Tuesday, 9 July

Alix looks at the image on the screen of her phone that Josie sent her yesterday. A black square with the words ‘A weak man can’t love a strong woman. He won’t know what to do with her’ in white capitals. Underneath are some emojis and for a few seconds Alix squints at it trying to work out what it means and why Josie has sent it to her. And then she realises that Josie is using memes and quotes to bolster her resolve to change her life, so she types in a thumbs-up emoji and presses send. Then she carries on getting ready to leave the house with the kids.

‘Nathan, have you seen my bracelet? The one you bought me for my birthday?’

She hears his disembodied voice coming from somewhere else in the house. ‘No. Wasn’t it by the front door?’

‘Yes. That’s what I thought.’ She opens the drawers and goes through them again. She calls out to Eliza, who also has no idea where it is. Alix sighs and closes the drawers. She’ll look again later. Now she needs to get the kids to school.

Josie is wearing one of the dresses she bought at the boutique yesterday when she arrives at Alix’s door at nine thirty. She looks almost like a completely different person and there’s a second of dissonance, before Alix smiles and says, ‘Josie! Hi! I didn’t think we’d …’

‘Didn’t we?’

‘Not that I …’ Alix scrolls through her mental diary and fails to find the moment that they agreed to another interview today. ‘Not that I remember. But that’s OK. I’m not busy. Come in. You look great, by the way.’

‘Thank you! Walter nearly had a coronary.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh, Walter doesn’t say much. Man of few words. Asked how much it cost, obviously. First thing they all ask, isn’t it?’

Alix laughs. Nathan never asks her how much things cost. ‘So true!’ she says.

‘But yes. I think he liked it. But the important thing is that I like it, isn’t it?’

There’s a brittle note of uncertainty in her tone and Alix recognises the need to bolster her.

‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘That is absolutely right. Come through.’

‘No Nathan?’ Josie asks, peering into the living room as they pass.

‘No. Like I say, he rarely works from home.’

‘And all OK? You know, with what you were telling me about yesterday?’

Alix blanches. She’s beginning to wish she’d never said anything to Josie. ‘I guess,’ she says. ‘I mean, we haven’t really talked about it.’

‘It’s really shitty, you know, that sort of thing. You deserve better. That’s what we both need to start to understand. We’re forty-five, Alix. We can do better. We have to do better.’

Josie’s words sting slightly. Alix knows that she deserves better than being abandoned by her husband twice a week while he gallivants around spending money on tequila shots and hotel rooms, that she deserves her messages to be replied to, her calls answered, a proper explanation for the absence of her husband for twelve straight hours. She knows it, but somehow the pendulum of pros versus cons keeps swinging back to the pros.

‘Do you love him?’

Alix spins round to face Josie.

‘Nathan. Do you love him?’

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Well, yes. Yes. Of course I do.’

‘Because, you know, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love. About what it is, what it’s for. And I feel like maybe I have no idea. That I’ve got to forty-five years of age and I really don’t know. And people talk about it all the time like it’s, you know, something real, something you can touch – like when we talk about love, we’re all talking about the same thing. But we’re not, are we? It isn’t a real thing. It isn’t anything. And sometimes I make myself imagine what it would be like if Walter died, to see if maybe that will make me know if I love him or not, and I really do think, if he died, everything would be better. And surely, if that’s the way I feel, then I don’t really love him? Do I?’

Alix says nothing.

‘And I have to wonder, then, what it was all for, at the end of the day. All the smallness of everything. All the quietness . And you don’t know yet, Alix. You’re still in the middle of it all – your kids, they still need you. But after they’ve gone, then what? Will you still want this? Everything you’ve built? Will you still want Nathan?’

‘I …’ Alix puts her hand to her throat and clasps her bumble-bee pendant. ‘I really don’t know,’ she says. ‘I used to think that I couldn’t live without him. But recently, with all the, you know, the benders, I do sometimes wonder if life would be easier on my own.’

‘But when you think about Nathan dying, how does it make you feel? Really? Inside? Does it make you feel sad? Or does it make you feel … free ?’

Alix looks inside herself, for something true to give to Josie. She pictures Nathan dead, the children fatherless, her future alone, and she says, ‘No. It doesn’t make me feel free. It makes me feel sad.’

There’s a harsh silence and Alix can feel judgement in it. Josie stares at her dispassionately. ‘Oh,’ she says, and the atmosphere chills by a degree. ‘Anyway,’ she says coolly, ‘if you’re busy, I’ll let you get on.’

‘No!’ says Alix, feeling strangely as if she needs to win back Josie’s approval. ‘It’s fine. I don’t have anything on right now. We can do another session, if you want?’

Josie’s demeanour softens and she smiles. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘OK.’

Alix leads her to her studio.

Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

The screen shows a dramatic re-enactment of a young girl sitting at a kitchen table.

To her right is an older man.

