An hour or so later, I am sitting on a bench in Southwark, near the new incarnation of the Globe Theatre -a half-timbered tourist trap if ever there was one- staring dully at the greasy grey river. After I had finally emerged from the men's room, I had simply walked out of the Grid, seeking nothing more than to breathe some fresh air and feel the weak winter sunshine on my face for a few minutes; once outside, I thought that I would cross the Jubilee bridge, and stretch my legs; and then, it had seemed only sensible to put as much distance between Thames House and me as possible, so I had turned left and started walking in good earnest, until my lungs began to protest, both at the pace and the damp, cold air I was inflicting upon them, and I had reluctantly sunk down onto this bench.
The day is sunny, but bitterly cold, and I have come out without my coat or scarf. Already numbed with shock, and filled with guilt, I hardly register the biting little wind off the river as I imagine the scene over and over again: Fiona, fleeing towards Adam, a backdrop of planes and tarmac behind her, and again I hear those sharp shots; and then, the unendurable sound of his heart breaking, right there over our comms, as he weeps for her; his partner, his wife, the love of his life… and the mother of his seven-year-old son. I bury my face in my hands, seeking a modicum of privacy, and my own shoulders shake as I fight for control. I should never have allowed her to take even one step off the Grid until I had made sure the chit had been properly executed…I never, ever, break the rules, rather, I spend my life crossing my t's, dotting my i's, and making sure that everyone else does the same, where our work is concerned. I have delivered training to new recruits on how and when to complete the correct forms to requisition materiel, and once, in a fit of righteous indignation, I had treated Harry to several hundred (self-serving, priggish, my inner critic adds) pages on the importance of using one's call sign in the field, following a number of breaches that I had been appalled to witness, at the time. Miserably, I realise that he probably dropped my pompous magnum opus in the secure destruction bin, the first chance he got…I wish I could do the same with myself, at present.
Fiona deserved so much better than this sad fate; she is (was, Wynn-Jones, was) so vital, so full of life. And she loves Adam so much…and Wes, we all know how she adores the little boy, so like Adam to look at, and with a fearless nature that could be attributed to either of them; he is a lioness's cub, after all, and the son of a magnificently brave man. And then there's me, so afraid of upsetting a colleague of whom I had grown fond, that I hadn't put my foot down and insisted on the correct procedures and protocols…and now Fiona's been killed, Harry has it in for me, Ruth is avoiding me, and God only knows what fresh Hell my mother is brewing up in Bournemouth…my breathing becomes difficult again, tight bands are closing around my ribs…I fumble my inhaler out of my pocket, and stare at it in consternation: empty. I must have discharged it this morning, out in the corridor…it all becomes too much, and with a harsh cry of frustration, I throw it away from me; it turns, end over end, and arcs over the railing to fall into the river. I look back the way I have come, gauging whether I will be able to walk back, albeit slowly, without collapsing en route, before I reach Thames House; and then I flinch as something heavy and soft settles suddenly over my shoulders: my overcoat?! Next, the pale sunlight is blocked out, and a pair of black trainers, topped with mismatched red-and-pink and purple-and-blue socks, appears in front of me.
"Your spare inhaler's in the right-hand pocket," Colin says with gruff solicitude, adding, "Budge up, then!" I quickly make room for him on the bench, while retrieving my puffer with gratitude. Colin says nothing, just sits next to me, brightly conspicuous in his crimson down parka and hand-knitted beanie (this year's Christmas present from his Nan). We remain seated in silence for quite some time, and then Colin turns to me, his honest face full of such worry, that to my shame, the horrible hot prickliness begins behind my eyes again. "So, what's going on? I've never seen Harry look the way he did after you'd snuck off the Grid…I felt as if a goose had walked over my grave. What the hell happened? And why are you sat out here, looking as if the bum has fallen out of the world?" I turn my head to stare at him, shocked at this unexpected attitude, and he lets his shoulders rise and then fall a few inches. "Colin, Fiona's dead! And if I hadn't contravened the most basic of operational dictums, she might be walking back onto the Grid with Adam right now, instead of, instead of…" I can't bring myself to finish the sentence, and Colin puts a hand awkwardly on my shoulder, conveying the depth of his concern with that one clumsy, but heartfelt, gesture far more eloquently than if he had spoken.
