Who's Afraid of MR Wolfe?

by Hazel Osmond

  Because you’re bloody well imagining it, Ellie. It’s all in your head, not in Jack’s. Get. A. Grip.

  Ellie concentrated on Dave’s mouth in an effort to make out what he was saying and she saw him smile and lean in to her.

  ‘I feel the same, Ellie. Do you want to get out of here?’

  His eyes were shining expectantly and she realised what he meant. It was decision time. She could go with him and see where it led, or stay here, her stomach tilting and pitching, being tortured by a stupid crush.

  ‘OK,’ she said, and put her glass down on the nearest table. ‘I need to go and say goodbye to Lesley and Megan.’ She didn’t – she could have left and Lesley would have understood – but she desperately wanted Jack to see her leave.

  Lesley told her how very much she loved her and how much she loved Dave and of course Megan too and that Ellie was her best, best friend ever. Then she fell sideways off her seat.

  Ellie kept her head down as Dave led the way to the door. She was positively not going to look at Jack. She would have managed it too if Lesley’s voice had not boomed out across the pub, ‘Let yourself go, Ellie. Lie back and have a good time.’ Amid the laughter Ellie’s head whipped round to look at Lesley, but she got Jack instead. It sent her stumbling out of the door.

  As soon as she was out in the fresh air, she began to feel better. Then as Dave launched himself at her, she felt rapidly worse again. She tried to relax into his arms. She could do this. It was time. He kissed her enthusiastically and she responded, trying to concentrate on the feelings he was stirring up in her.

  Except he wasn’t stirring up anything. She felt his tongue poke at her lips and she opened her mouth. Still nothing. He might as well have been checking her teeth. After a while she broke away, expecting him to ask her what was wrong.

  ‘Wow, Ellie, I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,’ he said, his eyes bright, and before she could object, he had clamped himself back on to her mouth.

  After what seemed like hours, he removed his mouth from hers. He had a glazed expression that made her feel intensely guilty that she wasn’t able to summon up any matching emotion.

  ‘I know you’re going to think I’m pushing you a bit fast,’ he said, sounding short of breath, ‘but I fancy you like mad, Ellie. You want to go somewhere more private?’

  What she wanted to do was go home to curl up on her bed and try to make sense of what was happening to her. But that would lead her straight back to thinking about Jack.

  ‘Why not?’ she said, and then thought of Edith at home. ‘But it will have to be your place.’

  ‘No problem. It’s a bit of a walk to my bus stop, I’m afraid, and a bit of a walk the other end, but there’s a bus soon.’

  ‘Couldn’t we get a taxi?’

  ‘No. Waste of money,’ he said, and started to walk.

  Every now and again he would stop to kiss her and she would do her best to be interested. When he wasn’t kissing her, he was telling her more about his music and how he knew he was on the brink of some kind of breakthrough. Ellie let him talk, glad for an excuse to stay quiet. She didn’t have the right shoes on for a long walk and his comment about taxis being a waste of money was niggling away in her brain. People who were tight with their money were way up there on her personal hate list. She knew she ought to cut him some slack; he was a struggling musician after all. But then there was all this stuff about him, him, him. Not once had he asked her anything about her work.

  Did all that matter? Shouldn’t she be like Rachel and switch off her brain and just enjoy it? Plenty of people did. At least he wasn’t intimidating. He wasn’t likely to laugh when she took her clothes off.

  But if his horizontal performance was anything like his vertical one, he probably wouldn’t stop talking all the way through, and he wouldn’t care if she was having a good time.

  She wasn’t so sure now that she could do this.

  He had her in another clinch when his phone started to ring. She saw his eyes widen as he listened to the caller and every now and again he made an enthusiastic little ‘Uh-huh’ noise. At one point he looked at his watch and said, ‘No problem. I can be there by eleven. OK. OK. Bye.’

  He switched off the phone and gave a huge whoop of laugher and punched the air.

