Same disclaimer as before
Chapter 14
Early April 2009, Hong Kong
"Ruth, is everything alright," asked Harry in the gentlest voice he had in his repertoire. "Are you alright?" The two of them were standing in Ruth's kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. He had already been given his glass of water.
"Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask, Harry?" Ruth gave him a nervous little smile.
"I couldn't help noticing your reticence about going home to London earlier this evening. I don't know what seems to be the problem, but if you need to talk about it, you know that you can always talk to me." Please, talk to me.
"That's very kind of you to offer, Harry, thank you. Everything's fine. I'm sure that as always, my enthusiasm about going home will erupt at a most inappropriate time," said Ruth in a feeble attempt at cracking a joke.
Harry looked at her with concern. I wish you would stop being so bloody polite with me. Something is troubling you and you're not telling me what it is. How can I get you to open up to me again, after all these years?
"So, Harry, you look well." OK, you want to talk, I can do small talk.
"As well as can be, I guess, though the pressure on the Grid seems to get worse over the years." Harry gave a little shrug.
"You could have sent someone else, you know, to let me know that I've got my life back. I'm sure Six still has a presence in this town and they could have run this errand for you, or you could have asked the local British Consulate. I remember how busy things used to get on the Grid, and the pressure …" There was another nervous little smile.
"You're in this position because of me. I had to come. I owe this to you. As long as we're going to give you your life back, I should be the one to come and tell you." I'm also here to collect you. Stop pushing me away!
Again, they both fell silent for a few minutes. The kettle came to a boil. Ruth dumped a couple of tea bags into two mugs and poured hot water into each.
"This concept of 'going home' seems quite strange at the moment." Ruth looked out the window at the wind and the rain.
"Why's that?"
Home, how strange that sounds. Home, London, where there's always the chance that I'll run into the two of you, holding hands and enjoying each other's company. Home, work, the Grid. How am I ever going to be able to walk into your office again, with or without knocking, knowing that you could be on the phone with her, talking in hushed, affectionate tones like most couples do.
"I have nothing to go back to, no job, no house, probably no more friends, no …"
"I know it may be hard to rebuild a life, but I'll be there to help you, every step of the way," Harry suggested gently. "I still care …" Harry did not finish the sentence because Ruth gave him a look which implied that she thought she had just heard the most offensive comment ever. Very quickly, she looked away again. I see, am I the problem here? "It is, of course, your choice. You don't have to return to London if you have other plans. Do you? Have other plans, I mean."
"Well, I don't know." Ruth thought carefully about what she was going to say before telling Harry, "I only know that I can't stay in this university or this city forever. I have been to Australia and New Zealand during my summer breaks. There are areas in New Zealand that are so remote and desolate that you can hide there forever and no one will be able to find you." Ruth strained the teabags and discarded them.
"But you don't need to run and hide anymore." You can come home.
"I'm not exactly marching triumphantly back to London, am I, given all that's happened. And now with my involvement with that stupid document, I'd hate to think what the Service thinks of me."
"You don't have to worry about that Ruth, I will make sure that everything will be sorted out. You won't be discriminated against as far as the Service is concerned." Harry tried to sound helpful and positive, but given his own precarious position within the Service, he was not really sure whether he could deliver on that promise.
There was no response from Ruth. All that the two of them could hear was the wind outside the windows continuing to howl and the rain splashing against the windows. Harry wondered whether the windows could hold up to all that pounding.
"Are you worried about the debriefing?" Harry wanted to keep Ruth talking.
"No! I have done nothing in the last few years but teach. I know I haven't done anything wrong. They can interrogate me all they want …" I have done nothing but teach a bunch of Chinese kids who have enough problems dealing with the English language to start with, never mind coming to grips with any literary works written in English, Ruth wanted to add. I'd like to see how the boffins in charge of the debriefing can turn that into questionable or even treacherous behaviour. But she did not want to sound too derogatory about her students since she knew that their lack of English skills was not really their fault, it was more the fault of the whole education system in this city. Those kids' problems with the English language should have been fixed at a much lower level before they were allowed to progress to university.
