Same Disclaimer as before

Chapter 16

Early April 2009, Hong Kong

When Ruth shut down the possibility of the two of them developing a relationship after their first date, Harry did not put up too much of a fight because he thought that given time, he could probably wear down Ruth's reticence and bring her round. After all, they had been dancing round each other for a couple of years by that time, and there seemed no urgent reason why the pace should be quickened. When Mik Maudsley 'bumped' into Ruth at the Tube that fateful morning, Harry ran out of time and he lived to regret it. After Harry arrived in Ruth's office earlier in the day and later at her apartment, he was prepared to give Ruth some space and let her come to terms with being able to reclaim her old identity, and to reclaim him, at her own pace. But given the discussion which just took place in the kitchen, Harry decided that he was on the verge of running out of time again. He was not about to make the same mistake twice, which meant that he needed to make Ruth aware of his feelings right here, right now.

Harry saw that Ruth was not going to argue with him, so he took the two mugs of Chinese tea and made Ruth follow him to the living room. Ruth wanted to park herself on one of the single chairs which meant that Harry would have to sit on the three seater all by himself. This was unsatisfactory to Harry since he was sick and tired of having this gulf between the two of them, so he made her sit on the three seater with him. For what he was about to say to Ruth, Harry needed to be as close as possible to her and be able to hold both of her hands. Ruth resisted, initially, but Harry was quite insistent and after a little struggle, he was able to hold both of her hands in his. By way of protest, Ruth turned her head to one side to avoid having to look at Harry.

"Regardless of how you might feel about me right now, Ruth, and how things turn out for us from now on, you should know that as far as I am concerned, you have been, and will always be, someone who has a special place in my heart, and its not just because you used to work for me." Harry spoke softly but sincerely. There was no immediate response from Ruth, so he went on. "You are obviously distressed by that fact that I have made a new friend, a female friend. I don't like to see you unhappy. So please listen to what I have to say."

Ruth began to shiver a little. She was not at all sure that she was going to like what she was about to hear.

"I met Sandra a little over a year ago. I would have preferred that you'd never have to know about her. But as long as you already know, then I will be totally honest with you about her."

One year? A whole year? You might as well tell me that you've known her for a whole lifetime! So her name is Sandra. That's a lovely name, I suppose. A couple of tears started to roll down Ruth's cheeks. Harry saw this and he felt like someone had just stomped on his heart. He did not want her to be sad.

"I did not set out to look for a friend, it's just one of those things that happened. You of all people should know that I do not enter into personal relationships that easily. I know that one year may sound like a long time, but during that time, we haven't been seeing that much of each other."

"Please Harry, I don't really want to …" Ruth was not interested in more details of Harry's courtship of this woman.

Harry gripped her hands tighter to emphasise that she had to hear the rest of his speech. "Yes, you do, you have to know this. Before I left London for this trip, I have not seen or spoken to Sandra for over a month." Sandra had not been in any of Harry's thoughts long before that day he went to see DS Boyd. "Sandra provided me with companionship at a time when I needed it, that's all. I believe that she expects more from me. I have been trying to decide whether I'm in a position to meet her expectations. You see, I have been mourning you for so long that I was not sure …"

Ruth shook her hands free from Harry's grip in order to wipe away the tears from her eyes. She now paid a little more attention to what Harry was saying.

"I was beside myself with worry when you disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after you left. You never made contact with the people in France that Zaf told you to. You hardly touched the money Malcolm had arranged for you. I put out enquiries about your whereabouts all over Europe, the Middle East and both North and South America. I even tried Australia and New Zealand. Never in a million years would I have guessed that you were hiding out here. Isn't that always the case with something you've lost? That its always in the last place you thought to look?" That was Harry's feeble attempt at humour and it had no effect whatsoever on Ruth. "When I couldn't find you, I thought that someone had got to you at last, that they made sure that you were really dead, but as long as I didn't see your body, I refused to believe that you were dead. You are so strong, clever and resourceful that I was sure you must have managed to find a new hiding spot, and I kept hoping that I'd be able to find you one day. That, was what held me back where Sandra was concerned."

Ruth took a sip of her tea and let the hot liquid calm her down a little.

