Same Disclaimer as before

Chapter 10

Early April 2009 , Hong Kong

After Harry saw Amy get back into the car, he started to climb the stairs with his only piece of luggage, which thankfully was not heavy and had wheels. When he reached the door which had "Rachel Everton" on the front, he panicked.

Should I knock? What should I say? Maybe I should have gone to the hotel first to freshen up. Harry had been sitting in a plane for something like 14 hours and did not have much sleep. He did have a quick shave and brushed his teeth on the plane before the captain made that announcement about the possibility of being diverted to Manila, but what he needed was a nice hot shower and to change out of his crumpled clothing. Maybe it would have been better to see Ruth at home. I'm sure Amy could have arranged a meeting for later this evening. Then again, if Ruth is sharing a new life with someone, a meeting at home might be even more awkward than showing up at her office looking like death warmed up. Amy and the car had gone by now and he would need assistance to summon a taxi to take him away. It was too late to change his mind.

It was deathly quiet in the corridor outside Ruth's office. All of the other lecturers or professors had the doors to their offices closed. There was no one else around. What if Amy was wrong and Ruth had in fact left for the day but forgot to turn off the lights in her office? Harry thought about Ruth being a university lecturer. A university lecturer? Well, I guess that's as good a cover as any, though this only means that she's not working full time for the Chinese. And if she was working for the Chinese on a part time basis, what then?

Harry took a deep breath and knocked.

The voice behind the door said, "come in." It was unmistakably Ruth's voice. Harry's hand was shaking and his heart was pounding as he turned the door knob and entered Ruth's office. After all those years of longing, yearning and wondering, there she was, sitting behind her desk, checking something very intently on her computer screen which was on a console to the left hand side of her desk.

"I'll be with you in just a sec, please take a seat," said Ruth without looking up from her screen.

It was obvious to Harry, from the tone in Ruth's voice, that the invitation to take a seat was not directed at him and that Ruth had been expecting someone else. He hesitated before taking a step forward and when he did, Ruth suddenly realized that the person standing in her room was not the one she had been expecting. She turned from her computer terminal, looked up and saw Harry. Her body shivered a little as if she had just seen a ghost.

"Oh!" Ruth's eyes flew open wide and then she stood up but did not leave her desk. "Hello Harry, what a surprise!" There was a faint hint of a smile on her face.

Harry was not sure how to describe that look in Ruth's eyes. It was a mixture of surprise and, would that be apprehension? Harry could not be sure whether Ruth was pleased to see him or not.

"Hello Ruth, its been a while." Harry did not know what else to say. It was quite a miracle that he was able to get a whole sentence out of his mouth. There was probably only one woman in the whole world who had this effect on the mighty Harry Pearce.

Harry could recall having seen a movie some years ago where people made a big deal over a line which went something like, 'you had me at hello'. At the time, Harry thought what a silly line it was, but now, he understood completely what that line meant. He just stood there, transfixed, trying to drink in Ruth's presence as much as possible. In order to maintain some semblance of composure, Harry held on tight to the handle of his wheelie bag; he felt weak in the knees and was in danger of collapsing if he did not have anything to hold onto. At that moment, Harry felt as though the last two and a half years were just a bad dream, that it never happened and here he was, with Ruth again. But the last two and a half years did happen and this was not the Grid.

Ruth looked well, Harry thought. She seemed to have lost a little weight since he last saw her. She wore a short sleeved, white, linen blouse and one of her long flowing skirts. Her hair might be a little longer or shorter than before, Harry could not be sure, and she wore it loose. In short, Ruth had not changed that much since Harry last saw her. She was every bit as beautiful and alluring as he had remembered. This is the one I want to be with. There can be no substitute. If only she is still available.

