This is the penultimate chapter of this fic. Loose ends will be tied up & concluded in next one.
oOo
Anna Moretti slowly finds her feet on the Grid. She is not popular member of the team, but she is developing into a fine analyst, so for this she is tolerated. Her greatest short-coming is her reluctance to listen to other opinions. She is not naturally a team player, but she is – quite reluctantly – learning how to be one. With the London Olympics looming and the skills of Section D to be tested in a more open and public arena, Harry rings Malcolm, and asks him to meet for a drink.
As Harry drives to their agreed destination – a small pub in a back street a few miles north of the river – he is aware of Ruth's presence in the car with him. He is by now adequately skilled at recognising when she is with him and when she isn't. As Malcolm had told him weeks before, it is a feeling, a sense of her presence, which tells him when she is close by. He has developed an ability to recognise and understand her communication. Chiefly they communicate through thought, intention and feeling. If he has understood Ruth correctly – and he's almost certain he has – people who share a bond of love while living will have an easier and more open pathway for communication once one of them dies. After her death, Harry is at last accepting the depth of love they shared while she was alive, and he often – too often – wishes he'd acted upon his feelings sooner. The term, love never dies, now takes on new meaning. Ironically, the most powerful underpinning to his life now is the enduring love between he and Ruth. And he doesn't want to lose it – ever. His last thoughts at night, and his first thoughts upon awakening are always of her.
Once he and Malcolm are settled in the pub, each with a drink in front of them, Harry tells Malcolm about his communication with Ruth.
"That's marvellous," Malcolm replies. "I'm so happy it's working for you. You look better for it, Harry."
"I still miss her," Harry adds.
"That's to be expected. She was – she is your soul mate."
"You know, I never fully understood that term until now. I'd always believed it to be some fanciful, romantic notion, but now I know that it exists."
"Of course it does," Malcolm replies.
"It's like we know what the other is thinking. We're connected."
"You always will be. That's what Mum used to say to me. She said she felt like she and my father were connected by a cord that could never be broken."
"Malcolm," Harry begins, relieved to have a subject to change to, "I'm looking to increase the team numbers in Section D leading up to the Olympics next year. I need someone I know and trust to bump up the numbers. If you're interested, I'd like to give you around eight months work, beginning in January. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June is to be the security services' curtain raiser to the Olympics. For us it will be a test run. We don't really expect there to be trouble, but we have to prepare, just in case. They're planning a flotilla on the Thames, can you believe it? Don't they know what a logistical nightmare that will be for us?"
"I'm very flattered, Harry. I've been out of the loop for so long, perhaps I'm a bit rusty."
"I'd be employing you chiefly as an intelligence analyst, Malcolm, and that job doesn't change a lot. I know that you keep abreast of the technology, so you'll slip right into it. I can't yet rely on our new analyst. I have to admit that I don't entirely trust her, as clever as she is. Next to Ruth, you are the most reliable and trustworthy analyst I've ever worked with."
"High praise, Harry."
"High praise it may be, but it's also true. I'm finding it very difficult to replace both you and Ruth."
"But you'll never be able to replace Ruth," Malcolm said quietly.
"I'm beginning to see that." All this talk of Ruth was leaving Harry feeling somewhat out of sorts.
"Let me think about it, Harry. I'd like to do it, so long as you know I'm only prepared to work on the Grid. I won't do field work."
"That's fine with me, Malcolm. It's your experience and expertise I'm after, not your brute strength."
Both men smile at the idea of Malcolm having brute strength. It is a little like saying Harry's most valuable qualities are his calm demeanour and his tact.
Harry was hoping he'd be busy with work when Christmas came around. It was to have been his and Ruth's first Christmas together as a couple, and they would no doubt have spent it at the cottage together. Catherine rings him a few days prior to Christmas, inviting herself around for Christmas lunch. He is grateful for the distraction of her company.
They have a pleasant time together, just the two of them, and while finishing off the Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon after lunch, Catherine asks him the one thing he has been hiding from her.
"Did something happen, Dad?" she asks carefully. "You're not yourself. You seem...a long way away."
Harry looks at her, deciding how much he should tell her. In the end, he recognises that she is no longer his little girl. She is a woman of 31, and most likely has faced challenges similar to his own.
"I lost someone," he begins.
"Dad, you're always losing someone in your job. It used to drive Mum crazy how you'd just ride through the losses of life like nothing had happened. She said you became hard-hearted. What's different about this person?"
