‘Now,’ says Mo, gazing up at
The Girl You Left Behind
. ‘You want to hang that painting somewhere
else.’
‘No. It stays.’
‘But you said David bought it for you.
And that means –’
‘I don’t care. She stays.
Besides …’ Liv narrows her eyes at the woman within the frame. ‘I think
she’d look odd in a living room. She’s too … intimate.’
‘Intimate?’
‘She’s … sexy.
Don’t you think?’
Mo squints at the portrait.
‘Can’t see it myself. Personally, if it were my room I’d have a
massive flat-screen telly there.’
Mo leaves, and Liv keeps gazing at the
painting, and just for once she doesn’t feel the clench of grief.
What do you
think?
she asks the girl.
Is it finally time to move on?
It starts to go wrong on Friday
morning.
‘So, you have a hot date!’ Her
father steps forward and envelops her in a huge bear hug. He is full of
joie de
vivre
, expansive and wise. He is, once again, speaking in exclamation marks. He
is also dressed.
‘He’s just … I
don’t want to make a big deal of it, Dad.’
‘But it’s wonderful!
You’re a beautiful young woman! This is as nature intended – you should be out
there, fluttering your feathers, strutting your stuff!’
‘I don’t have feathers,
Dad.’ She sips her tea. ‘And I’m not entirely convinced about the
stuff.’
‘What are you going to wear? Something
a bit brighter? Caroline, what should she wear?’
Caroline walks into the kitchen, pinning up
her long red hair. She has been working on her tapestries and
smells
vaguely of sheep. ‘She’s thirty years old, Michael. She can pick her own
wardrobe.’
‘But look at the way she covers
herself up! She’s still got David’s aesthetic – all blacks and greys and
shapeless things. You should take a leaf out of Caroline’s book, darling. Look at
the colours she wears! A woman like that draws the eye …’
‘A woman dressed as a yak would draw
your eye,’ says Caroline, plugging in the kettle. But it is said without rancour.
Her father stands behind her and moulds himself around her back. His eyes close in
ecstasy. ‘We men … we’re primal creatures. Our eyes are inevitably
drawn to the bright and the beautiful.’ He opens one eye, studying Liv.
‘Perhaps … you could wear something a bit less masculine at
least.’
‘Masculine?’
He stands back. ‘Big black pullover.
Black jeans. No makeup. It’s not exactly a siren call.’
‘You wear whatever you’re
comfortable in, Liv. Take no notice of him.’
‘You think I look
masculine?’
‘Mind you, you said you met him in a
gay bar. Perhaps he likes women who look a bit … boyish.’
‘You are such an old fool,’ says
Caroline, and departs the room bearing her mug of tea aloft.
‘So I look like a butch
lesbian.’
‘I’m just saying I think you
could play up your best features a little more. A wave in your hair, perhaps. A belt to
show off your waist …’
Caroline puts her head back around the door.
‘It doesn’t matter what you wear, darling. Just make sure
the underwear is good. Lingerie is ultimately all that matters.’
Her father watches Caroline disappear and
blows a mute kiss. ‘Lingerie!’ he says reverently.
Liv looks down at her clothes. ‘Well,
thanks, Dad. I feel great now. Just … great.’
‘Pleasure. Any time.’ He bangs
the flat of his hand down on the pine table. ‘And let me know how it goes! A date!
Exciting!’
Liv stares at herself in the mirror. It is
three years since a man saw her body, and four since a man saw her body while she was
sober enough to care. She has done what Mo suggested: depilated all but the neatest
amounts of body hair, scrubbed her face, put a conditioning treatment on her hair. She
has sorted through her underwear drawer until she found something that might qualify as
vaguely seductive and not greyed with old age. She has painted her toenails and filed
her fingernails rather than just attacking them with clippers.
David never cared about this stuff. But
David isn’t here any more.
She has gone through her wardrobe, sorting
through rails of black and grey, of unobtrusive black trousers and jumpers. It is, she
has to admit, utilitarian. She finally settles on a black pencil skirt and a V-necked
jumper. She teams these with a pair of red high heels with butterflies on the toes that
she bought and wore once to a wedding but has never thrown out. They may not be exactly
on trend, but they could not be mistaken for the footwear of a butch lesbian.
