Tuesday, 2 July

‘What does Walter do, now he’s retired?’ Alix asks as they begin their recording.

Josie sighs. ‘Good question,’ she says. ‘Not a lot. He’s quite happy just being at home, reading the news online, watching sport, emailing family.’

‘What family is he emailing?’

‘Oh, his sons. They’re in their thirties. They live in Canada.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Yes. Their mum emigrated there when she and Walter split up. He’s not seen them again since.’

‘And they were how old?’

Josie shrugs. ‘Ten and twelve, when they left.’

‘He hasn’t seen his sons since they were children?’

‘No. It’s very sad. But his ex wouldn’t let him anywhere near them.’

‘Why?’

Josie shrugs again. ‘I guess she was just really unhappy about what happened with me.’

Alix registers this uptick in the already strange narrative of Josie’s relationship with Walter. ‘So,’ she begins gently. ‘Josie. I’d love to hear more about this, but only if you’re comfortable talking about it. Remember, anything you’re not happy about can be deleted before this goes out.’

Josie nods her assent.

‘So, Walter was married? When you met him?’

There is a tiny pulse of silence, long enough for Alix to read Josie’s discomfort with the answer she is about to provide.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘He was. But obviously I didn’t know. Obviously he didn’t tell me. Otherwise, I never would have got together with him. I mean, of course I wouldn’t.’

‘So, hold on. After that day, your fifteenth birthday, when he took you to the pub, how long was it before you found out that he was married?’

This time the silence is even longer. ‘Quite a long time,’ she says eventually. ‘I’d say a few years.’

‘A few years?’

‘Yes. I didn’t find out he was married until I was eighteen.’

‘So he was still living with her? Right up until then?’

‘No. He wasn’t. That’s why I didn’t know. Because he had his flat in London, that he had from his dad. But his ex and the boys lived outside London, somewhere in Essex. He went home at the weekends. It was all – it was a bit messy, I suppose.’

Alix nods but stays silent.

It’s raining when their session ends a while later and Alix offers to drive Josie home. After she drops her back, Alix watches from her car as she walks round the corner, to see which house she goes into. Alix knows this road. She’s been down it a thousand times: an unprepossessing rat run connecting Paddington with Kilburn. And there, just as Josie had described, a long sweep of huge Victorian villas in semi-detached pairs, all built close to the pavement and shabby and faded with no trees to protect them from the dirty fumes. She watches Josie unlock the door of a house set right behind a bus stop. She sees Walter in the window and is taken aback once more by how old he looks. She tries to imagine the handsome forty-two-year-old Josie had described kissing her in a pub when she was a girl, but it’s hard to do. He has not worn the passage of time well. She sees him turn as Josie enters the room and a small smile break over his face. He mouths something at her and then turns back to his laptop. Josie appears briefly by the window, holding her dog and looking behind her, before disappearing again. There is another window next to the bay in which Walter is sitting. This one has denim curtains which are half opened. Alix can see the shape of a wardrobe and a door. Somewhere beyond that door, she supposes, is Erin, the older girl, the one who still lives at home, the one who had her arm broken by the little sister who left home when she was sixteen.

And then a bus pulls up in front of the house and snaps Alix out of her peculiar reverie. She puts her car into gear and drives home.

At the kitchen counter she opens her laptop and googles Josie’s address. She adds the name ‘Walter Fair’ but nothing comes up. She adds the names ‘Josie Fair’, ‘Erin Fair’ and ‘Roxy Fair’, but still nothing comes up. As she’d suspected. Anonymous, like 90 per cent of the population of the world. Even in these days of ubiquitous sticky fingerprints all over social media, most people aren’t traceable on the internet. She puts the address into Google Maps and stares at the Street View for a while, scrolling up and down Josie’s road, looking for something, she’s not sure what.