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hold each other up.At three a.m., Belinda woke Stefan by turning the light on. She’d had a dream she needed to write down. And since he was now awake, she was quite keen to tell him about it, too. And also to treat him to an instant analysis, as she always did. In this dream, she said, she’d been bundled up in the bedclothes and placed in the washing-machine by an unseen hand. ‘It was an unseen hand,’ she said, significantly. ‘But I think we know whose it was. She was singing “I Should Be So Lucky”.’
    Stefan shrugged.
    ‘Kylie Minogue,’ she explained. Belinda popped to the loo, and came back, over-confident that she had captured her husband’s attention. She shook him awake to continue.
    Belinda often had premature burial dreams, but this one was different. No shovel, no grit. No bone-white fingers poking through the black earth. No, this was the opposite of the Gothic nightmare. Instead of feeling frightened and stifled in this one, she’d had rather a wonderful time. The water was warm and sudsy, something like amniotic fluid but with bright blue enzymes for a whiter white. And the rhythm was very comforting. ‘Slosh-to-the-right, two, three, slosh-to-the-left, two, three. Over, over, over, over, slosh, slosh, slosh.’ It reminded her of perhaps the greatest joy of her infancy – the bathtime game her father had played with her, safely cradling her in strong arms, then gently drawing her the length of the bath while singing the old music-hall song, ‘Floating down the river, on a Sunday afternoon’.
    Stefan closed his eyes. As a scientist, he was more interested in the physiology of dreams than their nostalgic evocations.
    ‘No chance of you drowning, my dear? I say it helpfully, you understand.’
    ‘No, no. I didn’t even struggle. It was so cosy. Sloshing about. I just tapped on the milky glass from time to time – “Hello? Excuse me! Hello?” – because life was going onoutside, and you were out there, Stefan, eating a bagel. You didn’t even seem to notice I’d gone.’
    ‘Which cycle were you on?’
    ‘Special treatments.’
    ‘Oh, good. I have always wondered what that was for.’
    Belinda happily snapped shut her dreams notebook and turned the light off. ‘You know what this means?’
    ‘Something about the womb?’
    ‘No, it means Accept the Cleaning Lady. That’s good, isn’t it? Even my subconscious says it’s a good idea.’
    ‘Well, I’m going up,’ said Viv. ‘Thanks again for everything tonight. It will be odd not to make a list for you.’
    ‘It was all a sham, Viv. It’s time for you to admit it. You are Superwoman. We talked about this. We knew it couldn’t go on.’
    Viv’s chin wobbled. ‘I’m not Superwoman,’ she said.
    Linda put her hands on Viv’s shoulders. ‘Yes you are.’
    And Viv jumped, as if she had been stung.
    ‘And what was the spin like?’ said Stefan.
    ‘Oh, that’s a point.’
    Belinda turned on the light again as Stefan groaned.
    ‘What is it now?’
    ‘I woke up before the spin.’ She made a note. ‘Perhaps I’ll have to have the spin another time.’
    When the lamps were finally out, they lay quietly in the dark for a minute. Stefan’s pre-sleep breathing had a little rhythmic squeak in it, a whistle in his nose. Belinda listened to it comfortably, happy. The room was otherwise perfectly still, perfectly quiet.
    Hiring a new cleaning lady had been such a small decision, yet it had changed everything. On her way to the bathroom she had spotted a heap of laundry at the top of the stairs but it had not said, ‘Remember me?’ Instead it had asked rather excitedly, ‘When does she start? When does she start?’
    Something else had changed, too, although at first she couldn’t put her finger on it.
    ‘Neville?’ she whispered, at last. In her abdomen, a spotlight swivelled around a deserted Big Top, finding only sand and sawdust, and bits of torn paper streamer. ‘Neville, are you there?’

Three
    Belinda was right to