"I couldn't have sent you a 'change of address' card to tell you that I was relocating to this part of the world. That would have defeated the whole purpose of my going away, and would have complicated things for you." Ruth still refused to look Harry in the eye.

"I know, I'm not upset with you for not having been in contact, I knew you couldn't have." Harry thought that it was a good sign that Ruth was still talking to him. "I should have tried harder to look for you. I hated the thought of you all alone out there with no protection. I was very pleased to find out from Sherman that his crew has been watching your back all this time. When the opportunity to see you again came up, I leapt at the chance and here I am. I would have come sooner but the bloody Home Secretary took a week before she approved my trip. As soon as I got off the plane, I came to see you straightaway. Doesn't that tell you something about how I feel?"

Harry was hoping for a response but none was forthcoming.

"I came here to find answers to a whole lot of questions. When we discovered that document, I didn't know whether you were working for the Chinese or perhaps you might be in trouble with them in which case, whether you needed help. In any case, I thought that it was about time that I sorted out the Cotterdam mess and resurrected you. On a personal level, I needed answers to two questions. The first is how I still feel about you. The second question is a little more tricky : whether you still had feelings for me, or whether you have moved on. If it turned out that you have found someone else, I was prepared to walk away and leave you alone. You deserve all the happiness in the world after what you must have gone through these past few years."

Ruth remained silent. She wondered whether this little discussion had gone far enough. She was not at all sure she wanted to hear the rest of Harry' speech. Why does life have to be so bloody complicated? By now, Harry had regained custody of both of her hands.

"I was very pleased to find out that you haven't been working for the Chinese and that you are not in trouble in any way. As for the personal issues, I really don't need an answer to my first question. I know how I feel about you, I just wanted to be sure."

For some reason, this provoked more tears from Ruth. Harry was a little baffled. Could it be that the feeling is not mutual? Am I not saying the right things?

"Obviously, your right to reclaim your old identity is not tied to our personal relationship. You can become 'Ruth Evershed' again but choose to stay as far away from me as possible. I'd understand." No, I wouldn't, I'm only saying that, please don't take me seriously. Although Harry had told himself many times over the years that if ever he met up with Ruth again and she indicated that she did not want to pick up where they left off, he would walk away, the reality was that he could not do that, not when it was so painfully obvious that not only was there no one else in Ruth's life at this time, but she still had emotional ties to him. Ruth's reaction to his new girlfriend told him everything he needed to know about his place in her heart.

"Ruth, in our job, as you know, we deal with a lot of hunches and uncertainties and oftentimes when we don't get it right, we end up with someone letting off a bomb somewhere or a lot of people getting hurt or losing their lives." He touched her face gently and tried to get her to look him in the eye. "With you, I don't have to rely on hunches. I know with every fibre of my being that I want to be with you."

Ruth took a deep breath and sighed. "You said just now that if I had someone else, you would walk away and leave me alone. Isn't that what I am doing now, to you? You have found someone and I am prepared to walk away. I don't want to complicate your life, Harry." This time, Ruth looked him in the eye.

Harry shook his head. "But this is not the same! For your assessment of this situation to be valid, it has to be predicated on the fact that I've ceased to have any feelings for you, and you know that that is simply not true, in which case, if you still care for me, then why would you want to walk away?" Harry paused to see if Ruth was going to object to his analysis. Ruth did not respond immediately. "Unless, there is someone else in your life. Is there?"

She wanted to lie and say to Harry, 'yes there is someone in my life, now piss off'. She started to say something but decided that she could not form the words in her mouth. She looked away again.

"If you have to be pedantic about it, then yes, there is someone in my life right now," Harry continued, "but here's the difference : as long as you are available, I don't want to be with that other person, I choose to be with you. Now if you still have any feelings for me at all, choose me," pleaded Harry. I'm not even asking you to fight with Sandra over me. I'm yours for the taking.

Ruth was trying to form a coherent thought but she felt conflicted. She wanted to say something along the lines of, ah yes, the choices we make, I chose to keep a lonely vigil all these years whilst you chose to be with someone else, but Ruth knew that things which were said in the heat of an argument could never be taken back, and she did not want to turn this into an acrimonious argument. This was not a discussion about assigning blame or fault for what had happened, or not happened between the two of them.

