Blood Work

double locked it. On the way back home, with the wind howling and throwing the fallen leaves against her bare legs, she had jumped at every barking dog or creaking tree branch, flexing its long, skeletal fingers as though deliberately taunting her.

She walked across the polished oak floor of her hallway, kicking off her low-heeled shoes and letting her feet sink comfortably in the luxurious pile of the cream-coloured carpet in her lounge. She went straight to the walnut sideboard next to the fireplace, poured herself a large brandy and took a healthy swig. It was expensive brandy, as smooth as the silk on her bed upstairs, but she still gasped a little as it went down. Coughing and catching her breath she took another sip, slower this time, and felt the warmth of it spread through her body. She crossed over to her curtains and pulled them shut, then switched on a couple of side lamps and dimmed the main light. A red light was blinking on the answerphone on top of the coffee table in front of an enormous, red, buffalo-hide sofa, something her ex-husband insisted they buy and she hadn't got round to replacing. Its overwhelming size was a constant reminder of him. She punched the play button on the answerphone. It was his voice again and her fingers tightened on her brandy glass, her knuckles white.

'Don't be like this, Helen. We need to talk. We need to sort things out.' His voice was calming, soothing. As though he were talking to one of his patients. 'Call me back. You don't want to make me angry.' And there was steel in his voice now. Unsheathed. Brutal.

She clicked the phone off, ignoring the blinking light that signalled there were many more messages.

She drained her brandy and then poured another, sipping at it as she looked at herself in the large, gilt mirror that was above the fireplace. She flicked her hair from side to side and ran her fingers softly through her thick tresses. It was honey-blonde again, the same colour as it had been at twenty-six when she had first met Paul. Not entirely her natural colour, but not far off it. He had asked her to change it in the early days and she had refused. But he had asked time and again, and by that time she had found herself falling in love with him. And it wasn't such a big deal, was it? Only a hair colour. She had dyed it a deep brunette, the colour he wanted. The colour of one of those women from the original Charlie's Angels. And she quite liked it at first. Made her look like a different person. Like putting on a mask. But the collar and cuffs hadn't matched he'd said. The curtains and the carpet. He thought he was so damned amusing. So he had made her shave her body hair. Shaved quite nude, just like he did himself. He had told her that it was for health reasons. She laughed drily as she remembered his words, but she knew better than that. It was because he thought it made his cock look bigger, that was the simple truth. The brandy was chasing away her nerves and replacing them with anger. How could she have been so wrong about a person? How could she have thought she loved him? He'd seemed so gentle with children, and she always thought that he wanted some of his own. That was one of the reasons why she married him. She'd always wanted a family and she had made that clear to any man who ever wanted to get serious with her. At the age of twelve she had known how many children she wanted and that hadn't changed since. She took another sip of her brandy and unconsciously rubbed her stomach as she looked down at the flickering flames roaring hungrily around the logs now.

It wasn't long after the honeymoon that the excuses started. It was always his career, a new posting, a promotion. Just as everything was settled and he promised they could start a family, he got offered something new. More money to pay for school fees, he had said, and it meant they had had to move to London. Then there was a new house to find, and to decorate and renovate. And the new job meant he had to focus on that so the family would have to wait for another short while. And that short while became a year and then another year. Then one day Helen realised she was well into her thirties and he was never going to change.

Except he did.

He became violent. She swallowed more of the brandy, its taste bitter in the back of her throat now. She felt a little disorientated, her eyes momentarily out of focus, and she suddenly felt hot, a little giddy. She put the back of hand on her forehead and it was