Page 29 of None of This is True

Josie sucks in her breath. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘That’s not good.’

‘No,’ says Alix. ‘No. It’s not good.’

‘And does he cheat on you? When he stays out all night.’

Alix starts at the question. ‘God. No! Nothing like that. No. I don’t think he’d be capable of doing anything like that, even if he wanted to. Which he wouldn’t. Because it’s not his style.’ But even as she says the words, an image flashes through her mind: her reflection in the bathroom mirror on the night of her birthday party, Nathan’s arms around her waist, his smile buried into her neck, her brusque rejection – Are you actually mad? – and his subsequent disappearance into the petrol-dark Soho night.

She shakes the image from her mind.

Josie stares at her intensely. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ she says.

Alix sighs. ‘I have no idea. He used to do it a lot before the children were born, and I did have my concerns back then. Did wonder if he was going to be the right father for my children. But then Eliza arrived, and he changed, overnight. I thought that was that. You know. But then, a couple of years ago, it started up again. It feels almost as if he thinks that we’ve got to the end of the intense bit of parenting, that we’re on the home run, that he’s, well … free again .’

Both women fall silent. Then Josie sighs and says, ‘Men.’

And there it is, the point which it all boils down to eventually. The point where there are no words, no theories, no explanations for behaviours that baffle and infuriate and hurt. Just that. Men.

‘Alix,’ says Josie. ‘I’ve been thinking, about the denim. It’s weird. I know it’s weird. It’s like I’ve been holding on to something for so long and there’s no meaning to it any more. Walter doesn’t feel that way about me any more. He hasn’t for a long time. Walter barely sees me, you know? So what’s it for? And I have a little money, an inheritance, and I want to, I suppose, refresh my life? My clothes? The flat? And I hope this doesn’t sound strange, but you …’ She waves her hand towards Alix. ‘You always look so nice and I wondered if maybe you might want to go shopping, one day? Help me?’

Alix blinks at Josie. And then she smiles. ‘Of course!’ she says. ‘I’d love to!’

She glances at the time on the clock above the hob. It’s not even midday. ‘Do you know the boutique, on the corner, the Cut?’

‘Yes. I think so.’

‘It’s on your route home. We could go in there now, maybe?’

Josie glances at the time too. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Sure.’

Midday

Josie has walked past this boutique a hundred times and never set foot inside the door. Not for her . She’d imagined the clothes inside to cost hundreds of pounds, the sales assistants to be snooty and rude, the other customers to be entitled and sour. But as she pulls the price tag on a black jersey dress closer to inspect it she sees that it is only £39.99. And then a young girl appears at her side and makes baby noises at the dog and says, ‘Oh my God, so cute! What’s her name?’

‘Oh,’ says Josie. ‘Him. He’s a him. He’s called Fred.’

‘Fred! Oh my God. Cute name. Sophie, look!’ She beckons over her colleague, another very young girl, who coos and clucks and says, ‘How old is he?’

‘He’s one and a half.’

‘Oh my God, he’s a baby!’

Josie wills Fred not to growl or snarl at the girls and he doesn’t. ‘Did you want to try that on?’ the girl called Sophie asks.

‘Er, yes. Sure.’

‘I’ll just hang it in the changing room for you. Let me know if you need any help.’

‘Here,’ says Alix, heading towards Josie with a handful of summer dresses, some knitwear, a blazer-style jacket in red. ‘Try these on too.’

Josie hands Fred to Alix and heads into the changing cubicle. She tries on the black jersey dress first, the one she’d chosen. It hangs loose and shapeless on her and she immediately takes it off and puts it back on its hanger. Then she tries on one of the dresses that Alix chose for her; soft floral jersey with a V-neck, fitted to the knee, and she checks the price tag and sees that it is £49.99 and that she can afford it and then feels a shiver of excitement because the dress is exquisite and because it makes her look pretty and shapely and young and because it is not made of hard-wearing denim but of a soft, silky fabric that feels beautiful to touch, and she takes it off and then tries on another and another and another and all of them make her look like a woman she has never met before and would like to know better, and she takes all three dresses, both pieces of knitwear and the red cotton blazer to the till and watches in breathless awe as all six items are rung through by one assistant while the other assistant wraps them in tissue and the total is £398.87 and that is more than Josie has ever spent in one go on anything ever in her life but the atmosphere feels celebratory, somehow, as if Alix and the sales assistants are all cheering her on, as if the purchase is an achievement of some kind, a reward, an award, a prize for good behaviour.

She tries to hold on to that feeling as she says goodbye to Alix outside the boutique, lets Alix bring her in for one of the hugs that come so easily to her but that still feel so strange to Josie, tries to hold on to it as she walks the ten minutes from the boutique to her flat, tries to hold on to it as she enters the flat, sees Walter’s eyes turn towards her, questioningly, smells the stench from Erin’s room even from here, sees the faces of the people on the bus at the stop outside staring numbly through her grimy windows, wondering about the people who live in here and never, she is sure, coming even halfway close to the reality of it.

She takes the bag straight into the bedroom and hangs the dresses in her wardrobe, puts the tissue-wrapped knitwear in a drawer and then, from the inside pocket of her handbag, she takes the bracelet she’d seen sitting on Alix’s console table by the front door. She holds it in the palm of her hand and stares at it. It’s gold with tiny little diamond droplets, like a little puddle of glitter. She puts it to her lips and kisses it before putting it in the back of her underwear drawer.

Then she goes to Pinterest, to the page she started a few days ago for inspirational quotes about being single. She thinks of Alix’s husband disappearing for hours and days, leaving his beautiful wife alone at home, scared and angry and unhappy. Josie recognises that Alix has shown some vulnerability in sharing this with her, and thinks that maybe Alix needs this today, needs to know she has options. Josie scrolls through the memes, chooses one and WhatsApps it to Alix.

A WEAK MAN CAN’T LOVE A STRONG WOMAN.

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