The Girl You Left Behind

by Jojo Moyes

  Mo pulls the folders towards her. 'Go outside,' she says. 'Go out on to the deck and stare at the sky for ten minutes and remind yourself that ultimately ours is a meaningless and futile existence and that our little planet will probably be swallowed by a black hole so that none of this will have any point anyway. And I'll see if I can help.'

  Liv sniffs. 'But you must be exhausted.'

  'Nah. I need to wind down after a shift. This'll put me to sleep nicely. Go on.' She begins to flick through the folders on the table.

  Liv wipes her eyes, pulls on a sweater and steps outside on to the deck. Out here she feels curiously weightless, in the endless black of night. She gazes down at the vast city spread beneath her, and breathes in the cold air. She stretches, feeling the tightness in her shoulders, the tension in her neck. And always, somewhere underneath, the sense that she is missing something; secrets that float just out of sight.

  When she walks into the kitchen ten minutes later, Mo is scribbling notes on her legal pad. 'Do you remember Mr Chambers?'

  'Chambers?'

  'Medieval painting. I'm sure you did that course. I keep thinking about something he said that stuck with me - it's about the only thing that did. He said that sometimes the history of a painting is not just about a painting. It's also the history of a family, with all its secrets and transgressions.' Mo taps her pen on the table. 'Well, I'm totally out of my depth here, but I'm curious, given that she was living with them when the painting disappeared, when she disappeared, and they all seemed pretty close, why there is no evidence anywhere of Sophie's family.'

  Liv sits up into the night, going through the thick files of papers, checking and double-checking. She scans the Internet, her glasses perched on her nose. When she finally finds what she is looking for, shortly after five o'clock, she thanks God for the meticulousness of French civic record-keeping. Then she sits back and waits for Mo to wake up.

  'Is there any way I can tear you away from Ranic this weekend?' she says, as Mo appears in the doorway, bleary-eyed, her hair a black crow settling on her shoulders. Without the thick black eyeliner, her face seems curiously pink and vulnerable.

  'I don't want to go running, thank you. No. Or anything sweaty.'

  'You used to speak fluent French, right? Do you want to come to Paris with me?'

  Mo makes for the kettle. 'Is this your way of telling me you've swung to the other side? Because while I love Paris, I'm so not up for lady bits.'

  'No. It's my way of telling you that I need your superior abilities as a French speaker to chat up an eighty-year-old man.'

  'My favourite kind of weekend.'

  'And I can throw in a crap one-star hotel. And maybe a day's shopping at Galeries Lafayette. Window-shopping.'

  Mo turns and squints at her. 'How can I refuse? What time are we leaving?'

  22

  She meets Mo at St Pancras at five thirty p.m., and at the sight of her, waving laconically, cigarette in hand outside a cafe, she realizes she's almost shamefully relieved at the prospect of two days away. Two days away from the deathly hush of the Glass House. Two days away from the telephone, which she has come to view as virtually radioactive: fourteen different journalists have left messages of varying friendliness on her answer-phone. Two days away from Paul, whose very existence reminds her of everything she has got wrong.

  The previous night she had told Sven her plan, and he had said immediately, 'Can you afford it?'

  'I can't afford anything. I've remortgaged the house.'

  Sven's silence was poignant.

  'I had to. The law firm wanted guarantees.'

  The legal costs are eating everything. The barrister alone costs five hundred pounds an hour and he hasn't yet stood up in court. 'It'll be fine once the painting is mine again,' she says briskly.

  Outside, London is bathed in an evening mist; the sunset shoots orange flares across the dirty-violet sky. 'I hope I didn't tear you away from anything,' she says, as they settle into their seats.

  'Only the Comfort Lodge Monthly Sing-a-long.' Mo places a pile of glossy magazines and some chocolate in front of them. 'And the chord changes of "We're Going To Hang Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line" hold no surprises for me. So who's this man we're going to meet, and how does he relate to your case?'

  Philippe Bessette is the son of Aurelien Bessette, younger brother of Sophie Lefevre. It was Aurelien, Liv explains, who lived in Le Coq Rouge during the years of the occupation. He had been there when Sophie was taken away, and had stayed in the town for several years afterwards. 'He of all people might know how the painting disappeared. I spoke to the matron of the care home where he lives, and she said he should be up to a conversation as he's still quite sharp, but that I had to come in person as he's pretty deaf and can't do it by phone.'