They did not hug or shake hands. Each simply stood there as if the moment was frozen in time. Harry had seen old friends who have not met each after a shorter absence greet each other with greater warmth than this awkward meeting in Ruth's office. The moment that Harry had been dreaming and hoping for was finally here, yet it turned out to be something of an anticlimax. Harry did not know whether this was a good sign or not. He did not want to move or breathe too heavily in case it broke the magic.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ruth was the first one to break out of her trance. She noticed the luggage and asked Harry softly, "have you just arrived?"

"Yes. Did I come at a bad time? You look as if you were expecting someone else." Actually, Harry found it a little odd that Ruth did not seem to expect him at all. He had rather assumed that Sherman, or Amy, might have forewarned Ruth about this visit.

"Oh, it's just one of my undergraduate students. She's graduating this year and I'm her supervisor on her graduation thesis. We had arranged to meet this afternoon to go through the last draft of her paper. She needs to hand it in next week. Don't worry, I will reschedule with her because they …"

At that moment, there was another knock on the door and a Chinese girl poked her head round the door after Ruth asked her to "come in".

"Hello Joyce. I'm afraid we have to reschedule our meeting. They have just announced signal number 8 and you should be getting home. I will email you about suitable alternative dates, alright?"

"Yes, Professor Everton. I better catch the last shuttle bus to the train station. Bye bye." Just as quickly as she appeared, Joyce disappeared and closed the door behind her.

"Professor, eh?" Harry was amused.

"No, not a real professor with tenure in the traditional sense. Its just the custom in this university, the students address every one as professor, even though I am just a lowly lecturer. I'm not on any sort of promotion track. To do that, you'd have to play university politics and spend all your time churning out research papers and giving public lectures etc. For someone like me, I can't do anything like that and I haven't published anything since I got here. My classes are well attended and my students are generous with their comments in the end of term surveys. So the university pretty much leaves me alone." As usual, Ruth rambled on a little when she was nervous.

Harry understood exactly what Ruth meant by 'someone like me'. She was a woman supposedly living under a new identity. She could not draw attention to herself by becoming some famous academic whose face was plastered over book jackets and conference pamphlets. For the millionth time, Harry regretted what he had done to Ruth, what she had to endure the moment she decided to fake her own death. In doing so, Ruth gave up any hope of ever being able to achieve her full potential in whatever field she chose to be in. That was so unfair to Ruth since she had such a brilliant mind.

"What's this about a typhoon signal? Sounds serious." Harry now remembered the captain's announcement on the plane and the terrible turbulence they had encountered as they tried to land the plane.

"Oh yes, we are in the grips of a typhoon, though this one is early this year. They don't usually hit until July or August, and its only April now. Everything shuts down when signal 8 is hoisted. You're lucky your plane was able to land, because they just announced that all planes have been grounded and the airport is closed until further notice." Ruth then proceeded to switch off her computer and shuffle some papers into her shoulder bag. "I have to get home now. How about you? Do you have a car waiting for you downstairs?"

"Eh, no." Harry was a bit thrown by Ruth's question. She was not making any attempt at keeping him around. "I didn't know about this storm, how bad it could get. I just dismissed my driver. I thought perhaps I could ask you to call for a cab, or something."

"I don't think so, Harry. Once signal 8 is up, taxis are as rare as gold dust. They lose their third party insurance cover for passengers. Even if you are brave enough to ride around in a taxi at a time like this, you can expect to pay 10 or 20 times the normal fare for the privilege of being driven to your destination. Even then, many of the taxi drivers will pick and choose passengers depending on where they want to go. This building will be closed soon." Ruth considered what she was about to say for a moment and then offered, "you better come with me then."

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly impose. I do have reservations at a hotel." Harry then remembered the new mobile phone in his pocket and wondered if he could get Amy to turn around and pick him up. It would mean a tremendous loss of face, Harry thought, but he could probably find some excuse to explain the sudden change of plans.

"Harry, I really don't think that you have a choice. I have very spacious accommodations on campus." Ruth shot a look at Harry which told him, don't be such a stubborn old mule. Then she thought of something else and added, "don't worry, I do have a guest room."