"I will make sure that they offer you your old job back." Another promise he might not be able to make good.
"At this point, I'm not even sure that I want to go back to the Service." Given all that had happened, Ruth was getting a little sick and tired of all that cloak and dagger stuff associated with spooks. "Even if I pass the debriefing, they will probably want to quarantine me for a while before allowing me anywhere near sensitive information."
But why wouldn't you want to rejoin the Service? Harry started to panic. "I will not have you stuck doing clerical work when you are capable of doing so much more. I will speak to someone about this."
"Don't, Harry. You should learn to pick your battles and stop rattling your sabre against dragons real or imagined. You must have stepped on a few toes in trying to reinstate me, so in the overall scheme of things, not getting my old job back should hardly register as a blip, as far as you're concerned." Ruth continued to look out the window as if the darkness outside was infinitely more interesting than looking at Harry. She then looked down at her mug of tea. "If I do go back to the Service, let me rebuild my career my way. I'm sure they'll transfer me out of whatever menial post soon enough. It wouldn't be the first time that I've had to prove myself to skeptics." She turned her head and gave him a knowing smile, and he had the decency to look a little contrite because he knew that Ruth was referring to the early days when she had just arrived on the Grid.
"If you're inclined to go somewhere else, do you have any traveling companion in mind?" I will follow you to the ends of the earth if necessary.
Ruth did not answer. She did not think that Harry had the right to ask this question.
Harry tried again. "I never got to tell you what I wanted to say to you, Ruth, before you left."
"I'm not sure that there's any point in saying anything now." Ruth wrapped her hands round her mug of hot tea as if she was feeling cold and needed something warm to hold onto.
There was no air-conditioning in the kitchen and the room actually felt a little hot to Harry. He thought that he noticed a small shudder on Ruth's part. He was confused by this response. "Ruth, I still feel …"
"Please, Harry, don't. A lot can happen in two and a half years. Things change, people change," she sighed. "Perhaps its best to leave certain things unsaid. Even if I do take back my old life, a man in your position should not be consorting with the likes of me. You forget that I'm now a woman with a scandalous past!" Ruth vaguely remembered hearing about Harry's knighthood but she could not recall whether she had read it on the internet somewhere, or it was Horace who told her about it.
"That's absolute hogwash! I will consort with whoever I damn well please. You have done nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sure that the overpaid spin doctors in the Service's press office will be able to deal with any enquiries from the public, should any one pick up on the fact that you're back in circulation. Don't be so hard on yourself, Ruth. Isn't it about time you stopped caring about what other people say? If I gave a damn about what people have been saying about me over the years, I would have shriveled up and died a long time ago." Harry was feeling more than a little desperate. "Don't you feel the same way about me as befo …"
Ruth shook her head very slowly, and then she said softly, "I know that you've moved on, Harry, and I'm very happy for you, really."
She knows about Sandra?! But how could she have known? Did Sherman tell her about Sandra?
"I have seen the photos … she looks … very attractive." If she was indeed happy about this situation, she was certainly not showing it.
Harry felt at once exasperated and defensive. "What photos? Have you been putting a surveillance team on me? I believed you when you said that you weren't working for the Chinese Secret Service. I saw those photos of me on your computer. How long has this been going on?" Well, at least I now know why you have been behaving in this way towards me since I showed up in your office earlier in the day. You're upset about my new girlfriend.
He saw the photos on my computer? That had to be Dalane's doing. As much as Ruth appreciated Dalane's efficiency in terms of being a domestic helper, she knew that Dalane could be a terrible gossip. When she told Dalane about the pictures of Harry on her computer, she made Dalane promise that she would not tell any one about them. From then on, Ruth always remembered to switch off her computer when she went off to work in the morning though sometimes she would forget. This morning, she must have forgotten to switch it off because she saw how bad the weather was becoming and was in a rush to get to class. In all fairness to Dalane though, she did not break her promise. She did not show the photos to just anyone, it was only to the person who was in the photos.