Colin removes his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly; he looks shockingly young without them. "Malcolm, listen to me. I've been doing a bit of thinking, and it seems to me that Fiona knew exactly what she was doing. Chit or no chit, guns or no guns, she was going to do this operation her way, and to hell with the risk. She wanted to get that psychopath of an ex off her back, and Adam's, forever, and I think she was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve it. She played us all, even Harry...and what's happened is awful, but I don't think any of us can take it on ourselves. Not even you, with that over-developed sense of responsibility of yours…" he nudges me in the side to show that he's joking, and in spite of everything, I give him a tiny half-smile in reply. He grins back, and claps me on the shoulder once more. "That's more like it. I know you and Fiona had struck up a bit of a friendship, and I'm truly sorry that she's gone… I'm gutted for Adam, and Wes – he's going to grow up without his mum, and no kid should have to go through that." Colin always knows exactly what to say to make me refocus, and with his last words I begin to think, out beyond my own emotions. "Where is everyone?" I want to know, and replacing his glasses, Colin tells me.
Harry has gone to meet Adam at the hospital, taking Ruth (of course, he needs someone to handle the unpleasantly emotional side of things) with him; Zaf is already there, and Jo has left for the day, saying that she needs to see her mother, who has been unwell lately. "So if you'd like to come back, it'll just be the two of us, mopping up. C'mon, Malcolm, it's what we do – we're the back room whiz-kids, the unsung heroes who arrive on the scene after the shooting stops, and make sense of all the pieces... Besides, technically we're AWOL at the moment, and you're already in Harry's bad books…" I groan as the reality of my own situation sinks in: Harry would be well within his rights to take disciplinary action, seeing as I've flouted the regulations in about six different ways, with tragic results. "Don't remind me. Maybe I should just clear out my desk now…" Colin stares at me in disbelief. "Are you serious?" Unutterably miserable, I nod, gazing fixedly at my feet. "Mate, haven't you heard a word I've said? It's not your fault. Harry might be pissed off at you now, but he'll come round when he's had a chance to think it through. Fiona did this herself. She should have told us that Farook was alive, but she didn't. She could have kept well out of this operation, but no, she went to Harry and asked for it. She had Ruth checking on Syrian arrivals, but if she had told her why, perhaps Ruth would have cast a wider net; and she deliberately kept Adam in the dark…essentially, she went rogue, even if she was still on the side of the angels." I desperately want to believe him, but I am finding it difficult to reconcile his solid common sense with the guilt that has been gnawing at me since Fiona walked out of the tech storage cage with two weapons and one tracker, none of which were authorised…but then, there was Fiona's uncharacteristic, last-minute display of affection. She had bloody well known, I realise, discomfited at the thought, that she might not come back…and that knowledge had been there in her eyes, darkening them even as she had bid me farewell. I sit up hurriedly, and Colin looks round at the sudden movement. "Something important?" he enquires, recognising the signs, and I quickly tell him what passed between Fiona and I; he looks intrigued, at first, and then solemn. "See, I told you she knew what she was doing, and it sounds like she didn't want to leave any loose ends, in case…" his voice trails off, as his mobile phone rings, and he hunts through his pockets in search of it, before flipping it open and answering abruptly, "Harry."
Colin makes a few noises of assent, then says, "Of course. Right, I'll get onto it now." I look enquiringly at him as he stands up. "Harry says, if you want to begin making amends, to get back to the Grid post-haste and start going through Fiona's hard drive…he wants to know every file she's pulled from Registry in the last six weeks, every phone call she's made from work, each email she's logged. And I'm to help you, as he wants it all ASAP. In Harry's words, we're about to be busier than St Peter on Judgement Day, so c'mon, let's go." Ah yes, Harry in cover-his-bum mode, I think cynically, even though I know this is standard operating procedure, in the circumstances. Colin offers me a hand up, clearly eager to get going, and for once I take it, grateful for small kindnesses.