  ‘That was Greg Southern. Greg frigging Southern. The guy I’ve been trying to get through to for weeks … head of Lionmark Music. He wants to see me, like, now.’ He reached in his jacket for his wallet. ‘I’m really sorry, Ellie, got to go.’

  ‘Now? But it’s after ten.’

  ‘Yeah, brilliant, isn’t it?’ He scanned the road and then rushed to the edge of the kerb and stuck his arm out. A taxi had just come round the corner. ‘This could be the big break, Ellie,’ he shouted back at her as the taxi came to a stop. ‘Give you a ring, yeah?’

  Ellie’s annoyance that he had miraculously found money for a taxi battled with her relief that he had gone. Then she gave a little jump: someone had put their hand on her arm and she knew it was Jack.

  ‘You all right?’ he said, and Ellie felt an electrical storm eddy its way up her arm and right into her body. How was it possible that one man could stick his tongue right down your throat and leave you bored while another could simply put his hand on your arm and make your knees tremble?

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, stepping away from him. It was a good move, or would have been if she had not turned her ankle over doing it.

  ‘Steady.’ Jack caught hold of her arm again as she righted herself and the small electrical storm started up again.

  Ellie tried to subtly disengage herself, but he was holding on tight and the look he was giving her was filled with real warmth. No, no, no. She shifted her gaze to his tie.

  ‘Not very gallant,’ he said, ‘going off like that.’ He nodded in the direction Dave’s taxi had gone.

  ‘Gallant?’

  ‘Yeah, abandoning you in the street, late at night.’

  ‘Well, he had to go, and so do I.’

  Jack’s hand was still on her arm and he seemed angry. ‘Him having to go is no bloody excuse. Anything could happen to you in the street at this time of night.’

  ‘Jack, you’re squeezing my arm really tightly,’ she said, trying to draw away.

  He looked down as if he hadn’t realised what he was doing and she felt his grip relax a little, but he didn’t take the hint when she tried, again, to pull her arm free.

  Ellie wanted to run, get as far away as possible from the overwhelming feeling that she was going to throw herself at him.

  ‘I hope you’re getting a taxi,’ he said forcefully.

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Ellie, I can’t hear you with your head down like that, and why do you keep looking at my tie? Is there something on my tie?’ Jack put his hand to his tie to check and Ellie took the opportunity of being free of him to take another step backwards.

  ‘I’m going for the bus. I was going to go when you came along. The bus. Just along here. Bus.’

  Suddenly his hand was back on her arm and for the second time he wasn’t being particularly gentle with it.

  ‘Are you bloody mad? This time of night? It’ll be full of people even more drunk than you are.’

  She should have walked away then, when he was mad at her. She could cope with him being angry. But something made her unable to resist answering him back.

  ‘I have had three drinks tonight. I’m not drunk. Didn’t take you long to start having a go at me again, did it?’

  Jack dropped his hand from her arm. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m simply trying to point out that lurching around London at this time of night isn’t a good idea.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. ‘You know the agency has an account with a cab firm.’ He held out a card for her. ‘This is the number. Give them a call.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘My mobile needs topping up.’

  She waited for Jack to make some sarcastic remark, but he surprised her by laughi
ng softly and then his hand was rubbing her arm. It was a gentle, consoling gesture, but she fully expected to see sparks fly up from her sleeve.

  ‘Oh, Ellie, what the hell are we going to do with you?’ he said, and there was such tenderness in his tone that she couldn’t help looking directly at him. The tenderness was in his eyes too. It would have been so easy to take a step forward and lower her head on to his shoulder and keep it there.

  Jack broke away first. ‘I’ll give them a ring, then,’ he said brusquely.

  While he was making the call, Ellie wandered down the road a little distance, aware she was trembling. Actually trembling. Best to put some space between her and all those out-of-control feelings. Why couldn’t he go away? Her hand strayed to her mouth, but she put it firmly back down by her side.

  When he’d finished phoning, he came and stood by her.

  ‘What are you doing now?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll wait until it comes.’ He was being gruff and domineering again.

