Page 61 of None of This is True

‘And it took a dinner at my house …?’

‘Yes. Like I told you when we first met up, it was all about breaking patterns. Going to the fancy pub that night. Getting rid of the denim. Getting to know you. Doing this.’ She gestures at the space between them. ‘It was as if I had to break small patterns before I would be ready to break big ones.’

Alix nods slowly, and peers at Josie through narrowed eyes. ‘I see,’ she says. Although she really doesn’t. ‘I see. But you say that Erin has been a virtual recluse for the past few months, hasn’t left her room, or the house. So, where did she go, exactly, on Friday night? Which friend has she gone to stay with?’

Josie repositions herself. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Someone she went to school with?’

‘Oh. I doubt that. No, probably just someone she knows from gaming. An online friend.’

‘You must be so worried about her.’

‘Yes. I am. I’m horribly worried about her. I’m worried about her, and I’m worried about Roxy.’

‘And what about Walter? Are you worried about Walter?’

‘God. No. Why would I be worried about him? He’s a pervert and a wife-beater. He’s a monster. I despise him. I absolutely despise him. I’m glad—’

She stops herself short.

‘Glad what?’

‘I’m glad he hit me. I’m glad he hurt me. It got me out of there. Got me out of that sick prison. I’d take the beating all over again to be free.’

Her face sets hard, and Alix wishes this was a documentary, not a podcast. She wishes her listeners could see the way Josie’s face has frozen into a mask, and the single, glycerine tear that appears in those black eyes of hers and spills down her cheek in a straight line.

‘What will become of him? Of Walter? Will you tell the police about what he did to Erin?’

She wipes the tear away with the back of her hand and sniffs. ‘No,’ she says. ‘That’s not my move to make. That’s up to Erin.’

‘Have you talked to her about it?’

‘No. I haven’t spoken to her at all. She won’t take my calls. Or reply to my messages.’

Alix makes a circle of her mouth and exhales. None of this makes any sense. None of it. ‘Have you thought about going to the flat and going through Erin’s computer? Seeing what you can find?’

‘I don’t know anything about computers.’

‘Well, yes, but I do. I could come with you?’

‘No. No, thank you. Erin will come to me when she’s ready.’

‘But, Josie, think about it. Erin has been abused under your roof for years. You’ve done nothing to protect her. She waits until you’re out of the house before she uses the bathroom. What on earth makes you think she’s going to get in touch with you?’

Josie sighs and shrugs. ‘You’re probably right,’ she says. ‘I’m sure you’re right. But whatever happens, it’s better for her than being in that flat with that man. Whatever happens, at least she’s free.’

3.30 p.m.

Alix stands outside the school gates. She has brought the dog, who has not been taken for a walk yet today. She wanted an excuse to leave a little early, to be out a little late. Her head is bursting. She feels sick. Mothers chat with her and she chats back, glad of the opportunity to take herself completely out of the place she’s spent the past few hours. The dog sees another dog and yaps at it and Alix apologises to the dog’s owner. Children fuss around the tiny dog and Alix says, ‘Be careful, he can be a bit snappy.’ Someone asks if the dog is hers and she says, ‘No, he belongs to a friend,’ then corrects herself and says, ‘To someone I know.’

She takes the children to the park and watches them on the swings, the dog tucked under her arm. She wishes the dog could talk. The dog would know, she thinks, the dog would know everything. She wants to talk to Josie’s mum, but she has promised Josie that she won’t.

She can’t stop thinking about Walter, about the way he’d been on Friday night when he came for dinner. The brand-new clothes with the creases still in. The moderate drinking (he had only two beers, all night). The quiet way he’d talked to her in her recording studio about his ‘Jojo’, about her lying and her making up stories to suit her own narrative. She’d put it down to the behaviour of a gaslighter; she’d assumed that it was all part of his act. And maybe it was. But she can’t shift the discomfiting sense that there’s something else. Something behind this dark, yet somehow typical, story of a family blighted by the dysfunction of a controlling and dominant man.

She’s not who she makes out to be. Not at all .

That’s what he’d said. And as much as her gut tells her to believe a woman who says she has been abused, it also tells her that Josie is not to be trusted.

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