My spine protests as I climb to my feet; I have been out in the cold, sitting still, for too long, and forty-eight certainly doesn't feel like twenty-eight… "Right, so it seems I still have a job, then…" I say tentatively, pulling on my overcoat, and Colin cracks one of his slightly manic grins. "Looks like I'll just have to wait a bit longer for that promotion…oh, speaking of waiting, here. I've been meaning to give you this for the last few days," as he hands me a small, blue, Tardis-shaped USB device. "Happy birthday, Malcolm. It was quite the little job to wangle this, so I hope you'll enjoy it…it's the first six episodes of the new series, fresh from the edit suite…" I tuck the USB carefully into the breast pocket of my coat, and thank him, moved by his thoughtfulness. Colin waves my gratitude away, saying, "Well, I do have an ulterior motive: I haven't seen any of them, myself, so how about we do a Who marathon one day soon."
Chuckling, I agree, and slowly, the weight of the world begins to lift from my shoulders, as it usually does when I spend time with Colin. All week, he has assiduously refrained from mentioning Ruth in a personal context, even though I know he is aware that things between us are strained. That's Colin, though, he's never been one to gossip or pry. I am feeling the need to talk, though, and as we walk along the Embankment in the watery January sunlight, I recall that Ruth and I have been…unofficially together…or whatever we are, for a year, as of two days ago. Hesitantly, I mention this interesting fact to Colin, and he grunts in surprise. "Has it really been that long? It's amazing that it's lasted as long as it has, all things considered." I blink, hurt by his flippant tone, and he clarifies this remark with, "Oh, I'm not having a go at you, mate. I think you should be canonised, for putting up with all her issues for this long. I mean, she hasn't even told the team about the pair of you…it's a bit rich, isn't it, after a whole year… and that's just the tip of that particular iceberg, if you ask me."
I look at him defensively, and counter, "Actually, Ruth wanted to tell people months ago, but I wasn't ready, and then…and then I suppose we both just got used to it, flying under the radar, I mean. But the other night, something happened, or rather, I wanted it to happen…"I stop, uncertain as to why Colin is staring incredulously at me. "No. No. Oh, no… Malcolm, please tell me you didn't actually propose to her?" He regards me warily over his spectacles as my brain races to come up with a reason to not tell him the truth, and fails. I can feel the heat rising to my face as I mumble, "Erm, um, well, not quite. I was all ready to, but then something came up – no, not that!" – this to the wolfish grin that has appeared on Colin's face – "if you must know, she gave me this, for my birthday, and it threw me to the point that I forgot entirely that her ring was still in my pocket." Undoing my top two shirt-buttons and loosening my tie, I fish out the long leather cord on which I have threaded Ruth's gift to me while I try to come to terms with actually wearing it as intended, and show Colin the shiny silver band with its carefully chosen engraving. He looks at it, astounded, his eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline, and I pre-empt him by saying, "Yes, I know, it's very LOTR. That's where she got the idea from, apparently. The point is, though, that I completely forgot I had her ring in my pocket; and it must have fallen out onto the floor when we were undressing, later that night…anyway, she found it. She doesn't know I saw her trying it on, and then putting it back in the box…but the look on her face told me everything, Colin, and now I don't quite know what to do." I drop the ring back inside my shirt collar, and try to keep my tone light as I tell him a carefully edited version of what was both one of the best, and one of the worst, nights of my life, but my voice falters as I recount the final moments, as I see once more the regretful look on Ruth's face as she had carefully replaced the ring in its blue velvet bed, and hear the lid of the little box as it clicked shut with the sound of finality.
