Page 66 of The Girl You Left Behind
She wriggles out of his arms a little, so that she can turn toward the long window, her head in the crook of his arm. “Some mornings I like to watch the barges head up toward 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 atThe Girl You Left Behind, now just visible in the dawn. She shifts onto 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 colors more clearly in a few minutes. She’s calledThe Girl You Left Behind.Or at least we—I—think she is. It’s inked on the back of the frame. She’s... my favorite thing in this house. Actually, she’s my favorite 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... The person 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 was your married name?”
She blinks. “Halston. Why...?” 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. 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 sixA.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.
“Oh.”
He cannot leave fast enough. Mortification begins to steal through her, like poison in her blood.
By the time he reaches the bedroom door he can barely meet her eye. He shakes his head, like someone trying to dislodge a fly. “Um... Look. I’ll—I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” She tries to sound light. “Whatever.”
As the door shuts behind him, she leans forward. “Hope the work thing goes...”
Liv stares in disbelief at the space where he has been, her fake cheery words echoing around the silent house. Emptiness creeps into the space that Paul McCafferty has somehow opened inside her.
17
There is nobody in the office. He launches himself through the door, the old fluorescent bulbs stuttering into life overhead, and makes straight for his cubicle. Once inside he rummages through the piles of files and folders on his desk, not caring as the papers spew out across the floor, until he finds what he is looking for. Then he flicks on his desk lamp and lays the photocopied article in front of him, smoothing it with his palms.
“Let me be wrong,” he mutters. “Just let me have gotten this wrong.”
The wall of the Glass House is only partly visible, as the image of the painting has been enlarged to fill the page. But the painting is unmistakablyThe Girl You Left Behind.And to the right of her, the floor-to-ceiling window that Liv had shown him, the view that extended out toward Tilbury.
He scans the extract of text.
