The Wendy House

1. Hard Times

Maybe it's the darkness of the night, maybe it's the punch in the face she received earlier in the evening, but Donna finds it hard to judge distance in front of her as she parks the car and walks towards her front door. She enters the house, the home she shares with her two teenagers, and runs up the stairs into the bathroom before either of them can see her. She kicks off her high heels and sits on the edge of the bath, rubbing her aching feet. Every single part of her body feels bruised and misshapen, pushed and beaten out of place.

Three weeks ago, life had been normal. It had been an exasperating, destitute mess, but it had been something resembling ordinary. This warped world Donna lives in now, this is nothing more than a bad dream. She catches sight of herself in the bathroom mirror - an attractive woman on the verge of forty, wearing a little black dress and sporting a big black eye. There's a knock at the bathroom door:

"Mum?"

Donna doesn't answer.

"Mum, are you okay?"

"I think I'm getting a migraine, sweetheart - could you sort dinner for yourself and your brother? I need to go to bed."

"Evan went out a little while ago, I thought you knew."

Donna cusses under her breath - the last thing she needs right now is one more worry.

"Well, he's a big boy," she says, not even believing it herself. "Leave the back door on the latch and I will have a very serious talk with him in the morning. He can't keep acting like this."

"Alright. Night, Mum."

"Goodnight love."

She waits until the sound of her daughter's footfalls have moved downstairs, and light noise starts to come from the kitchen. Then she cups her face in her hands and begins to sob quietly. If ever Joely or Evan were to find out, she would die.

"Marcus," she whispers, "what am I going to do? How did I end up here?" But, just like every other time she has uttered his name in desperation, she receives no words of comfort from her husband. It's been nearly one year since his death, and Donna still wakes up in the middle of the night expecting him to by lying next to her. The thought of her children discovering her secret is horrific enough, but the possibility that Marcus is out there somewhere, watching over her and seeing everything, makes her feel sick.

She remembers that day, eleven months and however many days ago, when she had answered the phone and been told by a total stranger that her husband was dead. That day, she had thought to herself that nothing could ever hurt in the same way, that this was the single worst thing that could ever happen. But steadily, as the months passed, things seemed to only deteriorate. Evan went out night after night with his friends, refusing to even talk about his father. Joely retreated inside herself, crying regularly but never going to her mother for comfort. Money became increasingly scarce, and slowly Donna came to realise how much she had relied on Marcus for just about everything - help with the children, finances, everything. The moment she answered the phone all those months ago, her whole life had collapsed like a house of cards. Marcus had been the glue, and without him things just fell to pieces.

As their money troubles got worse and worse, Donna's desperation grew. Well-paid work was hard to come by, especially for a single mother with barely any qualifications - she had never finished her A-levels, leaving school at eighteen, pregnant with Evan and engaged to Marcus. A decision that she had never once regretted, until it came to surviving without a main breadwinner. She had found a job working in a restaurant in town, but it was only a few shifts a week and she felt a bit ridiculous; a thirty-nine year old waitress.

When Marina came along, it had seemed something of a lifeline. Even now, Donna isn't sure whether their chance meeting had been a blessing or a curse.

One Month Earlier

"I'll let you in on a little secret," the woman says, flapping her bejewelled hand through the cloud of cigarette smoke in front of her. "The man I'm meeting tonight... he's married."

Donna stands on the opposite side of the bar, unsure of why she is being told this. The woman is sitting with a large glass of red wine, waiting for a gentleman to join her before they are seated in the restaurant.

"You see," she continues, "there are lots marriages out there in dire straits. Men and women with different needs."

"And you..."

"I fulfil the male needs," the woman nods, "and so long as his needs and her needs are satisfied, the marriage goes on."

"But who takes care of the wife's needs?"

"Damned if I know!" She laughs, tosses back her wavy black mane, and takes a generous gulp from her wine glass.

The woman, whose name she discovered was Marina, met several different men in the restaurant, on different nights of the week. It struck Donna as a sort of schedule, and obviously she was a well-to-do working girl. Motivated by her own desperate financial state, Donna got to thinking how easy it might be for a novice to establish such office hours...