We are crossing the Jubilee footbridge now, and Thames House looms up in front of us like the forbidding sentinel of the nation's security it is meant to be; Colin stops short in the middle of the walkway as I finish speaking, turning to face me as he exclaims, "Hang on, let me get this straight. You wanted to give her a ring, but then she pre-empted you with a ring of her own, and that threw you so much that you forgot about the ring you had for her, which she then found, and now you know that she found it, but she doesn't know that you know…ye gods, set all that to music and it'd be a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan!" Pedestrians stream past us on either side as I solemnly correct his admittedly common, mistake. "Operetta, you mean… G&S wrote operettas, the musicals of their time…" This, it would appear, is quite literally a bridge too far for Colin, and he roars with laughter, staggering to the side railing and clutching it for support as he gasps for air, taking off his spectacles to wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. I watch this display of hilarity with mixed feelings: I know the situation, as stated by Colin, has more than a touch of the ridiculous about it, but still, I have just laid my soul bare to my best friend, and I was hoping for something a bit more…supportive…than this. I wait patiently as he gets his breath back, occasionally muttering, "Opera…operetta…Lord of the Rings…ring cycle!" and other similar witticisms, until he recovers, only the occasional hiccup escaping him as he replaces his spectacles and straightens up.
Seeing my face, he becomes serious once more. "I'm sorry… the stress over the last few days…you know how I get. But really, I don't see what's such a disaster. How do you know she wasn't just disappointed you hadn't asked her?" And oh, how I wish I could seize the lifeline that he is throwing, but the memory of Ruth's face, looking at that ring and then stealthily putting it back, just isn't congruent with this kind suggestion. "No, I don't think that's it. Colin, what should I do? It's been a year, and I still don't know how she truly feels about me." As I speak, I look out over the river, watching a lone dredging barge slowly working its way upstream, laden with the rubbish and refuse that makes its way into the Thames, the original great sewer of London… Sometimes, I feel a bit like that barge…always working against the flow, sorting through the detritus of evil people's lives in order to stop them from perpetrating even greater evil, and every now and then, failing parlously. Danny…and now Fiona. And on top of all that, I've got my own life to sift through…Mother, who has been behaving so uncharacteristically lately that once or twice I've actually picked up the telephone to call her specialists together for a conference, only to quail at the thought of her reaction…and Ruth: my own beautiful riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Oh, my love, what have you been playing at with that blasted Tessina, and why am I so afraid to find out…
"Then you have to ask her, mate. It's the only logical thing to do." Colin's sensible, eminently reasonable voice pulls me back out of my head, and into the sunlit world once more. Disoriented, I turn towards him, leaning on the railing next to me. "I beg your pardon?" "Ask her," he repeats, peering at me with concern, "What's the worst that can happen? She says No, and then at least you know where you stand. Honestly, this has gone on long enough, don't you think? It's time to get things out into the open. Go on, be brave, and pop the question." Feeling panicky at the idea, now that someone else has voiced it, I tell him, "You're right, I know, but it's just that, well, what if she doesn't accept? I love her so much…" Colin looks me in the eye and says, "I know you do, mate. That's why you have to ask. It's time to grasp the nettle, as you might say yourself. And now we'd better get ourselves inside, and wipe the last hour or so of Embankment CCTV footage for a start, if you don't want idle eyes to pry on our little D&M." I sigh, pushing myself up off the railing, and together we walk back into Thames House.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of requests for information from various parts of Five as we try to piece together what Fiona knew before she left the Grid for the last time. Colin offers to go through the Registry paper files, knowing my sensitivities to dust, and I gratefully accept, while I begin what I like to think of as a digital post-mortem on her machine, going through her electronic records bit by byte, and skilfully dissecting her hard drive. We find nothing of any significance, and that in itself is disturbing: how did she find out about Farook, if not through the job? Neither Harry nor Ruth reappears, which just adds to my apprehension. Surely they can't still be at the hospital? Finally, the flow of demands slows, and Colin comes back from the Paper Archive to power down his machine, preparatory to leaving. "Time to call it a night, wouldn't you say?" I look up from my forensic investigation into the inner workings of Fiona's files, and hmmm in vague agreement, gingerly easing the kinks from my spine as I, too, shut down my systems. "Fancy a round at the Cricketers'?" I thank him, but decide to head home; I am too tired, and too much preoccupied with my own thoughts, to do much more than put one foot in front of the other as I cross the Grid towards the pods, and then down into the bowels of the building to retrieve my Rover.
