The Girl You Left Behind

electric spark
     of dawn finally begins to leach into the room.
    ‘This place is amazing,’ he
     murmurs, gazing out through the window. Their legs are entwined, his kisses imprinted
     all over her skin. She feels drugged with happiness.
    ‘It is. I can’t really afford to
     stay here, though.’ She peers at him through the half-dark. ‘I’m in a
     bit of a mess, financially. I’ve been told I should sell.’
    ‘But you don’t want
     to.’
    ‘It feels … like a
     betrayal.’
    ‘Well, I can see why you
     wouldn’t want to leave,’ he says. ‘It’s beautiful. So
     quiet.’ He looks up again. ‘Wow. Just to be able to peel your roof off
     whenever you feel like it …’ She wriggles out of his arms a little, so that
     she can turn towards the long window, her head in the crook of his arm. ‘Some
     mornings I like to watch the barges head up towards Tower Bridge. Look. If the light is
     right it turns the river into a trickle of gold.’
    ‘A trickle of gold, huh?’
    They fall silent, and as they watch, the
     room begins to glow obligingly. She gazes down at the river, watching it illuminate by
     degrees, like a thread to her future.
Is this okay?
she asks.
Am I allowed
     to be this happy again?
    Paul is so quiet she wonders if he has
     finally drifted off to sleep. But when she turns he is looking at the wall opposite the
     bed. He is staring at
The Girl You Left Behind
, now just visible in the dawn.
     She shifts on to her side and watches him. He is transfixed, his eyes not leaving the
     image as the light grows stronger.
He gets her
, she thinks. She feels a stab of
     something that might actually be pure joy.
    ‘You like her?’
    He doesn’t seem to hear.
    She nestles back into him, rests her face on
     his shoulder. ‘You’ll see her colours more clearly in a few minutes.
     She’s called
The Girl You Left Behind
. Or at least we – I – think she is.
     It’s inked on the back of the frame. She’s … my favourite thing in
     this house. Actually, she’s my favourite thing in the whole world.’ She
     pauses. ‘David gave her to me on our honeymoon.’
    Paul is silent. She trails a finger up his
     arm. ‘I know it sounds daft, but after he died, I just didn’t want to be
     part of anything. I sat up here for weeks. I – I didn’t want to see other human
     beings. And even when it was really bad, there was something about her
     expression … Hers was the only face I could cope with. She was like this
     reminder that I would survive.’ She lets out a deep sigh. ‘And then when you
     came along I realized she was reminding me of something else. Of the girl I used to be.
     Who didn’t worry all the time. And knew how to have fun, who
     just … 
did
stuff. The girl I want to be again.’
    He is still silent.
    She has said too much. What she wants is for
     Paul to lower his face to hers, to feel his weight upon her.
    But he doesn’t speak. She waits for a
     moment and then says, just to break the silence, ‘I suppose it sounds
     silly … to be so attached to a painting …’
    When he turns to her his face looks odd:
     taut and drawn. Even in the half-light she can see it. He swallows.
     ‘Liv … what’s your name?’
    She pulls a face.
    ‘Liv. You know th–’
    ‘No. Your surname.’
    She blinks. ‘Halston. My surname is
     Halston. Oh. I suppose we never …’ She can’t work out where this is
     going. She wants him to stop looking at the painting. She grasps suddenly that the
     relaxed mood has evaporated and something strange has taken its place. They lie there in
     an increasingly uncomfortable silence.
    He lifts a hand to his head.
     ‘Um … Liv? Do you mind if I head off? I’m … I’ve
     got some work stuff to see to.’
    It’s as if she has been winded. It
     takes her a moment to speak, and when she does her voice is too high, not her own.
     ‘At six a.m.?’
    ‘Yeah. Sorry.’
    ‘Oh.’ She blinks. ‘Oh.
     Right.’
    He is out of bed and dressing. Dazed, she
     watches him hauling on and fastening his trousers, the fierce swiftness with which he
     pulls on his shirt. Dressed, he turns, hesitates, then leans forward and drops a kiss on
     her cheek. Unconsciously she pulls the duvet up to her chin.
    ‘Are you sure you don’t want any
     breakfast?’
    ‘No. I … I’m
     sorry.’ He doesn’t smile.
    ‘It’s fine.’
    He cannot leave fast enough. Mortification
     begins to steal through her, like poison in her blood.
    By the