Many thanks to all of you who are sticking with both reading and reviewing this.
8. February 2013 – 4 – Rome
After the interviews, Hope was still leaning towards the think-tank but it was out of her hands – both had said that they still had one or two others to talk to so they wouldn't be getting back to anyone for another few weeks. So, when Harry had told her to pack her bag for a quick trip away and presented her with bookings to Rome, she had been more than delighted to comply. He had spent some considerable time deciding where to go for their short break and had actually thought about Paris for about three seconds before dismissing it – too many actual (a certain error of judgement called Juliet) and potential (plans never fulfilled with Ruth) memories, although it was the latter that was the greatest disincentive. Other places came to mind briefly and were also dismissed for varying other reasons until he suddenly remembered that she had mentioned, during some long distant discussion during her visit last year, having a fascination with things ancient Roman. Once that memory was back in place the decision on a holiday destination was easy and he'd organised it in the space of the hour or so that she was in her second interview.
He didn't tell her where they were staying before they left and continued to keep her in the metaphorical dark after they arrived at 11.00am, enjoying leading her on a quiet adventure on the train and metro until they arrived at Spagna then continuing on foot to their accommodation not far from the Spanish Steps. The "accommodation" turned out to be their own self-contained single-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a small building with spectacular views. Inside was all understated cream and white decor with marble floors and gauzy curtains filtering the light; outside was a split-level terrace with amazing scenery for a full 360 degrees around the building. Hope twirled around to take in the view before flinging her arms around Harry, squeezing him tight and planting a long kiss on his lips.
"This is stunning! How did you find it?"
He grinned.
"Five minutes on the internet!" Letting her go he picked up their two small bags – she was a woman after his own heart in more ways than one, having proven to be an expert at travelling light – and dropped them in the bedroom, re-emerging to add, "We had better go out and stock up the fridge before we get side-tracked by that bed and thoughts of a siesta."
They headed out shortly thereafter to scope out the neighbourhood and start having a look around. To her suprise and relief it turned out he could speak reasonable, if a bit rusty, pidgin-Italian; wandering along the street later in the afternoon, polishing off a lemon gelato, she said,
"I knew you could speak German but I wasn't expecting Italian. Handy! What else?"
He licked a drip of his own chocolate gelato from the side of the cone before replying with an airy,
"Not much. I'm hardly a polyglot. French, Spanish, Hebrew after a fashion, Russian and a bit of Arabic. That's all."
She rolled her eyes.
"'That's all'? Shyte! Seven languages – eight if you count English. Puts me to shame..."
"Oh, there are people around who manage a lot more than that. What else do you speak apart from Mandarin and, if I recall correctly, Thai?"
"Nothing useful over here unless you fancy dim sum or something for dinner. We don't bother much with the European languages for obvious reasons so I'm restricted to Malaysian, Indonesian, Korean and Cantonese as well as Mandarin, I'm afraid. I picked up Portuguese in Timor but have long forgotten most of it and can still just about do the very basics in Thai if I absolutely have to. I just try to not have to!"
Harry nearly choked on the remains of his gelato. He'd tried Mandarin, once, and gave it away immediately as being far too alien. Even Ruth had never managed to come to terms with that language at anything more than a basic level although Malcolm, that fluent Welsh speaker, was equally as fluent in Mandarin. And here was Hope adding four more into the mix although this was the first time that she had directly mentioned that she had ever been to Timor. He wondered if it had anything to do with Wynne.
"Mandarin and Cantonese?" he asked, incredulously.
It was her turn to grin at him.
"And the Malay languages, don't forget. Plus the Korean, if you want to impress people! I don't really count the Thai any more. There used to be a bit of conversational Hakka and Taiwanese Min in there as well but there's not much left, I have a hard enough time keeping up with the other two, despite the doctorate being in Chinese studies."
Harry just shook his head.
"Jesus Christ!"
She winked roguishly at him as they came to a stop at a pedestrian crossing, waiting their moment to take their lives in their hands and step out into the traffic..
"Time to let you in on a secret: it wasn't as hard as it sounds, you know. In fact, the whole doctorate was a bit of a lazy way to get qualified for me."
