Stitch is a lovely bright place, formed inside the skeleton of what was once a Victorian haberdashery. It still has the original curved bow windows at the front and a huge sash window at the back overlooking the tube tracks. In between are six sewing machines in two rows. Alix spots Josie at the machine nearest the back. She has earphones in, and her hair is tied back into a low ponytail. Alix takes her canvas bag to the desk and smiles.
‘Hi,’ she says, ‘is Josie in today?’
The woman calls over her shoulder to Josie, who looks up and then pulls out her earphones and smiles widely when she sees Alix. She holds up a finger and mouths ‘Just one minute’ and then finishes what she’s doing.
‘Hi, Alix,’ she says, brushing bits of thread and lint off her jeans, ‘you came!’
‘Yes! You reminded me that I had things I’ve been meaning to get altered since literally before I had children.’
She opens the bag and shows Josie two dresses, one of them a maxi dress with straps that are too long, another a maternity dress she’s always wished she could still wear because the print is so pretty.
‘You’ll need to put this one on,’ Josie says, holding out the maxi dress. ‘So we can see how far to take the straps up. Here.’ She pulls back the curtain on a changing cubicle. ‘I’ll just be out here, when you’re ready.’
Alix takes the dress from Josie and steps into the cubicle, slips out of her summer dress and puts on the maxi dress. It’s odd to feel Josie’s hands against the skin on her shoulders and her upper arms as she fiddles with the straps. ‘Strange cut,’ she says. ‘Given that you’re already quite tall. You’d think the straps would be perfect on you. Can’t imagine anyone shorter standing a chance with this dress. It’s like they think all women are meant to be built like giraffes.’
She slides pins into the fabric and then stands back and smiles. ‘That OK?’ she asks, turning Alix towards the mirror.
Alix nods. ‘Perfect.’
Then Alix changes into the maternity dress and she and Josie chat about pregnancy as she pins the waist into shape. Her hands are fluttery around Alix’s midriff, and she smells like dust overlaid with body spray.
Alix redresses and waits while Josie rings the work through the till, applies the 20 per cent discount with a flourish and presents her with the bill. ‘So,’ Alix says. ‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about?’
Josie glances quickly about herself, checking that nobody is listening in, and then says, ‘I saw that you’re a podcaster. I mean, I heard you saying your name in the Lansdowne that night and thought it sounded familiar so I googled you and realised why I’d heard of you. I’m not like a stalker or anything. And I listened to some of your podcasts. So inspiring. Those women! I mean, the things they’ve been through. It’s just incredible. And I …’ She pauses and checks around herself again. ‘I hope this doesn’t sound strange, but I wondered, have you ever thought about doing a podcast about someone who’s about to change their life, rather than someone who already has?’
‘Oh!’ says Alix, in surprise. ‘No. No I haven’t. But I can see how that could be interesting.’
‘Yes. That’s what I thought. You could follow someone’s progress as they break through their barriers and achieve their goals. As they’re doing it.’
‘Yes. Absolutely. But I suppose the problem is that people often don’t realise that their lives are changing for the better until after the event, when they stop to look back.’
Josie frowns. ‘I’m not sure that’s true. Because listen, it’s happening to me. It’s happening to me, right now. I’ve been living the same life for thirty years. Thirty years. Been with my husband since I was fifteen years old. Nothing has ever changed. I have worn the same clothes, had the same hairstyle, had the same conversations at the same times, sat on the same side of the same sofa every single night of my life for thirty years. And the things …’ She pauses, and Alix sees a red flush pass from her collarbones up to her neck and cheeks. ‘The things that have happened to me. Bad things, Alix. Really bad things. My marriage …’
She pauses, takes a breath. ‘My husband is … He’s very complicated. And our family life has been quite traumatic at times and I just … I don’t know, listening to your podcasts, those amazing women – I’m forty-five, if I don’t break free of the past now, then when will I? It’s time. It’s time for me to change everything and I’m not asking you to help me, Alix, I just want you to …’ She stops as she tries to find the right words.
‘You want me to tell your story?’
‘Yes! That’s exactly what I want. Because I know I look quite ordinary, but my story is extraordinary and it deserves to be heard. What do you think?’
Alix is silent for a moment, not sure how to respond. Her instincts tell her very strongly to walk away, but she came here for a reason. She came here because the journalist inside her couldn’t resist the tantalising essence of the words ‘There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’ She wanted to hear what Josie was going to tell her. And now she’s heard that Josie has an extraordinary story to share, and even though Alix is slightly repelled by Josie’s intensity, she is also sickeningly drawn to the idea of finding out what it is.
‘I think’, she says, ‘that it sounds like a very interesting idea indeed. What are you doing tomorrow?’
Alix walks home through the back streets between Kilburn High Road and Queen’s Park. The June breeze is cool, and she walks on the sunny side of the street. She has two hours before she has to collect the children from school, and she can’t face going back to work on the edits for the final podcast of the All Woman series. She’s bored of listening to women who made good decisions and ended up exactly where they wanted to be and feels strongly and sharply that what she wants right now, as dark clouds begin to gather across the light in her own life, is to bear witness to the dark truth of another woman’s marriage. Alix feels the buzz of anticipation build inside her. She’s been doing the same thing for so long. The thought of doing something completely different is stimulating.
She takes a detour to the boutique on Salusbury Road and spends an hour leafing through clothes she doesn’t need before leaving with a pair of forest-green-framed sunglasses that she also doesn’t need. She goes to a delicatessen and buys expensive antipasti to eat in the garden tonight so that she doesn’t have to cook. She buys brownies from Gail’s and a cactus plant from the trendy florist’s. The money she spends is Nathan’s money; Nathan’s money that he earns selling leases on glamorous high-rise office space in various corners of the city. He works so hard. He earns so well. He’s so generous. He never looks at bank statements or makes snidey comments about clusters of designer carrier bags. His money, he always tells her, is her money. The money she earns is also her money, but he doesn’t expect her to contribute to family expenses, and as she thinks about these things, she feels the pros and cons list in her head start to shift a little, swinging back towards the pros. The memory of the empty bed on Sunday morning starts to fade away. The thought of him unconscious on a hotel bed diminishes. The hum of low-level anger and resentment mutes. She will open wine tonight. They will eat the expensive food on the terrace and sit and marvel at the way the midsummer sky is still light at ten and let the children stay up past their bedtimes and listen to music on Spotify and have the sort of night that people expect someone like her to have.