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‘Sometimes, my grandmother’s grandmother longed to stretch and stand up on her hind feet,’ said Sky.

‘She wanted to lay flat on her back and look up into the clouds; sometimes she longed to feel the sun on bare skin and the wind blowing her long hair; she missed clothes and other people and talking and cooked foods and the feeling of her arms round her knees and… most of all she missed music. She missed the drum and the whistle and the song. And so, she spoke to the leader and he said that now and again, she could change, provided she promised never to bring humans to the pack. And so now and again, until the day she died, she would change back into human form and shiver, wrapping herself in whatever she could find, and she would stretch her back and she would lie down and stare into the sky and she would sing.’

Sky started to hum a little, very low.

Rose waited, but there seemed to be nothing more.

‘What did your grandmother’s grandmother sing about?’

Sky shrugged. ‘She sang about missing her mother and her family and wishing…’

‘Wishing?’

‘Wishing things could be different.’

‘And so you…’

‘Between her and me are many many wolves. And some were good wolves and never changed, some did change now and then and some changed at the wrong times and died in the cold or at the hands of men and some changed often. The pack does not like me changing. They fear what it means.’

‘Because it could bring people to you?’

‘No because I could leave. The pack is a unit. We are the pack. When wolves leave because they must, to keep the blood lines clean, there is grieving and sorrow. My pack has waited for the changing to breed out but it hasn’t bred out. My brother is gone. My mother…’

‘What happened to your mother.?’

‘You won’t understand.’

‘Perhaps I will. I’ve lost my mother too.’

‘Lost?’

‘She’s dead.’

‘Oh. Did you see her die?’

Rose remembered the room. It was light and characterless.

The only pretty thing was the dip and rise of coloured lines on the monitor.

She sat on one side of the metal framed bed and Simon sat on the other.

In between them lay a shell. The nurses said it was their mother, but there was nothing of her to see but bruising on frail skin and the rise and fall of her chest. Perhaps Simon had wondered if she would wake to tell him off.

They didn’t discuss it. Rose held the left hand, feeling under her fingers where the wedding ring had created a dent, the ring which had been cut off and was now in her purse.

Impossible to imagine telling her that the man who gave it to her had gone on ahead.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I didn’t see mine die, but I know she’s dead. The pack knows. It is a loss you can feel from a long way off. Especially when someone leaves when it is not time. When they have not been honest.’

‘Honest?’

‘A pack is a unit. We have to work together. If someone deceives, it breaks the ties which make the pack strong. Isn’t that true for humans too? How do your packs work?’

Rose considered. ‘We’re afraid of honesty, I think. I mean, we often demand it, but most of us hide things all the time: how we’re feeling, what our dreams are. Sometimes, you meet someone you can tell things to and then, sometimes, you stop again. ’

She wanted to say, humans live in a constant state of falsehood. It’s what keeps us from falling apart: a permanent pretence about feelings and opinions, about what really matters.

She looked at Simon, hidden behind bars and remembered his words ‘Not just my cage’.

‘Would Simon be honest with me?’ said Sky suddenly.

‘Actually, probably yes, I think Simon is actually one of the most honest people you’d meet.

He’d forget your birthday, anniversary, not notice your new dress and take you for granted, but he would always be honest. If you asked him if your tail was messy, he’d tell you the truth and be annoyed when you got upset. ’

‘Why would I be upset? It would be useful to know.’

‘A human would be upset.’

‘Then why would they ask?’

Rose laughed suddenly, she tried to imagine having this conversation, any conversation with Simon’s old girlfriends. ‘I think I’d like to be a wolf,’ she said.

‘You’d be terrible,’ said Sky. ‘You’re hiding too much. I can tell. And you like being on your own.’

Simon rolled over in his sleep and his eyes part opened as if on some level at least, he could hear them. Rose remembered her mother in the hospital. When they’d arrived, there was a little movement under her lids and a moment when they opened and then the moment was gone.

‘He’s asleep,’ said Sky. ‘Show me how to deal with awful human fur.’

Back in her own room, Rose sat Sky at the dressing table and brushed her hair. She showed her how to twist it and pile it on her head and pin it into place. She showed her how to plait it, how to do a ponytail. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d played hairdresser with another woman.

‘Your turn,’ she said.