‘Whoa! Look at you!’ Mo stands
in the doorway, her
jacket on, a rucksack over her shoulder, ready to
head off for her shift.
‘Is it too much?’ She holds out
an ankle doubtfully.
‘You look great. You’re not
wearing granny knickers, right?’
Liv takes a breath. ‘No, I am not
wearing granny knickers. Not that I really feel obliged to keep everyone in the postcode
up to speed with my underwear choices.’
‘Then go forth and try not to
multiply. I’ve left you the chicken thing I promised, and there’s a salad
bowl in the fridge. Just add the dressing. I’ll be staying at Ranic’s
tonight, so I’m not under your feet. It’s all yours.’ She grins
meaningfully at Liv, then heads down the stairs.
Liv turns back to the mirror. An over
made-up woman in a skirt stares back at her. She walks around the room, a little
unsteady in the unfamiliar shoes, trying to work out what is making her feel so
unbalanced. The skirt fits perfectly. Running has given her legs an attractive, sculpted
outline. The shoes are a good dash of colour against the rest of the outfit. The
underwear is pretty without being tarty. She crosses her arms and sits on the side of
the bed. He is due here in an hour.
She looks up at
The Girl You Left
Behind
. I want to look how you look, she tells her silently.
For once, that smile offers her nothing. It
seems almost to mock her.
It says,
Not a chance
.
Liv shuts her eyes for some time. Then she
reaches for her phone and texts Paul.
Change of plan. Would you mind if we met
somewhere for a drink instead?
‘So … sick of cooking?
Because I would have brought a takeaway.’
Paul leans back in his chair, his eyes
darting to a group of shrieking office workers, who seem to have been there all
afternoon, judging by the general air of drunken flirtatiousness. He has been quietly
amused by them, by the lurching women, the dozing accountant in the corner.
‘I … just needed to get out
of the house.’
‘Ah, yeah. The working-from-home
thing. I forget how that can drive you crazy. When my brother first moved over here he
spent weeks at mine writing job applications, and when I used to get in from work he
would literally talk at me non-stop for an hour.’
‘You came over from America
together?’
‘He came to support me when I got
divorced. I was a bit of a mess. And then he just never left.’ Paul had come to
England ten years ago. His English wife had been miserable, had missed home, especially
when Jake was a baby, and he had left the NYPD to keep her happy.
‘When we got here we found it was us,
not the location, that was all wrong. Hey, look. Blue Suit Man is going to make a move
on the girl with the great hair.’
Liv sips her drink. ‘That’s not
real hair.’
He squints. ‘What? You’re
kidding me. It’s a wig?’
‘Extensions. You can tell.’
‘I can’t. You’re going to
tell me the chest is fake too now, right?’
‘No, they’re real. She has
quadroboob.’
‘Quadroboob?’
‘Bra’s too small. It makes her
look like she’s got four.’
Paul laughs so hard he starts to choke. He
can’t remember the last time he kept laughing like this. She smiles back at him,
almost reluctantly. She has been a little strange tonight, as if all her responses are
slowed by some separate internal conversation.
He manages to control himself. ‘So
what do we think?’ he says, trying to make her relax. ‘Is Quadroboob Girl
going to go for it?’
‘Maybe with one more drink inside her.
I’m not convinced she really likes him.’
‘Yeah. She keeps looking over his
shoulder as she talks to him. I think she likes grey shoes.’
‘No woman likes grey shoes. Trust
me.’
He lifts an eyebrow, puts down his drink.
‘Now this, you see, is why men find it easier to split molecules and invade
countries than to work out what goes on in women’s heads.’
‘Pfft. If you’re lucky one day
I’ll sneak you a look at the rule book.’ He looks at her and she blushes, as
if she’s said too much. There is a sudden inexplicably awkward silence. She stares
at her drink. ‘Do you miss New York?’
‘I like visiting. When I go home now
they all make fun of my accent.’
She seems to be only half listening.
‘You don’t have to look so
anxious,’ he says. ‘Really. I’m happy here.’
‘Oh. No. Sorry. I didn’t
mean …’ Her words die on her lips. There is a long silence. And then she
looks up at him and speaks, her finger resting on the rim of her glass.