Frowning slightly at the crazed traffic he asked, mildly caustic,
"Really? Why, are you about to tell me one of your parents is Chinese?"
She huffed a laugh his direction.
"I wish. I would be a beautiful Eurasian then, which I clearly am not! Close in a way, though. Just after I was born my parents moved to the very small town where I grew up; dad's petrol station and workshop was next door to the local Chinese restaurant and the owners had kids about the same age as we all were so the two families, both outsiders of a sort in that slightly xenophobic tiny society, made friends. As a result I spent more time with them than at home – Pearl is still my best friend and our parents remained close forever – so I picked up the languages and culture from a very early age. Both parents were Australian but the mother's parents were straight out from the old country, having escaped at the end of the war before Mao took over and Grandma Hu used to babysit me all the time as mum was always busy in the petrol station all day. Long story short, I already knew the language and culture long before I decided to go to uni."
"Cheat!" was his tart rejoinder as he grabbed her hand and took their chance to boldly move into the traffic stream, vehicles barely slowing to swerve around them.
"You've got it, babe!"
They spent a couple of days doing the better known sites and he had been amazed at her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Roman war machine and the Flavian and post-Flavian era of the city – it was an unexpected passion from someone whose major interest in her professional life was Chinese culture and politics. Listening to her rattling on about the Judaean wars whilst they were standing in front of the Arch of Titus at the entry to the Forum, he was gazing at her quizzically when she caught the expression and suddenly stopped, looking a little sheepish.
"Sorry, I'm droning on again, aren't I? Just tell me to shut up if I'm getting boring. I tend to forget not everyone is obsessed with the Flavians."
He broke into a smile and shook his head at her.
"You're not boring me, I'm quite enjoying it. If anything, I was just wondering if I'm fated to end up with someone who has a private passion for some aspect of history. Jane's real interest was mediaeval England and Europe; Ruth adored the ancient Persians and Greeks; and now you come out with this previously unknown obsession with ancient Rome."
She gave him a demure look from through her eyelashes and murmured,
"Well, maybe you're actually one of those rare, strange and mythical beasts: a man who genuinely appreciates women with brains!"
He laughed at that.
"That is one way of putting a positive spin on it, anyway." Reaching out to draw her close, draping an arm around her shoulders, he added, "Now, Laozi and Sun Tzu I would have expected from you, but not Rome, so how exactly did that come about?"
She grinned back at him.
"I love Laozi and Sun Tzu, especially reading them in the original text but the Rome connection dates back to when I was a kid, hanging around next door, when I first heard the stories from Grandma Hu about the missing legions of Marcus Crassus ending up in western China as mercenaries and later settling there in Gansu province. That fascinated me as much as all the other tales she told and I finally got around to looking into it, and Rome, when I went to uni. If that story isn't enough to get you salivating then I don't know what is: the two great military powers of the day..." she was off again, her enthusiasm infectious, and he went back to smiling gently and absorbing all of it, quietly delighted in her pleasure in the subject.
They ended up in the Markets of Trajan on the Friday afternoon. The Forum over the road was still packed with thronging tourists but here, among the soaring colonnades of multi-storey shops in the ancient, semi-circular market buildings they were almost alone, apart from the site guards and a lot of lovely, half-feral cats. They were up on the second storey of the main building, gazing out over the remains of the plaza and quietly admiring Trajan's Column from one of the open arches in the arcade when Harry said, apropos of the column and the Arch of Titus that they had admired before,
"It must have been nice to have been appreciated for your work instead of being chewed up and spat out once your usefulness is deemed over..." Quietly wistful though the words were, there was a distinctly bitter edge to them. Guessing, correctly, that he was referring to the enquiry, she let silence fall for a moment before reaching out to take his hand in hers. Lacing her fingers through his she asked, equally quietly,
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He sighed.
"Not really but you should probably know. In fact, you should probably know everything now, before we go on much longer..." So he told her. Succinctly and leaving out nothing, not just about the enquiry and its preceding and subsequent events but everything back to his time in Northern Ireland in the 1970's, the reasons for the destruction of his marriage – never planned and bitterly regretted – the full details of the entanglement for the Gavriks and the lie he had unknowingly lived with for 30 years and even the disaster that was Operation Omega, probably one of the lowest points of his life.
