The Girl You Left Behind (20 page)

Roger shakes his head. ‘I don’t
know. What’s wrong with people, these days? Why can’t they just be satisfied
with what they’re given?’ He takes a toothpick and digs vigorously into a
back molar, pausing to examine his pickings with grim relish.

Liv looks down the table and meets
Kristen’s eye. Kristen lifts both brows suggestively, and gives her a
surreptitious thumbs-up.
Big hit!
she mouths.

‘Will you excuse me?’ Liv says,
pushing back her chair. ‘I really need to visit the Ladies.’

Liv sits in the silent cubicle for as long
as she can without someone staging an intervention, listening as several
women come in and perform ablutions. She checks for non-existent
email and plays Scrabble on her phone. Finally, after scoring ‘flux’, she
gets up, flushes the loo and washes her hands, staring at her reflection with a kind of
perverse satisfaction. Her makeup has smudged beneath one eye. She fixes this in the
mirror, wondering why she bothers, given that she is about to sit next to Roger
again.

She checks her watch. When can she beg an
early-morning meeting and head for home? With luck, Roger will be so drunk by the time
she goes back out that he will have forgotten she was even there.

Liv takes one last look at her reflection,
pushes her hair off her face and grimaces at her appearance.
What’s the
point?
And then she opens the door.

‘Liv! Liv, come here! I want to tell
you something!’ Roger is standing, gesticulating wildly. His face is even redder
and his hair is standing upright on one side. It’s possible that he is, she
thinks, half man, half ostrich. She feels a momentary panic at the prospect of having to
spend another half-hour in his company. She’s used to this: an almost overwhelming
physical desire to remove herself, to be out on the dark streets alone; not having to be
anyone at all.

She sits gingerly, like someone prepared to
sprint, and drinks another half-glass of wine. ‘I really should go,’ she
says, and there is a wave of protest from the other occupants of the table, as if this
is some kind of personal affront. She stays. Her smile is a rictus. She finds herself
watching the couples, the domestic cracks becoming visible with each glass of wine. That
one dislikes her husband. She rolls her eyes with every second comment he makes. This
man is
bored with everyone, possibly with his wife. He checks his
mobile compulsively beneath the rim of the table. She gazes up at the clock, nods dully
at Roger’s breathy litany of marital unfairness. She plays a silent game of Dinner
Party Bingo. She scores a School Fees and a House Prices. She is on the verge of a Last
Year’s Holiday In Europe Full House when someone taps her on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me. You have a phone
call.’

Liv spins round. The waitress has pale skin
and long dark hair, which opens around her face like a pair of half-drawn curtains. She
is beckoning with her notepad. Liv is conscious of a flicker of familiarity.

‘What?’

‘Urgent phone call. I think it’s
family.’

Liv hesitates.
Family?
But
it’s a sliver of light in a tunnel. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh,
right.’

‘Would you like me to show you the
phone?’

‘Urgent phone call,’ she mouths
at Kristen, and points at the waitress, who points towards the kitchens.

Kristen’s face arranges itself into an
expression of exaggerated concern. She stoops to say something to Roger, who glances
behind him and reaches out a hand as if to stop her. And then Liv is gone, following the
short dark girl through the half-empty restaurant, past the bar and down the
wood-panelled corridor.

After the gloom of the seating area the
glare of the kitchen is blinding, the dulled sheen of steel surfaces bouncing light
across the room. Two men in white ignore her, passing pans towards a washing-up station.
Something is frying, hissing and spitting in a corner; someone speaks rapid-fire
Spanish. The girl gestures through a set
of swing doors, and suddenly
she is in another back lobby, a cloakroom.

‘Where’s the phone?’ Liv
says, when they come to a halt.

The girl pulls a packet of cigarettes from
her apron and lights one. ‘What phone?’ she says blankly.

‘You said I had a call?’

‘Oh. That. There isn’t a phone.
You just looked like you needed rescuing.’ She inhales, lets out a long sliver of
smoke and waits for a moment. ‘You don’t recognize me, do you? Mo. Mo
Stewart.’ She sighs, when Liv frowns. ‘I was in your course at uni.
Renaissance and Italian Painting. And Life Drawing.’

