Page 31 of None of This is True

‘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.

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