Page 40 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Liv! Liv, come here! I want to tell you something!” Roger is standing, gesticulating wildly. His face is even redder and his hair is standing upright on one side. It’s possible that he is, she thinks, half man, half ostrich. She feels a momentary panic at the prospect of having to spend another half hour in his company. She’s used to this: an almost overwhelming physical desire to remove herself, to be out on the dark streets alone not having to be anyone at all.
She sits gingerly, like someone prepared to sprint, and drinks another half glass of wine. “I really should go,” she says, and there is a wave of protest from the other occupants of the table, as if this is some kind of personal affront. She stays. Her smile is a rictus. She finds herself watching the couples, the domestic cracks becoming visible with each glass of wine. That one dislikes her husband. She rolls her eyes with every second comment he makes. This man is bored with everyone, possibly including his wife. He checks his mobile compulsively beneath the rim of the table. She gazes up at the clock and nods dully at Roger’s breathy litany of marital unfairness. She plays a silent game of Dinner Party Bingo. She scores a “school fees” and a “house prices.” She is on the verge of a “last year’s holiday in Europe full house” when someone taps her on the shoulder.
“Excuse me. You have a phone call.”
Liv spins round. The waitress has pale skin and long, dark hair, which opens around her face like a pair of half-drawn curtains. She is beckoning with her notepad. Liv is conscious of a flicker of familiarity.
“What?”
“Urgent phone call. I think it’s family.”
Liv hesitates.Family?But it’s a sliver of light in a tunnel. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, right.”
“Would you like me to show you the phone?”
“Urgent phone call,” she mouths at Kristen, the hostess of the dinner party and points at the waitress, who points toward the kitchens.
Kristen’s face arranges itself into an expression of exaggerated concern. She stoops to say something to Roger, who glances behind him and reaches out a hand as if to stop her. And then Liv is gone, following the short, dark girl through the half-empty restaurant, past the bar, and down the wood-paneled corridor.
After the gloom of the seating area the glare of the kitchen is blinding, the dulled sheen of steel surfaces bouncing light across the room. Two men in white ignore her, passing pans toward a washing-up station. Something is frying, hissing, and spitting in a corner; someone speaks rapid-fire Spanish. The girl gestures through a set of swing doors, and suddenly she is in another back lobby, a cloakroom.
“Where’s the phone?” Liv says, when they come to a halt.
The girl pulls a packet of cigarettes from her apron and lights one. “What phone?” she says blankly.
“You said I had a call?”
“Oh. That. There isn’t a phone. You just looked like you needed rescuing.” She inhales, lets out a long sliver of smoke, and waits for a moment. “You don’t recognize me, do you? Mo. Mo Stewart.” She sighs, when Liv frowns. “I was in your course at uni. Renaissance and Italian Painting. And Life Drawing.”
Liv thinks back to her degree. And suddenly she can see her: the little Goth girl in the corner, near silent in every class, her expression a careful blank, her nails painted a violent, glittering purple. “Wow. You haven’t changed a bit.” This is not a lie. As she says it, she is not entirely sure it’s a compliment.
“You have,” says Mo, examining her. “You look... I don’t know. Geeky...”
“Geeky.”
“Maybe not geeky. Different. Tired. Mind you, I don’t suppose being sat next to Tim Nice-But-Dim there is a barrel of laughs. What is it? Some kind of singles’ night?”
“Just for me, apparently.”
“Christ. I’ll go out and tell them you’ve had to leave. Great-aunt with a violent palsy. Or something darker? AIDS? Ebola? Any preferences as to the degree of suffering? Will she want your share of the bill?”
“Oh. Good point.” Liv scrabbles in her bag for her purse. She feels suddenly light-headed at the prospect of freedom.
Mo takes the notes, counts them carefully. “My tip?” she says, straight-faced. She does not appear to be joking.
Liv blinks, then peels off an extra five-pound note and hands it to her. “Ta,” says Mo, tucking it into the pocket of her apron. “Do I look tragic?” She pulls a face of mild disinterest and then, as if accepting that she doesn’t have the appropriate facial muscles for concern, disappears back down the corridor.
Liv is unsure whether to leave or wait for the girl to return. She gazes around her at the back lobby, at the cheap coats on the rack and the grubby bucket and mop underneath them, and finally sits down on a wooden stool. She stands when she hears footsteps, but it’s a Mediterranean-skinned man. He is holding a glass of amber liquid. “Here,” he says, offering it to her. And when she protests, he adds, “For the shock.” He winks and is gone.
Liv sits and sips the drink. In the distance, through the clatter of the kitchen, she can hear Roger’s voice lifting in protest, the scraping of chairs. The chefs emerge from the kitchen, pull their coats from the rack, and disappear, giving her a faint nod as they pass, as if it’s not unusual for a customer to spend twenty minutes nursing a brandy in the staff corridor.
When Mo reappears she is no longer wearing an apron. She is holding a set of keys and walks past Liv and locks the fire door. “They’ve gone,” she says, pulling her black hair back into a knot. “Your hot date said something about wanting to console you. I’d turn your mobile off for a bit.”
“Thank you,” said Liv. “That was really very kind.”
“Not at all. Coffee?”
The restaurant is empty. Mo primes the coffee machine and gestures to her to sit. Liv would really rather go home but understands that there is a price to be paid for her freedom, and a brief, slightly stilted conversation about the good old days is probably it.