She listened, interested but unsurprised by anything he revealed, although her heart bled for the pain that the lie of paternity had inflicted on him. It was all par for the course in their line of work, really, and she wasn't about to make any judgements on the errors of his private life, although the mention of woman named Arabella Charlton who had apparently been something of a friend-with-benefits for around fifteen years had made her eyebrow quirk until he had told her, bluntly, that he hadn't seen Belle for years and didn't expect to again as she was now permanently based in the US. It didn't matter – she was hardly lily-white in that department, either, having made a couple of spectacular mistakes both before and after Wynne, but at least it seemed he had learned his lesson, in the most painful way possible, by the end of the eighties and appeared to have done his best to atone ever since, with Belle being a facet of that.
He had disengaged their hands at one point, when talking about the black op that had gone terribly wrong in Berlin, scrubbing at his face in his characteristic move of distress before taking a few steps away to regain a little composure and doggedly continue on. She let him have his space and eventually he came to an end of his summary, leaning on the brick balustrade, head down, staring at the patchy marble paving of the plaza below them waiting for the inevitable reaction and, after the better part of a decade of being conditioned to rejection, wondering if this was where it was all going to go pear-shaped.
In that frame of mind he would never have been able to guess what was in her thoughts. The work details were water off a duck's back but the thing that had really hit home was the scale of the losses he had suffered over his adult life, starting with his mother when he was all of twenty years old. That in itself was probably the most life-changing thing he had ever really been through. Gazing at him, tensed and appearing for all the world as though he was waiting for a blow of some sort, all she could feel was an empathy and compassion as deep as the ocean. The poor, poor bastard. How had he survived all that and not gone insane? That had to be a measure of the essential man: despite taking hits that would destroy most others, he was still in touch with life and still capable of caring for others more deeply than he cared for himself.
When he didn't move after a minute or so she walked over, wrapped her arms around him from behind and kissed him on the corner of his jaw, saying nothing. She could feel the tension in his body and continued to hold him, resting her cheek against his, until he was ready to talk again. When he did, it was one simple word, said with some obvious dread,
"So?"
She kissed him again, on the cheek.
"So, what?"
He took a breath.
"So, are you disappointed? Disgusted? Horrified? Wondering whether you still want to be involved now you know the worst?"
She wondered what else had happened in his past – or, more acutely, just what hell Ruth had put him through on the same subject - to lead to that question but merely shook her head, her hair softly tickling his cheek, and replied, unknowingly echoing Malcolm's words,
"For what? Doing your job? And doing it as well as possible under the given conditions?" She turned him gently in her embrace. "You may have been a bit of an arse in your private life but you appear to have worked out the price to be paid for that long since so I really can't see what problem you think there is. Anyway, I've got no intention of losing access to this mouth and the wonderful, truly gentle man who comes with it, for something as piddling as that." She smiled crookedly. "So you'll have to try harder than that if you want to get rid of me."
Acceptance was the last thing he had expected. Jane had almost walked out on him the evening of their wedding after he had told her, stupidly just before they cut the cake, the truth about his work; it had taken Ruth years to acknowledge the darker side of the job and he had never been convinced that she had really accepted its necessity, let alone approved of it or what he had done in the name of it. Having finally been on the receiving end when Elena's thirty years of lies came out, he now understood their reactions perfectly. Yet here was Hope taking it on board with equanimity, the revelations apparently making no difference to her whatsoever. He had been expecting something negative but she was just smiling at him, gently, with nothing but warmth and understanding in her eyes.
"I don't want to get rid of you. But I don't understand why you don't want to get rid of me. Everyone else has."
Such a sad response. She shook her head, slowly, and took a step back to consider him, still with her hands on his waist.
