The title of this story bears only a vague connection (at this early stage anyhow) to the story which is emerging, but I love the title, and decided to use it anyway. My thanks to Shane MacGowan, the song's composer. TBH, the title is the best thing about the song. Perhaps the story will become like the title – who knows? I certainly don't.

o0o

Ruth Evershed glanced nervously behind her before opening the front door to her house and disappearing behind it, the door clicking shut with a finality which reassured her each time she heard it. She was alone at last.

Alone meant she had the freedom to think:

* about something other than work,

* about anything other than the deaths which haunted her waking hours, and despite her continued exhaustion, crept into her dreaming life,

* about Ros Myers, who'd been buried only that day,

* about Harry Pearce, and what he really meant to her,

* about the proposal he'd sprung on her that day.

"Marry me, Ruth," was what he'd said, so quietly, and so close to her right ear that she'd almost not heard it.

She'd been so aware of his closeness, and the arm he'd slipped around her waist, that she'd almost missed the words he spoke – breathed into her ear. His proximity almost always left her flummoxed, so that when she spoke words tumbled out of her, despite her planning to be prudent around him, and she found herself speaking to him in ways she would not choose to had she not been able to feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

His timing, of course, had been atrocious. When hadn't it been?

Her response to his question (Demand? Suggestion? Work Order?) had been equally as inept.

R: "What did you say?"

H: "You heard me, Ruth."

R: "Was that a serious question?"

H "You know it was."

R: "It's a very serious question, Harry."

H: "I'm well aware of that, Ruth."

R: "Do you mean it, or are you simply playing with me?"

H: "At a funeral? It's hardly the place to be playing with you."

R: "It's hardly the place to be proposing marriage."

H: "You have a point there, Ruth."

R: "And?"

H: "We so seldom have time alone away from work. I was taking advantage of the moment."

R: "And of my vulnerability?"

H: "If you say so."

R: "Your timing is terrible."

H: "It almost always is where you're concerned."

R: "Do you expect me to be flattered?"

H: "Only if you want to be. What I want is for you to be honest with me."

R: "Honestly?"

H: "Yes. Honestly."

R: "I'll have to give it some thought. That's my honest answer."

H: "I was hoping for something a little more...enthusiastic from you."

R: "Enthusiasm at a funeral?"

H: "The funeral is over."

R: "Are you asking me now because of Ros's death?"

H: "In a way, yes."

R: "How so?"

H: "Her funeral was such a lonely affair. I don't want that for myself, and I definitely don't want that for you."

R: "How will our getting married change our funerals?"

H: "Whichever one of us goes first will have the other at their funeral."

R: "I suppose I should be looking at that in a positive light, then."

H: "Put like that, it doesn't sound so good, does it?"

R: "Harry – why didn't you ask me this question years ago?"

H: "I was sure you'd say no."

R: "But I haven't said yes yet."

H: "I know. But you haven't said no either. That's progress. And you said you'd think about it."

R: "I will think about it Harry."

They had been dancing around one another for forever, neither knowing the tune, the metre, the key or the rhyme. It was as though they had both stepped on a carousel some time 5 years earlier, and had still to find the horse they were meant to be riding together. Ruth was beginning to suspect that their particular horse had either died from boredom or old age, been sent off to the knackery, or else left the carousel altogether to search for riders who at least had the capacity to communicate with one another in clear English.

When she was alone in her house in the evenings, she knew that she loved him. When she was with him, as she had been today at the funeral, she felt a frustration towards him that he was not prepared to take emotional risks where she was concerned. His marriage proposal was an emotional risk, so why hadn't she accepted him on the spot?

Why indeed?