Let's go round again?
Chapter Thirteen
As he said goodbye and ended the call Harry Pearce was once again left to ponder just what was going on. His nightly phone calls with Ruth had become something of a lifeline: he spent all day from the moment he woke wondering what time she would call him, what she would say to him, what he would say her. And when she did call he put all his energies into encouraging her to stay on the line for as long as possible. Then after the call had been ended he began to take apart, sentence by sentence word by word what they had exchanged.
He'd sit in the deepening gloom a glass in his hand, a bottle by his side trying to decipher hidden meanings in the calls. And that would follow him to his bed and into his dreams; dreams that were full of Ruth, Ruth in his house, Ruth by the sea, Ruth wandering through the capitals of Europe revelling in the art, the history, the culture. And of course Ruth in his bed. And all these scenarios were woven together by one common thread. The simple fact that she wanted to be with him, wanted to be in his house, wanted to walk along the beach with him, wanted to explore foreign cities with him, wanted to be in his bed!
He'd come to look forward to the calls, enjoy them. In a strange and entirely unexpected way they gave meaning to his existence something that had been sorely lacking before fate had brought her back into his life. Of course he'd known she was back in England the moment her flight had landed and she'd gone through passport control. He could still remember that day as if it were yesterday. The emotions that he'd felt had overwhelmed him and as he sat nursing his drink he could still feel the strong after shocks caused by the waves of emotion that had washed over him. Joy, longing, relief, excitement, pain, hope. The list had been endless and complex and he'd struggled to cope with it all. Indeed at the time he'd been very afraid that he would be overpowered by it all and he'd had to force himself to take a step back before it was too late.
Of course when she'd first gone he'd tried searching for her as soon as he'd been well enough to undertake the task but so much time had passed it had proved impossible to pick up her trail, she had disappeared, disappeared completely. He could remember with utter clarity berating Malcolm for his failure to find any echo of her and the exchange that had followed
"She's the best Harry and she's been taught by masters Harry. You and I. If she doesn't want to be found there is nothing that I or anyone else for that matter can do. You'll have to wait until she decides that it's time."
"Time for what?" he'd snapped as he paced his living room anger and frustration pouring out of him.
What he didn't know was that Malcolm had found an emotional message on his home phone the night she had left
"I have to go Malcolm, I can't take it any more. I can't. If I stay we'll destroy everything and anything that might have been good between us. All we seem to be doing is damage each other and I can't risk staying around long enough to see him looking at me with contempt in his eyes."
Although Malcolm hadn't said anything about the message Harry had known instinctively that his old friend had known more than he was letting on and he very quickly backed off not wanting to discuss his feelings and fears.
And so he waited and waited learning to live with the ever present edginess that affects ones whole life when a loved one has gone missing. That constant unintentional looking out of the corner of ones eye, that ever present feeling that she was somewhere close but just out of reach. And he'd found it hard to come to terms with the fact that his head was constantly at war with his heart. His head telling him that she would never come back to him after what he had done to her that day in his office whilst his heart kept telling him that she loved him, that she would allow him to beg forgiveness for his vile behaviour. The only good thing; if it could be called good about the situation was the fact that this time he wasn't haunted by the ever present danger she had been in the first time she'd fled.
A while after their talk Malcolm had come to him and told him that he had now exhausted all the channels of enquiry that he knew of and that he was going to stop the search but that he's set up a programme that would inform them both the moment Ruth set foot back on home soil. It wasn't much but it was all that he had.
When the wonderful day had arrived and he knew she was back in London he'd been faced with yet another dilemma and he was forced to make one of the hardest decisions that he'd ever had to make. He knew that he had to let her make initial contact and he'd waited months before he'd given in to his overpowering need to see her. And even that decision had been made for him.
Once again it was Malcolm who had been the catalyst. Malcolm who had found him drunk and maudlin as he mourned yet another day wasted with no word from her. Malcolm who had stuffed a piece of paper into his shaking hand with the curt words
"Sober yourself up! Stop feeling sorry for yourself and go and see her or drive yourself mad! The choice is yours Harry. I'll say nothing more about it except don't let your pride ruin any chance that you may have with her."
He had gone to her address but he hadn't contacted her. He supposed that in a way he'd stalked her, he's used all his skill as a spook to follow her, to find out what she was doing with her life and he'd found to his chagrin that she seemed to be making a comfortable life for herself. She had a good job at MOLA where she was very highly thought of. She had a good circle of friends both male and female who she socialised with on a regular basis for hadn't he followed her on more than one occasion as she meet with friends in pubs and restaurants around London always careful to stay in the background as he fought down the feelings of envy and regret as he watched her laugh and joke with her companions.
The only comfort that he took from his scrutiny was the fact that she didn't seem to have a man in her life. So he watched her from afar keeping her contact details close to his heart dreading the time he discovered she had moved on and found someone else. And then fate had intervened and they had been thrown together and still he hadn't been able to find the courage to tell her what it was he wanted from her.
He knew in his heart of hearts that if he squandered the chance he had been given he would regret it for the rest of his sad and lonely life and that scared him more than he thought possible. When he'd been working he'd been able to divorce himself from the reality of his situation as he'd thrown himself into his work. It had kept him sane although he had come to the realisation that he had always been teetering on the brink of a total meltdown and now that he didn't have the diversion of his work to distract him he knew that he must find something, someone else to divert his thoughts of despair and what was becoming dangerously close to self pity.
But did he have the right to expect her to take a sad, broken old man into her life. Did he have the right to hope that she would once again sacrifice everything for him. Wouldn't it be better for her if he simply slipped back into the background and faced the long lonely years that stretched ahead of him alone?