‘Paul … I wanted to ask you to come home with me tonight. I wanted us
to … But I – I just … It’s too soon. I
can’t. I can’t do it. That’s why I cancelled dinner.’ The
words spill out into the air. She flushes to the roots of her hair.
He opens, then closes his mouth. He leans
forward, and says, quietly. ‘“I’m not very hungry” would have
been fine.’
Her eyes widen, then she slumps a little
over the table. ‘Oh, God. I’m a nightmare date, aren’t I?’
‘Maybe a little more honest than you
need to be.’
She groans. ‘I’m sorry. I have
no idea what I’m –’
He leans forward, touches her hand lightly.
He wants her to stop looking anxious. ‘Liv,’ he says evenly, ‘I like
you. I think you’re great. But I totally get that you’ve been in your own
space for a long time. And I’m not … I don’t …’ Words
fail him too. It seems too soon for a conversation like this. And underneath it all,
despite himself, he fights disappointment. ‘Ah, hell, you want to grab a pizza?
Because I’m starving. Let’s go get a bite and make each other feel awkward
somewhere else.’
He can feel her knee against his.
‘You know, I do have food at
home.’
He laughs. And stops. ‘Okay. Well, now
I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say “That would be
great.” And then you can add, “Please shut up now, Liv, before you make
things even more complicated.”’
‘That would be great, then,’
says Paul. He holds up her coat for her to shrug her way into, then they head out of the
pub.
This time when they walk it is not in
silence. Something has unlocked between them, perhaps through his words or
her sudden feeling of relief. She laughs at almost everything he
says. They weave in and out of the tourists, pile breathlessly into a taxi, and when he
sits down in the back seat, holding out his arm for her to tuck into, she leans into him
and breathes in his clean, male smell and feels a little giddy with her own sudden good
fortune.
They reach her block, and he laughs about
their meeting. About Mo and her apparent belief that he was a bag thief.
‘I’m holding you to that four-pound reward,’ he says, straight-faced.
‘Mo said I was entitled to it.’
‘Mo also thinks it’s perfectly
acceptable to put washing-up liquid in the drinks of customers you don’t
like.’
‘Washing-up liquid?’
‘Apparently it makes them wee all
night. It’s how she plays God with the romantic chances of her diners. You do not
want to know what she does to the coffees of people who really upset her.’
He shakes his head admiringly. ‘Mo is
wasted in that job. There’s a place in organized crime for that girl.’
They climb out of the taxi and go into the
warehouse. The air is crisp with the approach of autumn; it seems to bite her skin. They
hurry into the fuggy warmth of the foyer. She feels a bit silly now. Somehow she can see
that in the previous forty-eight hours Paul McCafferty had stopped being a person and
started to become an idea, a thing. The symbol of her moving-on. It was too much weight
for something so new.
She hears Mo’s voice in her ear:
Whoa, missus. You think too much.
And then, as he tugs the lift door shut
behind them, they fall silent. It ascends slowly, rattling and echoing, the
lights flickering, as they always do. It heads past the first floor,
and they can hear the distant concrete echo of someone taking the stairs, a few bars of
cello music from another apartment.
Liv is acutely conscious of him in the
enclosed space, the citrus tang of his aftershave, the imprint of his arm around her
shoulders. She looks down and wishes, suddenly, that she had not changed into this
frumpy skirt, the flat heels. She wishes she had worn the butterfly shoes.
She looks up and he is watching her. He is
not laughing. He holds out his hand, and as she takes it, he draws her slowly the two
steps across the lift, and lowers his face to hers so that they are inches apart. But he
does not kiss her.
His blue eyes travel slowly over her face:
eyes, eyelashes, brows, lips, until she feels curiously exposed. She can feel his breath
on her skin, his mouth so close to hers that she could tip forwards and bite it
gently.
Still he does not kiss her.
It makes her shiver with longing.
‘I can’t stop thinking about
you,’ he murmurs.
‘Good.’
He rests his nose against hers. The very
tops of their lips are touching. She can feel the weight of him against her. She thinks
her legs may have begun to tremble. ‘Yes, it’s fine. I mean, no, I’m
terrified. But in a good way. I – I think I …’
‘Stop talking,’ he murmurs. She
feels his words against her lips, his fingertips tracing the side of her neck, and she
cannot speak.