Page 124 of The Girl You Left Behind
He looks shifty, as if he’s already said too much. “Not himself. He takes this stuff pretty seriously.” He bites his lip.
“What?”
Greg looks awkward. “Well, he—he said he thought this painting was going to ruin any chance the two of you had of having a relationship.”
Liv stares at him.Will we be able to forgive what we have cost each other?
“I’m sure he didn’t mean—”
Liv tries to smile. A vague “thank you” forms on her lips but they make no sound. She turns and pushes her way out through the bar.
•••
Empty of anything, Sunday lasts forever. Liv sits in her still house, her phone silent, her thoughts spinning and humming, and waits for the end of the world.
She rings his mobile number one more time, then ends the call abruptly when the answer-phone kicks in.
He’s gone cold.
Of course he hasn’t.
He’s had time to think about everything he’s throwing away by siding with me.
You have to trust him. I’ll make it up to you, he said.
She wishes Mo was there. She thinks about what Mo said about men running away from needy women. She wishes Mo was there anyway.
The night creeps in, the skies thickening, smothering the city in a dense fog. She fails to watch television, sleeps in weird, disjointed snatches, and wakes at four with her thoughts congealing in a toxic tangle. At half past five she gives up, runs a bath, and lies in it for some time, staring up through the skylight at the dark. She blow-dries her hair carefully and puts on a gray blouse and pin-striped skirt that David had once said he loved on her. They made her look like a secretary, he’d observed, as if that might be a good thing. She adds some fake pearls and her wedding ring. She does her makeup carefully. She is grateful for the means to conceal the shadows under her eyes, her sallow, exhausted skin.
He will come, she tells herself. You have to have faith in something.
She pulls an old blanket from the airing cupboard and wraps it carefully aroundThe Girl You Left Behind.She folds it as if she were wrapping a present, keeping the picture turned away from her so that she doesn’t have to see Sophie’s face.
Fran looks up at Liv as she approaches with two mugs, then at the sky. It has sunk around them in thick droplets, muffling sound, ending the world at the river’s edge.
“Not running?”
“Nope.”
“Not like you.”
“Nothing’s like me, apparently.”
Liv hands over a coffee. Fran takes a sip, grunts with pleasure, then looks at her. “Don’t stand there like a lemon, then. Take a seat.”
Liv glances around before she realizes that Fran is pointing toward a small milk crate. She pulls it over and sits down. A pigeon walks across the cobbles toward her. Fran reaches into a crumpled paper bag and throws it a crust. It’s oddly peaceful out here, hearing the Thames lap gently at the shore, the distant sounds of traffic. Liv thinks wryly of what the newspapers would say if they could see the society widow’s breakfast companion. A barge emerges through the mist and floats silently past, its lights disappearing into the gray dawn.
“Your friend left, then.”
“How do you know?”
“Sit here long enough you get to know everything. You listen, see?” She taps the side of her head. “Nobody listens anymore. Everyone knows what they want to hear, but nobody actually listens.”
She stops for a minute, as if remembering something. “I saw you in the newspaper.”
Liv blows on her coffee. “I think the whole of London has seen me in the newspaper.”
“I’ve got it. In my box.” She gestures toward the doorway. “Is that it?” She points to the bundle Liv is holding under her arm.
