Willie und die Frauen (aktuell)
As Modesty tells Tarrant in chapter 1 of Modesty Blaise:
'Willie moves around quite a lot—he has a wonderfully varied list of girlfriends. From premier cru' to 'honest vin du pays.'
Some of the girlfriends are current, others remembered from his pre-Network days.
==Carol
‘Twenty-three years old, the daughter of a gentleman farmer and engaged to another.’ When Modesty phones The Treadmill, Willie is in bed with her. Modesty asks if he has anybody with him. “Nobody important” says Willie, and so Carol storms out. (Modesty Blaise chapter 5)
Nicole
“If she’s Pacco's girl, will she talk?” “I got her out of trouble once with the police and she was grateful. But I think she will talk to Willie anyway. Pacco is her meal-ticket, but she’s a little bit crazy about Willie.” (Modesty Blaise chapter 7)
Melanie
There was a touch of indignation in Willie’s voice. “I’ve fixed to take Melanie to Le Touquet tomorrow for a couple of days or so.” “Which one’s that?” “Dark girl with the big mouth—sings at The Pink Flamingo.” …Later … “I’m thinking of Melanie.” Tarrant’s voice was urbane. “Dark girl with the big mouth. You mentioned that you’re taking her to Le Touquet tomorrow for a few days.” Willie grinned and relaxed. “Ah, that’s all right,’ he said. “She’s basically an eater. I mean food. Goes more for the food than the romance. It won’t break little Melanie’s ’eart if I call the trip off. I’ll send ’er a bunch of violets and a pork pie instead.” (Sabre-Tooth, chapter 2)
Ilse
The early evening, Willie reflected, was really his favourite time for it. Later they could take a cab from her flat, dine at Ehmke, where he would once again test the theory about oysters, then on to St. Pauli and a nightclub; a few drinks, a little dancing, and a stroll up Davidstrasse and along the bright, narrow parade where the girls sat in shop windows on display, waiting for the occasional customer from among the throng of sight-seers; and so home to bed again for a couple of hours before he had to unwind himself from Ilse’s arms and legs to reach the airport in time for his plane. Ilse opened her eyes and patted his cheek. “I’m glad you came, Willie.” Her English held an American inflexion. (Sabre-Tooth, chapter 6)
Luisa
‘No. But don’t worry about that, Willie love. I’m sure you’re heavily involved.’ A chuckle. ‘Trouble is, this one’s a romantic.’ ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ ‘A romantic. She wants me to spend the evening listening to one of these fado singers wailing about unrequited love. Too lugubrious for my liking.’ (Sabre-Tooth, chapter 10)
Rita (1)
Willie spends several days with Rita, Jack Wish's girlfriend, in an effort to find out about Wish's employers. 'She appeared in the doorway, a blonde girl with short hair and plump curves. Her eyes were large and brown, her face round and pretty like the face of a doll.' He finds her boring and is appalled when she switches off Petula Clark's singing Downtown on TV. (I, Lucifer, chapter 11)
Claudine
‘Another old friend of yours?’ Collier asked politely. Willie shook his head. ‘Bedfellow,’ he said simply. ‘Nice and friendly with it, though. Une petite amie, as the French say. They’ve got a way of putting things.’ Later she is described as a girl in her middle twenties, with red hair and a small round face. It is to her flat that Willie and Modesty take René Vaubois to force a stand-off with the assassins. (I, Lucifer, chapter 2)
Dinah Pilgrim
The blind girl with an advanced gift for dowsing and locating buried treasure, rescued by Willie from abduction by Gabriel. She is Willie's girl in A Taste for Death, and Modesty tells Tarrant: ‘She’s different from Willie’s list of runners. It wouldn’t astound me if he threw away his address book for Dinah.’ However Dinah finds his way of life too stressful and marries Steve Collier. Both she and Steve remain important characters in the rest of the books and in the late strips.