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, and crossed his arms.

  More waiting. More awkwardness. Where was that taxi?

  Then she saw him shift his feet. ‘I watched the rough edit of the ad.’

  ‘Yes. It looks quite good, doesn’t it?’

  She heard him sigh. ‘You want to work on that.’

  ‘On what? Work on what?’

  ‘That irritating modesty. It’s a brilliant ad. You should be talking it up, not muttering about it being “quite good”.’

  Ellie shook her head. How did he do this every time? Nice and nasty, nasty and nice. It was like being batted about by some temperamental toddler.

  Those eyes were mocking her again. No longer pools of grey tenderness.

  She would keep her mouth shut, say nothing.

  No, she couldn’t.

  ‘Sorry, Jack, I think we’ve had this conversation before about how I never seem to quite come up to your high expectations.’

  He stared at her. ‘That’s what you think, is it, Ellie? That I find you … not quite good enough?’

  She wanted to shout that she didn’t know. He had her so confused she didn’t know anything.

  She was bone tired now with all the emotion zinging about inside her. Please, please let that taxi come round the corner. Lusting after Jack was humiliating her, changing her into a woman she didn’t recognise.

  She shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, we can’t all be like Sophie.’

  Jack gave her a funny look. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, and then saw the taxi turning the corner. Hallelujah. She started to walk towards it. ‘Thanks, Jack,’ she called back over her shoulder, only to find he was right behind her. He opened the door of the cab and her face was right next to his. She was looking into his eyes and what she saw there made her stop completely still. She wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

  She’d been over and over this. It was madness. It was temporary insanity brought on by lust. The Heathcliff effect. Fight it and it would pass.

  Then Jack leaned forward and kissed her very gently on the cheek, the lightest of touches. His lips were warm; his hair touched her eyebrow.

  ‘Night, Ellie,’ he said gently. ‘Look after yourself. Ask the taxi driver to wait until you’ve gone into the house.’ His hand was on her arm helping her.

  She sat down on the seat, stunned, looking ahead, not daring to glance back at him, and soon the taxi was out of the street and away.

  All the way home she tried to unravel the threads of Jack’s behaviour towards her. It was impossible; all she knew was how he made her feel. Like she was wrestling with something she couldn’t control that might turn round and bite her at any minute. Was he simply being kind? All that stuff about being careful, those looks. Was this why he was so successful with women, because he made you feel as if there was no one else alive as important to him as you were? It was a good skill, a neat trick.

  But what if it wasn’t a trick?

  Edith was still up when she got in and Ellie told her all about Lesley and Megan and they opened a bottle of wine to celebrate. She gave her edited highlights of the Dave incident too and mentioned that Jack had got her a taxi home.

  Edith sat looking at her with her head on one side.

  ‘What’s up, Edith? You look like you want to say something. Is it about Megan and Lesley? Don’t you approve?’

  ‘Good gracious, Ellie dear, I couldn’t be more delighted for them. Splendid news.’ Edith took a large sip of wine. ‘Modern life is so much more sensible than in my day. I had an aunt Rose who lived with another woman, Jessica, all her life and they had to pretend they were just friends.’

  ‘Perhaps they were just friends.’

  ‘No, dear. When Rose died, quite a few years after dear Jess, we found certain things that suggested otherwise.’

  Ellie didn’t dare ask what kind of things they’d found.

  ‘No,’ continued Edith, happy that all was now clear about lesbianism in less enlightened times, ‘I am very pleased for Lesley and Megan. It was Dave I was going to ask about.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t heard you mention him before.’

  ‘No? Well, he wrote the music for the knickers ad and I’ve been working with him quite a bit. He gave me his phone number a while ago.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Edith said.

  ‘Hmm, what?’

  ‘But you hadn’t rung him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But when he turned up tonight, you were glad to see him?’

  Sometimes Ellie wished that Edith was starting to lose her marbles. She decided to pretend she hadn’t heard.

  Edith carried on, ‘And Jack happened to wander past as Dave left?’