"Well, they may have been idiots but I'm not. There's no reason for me to walk away, Harry. Two sides of the same coin, remember? I've known your reputation as a hard case for years but all I'm seeing in front of me is a good man who's spent his entire life doing his crappy job extremely well and for zero recognition or reward. Yes, there have been mistakes but every single person on the planet has made those – I certainly have - sometimes with consequences as bad or worse than yours, but the thing that stands out to me is that there is a deep streak of honour in this particular hard man that has never allowed you to cross your own personal Rubicon. And that is something to be admired, not decried, my love, because it shows incredible strength, honour and integrity, although in today's society those concepts are things most people don't understand."
The last time he had heard sentiments like that was from Elena but with the implication that they showed weakness, not strength, as Hope was clearly saying. He closed his eyes as they filled momentarily with tears and all the tension drained away. He was starting to think they were closer to being the same side of the coin, rather than both sides of it... Still with his eyes closed he reached for her, burying his face in the soft hollow of her neck as she stroked his back gently, willing him to let it all go. Finally he lifted his face, eyes open again, and kissed her, softly, one hand reaching up to caress her cheek and then ran his fingers through her hair. When they broke apart he said softly,
"I don't deserve you."
Flashing a sudden grin she replied,
"Yes you do!" before the smile faded. Giving him that steady look she went on, "You know, you're so much like Wynne sometimes. He also had too much of a conscience and the job was starting to burden him, to the extent that he had applied to move out of field operations before that last trip to Timor... On that subject, and if this is full disclosure time, then I'd better let you in on my own murk. It might help you see why I understand you so very well. And I do understand you, Harry, all of you, not just our particular bond, don't ever doubt that. It's not just about Wynne and Ruth." So she told him. Equally as succinctly and leaving nothing out, it was a remarkably similar tale, if not quite so voluminous in scope and without the military background, although she left the two worst confessions until last.
"You remember the Bali bombings of October 2002?"
He wasn't likely to forget it, coming so soon after New York and presaging as it did both Madrid and London. "Yes. That's when we all first realised this was an international issue and that September 11 wasn't going to be an isolated event."
"Well, in a way I feel at least partly responsible for that atrocity, as though I have the blood of 202 people on my hands because I may have been able to stop it and what followed – twice - long before either it or 9/11 happened."
That was a bouncer if ever he'd faced one. Trying to make the connections and failing his response was a single puzzled word.
"How?"
She sighed and partially released him from her embrace, feeling the old, familiar creeping shame as she explained.
"I had good evidence by the end of 1993 that Muklas, his brothers and Noor Din Top were planning attacks targetting Westerners and that they were getting money from some Saudi sheikh called Usama Bin Laden. They were starting to recruit through their school and were involved with Abu Bakar Bashir in the early days of Jemaah Islamiyah. This was in the first half of the 1990s, when I was constantly slipping in and out of Indonesia and, occasionally, Timor after the 1991 massacre, keeping an eye on what the bloody Indo's were up to." Her face creased in despair for a moment. "I had the information then, Harry, and I didn't do anything about it because I misjudged them, didn't consider them a serious threat. The evidence was plenty strong enough that we could have done something – even if it meant taking them out – but we didn't because I stuffed up in my assessments. Then and later. Especially later."
He honestly couldn't see why she was taking on so much blame. So far all that it had been was something familiar to anyone working in their field: a simple failure to act because of an erroneous but perfectly understandable conclusion. It was his turn to shrug and reassure.
"It's not your fault, love. If it hadn't been that particular group of people it would have been another, you know that. And we were all guilty, at that point in history, of underestimating the potentialities of radical Islam."
Sighing again she shook her head, releasing him and clenching her fists in frustration at her unprofessionalism during that period. Turning away to stare out towards the ruins of the Forum towering over the road she continued, as doggedly determined as he had been earlier.
"I guessed wrong early because they were still small as an organisation and, as you said, Islamist terrorism wasn't even a blip on the chart those days. But later, in late 2000? You know why I misjudged them then, despite having come across them again and realising how much they had grown and how much more serious it all was, and even having a hint of where they were going to target?"
She wasn't looking at him but was staring up at the sky, dusty in the late afternoon light, but he recognised that the question was largely hypothetical anyway – she was talking to herself, the pigeons winging across the top of the forum and the two slightly scruffy tortoiseshell cats basking in the golden light on the broken paving below her as much as she was to him. In any case she answered the question as soon as it was asked.