Standing by the kitchen sink is an older woman, the girl’s mother.

The text on the screen reads:

Recording from Alix Summer’s podcast, 9 July 2019

Josie’s voice begins.

‘We told my mother on my eighteenth birthday. Told her we were engaged. Told her we were going to get married. Told her I was moving out. Walter was there. He said there was no way he’d let me do something like that unsupported. And I genuinely had no idea how my mother was going to react. No idea if she’d laugh or cry or scream or call the police. But she just sighed. She said to me, “You’re an adult now. I can’t make your choices for you. But, Josie, I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.” And then she took hold of my face, like this, inside her hand, so hard it almost hurt, and she stared hard into my eyes and said, “ Remember you have choices .” Then she let go of my face and left the room, slammed the door behind her. Me and Walter just looked at each other. Then he took me out for dinner to an Italian restaurant on West End Lane. Went back to his after and never went home. My life had actually begun. Or at least that’s what I told myself. That’s what I believed. It’s only now that I can see how wrong I was. That I was just handing myself from the hands of one controlling person to another.’

The screen changes to a young couple sitting on a sofa in an empty apartment staged with vintage furniture and spotlights.

The man holds a small dog on his lap. He lifts the dog on to its back legs by holding its front paws and turns it to face the camera.

Say hello, Fred ,’ he says, waving the dog’s front paw.

The dog wriggles from his hold and jumps across to the woman’s lap.

Both of them laugh.

The text beneath them on the screen says:

Tim and Angel Hiddingfold-Clarke, current owners of Josie’s dog, Fred

An interviewer asks them, off-mic: ‘Tell us how you and Fred got together?’

Tim and Angel exchange a look and then Tim speaks.

‘This woman approached us a couple of years ago. We were on honeymoon in the Lake District, summer 2019, eating lunch on a bench. And she just appeared in front of us. She looked kind of scared. Haunted in a way. And it was hot but she was wearing her hood up, dark sunglasses, a jacket done all the way up to her chin. She said, “Please, please help me. I can’t take care of my dog any more. Please, will you take him to a rescue centre. Please. Please help me.” And then she just handed him to us, in this, like, dog-carrier thing and passed us a carrier bag with food in it. She said, “He’s lovely once he gets to know you. The loveliest, loveliest boy.” And then she sort of kissed him and left and it was literally the weirdest, weirdest thing that ever happened. And of course we had no idea at the time who she was. No idea whatsoever. It was only a few days later that we saw that it was her. That it was Josie Fair.’

‘But you kept the dog?’

‘Oh my God, yes. Of course we did. I mean, look at him. Just look at him!’

***

11 a.m.

Josie sits outside the café where she once thought she’d seen Roxy. She has a cappuccino, and the dog sits on her lap. Her hands shake slightly and her mind pulses and twitches with contradictory thoughts. She thinks of Alix’s stupid-faced husband, with his mud-coloured eyes, leaving Alix and his children to go out drinking to the point of stupefaction. She thinks: At least Walter has never done that. She thinks: Walter has always been there for me and the children. But then she thinks: Walter is always, always there. Walter is never anywhere else. She would like it if Walter could be somewhere else. She would like it if she could be somewhere else. Forever. But then she thinks: What is my alternative? And she thinks: Alix. She thinks Alix is the answer to everything, somehow, but then Alix ‘loves’ her stupid-faced, cheating husband, which makes Josie think that Alix is maybe every inch as stupid as she is. And Josie needs Alix to be cleverer than her. Josie has always needed people to be cleverer than her. And she doesn’t know how she feels about Alix any more. She also doesn’t know how she feels about Walter. As her eyes scan the pavement for the daughter she hasn’t seen for five years, her thoughts spiral back to the day Roxy disappeared and the reason why she left and she feels a nauseating darkness envelop her, and as it begins to smother her, her breathing grows laboured and panicky and she knocks her coffee cup as her hand goes to the pocket of her jacket and she pulls out the teaspoon that had rested on the side of her coffee cup in Alix’s studio.

She caresses it gently and slowly brings her breathing back to normal. She checks around her to see if anyone is looking her way, and when she is sure they are not, she puts the teaspoon to her lips and kisses it.

She gets home an hour later. Walter turns and smiles at her from the table in the window.

‘Never see you any more,’ he says.

‘Don’t be silly. Of course you do.’

‘What’s going on with you and this school mum?’

‘Nothing. We’re just getting to know each other.’

‘Where do you go?’

‘Here and there. Cafés. Her house. The park.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Alix.’

‘Alix? Isn’t that the name of the woman, when we were at that pub on your birthday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it her?’

‘Yes.’

She sees Walter’s face crumple with confusion. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I don’t know. I thought you might think it was weird.’

Walter’s right eyebrow lifts slightly, and he turns back to his laptop with a sigh. ‘Like I’d ever think you were weird,’ he says drily.