Ruth is waiting for me when I arrive home; I nearly jump out of my skin as I see her illuminated in the headlights, huddled in her long white coat in the portico, and my heart begins to beat faster as I pull into the garage. She's here, she's here, she's not with him after all, is the first thought through my mind, and then, Why is she here, and what does she want? before, Dear God, what if she blames herself for Fiona's death, as she did for Danny's? Oh, give me strength, if that's the case…I do love her, but still. I don't want to go through that again…
The Lord must have His ear turned favourably towards me; as I approach Ruth, waiting impatiently now to get inside and out of the cold, the first thing she says is, "How could she do this, Malcolm? How could she do this to Adam, and Wes, and Harry, and her family, and all of us? What was she thinking?" I open the front door and step back to allow her to enter first, before ducking in behind her just in time to disarm the security system, and turn on the hall light. Once we are both inside, and even before she has taken her coat off, Ruth turns towards me and slides her arms around my middle; I hesitate for just an instant before returning the embrace, holding her tightly as she sobs for a few minutes, the tension of the day finally finding release. "Is he very bad, my darling? Adam, I mean," I ask gently, and the sobbing increases as I wrap my arms even more closely around her, and she leans into me in that childlike way she has. After a few minutes, she looks up; her face is tearstained, but her eyes are limpid and clear, with no trace of the terrifyingly gelid gaze that she had worn following Danny's death. "It was awful. Adam wouldn't let her go – he carried her into the hospital from the ambulance, apparently, shouting for a surgeon and demanding blood transfusions…the doctors had to sedate him before they were able to take Fiona's body from him. Zaf and Harry had to restrain him while they did it...no-one else could get near him… and the noise he made, when they finally wheeled her body away... I'll hear it to my dying day. Like a wounded fox, caught in a trap… poor Adam. He's lost his soulmate, Malcolm, and Wes has lost his mother…and I'm frightened for them both. He looked so lost…Harry's been badly shaken, too. I'm simply exhausted…and all I wanted to do, by the time I left the hospital, was to see you, to be here with you in this sanctuary from the world. Malcolm, may I stay with you tonight?"
Her eyes search mine questioningly; my answer is instinctive, and comes straight from the depths of my heart. "My darling, of course you may; you know you need never ask. My home is your home, whenever you need it." Ruth looks at me oddly, then, and replies, "Or at least when your mother's not around," in a tone of voice that sets me thinking, Oh, Lord, perhaps that's the reason that she feels she can't marry me… "No, I mean whenever. Mother has her own life (about which I know very little, at present) and if…if…we were to take the next step…then she would just have to cope with it, as indeed I would have to learn to adjust if she were to remarry." Ruth moves out of my arms, and turns around so that I can help her out of her coat, before looking at me with curiosity. "Malcolm! Is she? Your mother, that is. Remarrying?" I shrug in response as I take off my own overcoat and hang both garments on their respective pegs, before leading the way into the drawing room. A nice, cosy fire, with a nice, cosy supper, is in order tonight, I decide, as I lay the grate with kindling and apple-wood logs from an old tree that had blown over last winter, and which I had cut up into firewood, and stacked into the shed to season. Ruth trots after me, eyes filled with questions she is obviously dying to ask.
"I don't know, is the short answer, but she has certainly been behaving very oddly, lately. She seems to have some sort of liaison in Brighton, but I don't know any more than that. I don't think that I care to, for that matter…my mother's private affairs are, after all, her own business. I would have to insist on details if things became serious, for security reasons, but until then, I'd really rather just draw a veil over that aspect of my mother's life." I hunt along the mantelpiece for matches, and then crouch back down to light the fire. "But, sweetheart, what if things already are serious?" Ruth asks, and I start up at this thought, nearly hitting my head on the mantelpiece in my hurry. "Look at us, for example. We've been together for a year, and hardly anyone knows about us." I stare at her, thoroughly disconcerted by this idea, and she smiles, eyes gleaming with reflected firelight.
