The Girl You Left Behind

  'Hey. Sit down. Everything looks better on a full stomach.' She feels herself being steered into a chair. Mo flips open the oven door, allowing the kitchen to flood with the unfamiliar smell of home-cooked food. 'And if not, well, I know of a really comfortable banquette.'

  The food is good. Liv eats a plateful and sits with her hands on her stomach afterwards, wondering why she is so surprised that Mo can actually cook. 'Thanks,' she says, as Mo mops up the last of hers. 'It was really good. I can't remember the last time I ate that much.'

  'No problem.'

  And now you have to leave. The words that have been on her lips for the past twenty hours do not come. She does not want Mo to go just yet. She does not want to be alone with the council-tax people and the final demands and her own uncontrollable thoughts; she feels suddenly grateful that tonight she will have somebody to talk to - a human defence against the date.

  'So. Liv Worthing. The whole husband-dying thing -'

  Liv puts her knife and fork together. 'I'd rather not talk about it.'

  She feels Mo's eyes on her. 'Okay. No dead husbands. So - what about boyfriends?'

  'Boyfriends?'

  'Since ... the One We Must Not Mention. Anyone serious?'

  'No.'

  Mo picks a piece of cheese from the side of the baking dish.

  'Ill-advised shags?'

  'Nope.'

  Mo's head shoots up. 'Not one? In how long?'

  'Four years,' Liv mumbles.

  She is lying. There was one, three years ago, after well-meaning friends had insisted she had to 'move on'. As if David had been some kind of obstacle. She had drunk herself halfway to oblivion to go through with it and then wept afterwards, huge, snotty sobs of grief and guilt and self-disgust. The man - she can't even remember his name - had barely been able to contain his relief when she had said she was going home. Even now when she thinks about it she feels cold shame.

  'Nothing in four years? And you're ... what? Thirty? What is this, some kind of sexual suttee? What are you doing, Worthing? Saving yourself for Mr Dead Husband in the hereafter?'

  'I'm Halston. Liv Halston. And ... I just ... haven't met anyone I wanted to ...' Liv decides to change the direction of this conversation. 'Okay, how about you? Some nice self-harming Emo in the wings?' Defensiveness has made her spiky.

  Mo's fingers creep towards her cigarettes and retreat again.

  'I do okay.'

  Liv waits.

  'I have an arrangement.'

  'An arrangement?'

  'With Ranic, the wine waiter. Every couple of weeks we hook up for a technically proficient but ultimately soulless coupling. He was pretty rubbish when we started but he's getting the hang of it.' She eats another stray piece of cheese. 'Still watches too much porn, though. You can tell.'

  'Nobody serious?'

  'My parents stopped talking about grandchildren some time around the turn of the century.'

  'Oh, God. That reminds me: I promised I'd ring my dad.' Liv has a sudden thought. She stands and reaches for her bag. 'Hey, how about I nip down to the shop and get a bottle of wine?' This is going to be fine, she tells herself. We'll talk about parents and people I don't remember, and college, and Mo's jobs, and I'll steer her away from the whole sex thing, and before I know it tomorrow will be here and my house will feel normal and today's date will be a whole year away again.

  Mo pushes her chair back from the table. 'Not for me,' she says, scooping up her plate. 'I've got to get changed and shoot.'

  'Shoot?'

  'Work.'

  Liv's hand is on her purse. 'But - you said you'd just finished.'

  'My day shift. Now I start my evening shift. Well, in about twenty minutes.' She pulls her hair up and clips it into place. 'You okay to wash up? And all right if I take that key again?'

  The brief sense of wellbeing that had arrived with the meal evaporates, like the popping of a soap bubble. She sits at the half-cleared table, listening to Mo's tuneless humming, the sound of her washing and scrubbing her teeth in the spare-room bathroom, the soft closing of the bedroom door.

  She calls up the stairs. 'Do you think they need anyone else tonight? I mean - I could help out. Maybe. I'm sure I could do waitressing.'

  There is no reply.

  'I did work in a bar once.'

  'Me too. It made me want to stab people in the eye. Even more so than waiting tables.'

