Getting out of bed, she saw her reflection in the mirrored wardrobes. Holding her thick chestnut hair back from her face, she surveyed herself. She was thinner than ever since the trial, her ribcage visible through her skin. Pulling back her narrow shoulders she sighed heavily. No amount of thrusting out would ever make her breasts look full. She was still a thirty AA cup, the same as she had been when she was fourteen. All her friends had blossomed, but not Donna. She had hoped that the advent of children would have given her at least a small cleavage. But it wasn’t to be. She liked her legs though, she had always liked them. They were long, slim, and nicely shaped. She looked good in shorts, though she rarely wore them. Georgio always said her breasts were lovely, juicy he had called them, and she had always blushed at this. His rough words had embarrassed her even as she had loved hearing them.

She wrapped her arms around herself in despair. If only things were as they had been . . . Georgio would be getting up now, coughing and spluttering his way to the bathroom, his long muscly body naked. She had always watched him dress, even when she was really tired she had watched him, drinking him in with her eyes. She had never once, in all the years with him, grown bored of looking at him. In fact, she had loved him more as the years had gone on.

She admitted to herself that he had taken her for granted, but that was men, apparently. Dolly said that her husband wouldn’t have noticed if she had fandangoed across the front room in the nude. Unless she had stood in front of the TV, then there would have been hell to pay.

Georgio, though, had always treated Donna with respect, had respected her feelings. Had never let her know when he was unfaithful. Though with the intuition of women, she had known, she had known immediately. It hadn’t happened that often over the years, but when it had it had grieved her. Hurt her deeply. Yet, in a funny way, she had understood why Georgio had done it. He was a man who needed people, needed adoration, and he was a man who got what he wanted.

She had always thanked God for Georgio, thanked Him because He had seen fit to give him to her, little Donna Fenland. A nobody. Georgio had even stood by her when she had lost the babies, and she knew he had dearly wanted children. Being a mixture of Greek and Irish Catholic, it was a certainty he would want children. Yet he had not discarded her in favour of a fertile woman, had never once brought the subject up, even when they had rowed. Which wasn’t often. She was scared to row with Georgio, scared to give him any excuse not to want her.