For the rest of the day, we sleep, raid the kitchen for duvet-picnics to bring back to bed with us, make love (again, and yet again, proving that practice does indeed make perfect), and talk, about everything and nothing. We already have a lot in common, and yet there is still so much to learn about each other, and so few opportunities like this, in which to simply follow where the conversation leads us, with no briefings, meetings, tasks, or other people to interrupt. It feels as if we are suspended in time, enjoying a rare respite from the hectic pace of our everyday lives. When I gently suggest upgrading the security of her home, however, Ruth is surprisingly reluctant, saying that she doesn't want to feel like she is living on the Grid (even though we both know that to all intents and purposes, she just about does). I protest strenuously, pointing out the many entry points and weaknesses of the Victorian semi-detached she rents, but to my surprise, Ruth is adamant. I don't understand it...she's only just been abducted, threatened, traumatised…most women would be demanding every home and personal security device available, but all my carefully reasoned logic, quoting of Service rules and regulations, and finally, pleading – it is all for nothing. For the first time, I encounter another side of Ruth, as stubborn as…as a mule!
She does, however, allow me to boost the efficiency of the central heating by splicing an additional line in from the street lighting cable which happens to run beneath her front garden. It's a simple enough job, and it's the least I can do for her. Besides, when I consider the service that Ruth has given to her country, I don't think anyone will begrudge her a few free kilowatts of our ridiculously overpriced electricity, and it has been an unseasonably cold Spring, too. Soon, her house is warm throughout, and her cats are finding new places to curl up beneath the merrily ticking radiators. Digging out the radiator key from the kitchen drawer, my final act of domestic maintenance is to bleed the long-disused system of air, and I smile to hear the gurglings and rattlings that follow my progress from room to room, shortly to be replaced by blissful warmth everywhere. It gives me a vast amount of pleasure to do something so low-tech for once, and I like feeling useful around her house. If only she would let me install, at least, a better security solution for the front door, seeing as that old Yale lock could be breached in seconds...
As twilight begins to fall, I know that Mother will be anxious to see me, and so, after showering together – another completely novel experience for me, but one I am very keen to repeat, now that I have glimpsed a whole new universe of sensuality – I take my leave, but not before Ruth has assured me that she will be alright alone, despite the shadows that I see lurking in the back of her eyes. "If you need me, for anything, just call – I'll be here straight away…I don't like to leave you, but Mother…" Ruth nods, and tells me to go, she'll be fine, and to stop fussing over her like an anxious hen with one chick. I smile ruefully at the analogy – I know that I have a tendency to overreact, rather, where people I care about are concerned – and after a final, dizzying, embrace just inside the front door, I go out into the rapidly approaching night; and that's when the story of Ruth and I truly begins.
If there is one thing that is almost unbelievably difficult, it is to successfully keep a secret within a secret organisation. The people one works with are nosy by nature, adept at reading looks, micro-expressions, even one's unconscious body language; they have almost unfettered access to information systems, and most of them have no compunction about using their skills and training against their own colleagues, if they wish to find something out badly enough. Neither Ruth nor I are ready to publicly admit to there being anything between us, albeit for different reasons – hers, an almost paralysing fear of being talked about behind her back, mine, an equally debilitating dread of what will happen when Harry finds out, allied with niggling doubts about Ruth's commitment to our fledgling relationship. I understand that she is determined to keep up appearances at work, and if that means that she continues to sit at Harry's right hand in meetings and occasionally gaze across the Grid, more or less surreptitiously, at the inner sanctum, then so be it. For my part, I do my best to carry on as I have always done. It seems to work.
Our relationship's greatest protection is also the simplest: the mere fact that it seems so unlikely. The middle-aged geek, shy and awkward with women, and the brilliant analyst, twelve years younger, but with a hairline crack running through her personality, rendering her uncertain of her own abilities, and with a tendency to depression. Oh yes, I know about that. I have known her for too long not to have put two and two together, and found that it made four. It only makes me love her more, when I see how she rises above it, time after time; but there is another, darker edge to it too, one that worries me, and which I am determined to keep her away from. I am acquainted rather too well with the black dog, as Churchill described it, myself – but then, which of us in the Service are not, unless they are that rarest and most terrifying of humans, a full-blown psychopath. And I pray that there are none of those walking amongst us…
We do not arrive at work together, nor leave at the same time, nor spend all our free moments together; and while we are on the Grid, we each wear a mask of professionalism, and for the moment, we seem to have gotten away with it. Or so I think, until early one morning, before anyone else is on the Grid, when Colin fixes me with his most direct "no-nonsense" look, and enquires, "Malcolm, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Feigning incomprehension, I look up from The Times' crossword page, and raise an eyebrow in mild interest. "Currently, I'm drinking a mug of your frankly rather abysmal tea, doing number 4-across in this morning's cryptic, running a meta-search on possible Iranian extremists resident in the greater London metropolitan area, then cross-matching them with known terror cells associated with a particularly abhorrent branch of Islamic fundamentalism. Oh, and fixing this little number, here," I reply, using tweezers to hold up an earwig which had Danny had lost during a particularly violent encounter with…well, that doesn't really matter. Colin rolls his eyes impatiently and replies sarcastically, "Oh, you're so funny. You know what I mean – you, and Ruth. How long's that been going on?"
