He drew a knife from the inside of his waistcoat and waved it under Abel's nose.

'Aren't you afraid of me?' he hissed. 'Aren't you going to stretch your eyes? Grind your teeth? Aren't you going to beg for mercy?'

Abel gazed at him. 'Why?' he said, breast rising and falling slowly.

'Dear Mr Arroner,' I said, 'is there really such a need to vex him so?'

'If I am to feed and house him, then he needs to earn his keep,' he grumbled without looking at me. 'So, sir,' he continued, 'do I vex you?'

Abel continued to stare at him. 'No. But I am tired.'

'What!' he roared. 'You lie on my bed, stuff yourself with my food and drink, and you are tired?'

'Mr Arroner!' I said, still lightly.

The blade hovered; my husband gouged two lines in a letter X over Abel's heart and began to carve into the muscle. He watched the wound curiously, as if daring it to heal.

'Oh, will someone throw a towel over him!' my husband exclaimed. 'He is as shameless as a dog in heat.'

I saw the swelling in Abel's undergarments and flicked my eyes away; but could not keep them held off for long: I had dreamed of such a thing, had I not? If that made me a harlot, then so be it.

'You see?' barked my husband. 'There is no aggravation. Unless it be you, Mrs Arroner. So. How deep can you be cut?' he asked, pressing harder, voice climbing. 'What if I were to cut out your heart? Would you grow a new one?'

'It is all an act,' said Abel. 'All of this.'

'Go on,' urged George. 'Deeper.'

'I'll make you swallow knives whole, handle and all. Make men pay to feel your belly, the blades within,' he roared. 'Pay to watch you s.h.i.t them out. You might fool them, but you can't fool me. No-one fools Josiah Arroner. No-one, d'you hear?'

His voice broke like a boy's. Moisture swam across his forehead, dribbling to the tip of his nose.

'In fact, we'll strip you naked. No britches to cover you up. Then we'll see the ladies gasp. Then we'll see the money come in-'

'Dear Mr Arroner,' I cried. 'Does it profit you to test him so?'

His hand paused. I looked at George, who was standing with his arms folded, head c.o.c.ked, and observing the scene with a hungry interest. As though he sensed my gaze, he raised his eyes to mine and grinned, revealing his gleaming teeth. I made a big show of yawning and stretching out my arms.

'Ah, well,' I said, patting my hand over my mouth. 'I am fatigued by all of this. I can see this sort of show any night.'

I turned, and walked away.

'Get back here this instant!' my husband screamed.

I carried on walking. Behind me, I heard the clank of the knife hurled on to the floor. I knew I must not turn round, nor show I had heard it.

I went directly to my room, and was never happier to be alone. I could hear the grind of argument downstairs; presently Lizzie's voice joined the melee. It swelled into a thunderstorm of shouting and thumping feet; then the front door slammed and the house grew quiet. I undressed, put on my night-gown and crawled beneath the covers.

Hours or moments later I was unsure which I was woken by a hand on my shoulder. A candle was waved over my face.

'Where are you, puss?' It was my husband's voice, but oddly choked. 'Puss!'

He beered his breath into my neck, grabbed my arm and squeezed where it still throbbed from earlier. I held my teeth in a clench; I knew I must not make any noise at all.

'Here you are,' he hiccoughed. 'Hiding from me all curled up in your basket. What a pretty little pet it is. Pretty, pretty, pretty.' He blew out the candle. 'Who's going to be a good girl and let her husband climb in next to her. You are. Yes, you are.'

He set the candle on the night-table and poked me in the ribs.

'Want me to give you my heart?' he snorted, his hand growing sticky around mine. 'That's what women want, isn't it? Even you. Take my heart, then, and leave me nothing.'

He lifted my numb fingers to where his shirt was undone and pressed them into the flab covering his chest. I could feel the paddling of his uneven pulse.

'I caught you looking at him. But you're mine. A man needs something he can call his own.'

