This time I chose the venue and, I supposed, this time I actually chose to meet. So, rather than a flash restaurant in Islington, this time Ruth and I would be chatting in a decaying dive of a boozer in darkest Leytonstone. Which suited me, partly because I liked the beer they brewed, partly because I was secretly hoping that the woman wouldn't be able to find the place. That, or take one look at the furnishings – let alone the alleged carpet – and bugger off back whence she came, designer couture unsullied. I had even contemplated bringing Tim along – just to reinforce the sense of decay and dissolution – but Maggie had rather firmly objected to that idea. And, I mused, finding myself a corner to lurk in which was even gloomier than the rest of the bar, it wouldn't have been in accordance with what I supposed I'd have to describe as my 'agreement' with Ruth.
And so I waited, nursing a pint of a rather splendid chilli beer, and wondered what on earth I was letting myself in for. I mean, I'd had a virtual come-on from Ruth before and turned it down as politely as I could, but here I was again. Apparently, I had to show sufficient 'interest' in her to.... To what? Justify her doing the dirty on the beloved parent? What the hell could she want from me that would cause her to do that? I mean, I'd made it pretty clear that I wasn't interested in a relationship – with or without the capital 'R' – and ... casual sex? I smiled into my beer at the thought. I was hardly much of a catch at the best of times and a woman with her looks – and her father's money – could have her pick, so .... I was still smiling at the idea when my reverie was abruptly interrupted.
"Well, you look amused," said Ruth, unceremoniously appearing at my side. "Care to share the joke? No? Well, how about you recommend a beer? There seems to be quite a range...."
Which, of course, was true – microbreweries can err on the side of the experimental, at times – but it was also, in retrospect, just about the best thing she could have said to put me at my ease. Or, at least, back into some sort of comfort zone. I admit it, y'r honour, I'm a beer bore. Well, not a bore, exactly, but something of an expert, if I say so myself. By the time I'd run through the options – luckily, there were only eight beers on tap, at the time – and she'd gone off to the bar to order, I was feeling almost myself.
And relaxed enough to realise, belatedly, how Ruth just sort of fitted. I mean, she was dressed for the occasion, no doubt about it – faded jeans and a sweatshirt, hair loosely tied back and minimal, if any, make-up – but it was more than that. She just seemed at home – neatly sidestepping the drooling regulars hunched around the bar, even getting a smile from Paddy the landlord – and, yes, now I came to look more closely, those clothes seemed natural, too. Which is to say, the jeans appeared to have faded through wear, not at the behest of some arsehole designer, while the sweatshirt was actually fraying in places, that sort of thing. So maybe she'd bought the things second hand – I could imagine there being terribly chi-chi boutiques that catered for that sort of thing – but I had to admit that she looked good in the result. Or maybe the Family Research had been so extensive that it had uncovered my long-standing aversion to cosmetics and such like artifice. But, no ... along that line of thought only madness lay ...
I politely kicked a chair away from the table, allowing her to place the pints she'd brought on its slightly wobbly surface and sit down simultaneously – its more difficult to do that you'd think – and then she turned that 24-carat smile on me again.
"Well," she said, "now that you've got me here, what are you going to do with me?"
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I think its some time since I spent a Friday evening in a pub and left quite so sober. Not even the impact of the unseasonably chilly air as we left challenged my untoward togetherness. And, yes, we left together, given that we both needed to get the same tube home – somehow it didn't seem appropriate to ask whether the chauffeur would be appearing – and, well, that was that. A North Londoner, I got off first, of course – and got a brief touch on the hand as I did so – and then I was out on the street on my own and reeling. Not from the alcohol, but from events.
Whatever I'd expected of the evening, I thought, it surely hadn't been that. Which meant that, as I let myself into my flat, made some coffee and vaguely headed in the general direction of bed, I knew that I had even more to think about....
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Next morning, I felt odd. It being Saturday, I had nothing much to do beyond shoving some clothes into the washing machine but, still, I moped. I sat for a while over breakfast – coffee and toast, this time – and more or less failed to eat. I put some music on, picked up a book I'd been meaning to read, but I didn't hear any of it and my eyes kept skittering off the page.
Eventually, I had admit to myself that I was distracted and, it being far too early to go to the pub – even I have my limits and, anyway, there are licensing hours – I ended up going into the office. Where I sat, awhile, tinkering with the conference 'plan' that Maggie and I had come up with the previous afternoon and remained ... distracted.
It was only when I noticed an e-mail from Maggie to me, personally – all my work e-mail was copied to home, so the reverse also replied – that I'd been sufficiently distracted to have left my phone at home. And, simultaneously, realised that the main cause of the distraction was that I'd been waiting to see whether Ruth would call.
Shaking my head at the absurdity of it all – and wondering whether it might not be a good idea to book some time with some sort of therapist – I did give Maggie's message a degree of attention but it wasn't helpful, really. In fact, it was mainly heavy handed innuendo – or so it seemed to me – about how my failing to take calls suggested that I was having a good time. You could almost hear the snigger, even though I knew it was meant well ... and that she and Tim would require a post mortem of some sort sometime in the future.
And even if I knew it was well intentioned, I have to say that at the time I just felt that it was bloody annoying. The liberal use of the word 'we' – referring to Maggie and Tim, of course – rankled a bit, but it was the intrusion that primarily bothered me, by which I mean, obviously, the intrusion into my personal life.
Except that that was ridiculous. Given that I had been meeting with a woman whose father was trying to ruin the lot of us, it was hardly unreasonable for my colleagues to take a fair degree of interest. My problem was that I didn't have a clue how to explain what had happened, nor what the likely consequences might be ....
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Come Monday morning, I wasn't much clearer. Nonetheless, there I was, cluttering up the office when Tim and Maggie arrived, all agog and in need of information. Well, they could wait for that, I thought, going all Glorious Leader on them and assigning tasks like I'd been born to the role. Hell, at one point I had Tim doing calls to our suppliers, for gods sake – and almost unsupervised – while Mag and I hit the phones, again, talking to our competitors, colleagues or co-conspirators, whatever they now were, getting a feel for baselines, the likely terms of the discussion and, as far as possible, the potential pitfalls and sticking points.
And thus, by 13:45, Monday, we had a working plan for out conference, a venue and a needs list for realising any and all of it. We did pause for a coffee at that point, but given that we were doing this in a hell of a hurry – people were due in town that evening and expecting us to have everything ready for the them the next morning – even while we were 'paused' the conversation revolved around what we still needed, what we'd forgotten. 
And then we simply went back to work – Tim demolishing our stock of PC bits and pieces to build a brand new, portable network server, Mag and I back on the phones to remind our guests yet again that they needed to bring along a bunch of ethernet cables as well as their various laptops. Of bloody course it would have been simpler to go wireless, but neither Tim nor I completely trusted the technology – a sign of age, undoubtedly – and we didn't have the parts. 
And, given that we were dealing with Simon, I for one wasn't going to trust any pre-existing hotel/conference centre set up.
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So we got through the day, and finished up with a run over to the venue with the stuff we could leave there overnight, packing and crating everything else fairly neatly for collection first thing in the morning, and congratulated ourselves on many jobs well done. And, anticipating a hard day to come, all headed home without further ado. Or at least, I assume they did. I'd just got to the far edge of the car park which occupied rather more of our 'industrial estate' than the industry did, when my phone rang. And I answered, assuming that it would be Steve, whose FlexnBalls operation were going to be major participants in our big event ... and who had actually promised to call me with some presentation details I'd asked for. Only it wasn't Steve. It was Ruth.
And a peculiarly well informed Ruth, at that.