AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I don’t think so. Although my dad had a garage, I think. His dad kept some old banger in it, I think. I do remember going in there once or twice, when we were small. It was all, like, dusty and cobwebby.’
‘Do you remember where it was?’
‘Yeah. Round the back.’
‘Round the back of what?’
‘The house. There’s this sort of – what’s it called? A mews? Like two sets of garages, facing each other, about seven or eight of them, I guess?’
‘And how did you get to this mews from your house?’
‘Like out the front and then round the corner and through a gate. But we also had a window in the bathroom that opened up on to it too.’
Alix and Roxy exchange a look, but neither of them gives voice to their thoughts.
Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
Screen shows a mother and teenage daughter sitting on a sofa in a sixteenth-century pub, with a small brown dog sleeping between them.
The mother has cropped white hair and red-framed reading glasses.
The daughter has long, blonde hair that hangs in heavy, tonged curls to her waist. The text beneath reads:
Clare and Georgie Small: holidaymakers at Ambleside Manor Lodge Park
The daughter, Georgie, speaks first.
‘We were there in July 2019. Me, my mam, my dad, my brothers. We’d just arrived two days before. It was during that heatwave we had back then. It was so hot, even up there by the lakes. We didn’t see her come. Just woke up the next morning and she was there. Sort of waved at her across the park, didn’t we? She had a little dog with her, and she sort of waved back but I could see she wasn’t friendly. But that was OK. We weren’t there to make friends.’
Clare, the mother, speaks.
‘The lodges are built for privacy, you see. It’s not like an average holiday park where you’re all rammed in. The lodges are new, only built a couple of years ago, and they all face out over the lake and have space around them so you can’t see into other people’s properties. So yeah, we knew she was there, but we didn’t see much of her. She just sat out on her deck at night with a glass of wine staring across the lake at sunset. I raised a glass to her once. She raised hers back at me. But that was as far as any interaction went. Then one day, about three or four days after she arrived, she wasn’t there any more. She’d just upped and left. But the car was still there. Thought that was strange. But didn’t think a lot about it after that. We stayed for ten days all told. And it was on our last day that the police arrived in Ambleside.’
Georgie interjects: ‘Just unbelievable that we’d been there all those days. Just hanging out, drinking, doing water sports, admiring the views, having fun, living our best lives, when all along …’
Clare touches Georgie’s arm and Georgie wipes away a tear.
‘I mean, what’s the matter with people? Seriously. What the hell is the matter with some people?’
Sunday, 28 July
The house feels quiet without Roxy, without Nathan, without her mother. Just her and the children on a long, overcast Sunday. Roxy had messaged her earlier from the hospital to say that Erin was still unconscious, still wired up, still in a critical condition. And all around her the news is breaking like a slow, shocking tsunami. The awfulness of it is too big for Alix to fully process. Her sisters message her constantly. They should be WhatsApping now about their upcoming holiday. They should be sharing pictures of new dresses bought and asking for reading recommendations, asking if the villa has hairdryers, making reservations for dinner as it’s impossible to seat that many people in a restaurant without advance planning. Alix should be trying on swimwear in the mirror in her room that has a rear view and wondering if she could still get away with a bikini at forty-five and then thinking that God, yes, of course she could and if she couldn’t now, then when could she? And she would suck in her stomach and turn this way and that and think, not bad, not bad at all for a middle-aged mother of two.
That’s what she should be doing now.
Instead, she is trapped in a Gothic, tick-tocking, slow-burn nightmare. So she is quite glad of the distraction at around two o’clock that long, never-ending Sunday, when Pat O’Neill calls her from the hospital and says, ‘Roxy’s been telling me about your podcast. About the things that Josie told you. I just think, Alix, for the sake of balance and the truth, that I should come in and talk to you. Tell you my side of the story. Because I know you think I was probably a bad mother and in many ways I was. But honestly, you need to understand Josie properly, what she’s really like, before you can even hope to make any sense of what’s been going on.’
‘Can you come now?’ Alix says, and then she gives Pat her address and sits in the kitchen and waits for her to arrive.
Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
The screen shows a blurred dramatic re-enactment of a young girl sitting in a bright modern flat.
She has brown hair cut into a bob shape and is playing with a toy on the floor.