  'Well, glad to help.'

  'Thank you.'

  'But you do know I don't really speak French.'

  Liv's head whips round. Mo is pouring a small bottle of red wine into two plastic glasses. 'What?'

  'I don't speak French. I'm good at understanding general old person's babble, though. I might be able to get something.'

  Liv slumps in her seat.

  'I'm joking. Jesus, you're gullible.' Mo hands her the wine, and takes a long sip. 'I worry about you sometimes. I really do.'

  Afterwards she remembers little of the actual train journey. They drink the wine, and two more little bottles, and they talk. It's the closest thing she's had to a night out for weeks. Mo talks about her alienation from her parents, who cannot understand her lack of ambition or the care home, which she loves. 'Oh, I know we're the lowest of the low, care assistants, but the olds are good. Some of them are really smart, and others are funny. I like them more than most people our age.' Liv waits for 'present company excepted' and tries not to take offence when it doesn't come.

  She tells Mo, finally, about Paul. And Mo is temporarily silenced. 'You slept with him without Googling him?' she says, when she recovers the power of speech. 'Oh, my God, when you said you were out of the dating loop I never thought for a minute ... You don't sleep with someone without doing background. Jesus.'

  She sits back and refills her glass. Just briefly, she looks oddly cheerful. 'Whoa. I just realized something: you, Liv Halston, may actually turn out to have had the Most Expensive Shag In History.'

  They spend the night in a budget hotel in a Paris suburb, where the bathroom is moulded from one piece of yellow plastic and the shampoo is the exact colour and scent of washing-up liquid. After a stiff, greasy croissant and a cup of coffee, they call the residential home. Liv packs their stuff, her stomach already a knot of nervous anticipation.

  'Well, that's torn it,' says Mo, when she puts down the phone.

  'What?'

  'He's not well. He's not seeing visitors today.'

  Liv, putting on her makeup, stares at her in shock. 'Did you tell them we'd come all the way from London?'

  'I told her we'd come from Sydney. But the woman said he was weak and he'd only be asleep if we came. I've given her my mobile number and she's promised to ring if he picks up.'

  'What if he dies?'

  'It's a cold, Liv.'

  'But he's old.'

  'Come on. Let's go drink in bars and stare at clothes we can't afford. If she rings we can be in a taxi before you can say Gerard Depardieu.'

  They spend the morning wandering around the endless departments at Galeries Lafayette, which are festooned with baubles and packed with Christmas shoppers. Liv tries to distract herself, to enjoy the change, but she is acutely conscious of the price of everything. Since when had two hundred pounds become an acceptable price for a pair of jeans? Did a hundred-pound moisturizer really eradicate wrinkles? She finds herself dropping hangers as quickly as she picks them up.

  'Are things really that bad?'

  'The barrister is five hundred quid an hour.'

  Mo waits a minute for a punchline that doesn't come. 'Ouch. I hope this painting's worth it.'

&
nbsp; 'Henry seems to think we've got a good defence. He says they talk the talk.'

  'Then stop worrying, Liv, for God's sake. Enjoy yourself a little. Come on - this is the weekend you're going to turn it all around.'

  But she can't enjoy herself. She's here to pick the brains of an eighty-year-old man, who may or may not be up to speaking to her. The court case is due to start on Monday and she needs greater firepower to go in with than she already has.

  'Mo.'

  'Mm?' Mo is holding up a black silk dress. She keeps looking up at the security cameras in a faintly unnerving manner.

  'Can I suggest somewhere else?'

  'Sure. Where do you want to go? Palais Royale? Le Marais? We could probably find a bar for you to dance on, if you're doing the whole finding-yourself-again thing.'

  She pulls the road map from her handbag and begins to unfold it. 'No. I want to go to St Peronne.'