  Mo is back in the hallway, dressed in a black shirt and bomber jacket, an apron under her arm. 'See you later, dude,' she calls. 'Unless I get lucky with Ranic, obvs.'

  She is gone, downstairs, drawn back into the world of living. And as the echo of her voice dies away, the stillness of the Glass House becomes a solid, weighty thing and Liv realizes, with a growing sense of panic, that her house, her haven, is preparing to betray her.

  She knows that she cannot spend this evening here alone.

  14

  These are the places it is not a good idea to drink alone if you're female.

  Bazookas: this used to be the White Horse, a quiet pub on the corner opposite the coffee shop, stuffed with sagging plush velvet benches and the occasional horse brass, its sign half obscured by age-related paint loss. Now it is a neon-clad titty bar, where businessmen go late, and taut-faced girls with too much makeup leave in platform shoes some time in the small hours, smoking furiously and moaning about their tips.

  Dino's: the local wine bar, packed throughout the nineties, has reinvented itself as a spit-and-sawdust eatery for yummy mummies in the daylight hours. After eight o'clock in the evening it now runs occasional speed-dating sessions. The rest of the time, apart from Fridays, its floor-to-ceiling windows reveal it to be conspicuously and painfully empty.

  Any of the older pubs in the backstreets beyond the river, which draw small groups of resentful locals, men who smoke roll-ups with dead-eyed pit bulls and who will stare at a woman alone in a pub as a mullah would at a woman taking a stroll in a bikini.

  Any of the new cheerfully packed drinking places near the river that are packed with people younger than you, mostly groups of laughing friends with Apple Mac satchels and thick black glasses, all of whom will make you feel more lonely than if you had just sat indoors.

  Liv toys with the idea of buying a bottle of wine and taking it home. But every time she pictures sitting in that empty white space alone, she is filled with an unusual dread. She does not want to watch television: the last three years have shown her that this is the evening of cosmic jokes, where normally mundane comedy dramas will suddenly, poignantly, kill off a husband, or substitute a wildlife programme with another about sudden death. She doesn't want to find herself standing in front of The Girl You Left Behind, recalling the day they had bought it together, seeing in that woman's expression the love and fulfilment she used to feel. She doesn't want to find herself digging out the photographs of her and David together, knowing with weary certainty that she will never love anybody like that again, and that while she can recall the exact way his eyes crinkled, or his fingers held a mug, she can no longer bring to mind how these elements fitted together.

  She does not want to feel even the faintest temptation to call his mobile number, as she had done obsessively for the first year after his death so she could hear his voice on the answering service. Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.

  And then she remembers something one of the women had said at dinner the previous night. When my sister wants to go out without being hassled, she heads for a gay bar. So funny. There is a gay bar not ten minutes' walk from here. She has passed it a hundred times without ever wondering what lies behind the protective wire grilles on the windows. Nobody will hassle her in a gay bar. Liv reaches for her jacket, bag and keys. If nothing else, she has a plan.

  'Well, that's awkward.'

  'It was once. Month
s ago. But I get the feeling she's never quite forgotten it.'

  'Because you are SO GOOD.' Greg wipes another pint glass, grinning, and puts it on the shelf.

  'No ... Well, okay, obviously,' Paul says. 'Seriously, Greg, I just feel guilty whenever she looks at me. Like ... like I promised something I can't deliver.'

  'What's the golden rule, bro? Never shit on your own doorstep.'

  'I was drunk. It was the night Leonie told me she and Jake were moving in with Mitch. I was ...'

  'You let your defences down.' Greg does his daytime-television voice. 'Your boss got you when you were vulnerable. Plied you with drink. And now you just feel used. Hang on ...' He disappears to serve a customer. The bar is busy for a Thursday night, all the tables taken, a steady stream of people at the bar, a low hum of cheerful conversation rising above the music. He had meant to go home after he finished at the office, but he rarely gets a chance to catch up with his brother, and it's good to get a few drinks in now and then. Even if you do have to spend your time avoiding eye contact with 70 per cent of the customers.

  Greg rings up some money and arrives back in front of Paul.

  'Look, I know how it sounds. But she's a nice woman. And it's just horrible having to fend her off all the time.'

  'Sucks to be you.'

