Alice was lucky because she discovered her true self before it was too late. She rediscovered her dream and was able to live it.
Right now it doesn’t look as if Josie’s going to be that lucky. Josie’s still trying to be everything that Joe wants her to be. Josie is, astonishingly, quite as malleable as Alice once was, and even more eager to please.
Look at her now. Poor Josie. Lying in bed staring at the clock, watching the hour grow later and later, every muscle in her body tense as she waits for Joe to come home, already two hours later than he said.
She is fighting not to call him. She wants so desperately to pick up the phone and call his mobile, but she still has a shred of dignity left, and she knows how furious he will be if she does, how he will say he needs a break for a few days, and she won’t be able to go through that again.
As she lies there the knot in her stomach grows ever so slightly bigger, her self-esteem ever so slightly smaller, but it will take many more years before Josie is able to understand the damage Joe has caused, more still before she moves on to allow Joe to start living with the next Josie.
Josie will eventually end up with Al, so there is a happy ending of sorts in store for her. He will make her happy, but she will always feel that there is something missing in her relationship with him. She will never feel that she is head over heels in love with him, but it will not be until she is in her late forties that she realizes that what she has with Al is enough, that the friendship and trust and ease she has with Al make her so much happier than the knife edge on which she was living during those years with Joe.
Nevertheless, a part of Josie will always miss the danger, the excitement, the rollercoaster ride she experienced with Joe.
Luckily, the same cannot be said for Alice. Alice rarely thinks of Joe these days. He gave her the house in Highfield as part of the divorce settlement, and that was it. She didn’t want any payments, any other money, but couldn’t stand to give up her wonderful home.
And Joe was delighted he got off so lightly. He’d heard all the stories about colleagues who had been forced to part with half of everything they owned. Even his divorce lawyer was amazed, as was Alice’s, who begged her to take more from Joe, told her repeatedly that she deserved more, but Alice wouldn’t hear any of it.
Alice once had a dream of a house in the country, a house with wisteria growing over the front, and climbing roses tumbling over the back. She had a dream of acres of land filled with children running and jumping, and animals playing.
The wisteria is growing slowly but surely. The roses are climbing and tumbling happily and heartily, and Snoop has been joined by a labrador called Floozy, Calvin the cat, and five chickens named Maisie, Corny, Mealy, Grainy and Rice.
As for the children, we’d have to ask Harry about that, but Alice is blooming just as steadily as her garden these days, the sparkle in her eye brighter than it has ever been, her hair as luscious and thick as it has ever been, and don’t they always say that’s one of the signs?
Take a closer look at her stomach. Is it our imagination or is it ever so slightly more curved than we are used to seeing it? It could of course be happiness that is causing her to eat more, but then again, she does seem to stroke her stomach rather more often than she ever has before…
But as I said earlier: that’s a story for another day.