"Because at the time I was too focussed on my other, dirtiest, little secret. I'd managed to get myself seconded to East Timor, under the auspices of the UN, earlier in the year. It was a black op, of course, keeping an eye on what was going on again and trying to counter or stop the Indonesians from their nasty little games of stirring up trouble from over the border in West Timor, so I was in and out of Indo and Timor for months. I had the background, you see. I was doing my job but I was really there for another reason, which I'm sure you can guess."
"Wynne," he said quietly.
"Yes."
He thought for a moment.
"I presume that part of the op was not officially sanctioned?"
She laughed, short and sharp.
"Hardly. Although my boss knew what I was likely to do, given the remotest opportunity, and didn't discourage it."
He let it ride for a minute before asking, mildly,
"And did you?"
Echoing his movement of earlier she dropped her head to stare at the plaza, watching the shadows stretch ever further towards the arches opposite them. The cats, spotting a careless pigeon landing not far away, proved they weren't snoozing at all, snapping from indolence into poised hunters in a moment. A bit like us when we're out on a job, she thought inconsequentially, ready to transform from silent watcher to silent killer at a moment's notice.
"Yes, Harry. I found my former asset and I sent him back to his maker. Bare-handed. I wanted it to be personal."
The act didn't surprise him. He knew how physically strong she was just as he knew how very easy it was to kill if you knew how to do it, which she most certainly did. And it was only what he had done, for Ruth, Ros and others... One thing he understood perfectly was revenge, and that it was indeed best taken stone cold. The next question surprised her a little, both in the words and the mild tone, although it probably shouldn't have.
"He knew it was you?"
"Oh yes. I had spent the previous day with my other asset, visiting the places where Wynne had been captured, tortured and buried, so I was even more determined in my resolve by the time he took me to where the bastard had been hiding. I told Jose to go and help his family pack – we moved them to Darwin for their own safety – then made sure that the other saw my face as I broke his neck. At least it was quick for the little shit, unlike for Wynne."
"Good. It is fitting that he knew."
Like him, she waited for more and, when it wasn't forthcoming, risked raising her eyes to look at him.
"Is that all?" He nodded, smiling as gently as she had. "Even though I was so focussed on personal vengeance that I missed the other and look at what happened as a result. Competely unprofessional, if nothing else."
It was clearly time to remind her of how they started the conversation.
"I can't believe you've already forgotten what I just told you: I'm hardly a shining light on that front – you've taken revenge once; I've done it more than that, although I prefer to call it justice and joe public, who know nothing of these things, would call us both murderers."
Her slightly stricken expression didn't change so he ventured a small, encouraging smile.
"It doesn't actually sound like you missed the one because of the other, it was just a normal operational decision and you called it wrong, that's all. What did you say earlier about everyone making mistakes? And that's if you even consider it a wrong call. They were obviously not a clear and present danger the first time around, if you want to use an expression Jim was fond of, because they didn't act for another nine or ten years and even later it was still two years before anything happened."
He was going through the same arguments she had used on herself since October 2002 and there was some comfort in that, although it didn't assuage the sense of responsibility but then nothing ever would. They both knew that. His mellifluous voice was continuing on, pleasing to the ear and persuasively reiterating what she had concluded long since.
"Even if you had called it right, getting the Indonesian security services to do something about it would have been almost impossible, would it not? In any case, by that stage JI were too big and well organised to be stopped by a black op taking out their leaders. Just think about that. Most of the time we get it right but, occasionally, we don't, for whatever reason. There really is no such thing as perfection." He held out his arms and she came to him, her turn to be wrapped in a loving, forgiving embrace. "If there were ever two people who were meant to be together it looks like it's us. So now we know the darkness, let's put it behind us and concentrate on the light." He felt her relax; lifting her face she gave him a rather sideways smile and said,
"You're so good at putting things right for everyone else, Harry. You really need to extend the same comfort to yourself."
He nodded.
"Perhaps." An arched eyebrow questioned him so he modified his response. "Yes, Miss."
The eyebrow dropped and she pulled his face to her for a resounding kiss.