"See, I've got you thinking now. When I met your mother in Brighton, she said something that I didn't understand at the time, but given what you've just said, it makes sense. It was when you were in the kitchen, helping your aunt with the washing-up. Your mother looked me right in the eye, and said, 'I'm so glad to have met you, Rachel. A mother can't always be there, can they?' I thought she meant that she was pleased to have finally met your partner from work, but now I'm wondering if she meant it quite differently. From what you'd told me about your mother, I thought that she would have gone off her rocker if I'd been introduced as anything else, but Malcolm, what if she's met someone of her own, and has been worried about what would happen to you if she went off with him?" I open and shut my mouth a couple of times, but no words come, so completely flummoxed am I at this unexpected revelation. Is she suggesting that Mother knows about us? No, surely she can't…my mother could never keep quiet about something like that. But I can't believe that Ruth might have suspected that Mother has been involved with someone for months, and never said a word…then again, she's not one for gossip or idle speculation, so perhaps it never occurred to her to tell me…
Ruth regards me with solicitude as I sink onto the arm of the nearest Chesterfield, and after a few more moments of stunned silence on my part, she says, "Wine, I think, is called for," and heads purposefully towards the kitchen while I watch the fire, now beginning to catch at the logs and release the sweet scent of apple wood, and wonder if anything at all in my life is really as it seems. Ruth returns, carrying the unopened champagne from the other night, and two glasses, in one hand, and the tin of Beluga caviar in the other. "I found these in the fridge…I hope this is OK? And I've put a couple of jacket potatoes into the Aga, I really fancied one. There's some bacon left over from the other morning, with a bit of cheese…how does that sound?" As she has been speaking, Ruth has been bustling about, arranging things. She has set the caviar, with two tiny mother of pearl spoons, onto the long, low mahogany table between the two sofas, found coasters for the wine and glasses, and is now handing me the bottle to open. "Malcolm?" she prompts, and I start peeling the foil from the bottle, my hands remarkably steady, considering the shock I have just had. "Did Mother, erm, mention anyone to you? And yes, of course this is all OK, if you want it – I bought the champagne and caviar for the other night, but we never quite got to it…" Ruth gives me a long glance from beneath her lashes, and in spite of everything, my pulse begins to quicken; I know that look so well. "No, she didn't. The only name she said was some woman's, from the bridge club, I think. Gillian or Georgina, something like that." She turns away, losing interest about what my mother may or may not have said, and not for the first time, I envy her ability to compartmentalise: she's so much better at it than I.
I watch as her small, square hands open the tin of caviar, before dipping a spoon in eagerly. I pass her a glass of champagne; I have eased the cork out carefully, so it doesn't fly about the room, but it still makes an audible Pop! which Ruth starts at slightly. "Sorry, I'm just a bit on edge, tonight, after everything that's happened…mmm. This is delicious!" she adds, proffering me the little tin of salty black pearls, with the second spoon. I wave it away: caviar is not one of my favourite foods at the best of times; the thought of eating hundreds of tiny fish eggs from a critically endangered species makes me feel quite queasy, to tell the truth. I sit down on the sofa, at the end furthest from the fire, which is now generating a decent amount of heat, and take a long sip of my champagne – crisp, cool, slightly spicy, and very, very good – while Ruth kicks off her shoes and stretches out with her head in my lap, sighing contentedly as she wiggles her toes blissfully towards the blaze. I am amazed at her demeanour; apart from the comment about being on edge, Ruth is behaving as if nothing untoward has happened today at all. I can't quite understand it; I thought she had liked Fiona, but her apparent nonchalance over her colleague's death is puzzling, to say the least. Eventually, I enquire cautiously, as I smooth her hair back from her forehead, "Darling, are you all right? It's just that you were so upset when Danny died."