Liv thinks back to her degree. And suddenly
she can see her: the little Goth girl in the corner, near silent in every class, her
expression a careful blank, her nails painted a violent, glittering purple. ‘Wow.
You haven’t changed a bit.’ This is not a lie. As she says it, she is not
entirely sure it’s a compliment.

‘You have,’ says Mo, examining
her. ‘You look … I don’t know. Geeky …’

‘Geeky.’

‘Maybe not geeky. Different. Tired.
Mind you, I don’t suppose being sat next to Tim Nice But Dim there is a barrel of
laughs. What is it? Some kind of singles night?’

‘Just for me, apparently.’

‘Christ. Here.’ She hands Liv a
cigarette. ‘Spark that up, and I’ll go out and tell them you’ve had to
leave. Great-aunt with a violent palsy. Or something darker? Aids? Ebola? Any
preferences as to the degree of suffering?’ She hands Liv the lighter.

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘It’s not for you. This way I
can get two in before Dino notices. Will she want your share of the bill?’

‘Oh. Good point.’ Liv scrabbles
in her bag for her purse. She feels suddenly light-headed at the prospect of
freedom.

Mo takes the notes, counts them carefully.
‘My tip?’ she says, straight-faced. She does not appear to be joking.

Liv blinks, then peels off an extra
five-pound note and hands it to her. ‘Ta,’ says Mo, tucking it into the
pocket of her apron. ‘Do I look tragic?’ She pulls a face of mild
disinterest and then, as if accepting that she doesn’t have the appropriate facial
muscles for concern, disappears back down the corridor.

Liv is unsure whether to leave or whether
she should wait for the girl to return. She gazes around her at the back lobby, at the
cheap coats on the rack, the grubby bucket and mop underneath them, and finally sits
down on a wooden stool, the cigarette useless in her hand. When she hears footsteps, she
stands, but it’s a Mediterranean-skinned man, his skull shining in the dim light.
The owner? He is holding a glass of amber liquid. ‘Here,’ he says, offering
it to her. And when she protests, he adds, ‘For the shock.’ He winks and is
gone.

Liv sits and sips the drink. In the
distance, through the clatter of the kitchen, she can hear Roger’s voice lifting
in protest, the scraping of chairs. She checks her watch. It is a quarter past eleven.
The chefs emerge from the kitchen, pull their coats from the rack and disappear, giving
her a faint nod as they pass, as if it’s not unusual for a customer to spend
twenty minutes nursing a brandy in the staff corridor.

When Mo reappears she is no longer wearing an
apron. She is holding a set of keys, walks past Liv and locks the fire door.
‘They’ve gone,’ she says, pulling her black hair back into a knot.
‘Your Hot Date said something about wanting to console you. I’d turn your
mobile off for a bit.’

‘Thank you,’ said Liv.
‘That was really very kind.’

‘Not at all. Coffee?’

The restaurant is empty. Liv stares at the
table where she had sat, as the waiter sweeps efficiently around the chairs, then
distributes cutlery with the unthinking, metronomic efficiency of someone who has done
this a thousand times. Mo primes the coffee machine, and gestures to her to sit. Liv
would really rather go home, but understands there is a price to be paid for her
freedom, and a brief, slightly stilted conversation about the Good Old Days is probably
it.

‘I can’t believe they all left
so suddenly,’ she says, as Mo lights another cigarette.

‘Oh. Someone saw a message on a
BlackBerry that she shouldn’t have. It all kicked off a bit,’ Mo says.
‘I don’t think business lunches usually involve nipple clamps.’

‘You heard that?’

‘You hear everything in here. Most
customers don’t stop talking when waiters are around.’ She switches on the
milk-frother, adding, ‘An apron gives you superpowers. It actually makes you
pretty much invisible.’

Liv had not registered Mo’s appearance
at her table, she thinks uncomfortably. Mo is looking at her with a small smile, as if
she can hear her thoughts. ‘It’s okay. I’m used to being the Great
Unnoticed.’

‘So,’ says Liv, accepting a
coffee. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘In the last nearly ten years? Um,
this and that. Waitressing suits me. I don’t have the ambition for bar
work.’ She says this deadpan. ‘You?’

‘Oh, just some freelance stuff. I work
for myself. I don’t have the personality for office work.’ Liv smiles.

Mo takes a long drag of her cigarette.
‘I’m surprised,’ she says. ‘You were always one of the Golden
Girls.’

‘Golden Girls?’