"There is definitely no way I will willingly give up access to these lips!" He captured her fingertips between those lips, kissing each finger individually, before answering,
"You'll never have to." He took the hand in his and kissed it. "Come on. Let's go home."
The talk of old battles was left behind as they elected to walk back to the apartment through the slowly cooling streets and alleys of the late afternoon but a short-cut through a laneway they had used before brought a new, short-lived conflict to shatter their peace. Two young punks materialised in front of them, brandishing flick knives. The one closest to Hope made a move to grab her but never completed it; momentarily distracted by the gentle, almost understanding smile on her face he didn't see the vicious kick that permanently ripped apart his knee joint and dropped him to the ground, squealing in breathless agony. At the same time his accomplice had about the same chance of avoiding Harry who, suddenly flashing into a white-hot fury, contemptuously brushed aside the hand holding the knife while his right fist connected with a power something akin to a pile-driver, breaking the would-be assailant's jaw and sending him flying backwards to hit the deck, unconscious.
Hope looked down at the pair, heart pounding from the adrenaline, muttered a contemptuous,
"Morons," and stepped over them. Harry, briefly incandescent with rage at seeing Hope threatened in a manner similar to what had happened to Ruth but infinitely relieved that this time he hadn't been kept awake, kidnapped, beaten and psychologically tortured over the previous thirty-odd hours so his reaction times were normal, said something significantly worse before taking a very deep breath to calm himself down and joining her. She noticed he was trembling slightly when she took his hand and looked at him, questioningly, but he just shook his head, said,
"Sudden flash-back," and guided her away at a steady walk without a backwards glance. Hope's attacker was still wailing and likely starting to attract attention; she grumbled,
"I should have kicked him in the head as well to shut him up, people are probably starting to look..."
He appreciated the thought and in different circumstances would have done exactly that himself but not this time.
"Tempting, but no, we'll just keep walking. No-one's going to believe that an innocuous looking, inoffensive, middle aged couple like us did that to a pair of would-be muggers." He draped an arm around her shoulders; she wrapped hers around his waist and they exited the other end of the alley just as doors and windows were starting to open.
"Impressively quick reaction, by the way!"
She looked up at him and grinned.
"Same to you! Nice right hook."
"Mmmm." He flexed the fingers on that hand and said, ruefully, "The speed hasn't slowed much but I'd clearly better get back into practice judging by the way my knuckles feel."
The adrenaline had mostly worn off by the time they got back to their apartment. Flopping onto the comfortably squishy, white sofa they looked at each other and he asked,
"Do you still want to go out for dinner tonight?"
She shook her head, weary, and snuggled into his side.
"No. We've got wine and edibles enough in the kitchen so let's stay in. Especially after that: I still need to simmer down."
"So do I," was the heart-felt response as he dropped a kiss on her temple.
Later, gathering together the wine, cheese, bread, olives, salami and tomato, they decamped to their roof-top terrace, spending a quiet hour or so listening to the sounds of a lively evening wafting up from below and watching clouds loom ever higher to obscure the few stars that had been visible. The temperature stayed relatively warm as a result, making the evening surprisingly sultry for the time of year so it was easy to stay out, swapping outrageous stories from their past and gradually winding down. One of Hope's stories had actually been Wynne's, a description of an operation that had gone wrong in the most hilarious of ways; although he got mentioned often enough, Harry realised that she had never actually said much about Wynne as a person so, somewhat curious and after her passing comment earlier in the day, he reached for her hand, kissed it and asked,
"What was he like? Wynne, I mean."
Hope looked at him, brow slightly creased at a question that had appeared out of the blue.
"Why?"
He shrugged.
"Just curious, especially after what you said earlier about my reminding you of him in some ways. I realised you'd never actually described him so I've got no picture in my head whereas you have at least seen the photos of Ruth."
That was true. He only had a couple of them and they were stored inside a copy of Ovid that he had once given her but he had been very open about sharing them so she realised it was probably about time she returned the favour, although she didn't have a photo on her.