I wriggled against him, but he only held me tighter. I whelped against the pain and he ignored me, pulling up my night-dress and pressing his knees between my legs.

'What we need is a litter,' he slurred.

He grasped the hair on the back of my neck and clamped my face to his, tongue scrubbing against my teeth. I seesawed back to escape its anemone suck; he seesawed forward: back and forwards we went in a sweaty jig. His arms were huge: I struggled against the solid wall of him, but I was cemented between his fists. My jaws lost the fight to keep my mouth closed against him, and he eeled his tongue into me and licked, and licked.

He let go one hand and sc.r.a.ped at my throat until the b.u.t.tons of my nightdress snagged and tore; he slithered his other hand through the forest at the fork of my thighs and prised me open, following with the hard pole of his secret parts, pushing and pulling in and out.

'Genius,' he grunted. 'Genius. Genius. Genius.'

After a few thrusts his body quivered and he stopped moving. A moment more and he rolled away, panting. I watched him wipe his lips, and then tuck his privates back into his trousers.

'Why do you stare so?' he whined. 'Why? I am your husband. Look at you. Look at the wife I chose. An animal. Business made me do this. This is not what I want. This is work.'

He lurched off the bed and staggered to the wall, spewing up the wine he had drunk. When he had finished, I heard him shuffling to the door, where he paused, the gaslight from the hallway silhouetting him so that he was merely the shape of a man cut from black paper and pressed to the face of the air. If I breathed out, I could blow him away.

I held my mouth shut for as long as I could, and he did not stir, dangling in the doorway on the hook of my breath. I grew dizzy but still held on, and only when the room began to sparkle did I breathe in at last. He shivered and floated away.

I lay, staring at the open door, and felt his moisture trickle out, for it seemed that no part of him wished to remain in contact with me. This thing I had desired so long, this thing I had dreamed of possessing had finally been given to me: I no longer wanted it.

I had been so c.o.c.k-eyed. I fell in love with the mirror he gave me. I spent all my time seeking within it a kind reflection of my husband: like him, it sucked in everything and gave back nothing, reflecting only what it was given; and I fed it hope. I got out of bed and fetched it from the press. It was grubby with finger-smears I did not remember making.

Mirror, mirror, in the palm of my hand, I am the ugliest in the land.

I had spent so long chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of a safe and normal life with a husband and a halo of respectability, worshipping at the altar of romantic dreams. To think I believed Mr Arroner was the knight come to save me from my difference; that his ordinariness might somehow rub off on me, burnish me into an acceptable woman. I had been a deluded child. That portion of my life was finished with. Now there was Abel. With him I was neither strange nor normal, I was simply Eve. I had not seen this great gift laid out before me. Until now.

I raked my claws through my hair to see if there was still a bold girl hidden underneath. I lost her half a lifetime ago, and I was afraid that the breadcrumb trail had been eaten by beasts. My mind had been fly-paper, syrupy with the daydream dust of happy-ever-afters and a world where no-one noticed my fur.

There's no such place, said Donkey-Skin.

'You're back!' I laughed.

You just stopped listening out for me.

'You were right: I should never have married him.'

Tsk, tsk. Come, we have work to do.

'I am sorry,' I said. 'For not believing you.'

Sorry? It's not a word I know.

'I am finished with him,' I said. 'That husband of mine.'

About time. Where shall we start? Donkey-Skin giggled. Make it good. Make it tasty. Tell me what you've got.

So I told her. Told her of all the time I had wasted, praying for my husband to take me to bed. I might be called wife, but was let into his life only when he chose to make his pet more profitable. I had kept a candle burning for him too long and now it was guttered down to the stub. I was done with him.

You're being too coy, said Donkey-Skin. Too sweet. Too reasonable. Stop pretending to be a saint.

Come now, Evie, you must have something better up your sleeve. Have I taught you nothing?

I have been away too long for you to become such a milky maid. They call you a lion. So be one. Roar, unsheathe your claws, rake the life out of those you hate.