‘Oh, you and your tawny crew, all legs
and hair and men around you, like satellites. Like something out of Scott Fitzgerald. I
thought you’d be … I don’t know. On telly. Or in the media, or
acting or something.’

If Liv had read these words on a page, she
might have detected an edge to them. But there is no rancour in Mo’s voice.
‘No,’ she says, and looks at the hem of her shirt.

Liv finishes her coffee. The remaining
waiter has gone. And Mo’s cup is empty. It is a quarter to twelve. ‘Do you
need to lock up? Which way are you walking?’

‘Nowhere. I’m staying
here.’

‘You have a flat here?’

‘No, but Dino doesn’t
mind.’ Mo stubs out her cigarette, gets up and empties the ashtray.
‘Actually, Dino doesn’t know. He just thinks I’m really conscientious.
The last to leave every evening. “Why can’t the others be more like
you?”’ She jerks a thumb behind her. ‘I have a sleeping-bag in my
locker and I set my alarm for five thirty. Little bit of a housing issue at the moment.
As in, I can’t afford any.’

Liv stares.

‘Don’t look so shocked. That
banquette is more
comfortable than some of the rental accommodation
I’ve been in, I promise you.’

Afterwards she isn’t sure what makes
her say it. Liv rarely lets anyone into the house, let alone people she hasn’t
seen for years. But almost before she knows what she’s doing, her mouth is opening
and the words ‘You can stay at mine,’ are emerging. ‘Just for
tonight,’ she adds, when she realizes what she has said. ‘But I have a spare
room. With a power shower.’ Conscious that this may have sounded patronizing, she
adds, ‘We can catch up. It’ll be fun.’

Mo’s face is blank. Then she grimaces,
as if it is she who is doing Liv the favour. ‘If you say so,’ she says, and
goes to get her coat.

She can see her house long before she gets
there: its pale blue glass walls stand out above the old sugar warehouse as if something
extra-terrestrial has landed on the roof. David liked this; he liked to be able to point
it out if they were walking home with friends or potential clients. He liked its
incongruity against the dark brown brick of the Victorian warehouses, the way it caught
the light, or carried the reflection of the water below. He liked the fact that the
structure had become a feature of London’s riverside landscape. It was, he said, a
constant advertisement for his work.

When it was built, almost ten years ago,
glass had been his construction material of choice, its components made sophisticated
with thermal abilities, eco-friendliness. His work is distinctive across London;
transparency is the key, he would say. Buildings should reveal their purpose, and
their structure. The only rooms that are obscured are bathrooms, and
even then he often had to be persuaded not to fit one-way glass. It was typical of David
that he didn’t believe it was unnerving to see out when you were on the loo, even
if you were assured that nobody else could see in.

Her friends had envied her this house, its
location, and its occasional appearances in the better sort of interiors magazine – but
she knew they added, privately, to each other, that such minimalism would have driven
them mad. It was in David’s bones, the drive to purify, to clear out what was not
needed. Everything in the house had to withstand his William Morris test: is it
functional, and is it beautiful? And then: is it absolutely necessary? When they had
first got together, she had found it exhausting. David had bitten his lip as she left
trails of clothes across the bedroom floor, filled the kitchen with bunches of cheap
flowers, trinkets from the market. Now, she is grateful for her home’s blankness;
its spare asceticism.

‘So. Freaking. Cool.’ They
emerge from the rickety lift into the Glass House, and Mo’s face is
uncharacteristically animated. ‘This is your house? Seriously? How the hell did
you get to live somewhere like this?’

‘My husband built it.’ She walks
through the atrium, hanging her keys carefully on the single silver peg, flicking on the
internal lights as she passes.

‘Your ex? Jeez. And he let you keep
it?’

‘Not exactly.’ Liv presses a
button and watches as the roof shutters ease back silently, exposing the kitchen to the
starlit sky. ‘He died.’ She stands there, her face turned firmly upwards,
bracing herself for the flurry of awkward
sympathy. It never gets any
easier, the explanation. Four years on, and the words still cause a reflexive twinge, as
if David’s absence is a wound still located deep within her body.

But Mo is silent. When she finally speaks
she says simply, ‘Bummer.’ Her face is pale, impassive.

‘Yup,’ Liv says, and lets out a
small breath. ‘Yup, it really is.’