  'Like you'd understand.'

  'Because nobody ever hits on you when you're with someone. Not in a gay bar. Oh, no.' Greg puts another glass on the shelf. 'Look, why don't you just sit her down, tell her that she's a really lovely person, yada yada yada, but you're not interested in her that way?'

  'Because it's awkward. Us working so closely together and all.'

  'And this isn't? The whole "Oh, well, if you ever fancy a quickie when you've finished this case, Paul" thing.' Greg's attention shifts to the other end of the bar. 'Uh-oh. I think we've got a live one.'

  Paul has been dimly aware of the girl all evening. She had arrived looking perfectly composed and he had assumed she was waiting for someone. Now she is trying to climb back on to her bar stool. She makes two attempts, the second sending her stumbling clumsily backwards. She pushes her hair out of her eyes and peers at the bar as if it's the summit of Everest. She propels herself upwards. When she lands on the stool she reaches out both hands to steady herself and blinks hard, as if it takes her a couple of seconds to believe she has actually made it. She lifts her face towards Greg. 'Excuse me? Can I have another wine?' She holds up an empty glass.

  Greg's gaze, amused and weary, travels to Paul and away. 'We're closing in ten minutes,' he says, flicking his tea-towel over his shoulder. He's good with drunks. Paul has never seen Greg lose his cool. They were, their mother would remark, chalk and cheese like that.

  'So that leaves me ten minutes to drink it?' she says, her smile wavering slightly.

  She doesn't look like a lesbian. But, then, few of them do, these days. He doesn't say this to his brother, who would laugh at him and tell him he had spent too much time in the police.

  'Sweetheart, I mean this in the nicest way, but if you have another drink I'll worry about you. And I really, really hate ending my shift worrying about customers.'

  'A small one,' she says. Her smile is heartbreaking. 'I don't even usually drink.'

  'Yeah. You're the ones I worry about.'

  'This ...' Her eyes are strained. 'This is a difficult day. A really difficult day. Please can I just have one more drink? And then you can call me a nice respectable taxi from a nice respectable firm and I'll go home and pass out and you can go home without worrying about me.'

  He looks back at Paul and sighs. See what I have to put up with? 'A small one,' he says. 'A very small one.'

  Her smile falls away, her eyes half close, and she reaches down to her feet, swaying, for her bag. Paul turns back to the bar, checking his phone for messages. It is his turn to have Jake tomorrow night, and although the thing with him and Leonie is now amicable, some part of him still worries that she will find a reason to cancel.

  'My bag!'

  He glances up.

  'My bag's gone!' The woman has slid from the stool and is gazing around at the floor, one hand clutching the bar. When she looks up, her face is leached of colour.

  'Did you take it to the Ladies?' Greg leans across the bar.

  'No,' she says, her gaze darting around the bar. 'It was tucked under my stool.'

  'You left your bag under the stool?' Greg tuts. 'Didn't you read the signs?'

  There are signs all over the bar. Do not leave your bag unattended: pickpockets operate in this area. Paul can count three of them just from where he sits.

  She has not read them.

  'I'm really sorry. But it's not good around here.' The woman's gaze flickers between them and, drunk as she is, he can see that she guesses what they're thinking. Silly drunk girl.

  Paul reaches for his phone. 'I'll call the cops.'

  'And tell them I was stupid enough to leave my bag under a stool?' She puts her face into her hands. 'Oh, God. I'd just withdrawn two hundred pounds for the council tax. I don't believe it. Two. Hundred. Pounds.'

  'We've had two already this week,' says Greg. 'We're waiting for CCTV to be installed. But it's an epidemic. I'm really sorry.'

  She looks up and wipes her face. She lets out a long, unsteady breath. She is plainly trying not to burst into tears. The glass of wine sits untouched on the bar. 'I'm really sorry. But I don't think I'm going to be able to pay for that.'

  'Don't give it a thought,' says Greg. 'Here, Paul, you call the cops. I'll go get her a coffee. Right. Time, ladies and gentlemen, please ...'

  The police around here do not come out for vanished handbags. They give the woman, whose name is Liv, a crime number and promise a letter about victim support, and tell her they'll be in touch if they find anything. It's clear to everyone that they do not expect to be in touch.