Josie’s wiring is all off after talking to Alix. Instead of ignoring Walter, as she normally would, she feels the nauseating darkness fall upon her again and she folds her arms across her chest and says, ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘Oh, nothing, love. Nothing. Obviously.’

‘No! Walter! Seriously. What is that supposed to mean? Just say it.’

Walter slowly removes his reading glasses and rubs away the sweat at the bridge of his nose. Then he turns to her and says, ‘Josie. Leave it.’

‘I’m not going to leave it, Walter. If you’ve got something to say, then say it.’

‘No. I’m not doing this, Josie. I’m not going there.’

Suddenly she finds herself striding across the room, propelled by pure adrenaline. She stops a foot from Walter and breathes in hard and then slaps him, ringingly, hideously hard, across his face. ‘I FUCKING HATE YOU,’ she screams. ‘I FUCKING HATE YOU!’

She stops, recoiling slightly in the wake of her own violence.

Walter blinks at her, touches the side of his face with his fingertips. Then he slowly returns his glasses to his face and turns back to his computer.

2.30 p.m.

‘Alix? Isn’t it?’

Alix turns to locate the source of the greeting.

It takes a second for her to recognise Josie’s mother, Pat O’Neill, and then she says, ‘Oh, Pat. Hello!’

Alix is on Kilburn High Road, on her way to the bank to pay in the cheque that her great-aunt sends on her birthday every single year. It’s for twenty-five pounds and she’s been putting it off for too long, risking causing offence to her great-aunt, who will be watching her bank account to see the money being cashed and if it isn’t, will send a message to her via her mother to check that it hasn’t got lost in the post.

Pat is wearing an apple-green linen shirt with skinny jeans and strappy sandals. She looks vibrant and glamorous; her aura is busy and important.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m great,’ Pat replies. ‘Just getting some paperwork sorted for one of my ladies on the estate. Sally. She’s nearly ninety. Still thinks she can do everything, bless her. How are you?’

‘Oh, yes, fine. Just heading to the bank.’

‘Seen Josie lately?’

‘Yes! Saw her earlier today, in fact.’

‘So, this podcast thing. It’s still happening?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ Alix pauses. She feels the need to dig just a little. ‘What do you think about it?’

‘I think it’s weird, to be honest. If you didn’t seem so completely normal, I’d be wondering about what your motivation was. As it is, I can tell you’re straight up. I googled you and I saw your credentials. You’re proper. But this birthday twin thing – I still don’t really get it?’

Alix cocks her head to one side and glances upwards briefly. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s not really so much about that now. It’s evolving into something else, something that’s more about being women at a very particular age, on the cusp of menopause, not young but not quite old, questioning our choices, wondering about our paths, our futures. Looking at the similarities between us, but also …’ She pauses, choosing her next words carefully. ‘Well, Josie – she’s very different to me too.’

‘That’s for sure.’ Pat’s mouth purses at the end of her sentence. ‘You’re polar opposites. You’re the sort of woman I’d always assumed a daughter of mine would be. You know, grit and talent and get-up-and-go.’

Alix ignores the slight against Josie and says, ‘What do you think of Walter?’

‘She’s told you, has she? How they met?’

Alix nods.

Pat eyes her disparagingly. ‘Well then – what do you think I think about Walter? A forty-five-year-old man hooking up with an eighteen-year-old girl. Disgusting. And God knows how long it had been going on before they told me about it. Have you met him?’

‘No. Just seen him, from a distance. Is he … is he controlling?’

Pat considers the question for a moment and then says, ‘They’re both as bad as each other if you ask me. They’re what you call a toxic combination. And those poor girls …’

‘Yes. Tell me about the girls. Josie doesn’t mention them much. Just that one still lives at home and the other left home when she was sixteen. I couldn’t help feeling that there was more she wasn’t telling me.’

Alix sees immediately that she has crossed a line. Pat’s face closes down and she takes a step back. ‘Probably best you talk to Josie about that sort of thing,’ she says. ‘Not my place to say. But listen. Good luck with it all. You’re going to need it.’

Then she hitches her bag up on to her shoulder, musters a weak smile, turns and walks away.

Alix messages Josie when she gets home:

I think it is really important that I meet Walter and talk to him about his side of the story. Would he be open to the idea of coming to the studio? Or I could even come to yours and talk to him at home? Let me know what you think.

A reply appears a few seconds later.

I’m not sure Walter would want to do that. He’s very private.

Alix stares at the message for a moment. Then she types a reply.

Does Walter know about this project?

Sort of. He knows I’m talking to you.

OK. Well, I do think I really need to talk to him. It could be off the record if he’d prefer. How do you think we could persuade him?

There’s a short delay then before Alix sees that Josie is typing a reply. She stares at her screen waiting for the message to appear.

If it was social he’d probably come? As long as your husband was there? Maybe dinner?