Please Don't Stop The Music Read Free

he’d gone a
bit pink, too. Maybe he was too hot? Did babies get too hot? I knew
they had to be protected against getting chilled, but Rosie hadn’t
mentioned the heat. Cautiously I reached over and tweaked the
blanket further down his little green body. ‘Are you all right?’ As
I drew the blanket lower a tell-tale yeasty smell floated out of
the pram and I could see the stains spreading all the way up the
back and sides of his sleepsuit. ‘Oh, Harry …’
    Harry, very male all of a sudden, looked rather proud of
himself. Great. Food I could do, nappies I could do. A complete
change of clothes and pram sheet – nope, bit lacking in the total
clean laundry department.
    ‘ Can
I help you?’
    The
voice came from the dark recess at the back of the shop. Male.
Great.
    ‘ I …
no, sorry, it’s just, he’s got a bit …’
    ‘ Hold on.’ There were footsteps, a slammed
door and a pause, during which Harry kicked his legs like a trainee
can-can dancer and gave me a full view of just how bad things were.
Not to be too graphic, it was even in his hair . Then there was someone in
front of me in the doorway, prevented from coming in by Harry and
his malodorous transport. ‘Hi. That’s better, now I can see you.
Did you come for the guitar?’
    ‘ Guitar?’
    ‘ That’ll be a no then. Look, why don’t you shove the pram
outside, bring the baby in with you and we’ll find out what I can
do for you, yes?’ The pram was being tugged from the outside and I
had no choice but to follow it into the yard and confront the man
who was pulling it.
    To
call his appearance weird was to leave myself short of adjectives
to describe his clothes, but a few moments with a thesaurus opened
to ‘urgh’ would rectify that. He was tall and skinny and wearing a
shirt made for a much larger man, or at least one with shoulders.
His dark hair straggled at various unkempt lengths outlining how
thin his face was, and he had on multicoloured trousers which clung
so tightly to his legs that I hoped they were lycra. Otherwise he
was doomed to a day standing up. Around his desperately bony hips
was wound an enormous belt which probably doubled his bodyweight
and ended in a silver buckle with a death’s head motif. Overall he
looked like a man who’d been dressed from the rag-bag and then run
over by a lawn mower.
    I
couldn’t take my eyes off the belt buckle. Eventually the man
coughed to attract my attention. ‘I don’t usually like to stop
women staring at my groin, but … you’re a bit intense, I’m starting
to worry.’
    ‘ Oh,
I’m sorry.’
    ‘ Don’t be. I’d have shoved a pair of socks down if I’d known,
to give you something to look at. Now, shall we go inside? This
young chap looks as though he could do with some attention.’ The
man leaned forward as though to lift Harry out of the pram, but I
leaped across to forestall him.
    ‘ No!’
    The
man jumped back, hands held up. He had a curiously concentrated
expression as though my face was the most important thing he’d seen
all day. ‘Hey, it’s all right, I’m not going to molest him or
anything.’
    ‘ No,
it’s just that he’s absolutely filthy.’
    ‘ Filthy? Why, what’s he been doing, working on a building
site?’ He shook flopping locks from big brown eyes and stared down
at Harry. ‘You’re a very forward little guy, aren’t
you?’
    ‘ I
meant, like, pooey,’ I said, but he didn’t seem to be listening,
staring at the baby again with that concentrated look. The lines on
his face and the slight tightness of his mouth which was just
visible amid some fairly serious stubble, indicated that this was
his customary expression. Then his nose began to twitch.
    ‘ Ah.
So that’s what’s causing the complaining. Well, I’ve got a
kitchenette out the back there, if a bowl of warm water and a towel
is any use to you.’
    I did my best. Honest. I could feel Rosie’s presence in
that little room as though I was psychic. However, I think I ended
up doing