"Do you think that these days, I still have the power to organize a surveillance team to follow you around London? I already told you earlier, I have not been, nor am I currently involved with the Chinese Secret Service, or any other intelligence organization, for that matter." Ruth shot Harry an angry look. A moment passed and she decided that perhaps Harry deserved an explanation for the photos. "The photos were given to me by a friend, a friend in the trade."
Harry now remembered that Sherman did mention something about one of his agents. "The one you met at Havensworth?"
She nodded. Actually, Ruth could not remember having met Horace at Havensworth since from what Horace told her, it was just a fleeting encounter and she was preoccupied with other thoughts during that op, thoughts about her relationship with Harry. Sherman must have told Harry about Horace.
"The same one who got you out of Paris?"
"Yes," Ruth replied impatiently.
"How close are you to this new friend?" Who is this Chinese agent and does Ruth have a relationship with him? Why has he been supplying Ruth with these photos? Does Sherman know about this?
"Why should you care?" You already have someone else, why should you care? It shouldn't be any of your business anymore.
"I do care." Harry tried his hardest to apologise for his little outburst. "I'm sorry about what I just said, about not believing that you never worked for the Chinese Secret Service. I do believe you …"
Ruth took a deep breathe and shook her head again. "Look, Harry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be saying these things to you. Its just that my life has been a little crazy recently. I have no right to expect anything from you. I'm really glad that you have met someone, someone you like. I hope you're very happy with her." Again, there was no joy in either her face or in her tone.
Harry felt like he was drowning. Never in a million years did he imagine that his reunion with Ruth would end up like this.
"Ruth, its not a question of right or obligation when you deal with affairs of the heart. You should know that I still have strong feelings for you, and if you'll have me, I'd like to try and build a relationship with you."
"You already have a girlfriend, so please stop giving me false hope that we still have any kind of a future." Ruth did not think that Harry was the sort of man who would have a few love affairs going on at the same time. She was certainly not the kind of woman who would juggle a couple of lovers at a time, and she really did not like the thought that she had to compete with this woman for Harry's affections.
"I don't give false hopes …"
"Please don't make me feel any more miserable than I already am."
"I'm miserable without you." At this point, Harry was looking quite miserable.
In the past, whenever Ruth found Harry looking tired and miserable, she would have this incredible urge to take him in her arms, run her fingers through his hair, cuddle him and tell him that everything would be alright. She never did that, of course, for it would have been inappropriate on her part. She saw that look of misery and pure desire in Harry's eyes when they ran into each other that night in the corridor at Havensworth, and it took every ounce of her resolve to reject Harry's overtures, turn around and go back to her own room. The last time Ruth saw that look of abject misery on Harry's face, she was on a tug boat going down the Thames and out of Harry's life forever. That look haunted her for a long time and during the first year after she left, she would often see that look in her dreams and wake up crying. Sometimes, dreaming about Harry helped Ruth sleep, but more often than not, it kept her awake.
And now, there was that look again. How can I hug you and hold you when you belong to someone else now? She also remembered her recent unpleasant meeting with Sherman Tang. She got the message from this disagreeable old man loud and clear, 'go home, woman, there's nothing for you here'. Ruth felt the bile rising up in the back of her throat. He has no right to meddle in my private affairs. How dare he! How did he convince Harry to come for me? How presumptuous of him to think that I can be collected by Harry like some errant child! Frustration over these matters, the emptiness in her life since she left London and missed opportunities in general quickly turned into anger. She resumed looking out the window. She felt like hitting something or someone.
When Harry tried to put his hands on her shoulders in order to get her to look at him again, Ruth flew into a rage. "You can't do this to me …" Ruth was going to hit Harry on the chest with her fists but he managed to grab hold of both her arms and stopped the impending blows. He then pulled her into a tight embrace in the hope that he could hug away all the hurt that Ruth was feeling now. Ruth broke into sobs.
"Let me explain …"
"No Harry, you don't owe me any explanation." Ruth struggled to free herself from Harry's arms whilst trying to stop the sobs.
"Let me be the judge of that, please. You have this annoying tendency of always stopping me from saying the things that I want to say to you. Right now, neither of us has anywhere else to be, so please hear me out."
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