"Oh." It was her turn to shrug and then produce a slightly evil grin. "Well, apart from both being blokes you're nothing alike physically! He was 6'4" tall, had very dark hair, very blue eyes and was built like a brick shithouse, every ounce of it muscle." As expected, she caught the disconcerted reaction as he inevitably compared himself to the man in her description and found himself apparently wanting; mitigating the evil grin into something more gentle and warm she explained. "He was ex-SAS, had served in the first Gulf War and kept up the training when he moved first to military intelligence and then ASIS. However, otherwise you two are surprisingly – or maybe not – alike behind your public personas: both quiet, gentle, passionate, fiercely intelligent, devoted, capable of being as hard as nails yet with too much of a conscience and deeply honourable, in the most old-fashioned of ways. And then there is that very specific sense of humour which seems to come with the job..." She twined her fingers through his, suddenly looking humble. "I'm not sure what else to say, except I can't believe I've been lucky enough to have, firstly, found someone like that twice and, secondly, that they've both been interested in me. That's the real miracle. I'm nothing special, after all."
He hadn't been expecting that sort of eulogy and it took him completely by surprise, not least because no-one had ever included him in that type of description before. There had been plenty of others, mostly negative, but it was a strange feeling hearing something that was, well, nice... Leaning over to kiss her he said,
"I beg to disagree on that last point. Wynne and I obviously both realised you are very special. Quite unlike any other woman I've ever known, in fact, and I believe he thought the same which is why we have both grabbed you when we had the opportunity."
She smiled wryly.
"Yes and you're both big old softies under the heavily armoured exterior as well!"
They continued smiling at each other for a moment, hardly noticing that the wind was starting to pick up and blow stray leaves around their feet, when he squeezed her fingers gently and asked, his smile fading slightly,
"Were you very angry with him?"
She knew where that was coming from and in a strange way was glad to hear it because it meant he was feeling secure enough to start articulating some of the more uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that came with their sort of loss. Her reply was questions of her own, couched to see how deeply he had been thinking about it as well as giving an indication of her actual answer.
"For what? Dying, or dying the way he did?"
That shook him but also gave him the confidence to respond truthfully.
"Either. Both."
Good. He was ready to face the discussion, one that was likely to cause some raw wounds to bleed again or, perhaps more correctly, painfully lance a few excrutiating boils. She took a breath before answering carefully, truthfully,
"Oh shit, yes. For both. I was incandescent with rage for a long time, first at him dying and leaving me behind just when we'd found each other and then also for the fact that he had allowed himself to be pressured into going back one last time, when his superiors knew he didn't want to and had applied for a transfer out..." She grimaced momentarily as the memory of that fury washed over her. "It took a long time to admit to myself that I was angry and even longer to understand that it was okay to be angry. Only then could I start to deal with it by forgiving both myself and him." Her both smile was both sudden and grim. "Although I still haven't quite managed to forgive his bosses."
There was a film of tears in his eyes as he gazed at her, wondering how she could ever think she was ordinary, and finally admitted, not much above a whisper,
"So was I. I was so furious with Ruth, once the first shock was over. Yet again she hadn't listened to me and yet again she had put herself in danger when she didn't need to and then promptly died on me, just as we had decided to make a future together. And I was so bloody exhausted by then that I was a split second too slow to stop it. I still don't quite understand how it happened – I couldn't see and no-one's ever been able to explain it to me, it looked for all the world as though she just stepped forward and into the way – all I know is that Sasha was after me, not her, and the actual outcome wasn't his intent at all. But she still died. Like Wynne, essentially for nothing, just the wrong place and the wrong time."
His hands were gripping hers tightly, almost painfully, but she was hardly aware of it, totally focussed on the intensity of his words and the feelings behind them. What he was saying was hard, so hard, but was just as intensely cathartic. However, she knew what else would be rattling around in his brain, something that would be almost as hard to admit. After a few seconds silence she added, equally as quietly, her words really hitting home,
"And then there's the guilt and self-loathing for feeling the anger to deal with as well. To say nothing of the guilt surrounding the circumstances. I ended up needing a psychologist for a while to sort through it all."
