The Girl You Left Behind

want to go out.
    Come on
, she scolds herself.
You’re stronger than this. Think what Sophie had to cope with.
    Liv puts on some music, just to take the
     edge off the silence. She loads some laundry into the machine, to give a semblance of
     domestic normality. And then she picks up the pile of envelopes and papers she has
     ignored for the last two weeks, pulls up a chair and starts to plough through them.
    The bills she puts in the middle; the final
     demands to the right. On the left she puts anything that is not urgent. Bank statements
     she ignores. Statements from her lawyers go in a pile by themselves.
    She has a large notepad on which she enters
     a column of figures. She works her way methodically through the list, adding sums and
     subtracting them, scoring through and putting her workings on the edge of the page. She
     sits back in her chair, surrounded by the black sky, and stares at the figures for a
     long time.
    Eventually she leans back, gazing up through
     the skylight. It is as dark as if it were midnight, but when she checks her watch,
     it’s not yet six o’clock. She gazes at the straight, blameless lines of
     David’s creation, the way they frame a huge expanse of glittering sky, whichever
     angleshe chooses to look from. She gazes at the walls, at the
     thermic glass interlaid with special sheets of impossibly thin insulating material that
     he had sourced from California and China so that the house would be quiet and warm. She
     gazes at the alabaster concrete wall on which she had once scrawled ‘WHY
     DON’T YOU BUGGER OFF?’ in marker pen when she and David had argued about her
     untidiness in the early days of their marriage. Despite the attentions of several
     specialist removers, you can still make out the ghostly outline of those words if the
     atmospheric conditions are right. She gazes out at the sky, visible through at least one
     clear wall in every room, so that the Glass House would always feel as if it were
     suspended in space, high above the teeming streets.
    She walks through to her bedroom and gazes
     at the portrait of Sophie Lefèvre. As ever, Sophie’s eyes meets hers with
     that direct stare. Today, however, she does not appear impassive, imperious. Today Liv
     thinks she can detect new knowledge behind her expression.
    What happened to you, Sophie?
    She has known she will have to make this
     decision for days. She has probably always known it. And yet it still feels like a
     betrayal.
    She flicks through the telephone book, picks
     up the receiver and dials. ‘Hello? Is that the estate agent?’

27
    ‘So your painting disappeared
     when?’
    ‘1941. Maybe 1942. It’s
     difficult, because everyone involved is, you know, dead.’ The blonde woman laughs
     mirthlessly.
    ‘Yeah, so you said. And can you give
     me a full description?’
    The woman pushes a folder across the table.
     ‘This is everything we have. Most of the facts were in the letter I sent you in
     November.’
    Paul flicks through the folder, trying to
     recall the details. ‘So you located it in a gallery in Amsterdam. And you’ve
     made an initial approach …’
    Miriam knocks on the door and enters,
     bearing coffee. He waits as she distributes the two cups and nods apologetically,
     backing out again, as if she has done something amiss. He mouths a thank-you, and she
     winces.
    ‘Yes, I wrote them a letter. What do
     you think it’s worth?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘What do you think it’s
     worth?’
    Paul looks up from his notes. The woman is
     leaning back in her chair. Her face is beautiful, clear-skinned and defined, not yet
     revealing the first signs of age. But it is also, he notices now, expressionless, as if
     she has grown used to hiding her feelings. Or perhaps it’s Botox. Hesteals a glance at her thick hair, knowing that Liv could detect
     immediately if it was entirely her own.
    ‘Because a Kandinsky would fetch a lot
     of money, right? That’s what my husband says.’
    Paul picks his words carefully. ‘Well,
     yes, if the work can be proven to be yours. But that’s all some way off. Can we
     just get back to the issue of ownership? Do you have any proof of where the painting was
     obtained?’
    ‘Well, my grandfather was friends with
     Kandinsky.’
    ‘Okay.’ He takes a sip of his
     coffee. ‘Do you have any documentary evidence?’
    She looks blank.
    ‘Photographs? Letters? References to
     the two of them being friends?’
    ‘Oh, no. But my grandmother