  By the time she's off the phone the bar is long empty. Greg unlocks the door to let them out, and Liv reaches for her jacket. 'I've a guest staying. She's got a spare key.'

  'You want to call her?' Paul proffers his phone.

  She looks blankly at him. 'I don't know her number. But I know where she works.'

  Paul waits.

  'It's a restaurant about ten minutes' walk from here. Towards Blackfriars.'

  It's midnight. Paul gazes at the clock. He is tired and his son is being dropped off at seven thirty tomorrow morning. But he cannot leave a drunk woman, who has plainly spent the best part of an hour trying not to cry, to walk the backstreets of the South Bank at midnight.

  'I'll walk with you,' he says.

  He catches her look of wariness, the way she prepares to decline. Greg touches her arm. 'You're okay, sweetheart. He's an ex-cop.'

  Paul feels himself being reassessed. The woman's makeup has smudged beneath one eye and he has to fight the urge to wipe it.

  'I can vouch for his good character. He's genetically wired to do this, kind of like a St Bernard in human form.'

  'Yeah. Thanks, Greg.'

  She puts on her jacket. 'If you're sure you don't mind, that would be really kind of you.'

  'I'll call you tomorrow, Paul. And good luck, Miss Liv. Hope it all gets sorted.' Greg waits until they are some way down the road, then closes and locks the door.

  They walk briskly, their feet echoing in the empty cobbled streets, the sound bouncing off the silent buildings around them. It has begun to rain, and Paul rams his hands deep into his pockets, his neck hunched into his collar. They pass two young men in hoodies and he is conscious of her moving slightly closer to him.

  'Did you cancel your cards?' he says.

  'Oh. No.' The fresh air is hitting her hard. She looks despondent, and every now and then she stumbles a little. He would offer his arm but he doesn't think she would take it. 'I didn't think of that.'

  'Can you remember what you have?'

  'One Mastercard, one Barclays.'

  'Hold on. I know someone who can help.' He dials a number. 'Sherrie? ... Hi. It
's McCafferty ... Yeah, fine, thanks. All good. You?' He waits. 'Listen - could you do me a favour? Text me the numbers for stolen bank cards? Mastercard and a Barclays. Friend's just had her bag nicked ... Yeah. Thanks, Sherrie. Say hi to the guys for me. And, yeah, see you soon.'

  He dials the texted numbers, hands her the phone. 'Cops,' he says. 'Small world.' And then walks silently as she explains the situation to the operator.

  'Thank you,' she says, handing the phone back.

  'No problem.'

  'I'd be surprised if they manage to get any money out on them anyway.' Liv smiles ruefully.

  They are at the restaurant, a Spanish place. The lights are off and the doors locked. He ducks into the doorway and she peers in through the window, as if willing it to show some distant sign of life.

  Paul consults his watch. 'It's a quarter past twelve. They're probably done for the night.'

  Liv stands and bites her lip. She turns back to him. 'Perhaps she's at mine. Please can I borrow your phone again?' He hands it over, and she holds it up in the sodium light better to see the screen. He watches as she taps a number, then turns away, one hand rifling unconsciously through her hair. She glances behind her and gives him a brief, uncertain smile, then turns back. She types in another number, and a third.

  'Anyone else you can call?'

  'My dad. I just tried him. Nobody's answering there either. Although it's entirely possible he's asleep. He sleeps like the dead.' She looks completely lost.

  'Look - why don't I book you a room in a hotel? You can pay me back when you get your cards.'

  She stands there, biting her lip. Two hundred pounds. He remembers the way she had said it, despairing. This was not someone who could afford a central London hotel room.

  The rain is falling more heavily now, splashing up their legs, water gurgling along the gutters in front of them. He speaks almost before he thinks: 'You know what? It's getting late. I live about twenty minutes' walk away. You want to think about it and decide when we get to mine? We can sort it all out from there if you like.'

  She hands him his phone. He watches some brief, internal struggle take place. Then she smiles, a little warily, and steps forward beside him. 'Thank you. And sorry. I - I really didn't set out to mess up someone else's night too.'