Thank you to all who have been kind enough to leave reviews. I had been a little worried – killing off Ruth & all, and leaving her dead (just like those bastard Kudos people had done!) - that you would all be sending out a posse to lynch me. I also thought it would make an interesting exercise – from a writer's perspective – to follow Ruth after her death to see where that took things. We writers have difficulty with reality, so I thought I'd `go there'.
Things lift considerably in this chapter.
oOo
Harry develops a routine which does not include Glenfiddich, staying at home, or crying himself to sleep. He gets up each the morning, showers, shaves, dresses, eats a cooked breakfast, and then takes Scarlett for a walk. After bringing her home, then goes out again on his own, the early morning air brisk and refreshing, blowing out the gossamer threads of grief which had threatened to become his reality for evermore.
He is still grieving for Ruth, but he no longer loses himself inside this grief. His heart – so newly opened – is hurting, but it is not yet completely broken...damaged, certainly, but not beyond repair.
Most days he finds himself on the Thames embankment, and if it is free, he sits on the bench he and Ruth had sat on so many times in the past. While sitting here he feels closer to her. While sitting here, gazing across the water, he imagines she may be sitting beside him, on this bench. He begins to imagine conversations with her. He thinks something, and he imagines she answers him, also in thought. He is sure these conversations are taking place in his head, and that they have nothing at all to do with the possibility that she is sitting beside him, but a man can dream a little, can't he?
He still misses her every moment of his waking day, and even throughout the night while he sleeps and dreams – almost always of her.
Then one day his whole life, and his concept of reality, is turned on its head.
He is sitting on the bench by the Thames, the one he and Ruth had occupied while they'd talked. Mostly as he sits here, he is not bothered by other people. Lost in his own private world of thoughts and memories, it is for him as though other people occupy a totally separate cosmos. On this day, overcast and cold, a young mother and her small child – a girl of about 4 or 5 years – approach the bench, and prepare to sit, when the child speaks up, her voice piercing Harry's private world.
"Mummy, not there," she cries. "You'll sit on the lady."
Harry looks up sharply. The mother smiles apologetically at him. "Kids," she says. "This one sees imaginary people everywhere."
Harry only hesitates for a moment before addressing the child's mother. "Can I ask your daughter some questions about the lady she sees?" he asks.
"Be my guest," the mother replies, rolling her eyes, "but I warn you she has a very vivid imagination." The mother sits at the other end of the bench, while the little girl still stands, looking at Harry with expectation and curiosity.
"What's your name?" Harry asks the child.
"Molly."
"Well, Molly, I want you to know that your eyes are so much better than mine, because I can't see the lady sitting here."
"But she's sitting right next to you," Molly cries loudly, pointing at the space on the bench next to Harry, "and she's touching you with her hand. Right here," she adds, reaching forward and patting Harry's wrist with her own small hand, "and she's smiling at me and...she's trying to tell me something."
"What is she saying to you, Molly?"
"She's telling me her name."
"What's her name, Molly?"
"Roof."
"That's a new one to me," laughs the mother, a little embarrassed. "She doesn't even know anyone called Ruth."
"But I do," says Harry quietly, his heart beating a mile a minute. "What does she look like, Molly?"
"Her hair is like Mummy's, and she has big, big eyes, and she's wearing a blue dress. She's smiling, but I think she looks really sad."
Harry looks at the mother properly for the first time. She has dark brown hair which falls in a wave to her shoulders.
"She's saying something else to me. There's something she wants me to tell you." Molly waits and watches. "She says your name is Harry. Is your name really Harry?"
Harry nods, his mouth dry, unable to form words.
"She says she loves you lots – this much," Molly demonstrates by holding her arms as wide apart as she possibly can. "Is she your girlfriend? Why can't you see her? She's right there," Molly adds, pointing with her finger and leaning in towards the bench.
"My eyes are not so good these days," Harry says, fighting the choking in his throat. "And yes, I guess you could say she's my girlfriend."
"She says that you should go home now, cos you left Scarlett shut in the laundry. Who's Scarlett? Is she your little girl? You shouldn't put her in the laundry. She won't like that."
"Scarlett is my dog, Molly, and I think Ruth is right. I did forget to let her out of the laundry before I came out."
Harry feels like he's been punched in the stomach by a very large man. This child, whom he has never met before in his life, has just provided the proof he has been hoping for. Ruth is with him. She sits beside him - right here, right now. And yet 17 days ago she had died in his arms.
Harry thanks Molly and her mother – herself wide-eyed and incredulous - and quickly walks home. There he finds Scarlett shut in the laundry, just as Molly had said he would. On letting her out, she begins to growl that low growl, her eyes fixed on the space just behind Harry's right shoulder.
"Hush, Scarlett," he says, "it's just Ruth." He turns to his right, addressing the space behind his shoulder. "I guess it's just you and me and the dog, Ruth. And, in case you're wondering, I love you too. I should have told you that years ago, before you were in Cyprus." He smiles in the direction Scarlett is still staring. The moment feels very intimate to him, although he is also aware of how bizarre it is.
It is in that moment of intimacy – in his house, with the dog and his dead loved one – that Harry decides it is about time he returned to work.