The Girl You Left Behind

throws it into
     the nearest bin.

16
    They go out four times. The first time they
     have a pizza and she sticks to mineral water until she’s sure he doesn’t
     really think she’s a soak, at which point she allows herself one gin and tonic.
     It’s the most delicious gin and tonic she has ever had. He walks her back to her
     house and looks like he’s about to leave, then after a slightly awkward moment he
     kisses her cheek and they both laugh as if they know this is all a bit embarrassing.
     Without thinking, she leans forward and kisses him properly, a short one, but with
     intent. One that suggests something of herself. It leaves her a bit breathless. He walks
     into the lift backwards and is still grinning as the doors close on him.
    She likes him.
    The second time they go to see a live band
     his brother recommended and it’s awful. After twenty minutes, she realizes, with
     some relief, that he thinks it’s awful too, and when he says does she want to
     leave, they find themselves holding hands so they don’t lose each other as they
     fight their way out through the crowded bar. Somehow they don’t let go until they
     reach his flat. There they talk about their childhoods and bands they like and types of
     dog and the horror of courgettes, then kiss on the sofa until her legs go a bit weak.
     Her chin stays bright pink for two whole days afterwards.
    A couple of days after this he rings her at
     lunchtime tosay he happens to be passing a nearby café and does
     she fancy a quick coffee? ‘Were you really passing by?’ she says, after they
     have stretched their coffee and cake as far as his lunch hour can reasonably allow.
    ‘Sure,’ he says, and then, to
     her delight, his ears go pink. He sees her looking and reaches a hand up to his left
     lobe. ‘Ah. Man. I’m a really bad liar.’
    The fourth time they go to a restaurant. Her
     father calls just before pudding arrives to say that Caroline has left him again. He
     wails so loudly down the telephone that Paul actually jumps at the other side of the
     table. ‘I have to go,’ she says, and declines his offer of help. She is not
     ready for the two men to meet, especially where the possibility exists that her father
     may not be wearing trousers.
    When she arrives at his house half an hour
     later, Caroline is already home.
    ‘I forgot it was her night for life
     drawing,’ he says sheepishly.
    Paul does not attempt to push things
     further. She wonders briefly if she talks too much about David; whether somehow she has
     made herself off limits. But then she thinks it might just be him being gentlemanly.
     Other times she thinks, almost indignantly, that David is part of who she is, and if
     Paul wants to be with her, well, he’ll have to accept that. She has several
     imaginary conversations with him and two imaginary arguments.
    She wakes up thinking about him, about the
     way he leans forward when he listens, as if determined not to miss a single thing she
     says, the way his hair has greyed prematurely at the temples, his blue, blue eyes. She
     has forgotten what it’s like to wake up thinking about someone, to wantto be physically close to them, to feel a little giddy at the
     remembered scent of their skin. She still doesn’t have enough work but it bothers
     her less. Sometimes he sends her a text message in the middle of the day and she hears
     it spoken in an American accent.
    She is afraid of showing Paul McCafferty how
     much she likes him. She is afraid of getting it wrong: the rules seem to have changed in
     the nine years since she last dated. She listens to Mo and her dispassionate
     observations about Internet dating, of ‘friends with benefits’, of the dos
     and don’ts of sex – how she should wax and trim and have ‘techniques’
     – and it’s as if she’s listening to someone speaking Polish.
    She finds it hard to tally Paul McCafferty
     with Mo’s assertions about men: sleazy, chancing, self-serving, porn-obsessed
     slackers. He is quietly straightforward, a seemingly open book. It was why climbing the
     ranks of his specialist unit in the NYPD didn’t suit him, he says. ‘All the
     blacks and whites get pretty grey the higher up you get.’ The only time he looks
     even remotely uncertain, his speech becoming hesitant, is when discussing his son.
     ‘It’s crap, divorce,’ he says. ‘We all tell ourselves the kids
     are fine, that it’s better this way than two unhappy people shouting at each