The Girl You Left Behind

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