Ruth is silent, considering her answer, and then she replies, sadness evident in her tone, "No, I'm not, not really. How could I be, after everything that's happened today? But I'm angry with her too…she deliberately went into this without telling any of us what was going on…how could she have just thrown her life away like that, and only a few months after Danny died to save her?" Ruth's eyes look straight up into mine, and I see that she is telling the truth; sorrow, pain and anger are mingled in those blue-green depths, but not the dreadful, all-consuming guilt that had filled them after Danny's death. Yes, I muse, I can understand where she's coming from, when she puts it like that. Danny would have wanted Fiona to live for him, as well as for herself; but who's to say that's not exactly what she has done, in choosing to give her life to save Adam's? "I don't know, my love. I wish I had all the answers for you, but I just don't know why she did that, other than that it must have been so important for her to get to Farook, that she was willing to die for it. Did you know that he nearly killed Adam once, in Damascus? A man like that would never have stopped trying to destroy her, and her family…and Fiona was like a lioness, where her family was concerned. Nothing was more important to her than Adam, and Wes…nothing." Ruth nods up at me, the movement causing me to shift slightly beneath her head, to move her away from mission control, so to speak. "Yes, but now they're going to have to live for the rest of their lives without her, when it wasn't necessary for her to die…if she'd only spoken to Harry, I'm sure he would have initiated a kill order on Farook and SO19 could have taken care of it without Fiona getting involved…or Zaf would have done it…anyone could have taken him out. It just seems such a waste, that's all."
I stroke her hair for a while longer, before saying pensively, "Perhaps it's something that Fiona simply felt she had to do…and Farook would have been a far more wily fox to catch without Fiona's presence to drive and cloud his judgement. But we'll never truly know. All we can do now is remember her, and be there for Adam. He's going to need us, Ruth. This is where people like you and I come in…" and then I say no more, for Ruth's arms are encircling my neck and drawing my head towards hers for a long kiss; this is not an incendiary kiss, but a slow and tender one, in which our very souls seem to touch. When we finally break apart, I am shaking at the intensity of the emotion we have just shared; Ruth's eyes shine as she reaches up to caress my cheek. "And that's what I love most about you," she says, slightly out of breath, but before I can muster my senses enough to ask her to marry me, she sits up and says, "The spuds!" I blink at what seems to be a total non sequitur, and she enlarges on this with, "Our supper – I need to go and check on it," before she pads through to the kitchen in her stocking feet. I sit, gazing at the fire without really seeing it, before inspiration strikes, and I go upstairs to make preparations…hope, it seems, really does spring eternal in the human breast…either that, or else we're all fools when it comes to love.
Preparations complete, I have a fast shower and change into pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers, before coming back downstairs. The tantalising smell of frying bacon wafts out of the kitchen, and Ruth is sliding two overstuffed potatoes, wrapped in shiny silver overcoats, back into the Aga to finish cooking as I appear. "Oh, that looks comfy," she tells me, smiling. "I think I might nip up and get changed, myself. Would you keep an eye on the potatoes? They need another ten minutes or so." She hands me the oven mitt, and heads upstairs.
Ruth has been busy in my absence: the strawberries I bought for the other night have been washed, and she has even found the chocolate and chopped it up, placing it in a Pyrex bowl atop a small saucepan of water, having learnt on a previous, disastrous occasion, that chocolate doesn't like being melted directly over the furnace-like heat of the Aga. We had thrown the scorched, stinking mess out, and repaired immediately to the Internet to find out what had gone wrong in what had appeared to have been the simplest of scientific equations. I have to admit, while the proliferation of so-called 'celebrity chefs' on every television channel is positively alarming, they do have their uses; we had found the answer on the site of the rather unhygienically named Naked Chef. "A bain-marie, it appears, is called for," I had observed, and Ruth had said, "Or how about a bain pour deux…" and then things had gotten very interesting indeed… Remembering this happy moment, I briefly contemplate joining Ruth in the shower, which I can faintly hear running, before recalling that I have been placed in charge of the potatoes, and that in fact, I am very hungry…and for food, as well.
By the time Ruth reappears, swathed in my spare dressing gown and wearing a pair of my warmest wool socks, I have laid our simple supper in the drawing room; the jacket potatoes, bubbling and smelling delectable, laden with bacon, cheese and a dollop of crème fraiche, the bowl of strawberries, and the melted chocolate, which I set on the edge of the hearth to keep warm until we want it. I have also placed a pile of pillows and quilts on the other Chesterfield, should we decide to sleep here in front of the fire…or do whatever else might take our fancy. "Well, this does look cosy," she says with an arch look at the heap of bedding opposite, before taking a couple of pillows and plumping them behind her back as she sits down and swings her feet across my lap. Receiving a foot rub is one of her favourite forms of foreplay, so this bodes well for the evening ahead. We eat in companionable silence, and as the fire crackles, and the champagne flows, and the winter evening draws in around us, everything is exactly as I have always imagined it would be for Ruth and I. This peace at the end of the day is what I want to share with her every night; it's all I have ever wanted.
