the same seagull swoops in and takes the bread from the others. If he deliberately throws a scrap of bread at the feet of one of the shy birds, the boss bird screeches, its wings back, its head protruding forward as it hones in on the other birds, attempting to scare them off. Just like Parliament, he thinks.
He is still feeding the gulls when he decides to ring Ruth. The last thing they had done before he'd left her flat the night before had been to exchange mobile phone numbers.
"Harry? Is something wrong?"
"No. Nothing's wrong. I'm in Margate, and I'm feeding the gulls. You know how one bird is always more aggressive than the others, and it gets all the scraps of food?"
"Yes, of course."
"I have one at my feet right now, and you'd never guess who it looks like."
"Who?"
"William Towers. If he had a beak, he'd look just like this bird."
Ruth giggles, a very girly kind of laugh, and Harry feels warm all over. "You rang me just to tell me that you've found a gull which resembles the former Home Secretary?"
"No, Ruth. I'm ringing you just to hear your voice, to check that you're really alive, and that tonight's dinner at your place is still on."
"Of course it's still on. Now let me get ready for work. I have to leave home in ten minutes."
They then say goodbye, and Harry can't stop smiling. He even breaks the remaining bread crust into three pieces and flings them away from him, on to the lawn which runs beside the pavement. He laughs aloud when the same aggressive bird manages to get two of the three pieces of crust. "You'll go far, William," he says to the bird.
"When ya give `em names, son, it's a sure sign o' madness."
Harry turns to see a very old man has sat on the end of his bench, his twinkling eyes smiling. "It's a very long time since anyone's called me `son'," he says, smiling back at the man.
"I heard ya on the phone to the lady. She's a good 'un, that one."
"How on earth do you know that?"
"I watched yer face as yer spoke to `er. The love shines outta ya, son, when yer speak to `er. Hang on to `er."
"I intend to."
"Wife, is she?"
"No, not yet, but she's very special to me. I thought I'd lost her."
"Don't do anythin' stupid, son. Wimmin don't appreciate stupid men. They're cleverer'n us, see? They pretend we're the clever ones, but everyone knows that's just the game we play."
Normally Harry will avoid a spontaneous conversation with a stranger, but this man interests him. "You're a northerner."
"Rotherham born `n bred, son."
"Are you married?"
"Not any more. She ran off wi' me brother, but she were special while she were mine."
Harry nods, not knowing whether to believe him. Suddenly, the old man unwinds himself and gets to his feet, gives Harry a casual wave of his hand, and continues along the promenade. Harry is sure that he hears the man say, "That Towers feller were an idiot," but he can't be certain. Harry suppresses the urge to laugh aloud. He can't remember the last time he'd felt this happy.