The Girl You Left Behind

other, but we never dare ask them the truth.’
    ‘The truth?’
    ‘What they want. Because we know the
     answer. And it would break our hearts.’ He had gazed off into the middle distance,
     and then, seconds later, recovered his smile. ‘Still, Jake is good. He’s
     really good. Better than we both deserve.’
    She likes his Americanness, the way it makes
     him slightly alien, and completely removed from David. He has an innate sense of
     courtesy, the kind of man who will instinctively open a door for a woman, not because
     he’s making some kind of chivalrous gesture but because it wouldn’t occur to
     him not to open the door if someone needed to go through it. He carries a kind of subtle
     authority: people actually move out of the way when he walks along the street. He does
     not seem to be aware of this.
    ‘Oh, my God, you’ve got it so
     bad,’ says Mo.
    ‘What? I’m just saying.
     It’s nice to spend time with someone who seems …’
    Mo snorts. ‘He is
so
getting
     laid this week.’
    But she has not invited him back to the
     Glass House. Mo senses her hesitation. ‘Okay, Rapunzel. If you’re going to
     stick around in this tower of yours, you’re going to have to let the odd prince
     run his fingers through your hair.’
    ‘I don’t know …’
    ‘So I’ve been thinking,’
     says Mo. ‘We should move your room around. Change the house a bit. Otherwise
     you’re always going to feel like you’re bringing someone back to
     David’s house.’
    Liv suspects it will feel like that however
     the furniture is arranged. But on Tuesday afternoon, when Mo is off work, they move the
     bed to the other side of the room, pushing it against the alabaster-coloured concrete
     wall that runs like an architectural backbone through the centre of the house. It is not
     a natural place for it, if you were going to be really picky, but she has to admit there
     is something invigorating about it all looking so different.
    ‘Now,’ says Mo, gazing up at
The Girl You Left Behind
. ‘You want to hang that painting somewhere
     else.’
    ‘No. It stays.’
    ‘But you said David bought it for you.
     And that means –’
    ‘I don’t care. She stays.
     Besides …’ Liv narrows her eyes at the woman within the frame. ‘I think
     she’d look odd in a living room. She’s too … intimate.’
    ‘Intimate?’
    ‘She’s … sexy.
     Don’t you think?’
    Mo squints at the portrait.
     ‘Can’t see it myself. Personally, if it were my room I’d have a
     massive flat-screen telly there.’
    Mo leaves, and Liv keeps gazing at the
     painting, and just for once she doesn’t feel the clench of grief.
What do you
     think?
she asks the girl.
Is it finally time to move on?
    It starts to go wrong on Friday
     morning.
    ‘So, you have a hot date!’ Her
     father steps forward and envelops her in a huge bear hug. He is full of
joie de
     vivre
, expansive and wise. He is, once again, speaking in exclamation marks. He
     is also dressed.
    ‘He’s just … I
     don’t want to make a big deal of it, Dad.’
    ‘But it’s wonderful!
     You’re a beautiful young woman! This is as nature intended – you should be out
     there, fluttering your feathers, strutting your stuff!’
    ‘I don’t have feathers,
     Dad.’ She sips her tea. ‘And I’m not entirely convinced about the
     stuff.’
    ‘What are you going to wear? Something
     a bit brighter? Caroline, what should she wear?’
    Caroline walks into the kitchen, pinning up
     her long red hair. She has been working on her tapestries andsmells
     vaguely of sheep. ‘She’s thirty years old, Michael. She can pick her own
     wardrobe.’
    ‘But look at the way she covers
     herself up! She’s still got David’s aesthetic – all blacks and greys and
     shapeless things. You should take a leaf out of Caroline’s book, darling. Look at
     the colours she wears! A woman like that draws the eye …’
    ‘A woman dressed as a yak would draw
     your eye,’ says Caroline, plugging in the kettle. But it is said without rancour.
     Her father stands behind her and moulds himself around her back. His eyes close in
     ecstasy. ‘We men … we’re primal creatures. Our eyes are inevitably
     drawn to the bright and the beautiful.’ He opens one eye, studying Liv.
     ‘Perhaps … you could wear something a bit less masculine at
     least.’
    ‘Masculine?’
    He stands back. ‘Big black pullover.
     Black jeans. No makeup. It’s not exactly a siren