"I loved her," he says, grateful for the opportunity to speak the truth to someone other than Malcolm. "I still love her. We were planning to retire from the service and live together."
"Oh, Dad, I'm so sorry. What was her name?"
"Ruth. Her name is Ruth. She was my intelligence analyst. We grew...very close...over the years. We'd known one another for almost 10 years. I...miss her...terribly."
Harry hadn't meant to cry when he spoke of Ruth, especially when speaking of her to his daughter - but he does. The tears flow freely, and Catherine steps to Harry's chair, sits on the armrest next to him, and puts her arms around him, holding him as he weeps for the loss of his loved one.
"Why didn't you tell me about her before?" Catherine asks. She had heard Ruth's name mentioned, but never in this way.
"Our...relationship...had a lot of ups and downs. I preferred to keep her to myself. I didn't like sharing her...with anyone."
"I understand."
After a while, Harry quietens, and still Catherine holds an arm around his shoulders. "Dad," she ventures, "do you realise that you speak about her in the present tense – like she's still here?"
"Yes, I do. It's quite deliberate. I don't want to let her go."
Catherine, realising that she is not an expert in this area, does not interrogate her father further. "Thank you for confiding in me, Dad. I'm sorry she died. I've wanted for so long to see you happy and settled with someone." She is old enough and wise enough to not suggest there will be other women some day. She suspects that for him, Ruth was and still is the only one for him.
It is dinner time by the time Catherine leaves his house on Christmas Day. He has an early night. He wants to lie in his bed and think of Ruth. She is there, of course. He can feel her, his skin prickling with her presence.
"I miss you," is all he can say. Missing her consumes him, especially on what was to have been their first Christmas Day in their cottage.
I'm still here, Harry. I'll always be here for you. Until you die, we will have to meet across the veil in this way. We need never be apart.
Harry sleeps deeply. He dreams of Catherine. She is a small child and he is walking away from her, while she screams and calls out his name. He keeps walking, ignoring her cries.
Come New Year's Day, the numbers on the Grid begin to swell. By mid January there are six extra people working there, including Malcolm. By early April there may be as many as twelve extra staff. The increased numbers are temporary, and only because it is expected that there will be an increase in attempted acts of terrorism both before and during the London Olympics. Of particular importance is the work of the intelligence analysts. Malcolm is given the job of chief analyst, and his task is to coordinate the data which he and the other two analysts have gathered. Harry is conscious that had Ruth been alive, and had she still been working for the security services, she would have been the one doing Malcolm's job.
For the first time in a long time, Harry is imbued with a sense of purpose. This is the kind of work he'd signed up to do. There is a clear connection between the work of the security services and the safety of the nation. The others who work on the Grid during the first months of 2012 notice the man at the head of Section D. He is sure and earnest, but punishing of those who don't give their best. They also notice that he regularly disappears from the Grid, sometimes for an hour or two at a time. Only Malcolm knows why, and he'll never divulge what he knows to anyone.
There are times during the working day when Harry simply has to be by himself. He chooses either the roof, or the bench by the Thames where he and Ruth used to sit, and where one day a few months ago he met a child who was able to talk to Ruth. If he's being honest with himself, he'd like to meet that little girl again and thank her. While alone either on the roof or on the bench by the Thames, Harry talks to Ruth. He feels her near him, and she often comments upon how he is handling the lead up to the Olympic Games. He keeps these conversations secret, but he suspects that Malcolm knows about them. Malcolm knows almost everything. Harry has come to rely upon these interactions, and he doesn't know how he'll cope when Ruth leaves for good. He knows this will happen, although he doesn't know when. He feels that the only thing which lies between him functioning in the world, and him falling apart completely is his contact with her.
It is on one of these frequent sojourns out of the office that he remembers something from when he was 20 and his mother had just died. He had been home from university, and coming home unexpectedly one evening, he'd found his father in the kitchen talking to someone. Harry had stood in the doorway to the kitchen and overheard his father having what appeared to be a one-way conversation with no-one at all. Before he crept away to give his father some privacy, he heard him use his mother's name. At the time, Harry had worried that his Dad had been losing his marbles by talking to a dead woman. Now he is able to see that his parents had communicated with one another in much the same way as he is now communicating with Ruth.
Whilst Harry longs for Ruth – her touch, her eyes, her body – he feels that all things considered, communication with her across the veil is preferable to no communication at all. And despite his enjoyment of aspects of his life in the present, he knows he will not fight death when it comes calling for him.