The Girl You Left Behind

much,’ he says tonelessly. He pulls open the door, and in a cloud of expensive
     perfume, Miss Harcourt is gone, shouting something unintelligible as she reaches the
     stairs.
    ‘What the hell was that?’ says
     Janey, as he strides past her on his way back to his office.
    ‘Don’t. Just don’t,
     okay?’ he says. He slams his door behind him and sits down at his desk. When he
     finally lifts his head from his hands, the first thing he sees is the portrait of
The Girl You Left Behind.
    He dials her number standing on the corner
     of Goodge Street, outside the Underground station. He has walked all the way up
     Marylebone Road thinking about what he will say, and when she answers, it all falls
     away.
    ‘Liv?’
    The faint pause before she answers tells him
     she knows who it is. ‘What do you want, Paul?’ Her tone is clipped, wary.
     ‘Because if this is about Sophie –’
    ‘No. It’s nothing to do
     with … I just –’ He lifts a hand to his head, gazes around him at the
     bustling street. ‘I just wanted to know … if you were okay.’
    Another long pause. ‘Well. I’m
     still here.’
    ‘I was thinking … maybe when
     this is over, that we … could meet …’ He hears his voice, tepid and
     feeble, unlike himself. His words, he realizes suddenly, are inadequate, no match for
     the chaos he has unleashed in her life. What had she done to deserve this, after
     all?
    So her answer, when it finally comes, is not
     really a surprise.
    ‘I – I can’t really think beyond
     the next court date right now. This is just … too complicated.’
    There is another silence. A bus roars past,
     squealing and accelerating in an impotent rage, drowning sound, and he presses the phone
     to his ear. He closes his eyes. She does not attempt to fill the silence.
     ‘So … are you going away for Christmas?’
    ‘No.’
    Because this court case has eaten all my
     money,
he hears her silent response
. Because you did this to me.
    ‘Me neither. Well, I’ll go over
     to Greg’s. But it’s –’
    ‘Like you said before, Paul, we
     probably shouldn’t even be speaking to each other.’
    ‘Right. Well, I’m – I’m
     glad you’re okay. I guess that’s all I wanted to say.’
    ‘I’m fine.’
    This time the silence is excruciating.
    ‘’Bye, then.’
    ‘Goodbye, Paul.’ She hangs
     up.
    Paul stands at the junction of Tottenham
     Court Road, the phone limp in his hand, the tinny sound of Christmas carols in his ears,
     then shoves it into his pocket and walks slowly back towards the office.

28
    ‘So this is the kitchen. As you can
     see, there are spectacular views on three sides over the river and the city itself. To
     the right you can see Tower Bridge, down there is the London Eye, and on sunny days you
     can press a button here – is that right, Mrs Halston? – and simply open the
     roof.’
    Liv watches as the couple gaze upwards. The
     man, a businessman in his fifties, wears the kind of spectacles that broadcast his
     designer individuality. Poker-faced since he arrived, it’s possible he assumes
     that any faint expression of enthusiasm might disadvantage him should he decide to make
     an offer.
    But even he cannot hide his surprise at the
     receding glass ceiling. With a barely audible hum the roof slides back and they gaze up
     into the infinite blue. Wintry air sinks gently into the kitchen, lifting the top sheets
     from the pile of paperwork on the table.
    ‘Don’t think we’ll leave
     it open too long, eh?’ The young estate agent, who has not tired of this mechanism
     in the three viewings so far this morning, shivers theatrically, then watches with
     barely concealed satisfaction as the roof closes neatly. The woman, petite and Japanese,
     her neck secured by an intricately knotted scarf, nudges her husband and murmurs
     something into his ear. He nods and looks up again.
    ‘And the roof, as with much of the
     house, is made of special glass, which retains heat to the same degree as your average
     insulated wall. It’s actually more eco-friendly than a normal terraced
     house.’
    These two don’t look as if they have
     ever set foot in a normal terraced house. The Japanese woman walks around the kitchen,
     opening and closing the drawers and cupboards, studying the interiors with the intensity
     of a surgeon about to dive into an open wound.
    Liv, standing mute by the fridge, finds she
     is chewing the inside of her cheek. She had known this would