  Ellie kept her lips tightly clamped together, but Edith wouldn’t be deterred. ‘Did Jack ask you where Dave had gone?’

  Ellie gave in and shook her head and Edith started to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Oh, Ellie darling, you’re such an innocent. First that filthy Jubbitt man apologises to you after a meeting with Jack; then there’s that incident with the model-maker where Jack dragged you away; and now this.’ Edith’s eyes were bright with mischief. ‘Dave gets called away; Jack appears on the scene and doesn’t even ask where he’s gone?’ Edith finished her wine and leaned back with a satisfied grin.

  ‘What are you saying, Edith?’ Ellie asked, starting to nibble at her thumb without realising it.

  ‘I’m saying that Jack didn’t need to ask where he had gone because he knew already.’ Edith leaned forward again. ‘I’m sure Jack is a good friend of this music man who called Dave, aren’t you?’

  ‘Edith, I think you’re putting two and two together and coming up with completely the wrong number.’ Ellie was quite brisk; she wanted to shut this conversation down as soon as possible – it sounded too much like the one she’d had with herself in the taxi home. ‘If you’re hinting at what I think you’re hinting at, there’s one big flaw in your theory.’

  Edith said nothing, simply cocked her head a little.

  ‘Jack doesn’t care two hoots about me. Every bit of niceness from him is always followed by something nasty. Always. You wait, come Monday he’ll tear my head off about something to make up for getting me a taxi. He might have dragged me away from the shoot, as you so rightly pointed out, but he ended up humiliating me in front of Rachel.’

  Edith was still doing that irritating cocking-head thing.

  Ellie ploughed on, ‘He simply made up a whole story about me sulking. I mean, I was a bit put out about having to come back to the agency, but it wasn’t a sulk. Turned on me and savaged me. I stood there like a muppet while Rachel simpered at him.’

  Ellie was pretty pleased with herself. In the course of trying to show Edith how cross she was with Jack, she’d actually made herself angry with him all over again.

  All Edith said, with rapier-like clarity, was, ‘And it bothered you, Rachel sim
pering at Jack, did it?’

  Caught off guard, Ellie said, ‘No, of course not,’ much too quickly, and then added, ‘That wasn’t the point I was trying to make, Edith.’

  Edith’s eyes were twinkling mischievously again. She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Say what you like, Ellie, I still think that there is a pattern emerging and you refuse to see it. Your Mr Wolfe seems to be keeping an eye on you.’ She stood up slowly. ‘I may look like a desiccated prune, but I do know a little bit about men. I had five brothers, remember? And quite a few boyfriends.’ She bent to kiss Ellie on the head. ‘And you, my dear Ellie, are an open book. Every time you mention Jack Wolfe these days you end up nibbling the skin down the side of your thumbnail.’

  ‘I do not,’ Ellie said, hurriedly covering up her thumbs.

  ‘Ellie, don’t fib. I was a drama teacher for years. Body language is my subject.’ She patted Ellie on the shoulder. ‘You should be happy. You’re at the start of a big adventure.’

  Ellie was on her feet. ‘No, Edith, I’m not. I’m sorry. You’ve been reading too many romances. Jack is my boss and he’s a serial womaniser. He’s domineering; he insists on getting his own way …’ Ellie became aware that she had raised her voice and made a conscious effort to lower it. ‘Look, I admit I find Jack attractive, but nothing is going to happen. I’m not going to let it.’

  Edith continued to smile at her and Ellie felt like shaking her.

  ‘Don’t smile at me like that, Edith. I’m serious. People are attracted to one another all the time; they don’t have to do anything about it. And I’d have to leave the agency if … Look, it’s always the woman who has to leave.’

  ‘Ah, so you’ve thought about it, then?’ Edith said triumphantly, and started to move towards the sitting room door.

  Ellie made one last attempt. ‘Edith, listen. Nothing is going to happen. For lots and lots of reasons. But the main one is … Jack is getting married soon. A girl called Sophie.’