Fifteen years as a spook can stiffen the spine of anyone who lives that long, give them invisible armour against unexpected personal enquiries, train them to be so smoothly and thoroughly deceptive that even their own mother couldn't tell if they were speaking the truth or not…anyone except me, that is. I know I don't have a poker face, that my eyes give me away instantly, and that I am not brave enough to risk the thin ice of lies and deceit that the rest of Section D seems to take positive delight in skating on. Besides, Colin knows me better than anyone else on the Grid, and I can hear the undertone of concern in his question. I turn my attention back to the crossword, trying to buy time in which to marshal my thoughts and get my rapidly escalating heart rate back under control, not to mention my breathing, which is becoming shallower by the moment. No such luck, though, as Colin snatches the paper from my hands and swivels my chair ninety degrees to face him squarely. To my horror, I can feel heat rising in my face as Colin scrutinises me from close quarters. He nods once, grimly. "I thought so. Are you out of your oversized mind?" Well, maybe I am, come to that, I think, but do not say…but if being in love is how going mad feels, then I'll have some more please, thank you very much.
Colin sighs, and I can see frustration and compassion warring in his eyes. "But surely you know she fancies Harry like mad, don't you? I mean, the whole place knows…there's been a book running for ages on whether they'll get together or not!" I blink in confusion as I scramble to catch up with Colin's train of thought…and then it hits me, and I don't know whether to laugh or cry: my best friend thinks that there is nothing more than a hopelessly one-sided crush. It hasn't even occurred to him that there might be another, happier possibility…the irony of it all would be delicious, if it weren't tinged with bitterness. I bury my hands in my face, ostensibly in embarrassment, but in reality, it's a desperate bid to compose myself. In a clumsy but well-meant attempt at consolation, Colin offers, "She's not all that much to look at, anyway, I mean, she's OK, but nothing like Zoe, or Sam, is she? And she's completely stuck on Harry, for god knows what reason – he's old enough to be her father. Daddy issues there, probably. Take it from me, you're well out of it." I look up, and my face must alarm him, because he backtracks slightly with, "Not that she's unattractive, and she's certainly smart enough, it's just, just that I don't think she really sees us, you know? Yeah, we're clever gadgets on demand, and hacking whatever system they want to poke round in, and sitting cooped up in the obbo van to all hours, and we even do their bloody IT support, but we're not field spooks, and we're sure as hell not Harry."
All my anger towards Colin drains away then, as I hear him voicing my own concerns regarding my relationship with Ruth. We sit in silence for a few seconds, and then he asks, "So, are you OK? I didn't know whether to say anything or not, but you're my best mate, and I was worried about you. Still am, actually, seeing as you haven't said anything… hey, you're not going to cry, are you?" My chest, which has been growing tighter and tighter as this excruciating, one-sided conversation has continued and my fear and anxiety has grown, has now reached the point where I am beginning to heave for breath, and I suppose it could look like a man on the verge of tears. I shake my head and dig through the pockets of my suit jacket where it hangs on the back of my chair, unable to speak. Sudden understanding lights up Colin's face, and he swiftly flicks me an inhaler from my desk drawer. I seize on it gratefully, and then as the medication begins to work, I mumble, "Thanks, and thanks for your concern too, but really, we're just friends…" I give him what is meant to be a reassuring smile, but I fear that it fails parlously, as Colin favours me with another long look over his glasses, before wisely deciding not to pursue the matter further.