Erica Nolan
Satisfied, he went to bed. Since he did not want to think about the house in Welbury Square he thought about his current campaign to achieve a close and horizontal relationship with one Erica Nolan, aged twenty-seven, a Professor of Sociology at the LSE, whose philosophical convictions he found hilarious but whose physical parts exerted a compelling attraction on him. In five minutes he was asleep. (The Impossible Virgin, chapter 3.)
Bridget
He made a date with Bridget for that evening in the village. Since she was rather plain and distinctly plump, Bridget had often been stood up on dates, despite her warm nature, so it was to her surprise and pleasure that the man from the Electricity Board [Willie] met her as arranged. What happened later, in his big old car after a fish-and-chip supper, came as an even greater surprise and pleasure to her. (The Soo Girl Charity)
Mavis
Tarrant said, ‘How is Willie forgetting his sorrows?’ ‘With Mavis. He’s flown to Jersey for a long weekend with her.’ ‘Mavis?’ ‘I haven’t met her, but according to Willie she’s a very tall showgirl with more and bigger curves than you’d think possible on any human being. Mentally as thick as two planks, but unfailingly cheerful and bursting with enthusiasm. He says it’s like going to bed with four girls and a cylinder of laughing-gas. I think she’s just the sort to take him out of himself.’ (The Giggle-wrecker)
Lady Jane Gillam
[She is introduced in the story I had a date with Lady Jane, and is a main character in The Silver Mistress.] She was silent, remembering. Here she lay, Lady Janet Gillam, daughter of an earl, with her head on the shoulder of a Cockney who had walked into her life three years ago. That was after her jet-set, hell-raising days; after her stupid, defiant marriage to Walter Gillam, the drunken playboy who had killed himself in the same car-crash which had deprived her of her left leg from just below the knee. (The Silver Mistress, chapter 3) She has a minor part in Dragon's Claw, The Xanadu Talisman, The Night of Morningstar, and Dead Man's Handle.
Maude Tiller
Jacoby chewed his lip savagely for a moment. ‘I notice you’ve been giving Maude special attention. Hoping to make it with her?’
Maude stepped away from the wall and said a little tiredly, ‘Willie made it with me a long time ago, if it’s of any interest, Mr Jacoby.’ Two years ago now, she recalled, when Tarrant had put her in to handle communications for a request job that Modesty and Willie were doing for him. But that was none of Jacoby’s business.
(Last Day in Limbo, chapter 2)
Maude is assigned to help Modesty find Willie in Dead Man's Handle.
Veronica
“Willie? How do you know clever things like what Oscar Wilde said?” “Ah, that was Veronica. Remember the girl I brought along to the Newmarket races last year? She was at Cambridge, doing a thesis on Wilde, and most nights I ’ad to spend hours listening while she ’eld forth—” (The Xanadu Talisman, chapter 5)
Adrienne
Half an hour after midnight, the blonde Swiss air hostess sprawled on Willie Garvin’s bed said, “What in heaven’s name have you done to your ankles?” “Oh … I was a prisoner in a chain gang.” He drew a finger down her spine, and she rolled over to look up at him. “But those are new hurts,” she said. “I think you are telling lies again, Weelie.” All foreign girls called him Weelie, he reflected. None of them could manage the short ‘i’. He summoned up a look of indignation and said, “What d’you mean, again?” “That is what the other girls say, too. That you tell beeg lies.” (The Xanadu Talisman, chapter 7)
Molly Chen
Without losing concentration, he noted and was amused by the sight of Molly Chen walking about on her hands while she waited, slender legs waving in the air. This was a new trick she had acquired in pursuit of her ambition [to be a circus acrobat]. A little over five feet tall, Molly weighed less than a hundred and ten pounds. Her body was small-boned but nicely fleshed, and Willie Garvin had found great delight in it. Her dark hair was cropped short, and it seemed to Willie that her face had scarcely aged at all in the nine years since he had first met her in Hong Kong. It was a broad face, rather plain, with large happy eyes, and Willie was very fond of it. (Dead Man's Handle, chapter 2)