Harry turned pink at that remark. Well, since she's offered, I can't refuse, can I? He decided against calling Amy. He did not want to tell Ruth that he did have a choice but he chose not to exercise it since he thought that her offer was better.

Ruth smiled nervously as she led the way out of her office and to her car.

Rather than feel disappointed that her appointment with Ruth had to be rescheduled, Joyce felt elated. She had seen a strange man in the professor's room. Who could that be, she wondered. Wait till the others hear about it.

Ruth taught English Literature at the University. Unlike a subject such as Law or Medicine, which could be spoon fed to the students through detailed notes and course materials, English Literature was a course which required a lot of input and interaction with the students. The students in Ruth's classes were exclusively Chinese kids and sadly, the local boys and girls had this great aversion to voicing an opinion in class and this left Ruth very frustrated. Every time Ruth asked for a response or reaction, most of her students would try to look every which way but at her; there were some students who were always ready to respond but Ruth tried to be fair and thought that some of the other students ought to be given a chance to express a view. Local students with a better command of English and who were interested in English Literature would have been packed off overseas, way before their matriculation, for eventual entry into one of the foreign universities.

Ruth tried a variety of methods to draw the students out of their shells and this sometimes involved acting out a scene or passage from the reading materials to make things interesting for her students. She was so full of enthusiasm for the material she taught and so different from some of the other expatriate lecturers who simply droned on and on about how they felt about Joseph Conrad or D H Lawrence that this endeared her to her students. In time, Ruth noticed that she seemed to have acquired a small group of fans, girls and boys who lingered in her classroom after lectures and tutorials in a bid to spend more time with her by asking her to repeat some of the points which she had already made during the lecture. Joyce was one of them.

There were only two terms in each academic year, and each of Ruth's courses lasted only one term at a time. She would get a new batch of students at the start of each term, unless it was an introductory course in the first term, followed by an advanced course on the same subject in the second term, in which case, she might get the same group over the entire academic year. So although the composition of the group might change, the fact remained that in her guise as university lecturer, she had attracted a small group of student fans.

In the beginning, she was amused by the attention she was getting, even though she was not used to it. She assumed that this was how movie stars and pop stars felt, though the difference was that those people craved this sort of adoration whilst Ruth did not. In time, she began to feel a little exasperated whenever she saw her 'fans' approach the lecture podium after class. Don't you have other places to be, she would ask them. But she had to take care not to upset her students. She fully realized that nowadays, universities treated students as paying customers rather than just people seeking an education. In other words, students had to be treated with kid gloves and coddled, and everything had to be done to keep the customers satisfied so that enrollment figures would be maintained or better still, improved. That was the only way universities could continue to secure government grants and private sector donations.

Quite apart from the reticence to speak up in class, many of her students could not get through a sentence in their written work without making some very fundamental grammatical errors. In the beginning, this used to irritate Ruth no end, even though departmental policy allowed her to allocate a portion of the marks to 'presentation and grammar' in each assignment. Gradually, Ruth noticed that amongst her 'fans', there was a noticeable improvement in their written work over the course of the term. The quality of the essays she received towards the end of term were generally better than those she received in the earlier part of the term. Even though on the whole, she had little job satisfaction, she took comfort in knowing that her students were making an effort to improve their work in order to impress her. It was not on a par with the "I stopped a thermobaric bomb from exploding in the heart of London and thereby saved millions of lives" kind of difference, but as long as the students ended up learning something and showed signs of improvement, Ruth still felt that she was making a difference and for this reason, she continued to humour them.

These boys and girls are in for a rude shock when they join the workforce eventually and come up against bosses who liked to throw a file or two at them, bosses like Harry. Why does everything always somehow comes back to Harry?