Instead, he switches topics, proposing that we hold a Doctor Who marathon this weekend to watch the entire new series. Again, I try for ignorance, but Colin is not to be fooled. "Oh, come on, Malcolm, you had Buckley's keeping that hidden round here! I knew that wasn't old news archive footage in the Beeb courier bag a few weeks ago…there's a waiting list for it, you know. Adam wants to borrow it the next time Wes is home for the weekend, and one of the front desk staff is dying to see it – he's a big Billie Piper fan, apparently," this last, said with Colin's own version of a ribald wink and nudge - "Can't say I blame him, myself. She's some top totty, right?!" I look disapprovingly at him, before he remembers that I don't like to hear women referred to in those sorts of terms – it's disrespectful, as far as I'm concerned, and there is enough disrespect, not to mention outright hatred, in the world already.
It's moments like these which make me recall that Colin is so much younger than me – he'd be about the same age as Ruth, actually. Rather selfishly, I had been planning to introduce her to the latest incarnation of the show I grew up with, before sharing it with anyone else (she's never seen a single episode, which simply beggars belief) but suddenly it seems like a good idea to spend some time with Colin, off the Grid, doing the sorts of things that unattached men do with their equally unattached male friends. Neither of us are interested in sport (Colin refers to rugby union as Thugby, and to rugby league as Mugby, to Harry's intense annoyance) but we do sometimes spend an afternoon off in one of the nice riverside pubs around Richmond, or browsing through the spyware shops that have sprung up around London since 9/11. The Service likes us to stay on top of what the average paranoid punter in the street can buy over the counter if he suddenly decides to have his own personal James Bond moment. Most of the stuff on offer is laughable to us, of course, and ridiculously overpriced, but occasionally things slip in which have no business being in the hands of ordinary citizens. Civilians, Harry calls them, and in my estimation, that's just about right. "What about this Sunday, then, for Who?" I ask, and Colin agrees. I make a mental note to tell Mother – she has met Colin before, and approves of him, what's more – and then we turn back to our work.
A few days later, Ruth is detained on the Grid due to a routine observation op going somewhat pear-shaped; we had planned to meet for dinner after work, and I have to swallow my disappointment as we deal with yet another crisis, and yet another murky, morally compromised lot of human beings. Par for the course, in this job, but there are days when all the hot water in the world is not enough to wash away the taint of corruption and questionable ethics (or complete lack thereof) which has begun to seep into the Service in the last few years. That's why Harry is such a rarity in our business, a man who knows what he believes and acts on it; but during the next few days, I sense more than the usual amount of tension and irritation emanating from him, and Ruth is suddenly spending odd moments of time with him, time which does not appear to be related to the operation at hand. Whatever she is doing, she certainly has his full attention, as she buttonholes him walking across the Grid, waylays him in his office, or catches him coming out of the briefing room. I say nothing, of course, but watch and wait, and do my part, as ever, biding my time until life-outside-the-Grid resumes once more, which it does, late on a Friday night.
Seeing as we are now three days late for our original reservation, I apologise profusely to the maitre'd; but he has no tables free, and no inclination to give us one even if he did have. "What sort of people can't even call to cancel a reservation?" he wants to know, and just for the tiniest moment, I am sorely tempted to tell him; and then Ruth slips her hand into the crook of my arm, and says, "It doesn't matter, we can go anywhere …I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" I look down at her, and she smiles encouragingly at me. "Look, over there, by the water – isn't that a chippy?" And she tows me towards the brightly-lit stall, following the unmistakable aroma of malt vinegar slathered over hot, crisp chips, with the salty tang that always reminds me of the seaside. This is not what I had in mind for our date, and I say so, but Ruth simply grins at me and orders us each a paper cone of cod and chips (extra vinegar on hers), saying, "I'll get this, you can pay next time. And it's fine, Malcolm, really it is - I love fish and chips!"
Which is how I come to find myself, sitting on a bench, one fine summer's night somewhere on the Embankment, taking careful note of the CCTV coverage in the area, and eating fish and chips with Ruth, as happy as two teenagers out on their very first date. Except that this isn't, and mercifully, we're not teenagers; afterwards, we take a cab back to her house, where we make up for three days of lost time, before curling into each other, satiated at last, and falling asleep. I have never been so happy in my life, is my final, semi-coherent thought…fish, chips, and Ruth…like that bit in the Rubaiyat…how does it go again? Then sleep claims me, and I know nothing except the peaceful warmth of Ruth's presence in the darkness beside me.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
A/N: The poem Malcolm is thinking of is one of the ruba'i of Omar Khayyam. Also, thanks to those who are reading and reviewing - I really appreciate it ;)