Come on!

I was angry with myself, for I could no longer hide the truth I had always known: by marrying him I had simply exchanged one confinement for another. When I left my mother, I believed that with my husband I might discover a new world. Not a perfect world, for although I was young I was not a fool; but a small s.p.a.ce where I might safely open the doors of myself, and where this opening of myself would be welcomed, understood. I realised how foolish I had been.

Forgive yourself. How could you know what he was like?

I curled up in her words.

Blow your nose.

You were not like this as a child. You hissed and spat and fought and shrieked when Mama tried to shave you. Even when you were spat on, shunned, called freak, monster, monkey, witch, b.i.t.c.h, sick, twisted, queer. Now you are crying because you've had your pigtails pulled.

Wipe your nose. Dry your eyes.

Where's your anger?

Give me more.

Yes, I was tired of being the sweet-natured maid who bore her foul features with a good grace. It was time to show myself the beast they thought I was. Time to drool and slaver; sniff myself in polite gatherings; c.o.c.k my leg against expensive wallpaper; lick myself in the places people wished to look, but did not dare. I once longed to hear him sing my sweet songs of love but I was no longer romantic. It was time. Here be dragons: here be wolves.

That's better, but you're only getting warm. Give me salt. Give me heat. Shout and scream!

I drew the dream I wanted now: the one where I crept into his bedroom, climbed up the bed-frame, perched on the iron rail, swung back and forth on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet, toes in a tight clench round the bar. I wrung my lips together until my mouth swam, squeezed out a creamy drop and let it string its way down from my mouth into his. Heard him gag, champ his jaws together, but not wake; whispered in his ear: I'll sour your mouth with bitterness. Leak my poison into you. I curse you for what you've made of me.

Donkey-skin clapped her hands.

Now, that's more like it! You are come back to me! What fun we shall have.

Give me fire. Give me sweltering volcano.

Give it all to me.

I shall paw his windows-catches, crack a spoon on to his skull, roll his brain down a skittle alley, sieve salt into the hole that's left, tamp in tobacco and set a lucifer to the bowl, suck in smoke through the pipe of his nostrils, blow smoke rings through his ears.

I shall build b.u.t.tons of his knuckle-bones, sew stockings from his skin, knit my hair into a noose for his neck, unrip his lungs and tread them to brawn.

I shall be skull-splitter, gut-twister, fire-belcher, breath-sucker, brain-squeezer, blood-dabbler, fire floating in my hair.

Till I am done with him. Till the Hounds of h.e.l.l drag him away, and leave a b.l.o.o.d.y ribbon on the floor- It is time, said Donkey-Skin. You are no longer a princess, you are a woman.

'Don't leave me.'

Ah, but I must. Every moment from this heartbeat onwards is yours, to take, to keep, to make your own.

You've no need for me, nor mothers, nor magic.

You've found the right one for you. Don't make the mistake of letting this man go.

You are already one step off the ground.

'I will fall.'

I'll see your first steps safe. I am not cruel.

It is time for you to end this fairy story. You are halfway out the door. All it takes is to kick it open and step on to the street.

Do you have a box of lucifers?

'I am ready.'

I strike the match.

ABEL.

London, November 1858 With all the might of a hundred lives, I strive to pull Mr Arroner from the heart of the flames, but he will not let off clinging to his precious money-box. I drag him by the wrist, so forcefully that any other man would have been pulled in my wake.

'You'll not take it from me!' he squeals, hanging on. 'It's mine! Thief!'

'I want to save your life, you b.l.o.o.d.y fool,' I cry against the roar of the gathering inferno. 'Let me help.'

'Help me? That's a good one. Help yourself to this, you mean.'

I pick him up like a stack of kindling and carry him, box and all. We proceed a few steps accompanied by the sound of clanking, only to have our flight arrested by the tightening of a chain that secures the iron coffer to the bed-post.