  They hire a car and drive north from Paris. Mo does not drive, so Liv takes the wheel, forcing herself to remember to stay on the right-hand side of the road. It is years since she drove. She feels the approach of St Peronne like the beat of a distant drum. The suburbs give way to farmland, huge industrial estates, and then, finally, almost two hours later, the flatlands of the north-east. They follow signs, get briefly lost, double back on themselves and then, shortly before four o'clock, they are driving slowly down the town's high street. It is quiet, the few market stalls already packing up and only a few people in the grey stone square.

  'I'm gasping. Do you know where the nearest bar is?'

  They pull over, glancing up at the hotel on the square. Liv lowers the window and stares up at the brick frontage. 'That's it.'

  'That's what?'

  'Le Coq Rouge. That's the hotel where they all lived.'

  She climbs out of the car slowly, squinting up at the sign. It looks as it might have done back in the early part of the last century. The windows are brightly painted, the flower boxes full of Christmas cyclamen. A sign swings from a wrought-iron bracket. Through an archway into a gravelled courtyard, she sees several expensive cars. Something inside her tightens with nerves or anticipation, she is not sure which.

  'It's Michelin-starred. Excellent.'

  Liv stares at her.

  'Duh. Everyone knows Michelin-starred restaurants have the best-looking staff.'

  'And ... Ranic?'

  'Foreign rules. Everyone knows it doesn't count if you're in another country.'

  Mo is through the door and standing at the bar. A young, impossibly handsome man in a starched apron greets her. Liv stands to the side as Mo chats away to him in French.

  Liv breathes in the scents of food cooking, beeswax, perfumed roses in vases, and gazes at the walls. Her painting lived here. Almost a hundred years ago The Girl You Left Behind lived here, along with its subject. Some strange part of her half expects the painting to appear on a wall as if it belongs here.

  She turns to Mo. 'Ask him if the Bessettes still own this place.'

  'Bessette? Non.'

  'No. It belongs to a Latvian, apparently. He has a chain of hotels.'

  She's disappointed. She pictures this bar, full of Germans, the red-haired girl busying herself behind the bar, her eyes flashing resentment.

  'Does he know about the bar's history?' She pulls the photocopied picture from her bag, unrolls it. Mo repeats this, in rapid French. The barman leans over, shrugs. 'He's only worked here since August. He says he knows nothing about it.'

  The barman speaks again, and Mo adds: 'He says she's a pretty girl.' She raises her eyes to heaven.

  'And he says you're the second person to ask these questions.'

  'What?'

  'That's what he said.'

  'Ask him what the man looked like?'

  He barely needed to say. Late thirties or so, about six foot tall, sprinkling of early grey in his short hair. 'Comme un gendarme. He leave his card,' the waiter says, and hands it to Liv.

  Paul McCafferty

  Director, TARP

  It is as if she has combusted internally. Again? You even got here before me? She feels as if he is taunting her. 'Can I keep this?' she says.

  'Mais bien sur.' The waiter shrugs. 'Shall I find you a table, Mesdames?'

  Liv flushes. We can't afford it.

  But Mo nods, studying the menu. 'Yeah. It's Christmas. Let's have one amazing meal.'

  'But -'

  'My treat. I spend my life serving food to other people. If I'm going to have one blow-out, I'm going to have it here, in a Michelin-starred restaurant, surrounded by good-looking Jean-Pierres. I've earned it. And, come on, I owe you one.'

  They eat in the restaurant. Mo is garrulous, flirts with the waiting staff, exclaims uncharacteristically over each course, ceremonially burns Paul's business card in the tall white candle.

  Liv struggles to stay engaged. The food is delicious, yes. The waiters are attentive, knowledgeable. It is food Nirvana, as Mo keeps saying. But as she sits in the crowded restaurant something strange happens: she cannot see it as just a dining room. She sees Sophie Lefevre at the bar, hears the echoing thump of German boots on the old elm floorboards. She sees the log fire in the grate, hears the marching troops, the distant boom of guns. She sees the pavement outside, a woman dragged into an army truck, a weeping sister, her head bent over this very bar, prostrate with grief.

  'It's just a painting,' Mo says a little impatiently, when Liv turns down the chocolate fondant and confesses.

  'I know,' Liv says.

  When they finally get back to their hotel, she takes the file of documents into the plastic bathroom and, as Mo sleeps, she reads and reads by the harsh strip-light, trying to work out what she has missed.

