Wolf

We had been separated for two years. It was around two, perhaps eighteen months. Either way I was in her apartment, sitting in the middle of the floor. She laid across the sofa, draped in colourful sheets. I had removed my socks as they had started to come off with my boots and I had wanted my actions to seem purposeful from the offset. I hoped she would see this as an interesting quirk, perhaps something that signified change, but even I knew it was pathetic. She looked at me with a mixture of intent and pity. I stared at the floor. The silence was excruciating. My mind was racing but words were not forming.

“I saw a wolf” I paused for a moment, unsure if this was the path to follow. “I saw a wolf, when I was walking home the other night. He looked like a wolf. He was white and grey and proud. He looked at me, he looked at me straight on and he mimicked my movements.”

I looked up. She was looking at me. I could see that she had no ring on her finger, It was poking out slightly from under the covers. I could see a t-shirt strewn over the end of the sofa. It was too large to be hers.

“I mean, I think I saw it. I’m almost certain.”

She stood up and smiled and walked towards the kitchen. Through the door I could see half of her putting a kettle onto the hob. After a moment she hovered in the doorway.

“This wolf, as I walked towards him, he mimicked my movements. He looked more purposeful though, he looked like he could strike, but you know, obviously I couldn’t tell what he was thinking”

“Obviously”

I tried to seek playfulness in her voice but it seemed harsher than I remembered.

“I walked towards it, it was in a garden, underneath one of the old boarding houses, next to the pub in the dale. I wanted to see how it would pan out, you know, if I walked towards it, I mean, I couldn’t avoid it, it was on my way home.”

She walked back into the kitchen and took the pot off the boil. She poured out two cups and presented one to me. I sipped it. It was black with a shot of cream. I sipped it and rested back onto my elbows.

She looked at me as I sipped the coffee. I did not say anything else. I began to think about the snow outside. I could hear it crashing against the window. My boots were beside me, the snow had melted from them slightly and there was a small pool of water around the soles. I had bought the boots in the Summer, to prepare for the cold winter. I felt a certain satisfaction in this.

“Go on”

I spun back towards her

“The wolf. Go on.”

“Okay, the wolf, yes, I mean, I was almost at the point where we had to meet. But it was cold, my hands were frozen. I put my head down and walked as fast as I could. Faster than I should. The lights were orange and the road was empty, I tried to look back when I was a few paces forward but I couldn’t see the garden. It had big hedges each side, I could see the edge of the driveway but that was it. I try to think back now, you know, to the garden. If there were some paw-prints in the snow or something, but for the life of me I can’t remember.”

She sat beside me on the floor, dragging the cover down from the sofa. She gave me a corner to cover my feet. I wrapped it around them, pulling them together for warmth. I felt more comfortable now and I laid down on my back.

“The next day, all I could think about was that wolf. I would be going through the day and carrying on conversations but the whole time I was thinking of that wolf. We even joked about it, you know, maybe it was my spirit wolf and all that”

She laughed a little and lent back against the edge of the sofa.

“But then I thought, that day and thinking about the wolf. It’s the most I’ve thought about anything in as long as I dare to remember.”

She looked at me now. A different look.

“What did you come here for?”

I thought.

“I wouldn’t want to say. Just in case I was wrong.”

I walked home and it was light. There were birds singing. The birds carried on singing, but they knew, just as well as I did, that the wolf would be at my door when I returned.