Dangerous Encounters

Chapter 9 The course of true love - through a minefield

On Friday and with a light heart, I packed my case, joined the jostle of rush hour traffic to Harrogate, and turned, an hour and three quarters later into the lay by. 

Ruth was alone, and our greeting was warm and intense. 

"I've missed you," I said, "so much. Let me look at you." 

I held her face between my hands, and gazed into her golden eyes, "Sometimes when I think of you at work I wonder if you really exist at all, or if you're a figment of my imagination conjured up by my need. Having a photograph of you on my desk and another in my hotel doesn't seem to help." 

"I'm real, and I'm yours, and I missed you in so many ways. I was packed two hours ago, and just frittered my time away waiting for this moment to come. I feel like a skittish mare kept in a stable all week, now released to run free because our weekend has come." 

We had an idyllic time together alone in the keeper's cottage. Spring was scattering the deciduous trees and hedgerows with pinpoints of green, the daffodils were at their showy best. Birds called everywhere, and flickered in their best plumage in and out of the trees. We wandered the woodland glades hand in hand or arm in arm, and listened to the frogs in their frenzy of reproduction in the ponds. We had a frenzy or two of our own. We talked a great deal. Much of it was about our past lives, and I 

managed to tell her about Claire without disturbing myself or the tranquillity we felt together. 

Sunday afternoon became dark and wet, so we stayed in front of the fire. We had played a game of whist on the floor, and then just sat, warm and content. I talked about some of my foreign travels, but Ruth became less and less responsive and more and more preoccupied. I finally ran down in the emptiness of her withdrawal. 

I picked up the pack of cards and threw them up in the air in a spray that fell over us like big noisy snow flakes. One flashed green coloured flame in the fire. 

"What the hell, it's only paper," I said, "Ruth, what's the matter?" 

"Come here, give me a cuddle," she whispered. 

"Oh, you're trembling," I said. 

"I'm afraid. So afraid." 

"What of? We can face it together can't we?" 

"I hope so." 

"Ruth, you're winding me up. Give." 

"Sorry - so sorry," then she gave me a kiss into which she put so much emotional energy that it spilled out of her mind and washed over mine in a hot suffusion of love. I started to respond physically. 

Gently she released me, facing me, her face full of love and misery, "No, sweetheart, listen to me first, I must tell you now. 

"We cannot go to Dovedale." 

"Oh, that's alright. I'll cancel it and we can go somewhere else." 

Her response stunned me. She screamed "You're not understanding me."  

Then she took my hands and kissed them several times and put her head down and shed tears onto our hands intermingled with her hair. She sobbed and whispered, "Sorry, sorry, sorry." 

She straightened and looked at me with ten years more life etched in her dear face, gulped her crying back, and managed to get out, "This isn't working. First and last I love you. I want to be with you. Jesus, after these sweet week ends together I need you like crazy all the time. You've turned on so many facets of my being that were shut down for seven years, and you're so much the better man. But it's stopping my life. I seemed to spend all of last week preparing for this weekend, and when I wasn't doing that I felt anything else I did was an utter waste of time.