I adopt my best Shakespearean stance: feet firmly planted, shoulders back, head aloft, back slightly arched, demanding attention from my captive audience. I start in a whisper: ‘Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, towards Phoebus’ lodging…’

Tommy claps. ‘Hewbie, come here.’ He climbs on top of the dog. ‘Giddy-up, Hewbie Howsie, giddy-up.’

Herbie’s tail is wagging vigorously as he circles the room, barking, the kitten mewling, a rousing underscore to my spotlit monologue.

My voice builds in volume. ‘… such a wagoner as Phaethon would whip you to the west, and bring in cloudy night immediately… What’s next, Tommy?’

Tommy abruptly dismounts Herbie and looks out the window. He’s not playing. ‘Dada’s up there, Yaya.’

The sky has faded from daytime grey to early-evening pewter.

A cold feeling lands in my stomach. Water on fire, a dousing. I too look out, shiver.

‘Can’t see him, Yaya. Too early for stars.’

‘Too cloudy for stars, Tommy.’

The day will come when Tommy’s old enough to understand, and I’ll tell him, I’ll have to – I’ll let him know he has a father who’s alive. For now, though, the lie, the kindest of lies, continues.

45

I wake, the sheets tangled, cold and damp. Open my eyes, take in the scene around me, all my babies sleeping on the bed. Move my hand from one to the other to the other; like the different textures of hair, fur and skin.

Tommy opens one eye, looks at me fiercely, sniffs.

‘I didn’t mean to, Yaya.’

‘What, Tommy?’

‘I used the clicker and Mr Fire got caught in the curtains and eated Pizza-man away.’

‘Oh, darling, only a dream. Remember I told you strange things can happen in the Land of Nod? Is Pizza-man David?’

He nibbles the top of his thumb.

‘Tell me all about it.’

His face is flushed, his eyes glassy, as his nightmare tumbles out of him: ‘Meanie bottle at my mouth and bad fairy flew into me and jumped, giddy, sick, doing hopscotch in my tummy. You growed wings, big black wings, and flapflapflapped in the air and in my head and all my inside. Pizza-man went green like a grasshopper and snot and mould and smelled of yuck.’ He comes up for air, before he plunges back in: ‘Clicker in my hand and I pressed and fire happened and I bringed it to Mr Curtain in the room where Pizza-man was sleeping. Whoooosh! and fast, fast, fast, hot, hot, crackle, sizzle, spit, lickety-spit, so fast, up it goed, up and up. And nee-naw-nee-naw little yellow men and jaggedy orange fire and changing colours yellow-orange-red, red-orange-yellow, Pizza-man was melting, smell of dripping cheesy, and the bad fairy was dancing and Pizza-man was burning, and the smoke shapeclouded away. Fireman Sam…’ He stops, exhausted.

Jesus. My whole body is shaking. Such a terrible dream for someone so little, but then I think of my own livid nightmares, which used to have me hiding under my bed. It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok. Time will make all this go away. Time and stability. He needs to see that I won’t ever leave him again. It has to be good that Fireman Sam made an appearance at the end. Right?