"Ruth, don't you feel the same way about me as before? Am I embarrassing you with what I've said so far?" Say something, anything.

Ruth shook her head a couple of times. "Its not that, Harry …"

"Then what is it? Tell me and we'll try and fix it, together." Harry looked earnestly at Ruth. "We've overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to get to this point. I cannot believe that you are prepared to walk away now that it is possible to be together."

She kept looking at her hands and Harry's hands.

"Look, I won't insult your intelligence, or Sandra's, and say to you that Sandra means nothing to me. But you don't have anything to worry about where she is concerned. Come home with me, to London, and I will break it off with her, definitely and properly." The implication was loud and clear, reject me and I will go running back to Sandra, is that what you want? "Please, Ruth, I won't be satisfied until you tell me that you don't ever want to see me again, and if that's the case, I will walk away." That was the second time Harry had threatened to walk away. Harry was trying to call Ruth's bluff. He had no idea what he would do if Ruth really did tell him to go away.

Ruth did not have a ready answer. Harry knew that Ruth's silence meant that she was not sure, and as long as she was not sure, he still had a chance. He wished that the winds would stop howling for a moment. The setting felt like some bad soap opera … it was a dark and stormy night … and the situation would have been laughable except for the fact that Harry was trying to close one of the most important ops in his life.

After waiting for a couple of minutes and not getting any reaction from Ruth, he tried something else. He wanted to take a sip of his tea and so he started to loosen his grip on Ruth's hands; he also intended that gesture as a hint that he was ready to give up on her. It was only a small gesture but Harry got his response : when his hands moved, Ruth's hands also moved in a bid to hold on to his hands. She was not ready to let go of Harry, at least not yet.

After hesitating a little, Ruth started, "I don't want …" The tears had started again.

If ever Harry thought that he was going to have a heart attack it would be now. His heart was beating too fast for it to be healthy. That was not an opening to a statement that he wanted to hear.

"…to be with you …" The sobs were getting a little more out of control.

Harry could not believe what he was hearing. No, no, no, please god, no …

"… if it means … that someone else is going to be hurt."

Harry blinked and wondered if he had heard her right. When he was sure of what she just said, he was relieved. He did not know whether to laugh or cry. My silly little mule! That response from Ruth told Harry that he was still in the game. After waiting for Ruth's sobs to subside, he gave it a final push.

"Do you think that where I'm concerned, one woman's companionship is interchangeable with another woman's? It doesn't work that way." Harry lifted Ruth's chin to make her look at him. "And you think that if you turned your back on me now and walked away, I won't be hurt? Would you rather hurt Sandra or me? My love, now is not the time to exercise self control or self restraint. All's fair in love and war. Sandra is a strong woman, I'm sure she'll be able to find someone else." Harry thought about what he just said and decided that perhaps it required some clarification. "I don't mean that you're not strong or that you won't be able to … … oh, bugger, you know what I mean." Oh god, this is much harder than I thought. Harry then noticed that before Ruth looked away again, there was a twitch in her mouth as if she was about to break into a little smile. I see, you like to see me squirm, do you?

Ruth had never been a weepy kind of woman, and she did not want Harry to see her as an emotional wreck. So she struggled to free her hands in order to reach for some tissues to clean her face and nose. She willed her tears to stay just below the tear ducts. She thought that it was rather sweet of Harry to be all tongue tied, but still, she was not sure. "But Harry, she has a history with you, whereas you and I, we haven't even …" Ruth tried to sound like a sensible human being.

"Having a history doesn't mean just holding hands and having candlelit dinners, not as far as I'm concerned. You and I, we do have a history, we know each other well enough, at least I'd like to think so."

"If you gave her up and took a chance on me, we may not work out. Wouldn't you have lost a wonderful opportunity which you might otherwise have with this person?" If we do get together and six months down the line, you turn around and say to me, 'look love, this isn't working out", I wouldn't be able to cope with that situation. I've had enough of an emotional rollercoaster ride these past few years, especially these last few months, I'm really not up to more thrills and spills on emotional matters.

