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‘No. It’s good for me. Fresh air. Exercise.’
‘But are you all right picking up after him?’
‘Just kick it in the gutter.’
‘You can’t do that, Walter.’
‘Course I can. His shits are like rabbit droppings anyway.’
‘Please pick it up,’ she beseeches. ‘It’s not nice leaving it there.’
‘I’ll see,’ he says, taking the dog’s lead from Josie’s outstretched hand. ‘I’ll see.’
From the front window she watches them leave. Fred stops to sniff the base of a tree and Walter pulls him along impatiently, his eyes on his phone. Josie wishes she was the one walking Fred instead. Dogs need to sniff things. It’s important.
She stirs the meatballs on the hob and then adds a few flakes of dried chilli. She pours water into a pot and puts it on to boil. She turns on her phone and goes to the browser and types in ‘Roxy Fair’. Then she goes into ‘Tools’ and sets the timings to ‘Past week’ so that she only sees the most recent results. She does this twice a day, every day. Every time there is nothing. Roxy has most probably changed her name by now, she knows that. But still, you can’t stop looking. You can’t just give up.
At 8 p.m. Walter returns with the dog.
‘Did he poo?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Very sure.’
He’s lying, but Josie isn’t going to push it.
They eat their spaghetti and meatballs in front of the TV. Walter makes out it’s really spicy and knocks back his pint of water theatrically and Josie laughs indulgently. They get up to go to bed at ten o’clock. The empty baby-food jars are outside Erin’s room. Josie takes them to the kitchen and rinses them for the recycling. Walter is brushing his teeth in the bathroom, naked from the waist up. He looks like an old man from behind. It’s easy to forget what he once was. Josie gets into her pyjamas and waits for Walter to finish in the bathroom, then she goes in and brushes her teeth, brushes her hair, washes her face, smooths cream into her skin and on to her hands. In bed she picks up her book, opens it and reads for a while.
At 11 p.m. she turns off her bedside light and says goodnight to Walter.
She closes her eyes and pretends to sleep.
So does Walter.
After half an hour she feels him leave the bed. She hears his feet soft against the carpet. Then the creak of the floorboards in the hallway. Then he is gone, and she stretches out across the empty bed, knowing that it is hers for the rest of the night.
Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
The screen shows an empty floral armchair in a large open-plan studio.
From the side of the screen a young woman appears.
She wears green dungarees over a cropped black vest top and has tattooed sleeves on her arms.
She sits on the armchair, crosses her legs and smiles at the camera.
The text at the bottom of the screen says:
Amy Jackson, Josie and Walter Fair’s neighbour
Amy, laughing: ‘We called her Double Denim.’
Interviewer, off-screen: ‘And why was that?’
