The Girl You Left Behind

sitting in my in-tray. I was busy with other stuff so I didn’t
     put the two things together. Then, when you invited me up the other night, I recognized
     it immediately.’
    She scans it, glances at the photocopied
     page. Her own painting stares back at her from the coloured page, its colours muddied
     through reproduction. ‘The
Architectural Digest
.’
    ‘Yeah. I think that was it.’
    ‘They came here to do a piece on the
     Glass House when we were first married.’ Her hand lifts to her mouth. ‘David
     thought it would be good publicity for his practice.’
    ‘The Lefèvre family have been
     conducting an audit intoall Édouard Lefèvre’s works,
     and during the course of it they discovered several were missing. One is
The Girl
     You Left Behind
. There is no documented history for it after 1917. Can you tell
     me where you got it?’
    ‘This is crazy. It
     was … David bought it from an American woman. In Barcelona.’
    ‘A gallery owner? Have you got a
     receipt for it?’
    ‘Of sorts. But it’s not worth
     anything. She was going to throw it away. It was out on the street.’
    Paul runs a hand over his face. ‘Do
     you know who this woman was?’
    Liv shakes her head. ‘It was years
     ago.’
    ‘Liv, you have to remember. This is
     important.’
    She explodes: ‘I can’t remember!
     You can’t come in here and tell me I have to justify ownership of my own painting
     just because someone somewhere has decided it once belonged to them a million years ago!
     I mean, what is this?’ She walks around the kitchen table. ‘I – I
     can’t get my head round it.’
    Paul rests his face in his hands. He lifts
     his head and looks at her. ‘Liv, I’m really sorry. This is the worst case
     I’ve ever dealt with.’
    ‘Case?’
    ‘This is what I do. I look for stolen
     works of art and I return them to their owners.’
    She hears the strange implacability in his
     voice. ‘But this isn’t stolen. David bought it, fair and square. And then he
     gave it to me. It’s mine.’
    ‘It was stolen, Liv. Nearly a hundred
     years ago, yes, but it was stolen. Look, the good news is that they’re willing to
     offer some financial compensation.’
    ‘Compensation? You think this is about
     money?’
    ‘I’m just saying –’
    She stands, lifts her hand to her brow.
     ‘You know what, Paul? I think you’d better leave.’
    ‘I know the painting means a lot to
     you but you have to understand –’
    ‘Really. I’d like you to go
     now.’
    They stare at each other. She feels
     radioactive. She is not sure she has ever been so angry.
    ‘Look, I’ll try to think of a
     way we can settle this to suit –’
    ‘Goodbye, Paul.’
    She follows him out. When she slams the door
     behind him it reverberates so loudly that she can feel the whole warehouse shake below
     her.

18
    Their honeymoon. A honeymoon of sorts.
     David had been working on a new conference centre in Barcelona, a monolithic thing,
     built to reflect the blue skies, the shimmering seas. She remembers her faint surprise
     at his fluent Spanish and being awed both by the things he knew and by the things she
     did not yet know about him. Each afternoon they would lie in bed in their hotel, then
     stroll the medieval streets of the Gothic Quarter and Born, seeking refuge in the shade,
     stopping to drink mojitos and rest lazily against each other, their skin sticking in the
     heat. She still remembers how his hand looked resting on her thigh. He had a
     craftsman’s hands. He would rest them slightly splayed, as if they were always
     holding down invisible plans.
    They had been walking around the back of
     Plaça de Catalunya when they heard the American woman’s voice. She had been
     shouting at a trio of impassive men, close to tears as they emerged through a panelled
     doorway, dumping furniture, household objects and trinkets in front of the apartment
     block. ‘You can’t do this!’ she had exclaimed.
    David had released Liv’s hand and
     stepped forwards. The woman – an angular woman in early middle age with bright blonde
     hair – had let out a little
oh oh oh
of frustration as a chair was dumped in
     front of the house. A small crowd of tourists had stopped to watch.
    ‘Are you okay?’ he had said, his
     hand at her elbow.
    ‘It’s the landlord. He’s
     clearing out all my mother’s stuff. I keep telling him I have nowhere to put these
     things.’
    ‘Where is your mother?’
    ‘She died. I came over here