"If we were meant to be together but you chose to walk away and we never find out what could have been, wouldn't that be the loss of a wonderful opportunity for both of us? If you recall, we did walk away from each other once before, but it didn't seem to have gotten us very far. Given all that we've been through, don't you think that you owe it to yourself to give us a chance, to find out whether we can make a go at having a long and meaningful relationship? Ruth, have some faith in me, in us." Come on Ruth, be brave, be aggressive.

When Harry showed up at her office, Ruth felt conflicted. She was happy to see him, certainly, but not at a time when his situation had changed. She was not sure what Harry wanted from her by coming to see her, if indeed he wanted anything from her at all. Ever since that meeting with Sherman Tang, she had been trying to wean herself off her addiction to Harry and she thought that she had done quite a good job of hoisting herself onto the wagon. She had managed not to have a single thought of Harry during the day and during most nights. She had started to dismantle the little cocoon in her study, for example, she reduced the number of times she would surf to UK websites and had even started to watch a lot more American television shows as part of this process. She had also started to make discreet enquiries in Australia and New Zealand about relocating there. Regardless of whether or not she had a job lined up, she was going to hand in her notice at the University at the end of the current term. Ruth had not yet decided whether to tell Horace that she was leaving.

Her sole point of weakness was those photos on her computer. At the beginning of the Chinese New Year holidays which took place towards the end of January, she replaced the desktop image and the folder which the computer should access when the screensaver programme started, but she did not delete Harry's photos from her hard drive. The University had a break of about 10 days for Chinese New Year and during this time, Ruth almost went stir crazy with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Most of the expatriate staff took advantage of this break and left town for places like the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. Ruth was not interested in sun and surf and so did not join her colleagues. Unlike her Chinese colleagues, she did not need to visit any family or friends in order to spread new year cheer. She was not married, so she was not obliged to hand out red packets of good luck money to little kids. Most employers would give their employees red packets at this time, something which was equivalent to the giving of a small Christmas bonus in the West to people like your doorman or security guard. Even though technically, she was not Dalane's employer (the University was), Ruth gave Dalane a red packet which contained a few hundred dollars as a token of her appreciation for Dalane's work in taking care of her and her apartment. After four days of complete and utter boredom, she gave in and reinstated her old desktop image and screensaver images. Looking at those photos gave her something to occupy her mind with and seemed to make the day go a little faster. Ruth figured that one small aberration should be allowed.

Apart from the small matter of the photos, Ruth thought that the detox process was going well until that moment when Harry walked through the door and at the very sight of him, she felt a mixture of longing and grief and promptly fell off the wagon. Sherman had only indicated that he would help Horace see the error of his ways, he never mentioned anything about arranging for Harry to come and see her.

Here is someone I thought I can no longer have since he is already with someone else. I am prepared to live with that, even though I don't like it, but he just spent half the night telling me how much he needed and wanted me. Every time he said that, I just feel that it can't all be true or possible, that somehow fate must be toying with me again. Any moment now, someone will give me the punch line or tell me what is the price that I'll have to pay for being able to have him. After all the heartaches, can it be that easy, that all I have to do is to reach out and ….? For every argument I can think of for not being together, he seems to have an answer to refute that argument. Maybe there is a peach blossom symbol in my star chart after all and that symbol has Harry's name on it.

Harry noticed that Ruth seemed to be taking her time to think things over. That has to be a good sign, no? He brushed a lock of hair away from Ruth's face and tried to wipe away some of her tears which have now reappeared.

"I lost you once, I don't want to lose you again. Ruth, I need you." Harry leaned forward and touched Ruth's forehead with his own. "You're the only one that I want. Tell me you'll come home, to London, with me, please?"

What am I going to do with you, Harry Pearce?

After a long while, Harry noticed that Ruth's shoulders had sagged and she gave an almost imperceptible little nod followed by a quiet, "yes".

Harry let out the breath which he did not realize he had been holding. He wrapped his arms around Ruth and held her close. Finally, we're getting somewhere. Its ok, its alright, I've got you now. Harry could feel a small wet patch forming on his shirt from Ruth's tears. Tears of joy, of relief, a little of both, I don't care. Cry all you want. Let it all out. Everything's going to be alright.

"I have missed you so much," he told her.

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