Ruth usually walked to her office from her apartment. Her next door neighbours, an Australian couple who also taught in her department, had recently finished their contracts and left for more exotic places to teach. They sold their 10 year old Honda Civic to Ruth for a pittance. Ruth did not really need a car since her apartment on campus was within reasonable walking distance from her office. She needed a car for a day like today, when it rained so heavily that having an umbrella was totally useless. Given the bad weather, she did take her car to work this morning and now, she was glad that she did.

Ruth drove Harry to her apartment in her little car. It was only a five minute drive and neither of them said very much during the short journey. The heavy rain reduced visibility and made it difficult to navigate the winding roads which went uphill in certain parts and then downhill again. Harry did not wish to distract Ruth. He did take a good look at Ruth's hands on the steering wheel and noticed that she was not wearing anything which remotely resembled an engagement or wedding ring. In fact, Ruth was not wearing any rings.

If she has a live-in boyfriend or husband, she wouldn't have so readily offered me a place to stay for the night, would she?

Ruth's apartment was on the eighth floor of a building which was part of a cluster of buildings on the other side of the hill, an area slightly off campus where staff accommodation was located. Not all teaching staff could obtain on campus accommodation since there was only a limited number of apartments available. Teaching staff who had families with them preferred to use part of their salary package to rent premises off campus.

Ruth led the way into her apartment. Just as she told Harry, it was a spacious apartment with high ceilings, a sensible layout and just the right amount of furniture in it. Harry was relieved to find that it was not some matchbox size apartment of the kind Amy had described during the journey from the airport. It did not make him feel claustrophobic. He could not see any decorations of a personal nature which gave a clue as to the occupant's personality. There were a couple of paintings on the wall but Harry doubted that they were put there by Ruth. This apartment must have come furnished. Harry then surreptitiously searched for signs that the apartment was shared with a man and was quite relieved to see that there was no such evidence in sight.

All of the buildings in this compound faced Tolo Harbour which meant that there was nothing between the apartments and the blue sea beyond. This gave Ruth's apartment a very open feel, though with a typhoon raging outside, it also meant that the apartment bore the full brunt of the wind and the rain.

Harry was hoping to start a proper conversation with Ruth but before he could do so, Ruth was in a hurry to go elsewhere.

"I need to go to the supermarket in the next building before everything shuts down. Here are some fresh towels. Please feel free to take a shower and put your feet up. I will be back, hopefully in 20 minutes or so. Don't worry, nobody will disturb you. Turn on the TV if you like, though you might need to click around a bit before you'll find the cable channels. Today's papers are still on the coffee table. I must rush."

Ruth showed Harry which room he would be staying in, made sure that the water heater in the bathroom was turned on and then headed down to the supermarket immediately. By the time Harry finished his shower, he was alone in this apartment. Whilst going through the pockets in his jacket, he found Amy Chan's card and his new mobile phone. Oh, that reminds me … I must call her about my hotel reservation.

"Amy, this is Harry Pearce. I will be staying with Ms. Evershed tonight so I won't need any transportation. Can you please let the hotel know?"

"Yes, Mr. Pearce. I didn't think that they would put up signal 8 that quickly. I will touch base with you tomorrow. Have a safe evening."

Amy Chan was lying. She had known about signal 8 being hoisted before she left Harry; her driver had heard the news on the radio in the car and told her about it. She withheld this information for her own benefit. After receiving Harry's call, Amy called the Mandarin Oriental and cancelled Harry's reservation for the evening. She then told the driver that they could now leave their little hideout and that he should drive her home. She started to do some mental calculations as to how much she might be collecting from her colleagues. The book runner did not include a caveat to the effect that all bets were off in case of inclement weather and now he lived to regret this oversight. Amy realized that she had not quite won the second part yet, since Harry Pearce only said that he was spending that first night with Ruth Evershed. He did not say that he would not require a hotel room after that first night.

'You had me at hello' came from the movie, Jerry McGuire.

As always, all reviews will be gratefully received.