and get him. And if Tessie resented that, then let her do so. She would not be bullied by a girl like that, with her split ends and her broken nose. For all she knew, Tessie, who was definitely empowered, had herself taken Wolf from another girl.
Well, whether or not that had happened, now she would find out what it was to come up against a newly- empowered woman.
Of course, there would have to be some reparative work. She had told Wolf in the lecture that she was not interested, and then, when he followed her to the Elephant House, she had thrown him to the mercy of her new friend, Sister Connie. It had been an eye-opener to see how the otherwise gentle nun had succeeded in dealing with Wolf. She had stridden across to his table, sat down opposite him, and spoken to him in an urgent and confidential way. Pat had noticed Wolf’s reaction to this. He had listened intently and then, visibly backing off, he had risen to his feet and left the coffee house, barely looking back as he did so.
She had not managed to find out from Sister Connie what she had said to him. When the nun had returned to the table she had asked, but Sister Connie had merely smiled and raised a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence.
“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I warned him off. He won’t be troubling you again.”
She had not thought much more about it, but now that she might see Wolf again, she might have to undo Sister Connie’s work, whatever that had been. She took out the small red diary that she always carried with her. Wolf had given her his mobile phone number, and she had written it down in the notebook.
She found the number and picked up the telephone.
Wolf answered almost immediately, with the lupine howl that he gave to identify himself. It was very witty, very clever.
“It’s Pat,” she said.
There was complete silence at the other end of the line, or 134
almost complete, for Pat thought that she heard an intake of breath – not quite a gasp, but certainly an intake of breath.
Then Wolf spoke. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t talk now.
Goodbye.”
“But Wolf . . .”
“I said that I can’t talk.”
There was a crackling sound, and Pat realised that somebody else had seized the phone.
“Is that you?” came Tessie’s unmistakable voice. “Is that you?
You listen to me. I warned you. I warned you. You leave my Wolfie alone. Understand?”
Pat was still upset when Matthew returned from Big Lou’s. He noticed it immediately, and sat down beside her.
“There’s something wrong,” he said.
Pat shook her head; she could see that he was concerned, but she was not going to tell him.
“Yes, there is. There obviously is.” He reached out and took her hand. “Come on. You’re not very good at hiding things, you know. You’re upset.”
Pat felt the pressure of his hand upon hers. She had never had that degree of physical contact with Matthew, and it seemed strange to her. His hand felt warm and dry.
Matthew smiled. “That’s better. Come on. What is it?” He paused, fixing her with a searching look. She noticed the grey flecks in his eyes, which she had often thought about before –
they were so unusual, so unlikely; she noticed the slight stain on the front of his sweater. He was not wearing his new distressed-oatmeal cashmere today, but had on the sweater that she had seen him wear at weekends, an old, navy-blue garment that had lost its shape.
“I suppose I’ve just had a bit of a shock,” she said. “I’ll get over it.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “It’s that boy, isn’t it?” he said gently.
“That boy – the one with the name. Wolf. It’s him, isn’t it?”
Pat nodded miserably. “It’s about him, I suppose. Although actually it’s about his girlfriend.”
If Matthew felt relief, he did not show it. “So he’s let you down,” he said evenly. This was very good news. Wolf was a two-timer; of course he was! “You know, I was worried that something like this would happen. I never liked him.”
Pat looked up sharply. “You never met him,” she pointed out.
He waved a hand in the air. “You know what I mean. You can dislike people you’ve never met. I sensed that he wasn’t right for you. I sensed it.”
Pat felt herself becoming irritated. She still felt defensive of Wolf, who had done nothing wrong as far as she was concerned
– other than wanting to have two girlfriends at the same time.
What worried her was Tessie, and the difficulty she would now face on going back to the flat. The animus in Tessie’s voice, the sheer vitriol, was such that she simply could not see herself going back to Spottiswoode Street. She could not imagine how she could possibly face that unpleasant girl, and she could hardly live under the same