  On Sunday morning, when Liv has chewed away all but one of her nails, the matron calls. She gives them an address in the north-east of the city, and they drive there in the little hire car, wrestling with the unfamiliar streets, the clogged Peripherique. Mo, who had drunk almost two bottles of wine the evening before, is subdued and tetchy. Liv is silent too, exhausted from lack of sleep, her brain racing with questions.

  She had been half expecting something depressing; some 1970s box in liverish brick with uPVC windows and an orderly car park. But the building they pull up outside is a four-storey house, its elegant windows framed with shutters, its frontage covered with ivy. It is surrounded by neatly tended gardens, with a pair of tall wrought-iron gates and paved paths that lead into separate closeted areas.

  Liv buzzes the door and waits while Mo reapplies her lipstick - 'Who are you?' Liv says, watching her. 'Anna Nicole Smith?' Mo cackles, and the tension clears.

  They stand in Reception for several minutes before anybody pays them any attention. Through glass doors to the left, quavering voices are raised in song, as a short-haired young woman plays an electric organ. In a small office, two middle-aged women are working through a chart.

  Finally one turns around. 'Bonjour.'

  'Bonjour,' says Mo. 'Who are we here for again?'

  'Monsieur Bessette.'

  Mo speaks to the woman in perfect French.

  She nods. 'English?'

  'Yes.'

  'Please. Sign in. Clean your hands. Then come this way.'

  They write their names in a book, then she points them towards an antibacterial-liquid dispenser and they make a show of rubbing it thoroughly over their fingers. 'Nice place,' Mo murmurs, with the air of a connoisseur. Then they follow the woman's brisk walk through a labyrinth of corridors until she reaches a half-open door.

  'Monsieur? Vous avez des visiteurs.'

  They wait awkwardly by the door as the woman walks in and holds a rapid-fire discussion with what looks like the back of a chair. And then she emerges. 'You can go in,' she says. And then: 'I hope you have something for him.'

  'The matron said I should bring him some macarons.'

  She glances at the expensively wrapped box Liv pulls from her bag.

  'Ah, oui,' she says, and gives a small smile. '
These he likes.'

  'They'll be in the staffroom before five o'clock,' Mo murmurs, as she leaves.

  Philippe Bessette sits in a wing-backed chair, gazing out at a small courtyard with a fountain; an oxygen tank on a trolley is linked to a small tube taped to his nostril. His face is grey, crumpled, as if it has collapsed in on itself; his skin, translucent in places, reveals the delicate tracings of veins underneath. He has a thick shock of white hair, and the movement of his eyes suggests something sharper than their surroundings.

  They walk around the chair until they are facing him, and Mo stoops, minimizing the height differential. She looks immediately at home, Liv thinks. As if these are her people.

  'Bonjour,' she says, and introduces them. They shake hands and Liv offers the macaroons. He studies them for a minute, then taps the lid of the box. Liv opens them and offers him the tray. He gestures to her first, and when she declines, he slowly chooses one and waits.

  'He might need you to put it in his mouth,' Mo murmurs.

  Liv hesitates, then proffers it. Bessette opens his mouth like a baby bird, then closes it, shutting his eyes as he allows himself to relish the flavour.

  'Tell him we would like to ask him some questions about the family of Edouard Lefevre.'

  Bessette listens, and sighs audibly.

  'Did you know Edouard Lefevre?' She gets Mo to translate, waiting.

  'I never met him.' His voice is slow, as if the words themselves are an effort.

  'But your father, Aurelien, knew him?'

  'My father met him on several occasions.'

  'Your father lived in St Peronne?'

  'My whole family lived in St Peronne, until I was eleven. My aunt Helene lived in the hotel, my father above the tabac.'

  'We were at the hotel last night,' Liv says. But he doesn't seem to register. She unrolls a photocopy. 'Did your father ever mention this painting?'

  He gazes at the girl.

  'Apparently it was in Le Coq Rouge but it disappeared. We are trying to find out more about its history.'

  'Sophie,' he says finally.

  'Yes,' says Liv, nodding vigorously. 'Sophie.' She feels a faint flicker of excitement.