They swapped places and Sky stood behind her with the brush, chewing her top lip, yanking and tangling. Rose’s eyes watered from the effort of not wincing. Then she realised Sky had caught her expression through the mirror.

‘I’m hurting you aren’t I?’

‘A bit,’ Rose admitted, wondering how long it would take to tease the tangles out.

‘If you were a wolf, you’d cuff me.’

‘But I’m not. Humans - well most humans - don’t teach like that. Some do.’

‘It’s easier to groom with a tongue.’

Rose’s face crinkled up. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘Why does it grow so long in some places and not at all in others anyway? It’s ridiculous.’

‘Don’t ask me. I’ve come to think that being human is generally ridiculous.’

Sky put down the brush and picked up Rose’s hair, twisting it into a lumpy knot and then forcing pins into it, some of which dug into her scalp. Then she put her face down next to Rose’s so that she could share the view.

‘I expect you look like a beautiful human now,’ she said in serious tones. ‘All you need to make you perfect is a tail.’

They caught eyes in the mirror and burst out laughing. Sky picked up the lipstick and started to fiddle with it. ‘What’s this for?’

Rose showed her.

Sky looked appalled. ‘You put slimy red stuff on your mouth to make it look as if you’ve eaten raw meat? Is that supposed to make you beautiful too?’

‘May I refer you back to the word “ridiculous”.’

There was a pause. It was rare that another woman didn’t make Rose feel she’d failed at something indefinable but Sky clearly thought the whole species was a failure and Rose just proved the point.

‘Can we sit with Simon again?’

In Simon’s room. Sky watched Rose detangle her hair and started trying to plait her own.

‘Who’s in your pack?’ she asked.

It was a good question.

Rose, still teasing out knots, said, ’Our parents and grandparents are dead. We haven’t many other relations. I suppose my pack is Simon and maybe Andrew and maybe the band…’

Sky frowned. ‘Aren’t they all people from now? Apart from Simon. What about people from before?’

‘It’s complicated,’ said Rose. ‘When David died, when Simon got ill, I dropped out of contact with people. And after a while, they dropped out of contact with me. I suppose I was hurting and frightened and grieving and not very interesting. Once, I was walking down the street and saw a friend and she crossed the road to avoid speaking to me. I asked her about it afterwards and she said she hadn’t seen me, but she had.

She was lying. It was as if she was afraid of catching grief from me. I haven’t spoken to her since.’

‘A real pack would not drop away. They would nurture you until you started to heal and then they’d push you back on your feet again.’

Rose saw the scene again, the woman pausing in her stride and then with apparent nonchalance changing the direction of her gaze and then her feet. The tense phone call later with its silences and deceit. ‘I thought she was my best friend. Anyway, Simon’s pack would be…’

‘How can Simon have a different pack?’

Rose paused and sat on her hands next to Sky. ‘It’s a human thing. Or rather it’s a modern human thing. People have interlinking lives but there are so many of us, spread so far, that we don’t connect with everyone.’

‘It means you can keep your secrets and tell your lies easier.’

Rose changed the subject. ‘Tell me about your mother?’

Sky tipped her head on one side and leaned forward to peer at Simon, his eyes were half open, flickering, as if he was on the verge of waking or was dreaming. A low sound came from his parted jaw.

‘My grandmother was a good wolf. She did not change often. She did not like being human: the nakedness, the muddy thoughts. She didn’t like complete humans or trust them. She liked singing, but she liked singing without words. She was the one who taught me.’

‘Your song was beautiful.’

‘It was hers.’

‘But your mother was different.’

‘Yes. She liked standing up in the wind, the rain on her skin, the words in her throat.’

‘How do you know how to speak? I mean, how to say things I understand, how to understand me?’

‘I know, in the same way I know how to change shape. They go together. Whatever human I am with, I can speak their words the way they do. I can understand the words they say but… not always what the secret meanings are. Those change from person to person, from tribe to tribe.’

‘That sounds very useful.’

‘It’s very confusing. But my mother liked the confusion, I think.

She was frustrated that as a wolf, she could not express everything she felt, yet she could not hide that she felt something either.

She didn’t like being a wolf.’ Sky bit her lip.

‘You know that picture which you say is you and your mother?’

‘Yes.’