The Girl You Left Behind

thought you’d be … I don’t know. On telly. Or in the media, or
     acting or something.’
    If Liv had read these words on a page, she
     might have detected an edge to them. But there is no rancour in Mo’s voice.
     ‘No,’ she says, and looks at the hem of her shirt.
    Liv finishes her coffee. The remaining
     waiter has gone. And Mo’s cup is empty. It is a quarter to twelve. ‘Do you
     need to lock up? Which way are you walking?’
    ‘Nowhere. I’m staying
     here.’
    ‘You have a flat here?’
    ‘No, but Dino doesn’t
     mind.’ Mo stubs out her cigarette, gets up and empties the ashtray.
     ‘Actually, Dino doesn’t know. He just thinks I’m really conscientious.
     The last to leave every evening. “Why can’t the others be more like
     you?”’ She jerks a thumb behind her. ‘I have a sleeping-bag in my
     locker and I set my alarm for five thirty. Little bit of a housing issue at the moment.
     As in, I can’t afford any.’
    Liv stares.
    ‘Don’t look so shocked. That
     banquette is morecomfortable than some of the rental accommodation
     I’ve been in, I promise you.’
    Afterwards she isn’t sure what makes
     her say it. Liv rarely lets anyone into the house, let alone people she hasn’t
     seen for years. But almost before she knows what she’s doing, her mouth is opening
     and the words ‘You can stay at mine,’ are emerging. ‘Just for
     tonight,’ she adds, when she realizes what she has said. ‘But I have a spare
     room. With a power shower.’ Conscious that this may have sounded patronizing, she
     adds, ‘We can catch up. It’ll be fun.’
    Mo’s face is blank. Then she grimaces,
     as if it is she who is doing Liv the favour. ‘If you say so,’ she says, and
     goes to get her coat.
    She can see her house long before she gets
     there: its pale blue glass walls stand out above the old sugar warehouse as if something
     extra-terrestrial has landed on the roof. David liked this; he liked to be able to point
     it out if they were walking home with friends or potential clients. He liked its
     incongruity against the dark brown brick of the Victorian warehouses, the way it caught
     the light, or carried the reflection of the water below. He liked the fact that the
     structure had become a feature of London’s riverside landscape. It was, he said, a
     constant advertisement for his work.
    When it was built, almost ten years ago,
     glass had been his construction material of choice, its components made sophisticated
     with thermal abilities, eco-friendliness. His work is distinctive across London;
     transparency is the key, he would say. Buildings should reveal their purpose, andtheir structure. The only rooms that are obscured are bathrooms, and
     even then he often had to be persuaded not to fit one-way glass. It was typical of David
     that he didn’t believe it was unnerving to see out when you were on the loo, even
     if you were assured that nobody else could see in.
    Her friends had envied her this house, its
     location, and its occasional appearances in the better sort of interiors magazine – but
     she knew they added, privately, to each other, that such minimalism would have driven
     them mad. It was in David’s bones, the drive to purify, to clear out what was not
     needed. Everything in the house had to withstand his William Morris test: is it
     functional, and is it beautiful? And then: is it absolutely necessary? When they had
     first got together, she had found it exhausting. David had bitten his lip as she left
     trails of clothes across the bedroom floor, filled the kitchen with bunches of cheap
     flowers, trinkets from the market. Now, she is grateful for her home’s blankness;
     its spare asceticism.
    ‘So. Freaking. Cool.’ They
     emerge from the rickety lift into the Glass House, and Mo’s face is
     uncharacteristically animated. ‘This is your house? Seriously? How the hell did
     you get to live somewhere like this?’
    ‘My husband built it.’ She walks
     through the atrium, hanging her keys carefully on the single silver peg, flicking on the
     internal lights as she passes.
    ‘Your ex? Jeez. And he let you keep
     it?’
    ‘Not exactly.’ Liv presses a
     button and watches as the roof shutters ease back silently, exposing the kitchen to the
     starlit sky. ‘He died.’ She stands there, her face turned firmly upwards,
     bracing herself for the flurry of awkwardsympathy. It never gets any
     easier, the explanation. Four years on, and the