The Girl You Left Behind

simply pulled down the shutters, locked the doors and disappeared, leaving an
     ‘
en vacances
’ sign on the door. This had led to no small degree
     of consternation within the little town, two letters of complaint to the local paper,
     and a good deal of extra custom for Le Bar Blanc. On the family’s return, when
     asked where she had been, Hélène had replied that they had travelled to
     Switzerland.
    ‘We consider the air there to be
     particularly good for Hélène’s health,’ Monsieur Montpellier
     said.
    ‘Oh, it certainly is,’
     Hélène replied, with a small smile.
     ‘Most … restorative.’
    Madame Louvier is recorded as remarking in
     her diary that it was one thing for hoteliers to disappear on a whim to foreign
     countries, without so much as a by-your-leave, but quite another for them to come back
     looking quite so pleased with themselves about having done so.
I never knew what happened to Sophie and Édouard. I know they were in
     Montreux up to 1926 but Hélène was the only one in regular contact and
     she died suddenly in 1934. After that my letters came back marked Return to
     Sender.
    Édith Béthune and Liv have
     exchanged four letters, trading long-hidden information, filling in the gaps. Liv has
     begun writing a book about Sophie, having been approached by two publishers. It is,
     frankly, terrifying, but Paul asks her who is more qualified to write it.
    The older woman’s handwriting is firm
     for someone of her advanced years, the copperplate evenly spaced and forward-slanting.
     Liv shifts closer to the bedside light to read it.
I wrote to a neighbour, who said she had heard Édouard had fallen ill, but
     could offer no evidence. Over the years other such communications led me to
     believe the worst; some remembered him becoming ill, some remembered Sophie as
     the one whose health failed. Someone said they had just disappeared. Mimi
     thought she heard her mother say they had gone somewhere warmer. I had moved so
     many times by then that Sophie would have had no way of contacting me
     herself.
    I know what good sense would have me believe of two frail people whose bodies
     had been so punished by starvation and imprisonment. But I have always preferred
     to think that seven, eight years after the war, free of responsibility for
     anybody else, perhaps they finally felt safe enough to move on, and simply
     packed up and did so. I prefer to imagine that they were out there, perhaps in
     sunnier climes, as happy as they had been on our holiday, content in their own
     company.
    Around her the bedroom is even emptier than
     usual, ready for her move the following week. She will stay in Paul’s little flat.
     She may get her own place, but neither of them seems to be in any hurry to pursue that
     conversation.
    She gazes down at him sleeping beside her,
     still struck by how handsome he is, the shape of him, the simple joy of having him
     there. She thinks of something her father had said when he came for Christmas, seeking
     her out in the kitchen and drying dishes as she washed, while theothers played noisy board games in the front room. She had looked up, struck by his
     uncharacteristic silence.
    ‘You know, I think David would have
     rather liked him.’ He didn’t look at her, but continued with his drying.
    She wipes her eyes, as she does often when
     she thinks about this (she is giddily emotional at the moment), and turns back to the
     letter.
I am an old woman now, so it may not happen in my lifetime, but I believe that
     one day a whole series of paintings will emerge with unknown provenance,
     beautiful and strange, their colours unexpected and rich. They will feature a
     red-haired woman in the shade of a palm tree, or perhaps gazing out into a
     yellow sun, her face a little older, that hair perhaps streaked with grey, but
     her smile wide and her eyes full of love.
    Liv looks up at the portrait opposite her
     bed, and the young Sophie gazes back at her, washed with the pale gold of the lamplight.
     She reads the letter a second time, studying the words, the spaces between them. She
     thinks back to Édith Béthune’s gaze: steady and knowing. And then she
     reads it again.
    ‘Hey.’ Paul rolls over sleepily
     towards her. He reaches out an arm and pulls her to him. His skin is warm, his breath
     sweet. ‘What you doing?’
    ‘Thinking.’
    ‘That sounds dangerous.’
    Liv puts the letter down, and burrows under
     the duvet until she is facing