"What is it about jacket potatoes, I wonder, that makes them so comforting?" Ruth sets her empty plate down, and flops back on her pillows with a sigh of contentment. I finish eating too, and reach forward over her feet to put my plate on the table too. "Perhaps because they're such a nursery sort of supper?" I suggest, tugging at the toes of her too-long socks, freeing her feet and sliding a cushion between them and my lap. She smiles at me from the other end of the sofa. "Exactly…followed by something even stodgier and more stultifying, like bread and butter custard…" I smile back as I take one of her feet in my hands, and run my knuckles firmly along the instep. "Or rice pudding… remember Mary Jane?" Ruth shakes her head, wincing slightly as I apply more pressure to a tight spot around her Achilles tendon. "Too much?" I ask anxiously. "No, just about right. So, who's this Mary Jane?" she prompts; flushed from the wine and the heat, amongst other things, I recite, "What is the matter with Mary Jane?/ She's crying with all her might and main,/ And she won't eat her dinner – rice pudding again – /What is the matter with Mary Jane?...there's a bit more, in the same vein, if you want me to go on." Ruth wriggles her toes at me appreciatively, so I finish the poem, and one foot, before beginning on the other. "I don't know that one," she says, and I look at her in mock horror. "AA Milne wasn't part of your childhood, then? Well, that explains an awful lot…ow!"- this as she sits up to punch me lightly on the shoulder. "Of course he was, I had all the Winnie the Pooh stories, Dad used to read them to me." She falls back onto the sofa, and I turn my attention to her foot in good earnest. Ruth's eyes are almost closed, and I think she must be drifting off, when she says in a voice loose with good champagne and contentment, "Malcolm?"
Concentrating on my work, I reply with a soft "Hmmm?" as her foot flexes beneath my fingers. "You can talk to me, if you want, about your mother, if she does…if she is…I know what it's like, is what I'm trying to say; my Mum got married again when I was at university. Believe me, it's a very strange thing to go through." Touched at her concern, I lean over to drop a kiss on her forehead, and she seizes me by the lapels of my dressing gown, eyes wide open now and starting to smoulder, as she runs her hands underneath my pyjama jacket; my breathing hitches in response to the sensation of her warm hands caressing my skin, and that look of hers... it would be so easy to just let things take their course now, and end up tangled with her in a nest of quilts, or on the rug in front of the fire…oh, the fire! I get up hastily, and bound towards the hearth, where the saucepan of melted chocolate is simmering, but has not yet started to burn: I grab a napkin, and carefully move it away from the heat. "Just in time," I tell her, as she sits up in confusion. "Would you like a strawberry?" I ask, offering her the bowl, and Ruth blinks, nonplussed, before smiling invitingly as she slowly unties the sash of her dressing gown. "I'd love one…but I'd love something else even more. Come here, and I'll show you…" And I want to, desperately, but the conversation I had with Colin this afternoon comes back into mind just at that moment, most inconveniently, too, I might add… Ask her, mate, it's the only logical thing to do…be brave, and pop the question…it's time to grasp the nettle…
Setting the bowl of long-stemmed berries down with hands that have begun to shake, I take a very deep breath.
"Ruth, my love…"
A/N: Malcolm is referencing Alexander Pope's 'An Essay on Man' with his quote about 'hope springs eternal in the human breast', and Churchill, when he describes Ruth as being like a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma – Churchill made this observation in relation to what the Russians might do, just after the outbreak of WWII. And of course, Mary Jane and Winnie the Pooh are the creations of AA Milne, just as the Lord of the Rings (aka LOTR) belongs to JRR Tolkien.