The look of shocked recognition that he cast her spoke volumes; she would have said more but the weather decided that was enough for one evening and the storm finally broke with a massive lightning strike followed instantaneously by earth-shattering thunder, wind and torrential rain which sent them scurrying back inside, too late to avoid being drenched. Both tired now that the adrenaline had completely gone and privately drained by their conversation, they went to bed, curling up together and silently listening to the steady drone of the rain until it lulled them to sleep. There would be plenty of other occasions for them to continue the discussion, when he was ready.
The weather had cleared when Hope woke up at dawn. Harry was sprawled on his back, only partly covered by the sheet and breathing steadily, with one hand unconsciously holding hers. She gazed at him as the early morning light gilded his skin, partly disguising the scars, fair hair ruffled into the mass of untidy half-curls that were the shortened remnants of those riotous Berlin ringlets, darker gold stubble shadowing his jawline and cheeks, and wondered how such a quiet, gentle, surprisingly funny and extremely loving man had ended up in this unmitigated hell of a job. How either of them had, come to think of it. They could have – might have, for all she knew – killed that pair of punks yesterday and that, coming after the conversation in the ancient shopping arcade, had rattled her more than she had let on. By the same token she was so glad now that they had found each other.
She had given up on relationships years ago because it was all too hard, especially with anyone not in the services, but with Harry they had each found someone they would never have to lie to about anything, ever. If nothing came of either of these current jobs, she suddenly decided, she would probably resign anyway, when he retired, and they could try to find other work elsewhere. Or see how their finances were and leave the world behind entirely to become wandering shades, blown whichever way the winds chose with, as she had said on that day in Greenwich, no particular plans or expectations and definitely no promises. While they had been out yesterday they had taken brunch in a small ristorante that had been playing songs from the 1980s, one of which had been a favourite of hers that she would never have expected to hear in that setting. It had turned into something of an ear-worm for the rest of the day and was still echoing in the recesses of her mind this morning when she realised it was rather appropriate to her thoughts – certainly in relation to trying to work out this strange, new personal world of theirs – in its ambiguous way...
…Stars die in the silence of Arabian nights.
Wind washes the seasons in these days of a golden age.
Life in your new world turning round and round.
Making some sense where there's no sense at all.
No promises but if you should fall,
I could give you more than just the shape of things.
Break every word, begin it all again.
Your name on a white sheet, pure lace shot with passion.
But as love lies bleeding in your hands Heaven sends you
No promises of Arabian nights.
No white waves on an ocean, no gems from a golden age.
Life in your new world turning round and round
So make some sense where there's no sense at all.
I give you no promises but if you should fall…
He stirred, as though aware of her gaze on him, turned his head and opened his eyes, the light this morning accentuating their green and gold flecks. Smiling lazily he rolled onto his side and reached for her.
"Good morning, beautiful."
"Good morning, gorgeous."
Their usual half-facetious morning banter meant they were back on an even keel. He buried his face in her neck and asked, barely audible,
"What are we doing today?"
"Staying in bed until a reasonable hour, then going to Tivoli!"
"Ahhh, that's right." Nuzzling her throat he continued, "Well, if we're staying in bed for the moment we might as well make use of being awake..."
They ended up hiring a car for the weekend, spending Saturday at Tivoli and making a longer day of it on the Sunday by visiting both Pompei and Sorrento. To her delight he proved to be as much of a demon behind the wheel as the locals, giving as good as he got in the battle to turn one lane into three and very obviously enjoying every minute of it, blasting the horn and cutting corners with the best of them. A more intellectual pleasure was to be had as they wandered the lanes, gardens and ruins of their destinations although Harry took mental notes on some of the illustrations found in certain buildings in Pompei and insisted on trying them out when they got home – only to find that she had been making notes of her own.
The rest of the trip passed too quickly and, almost before they could blink, they were back on the plane and headed home on the following Wednesday. Malcolm's wedding was on Friday and then Hope was due to fly out late on Saturday night so they spent as much of their remaining time as possible closeted together, just enjoying each other's company in such simple pastimes as reading, listening to music or going for a walk by the river. Neither wanted to consider the time beyond her departure: it was the future and it could look after itself.
No Promises. Written by Iva Davies, performed by Icehouse.