Page 3 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

Sure enough, the sun was shining down a passage I hadn’t noticed previously where the walls of the two shops didn’t quite touch. Dragging the grumpy Harry, although there was barely room for the pram to pass without scoring a line in the brickwork, I emerged into a small cobbled yard behind the shopping street. It contained two kiosk-sized constructions, one of which was closed and boarded but the other had a window display of technicolour music posters and T shirts with various tour dates emblazoned across. It also contained, coiled in one corner like a sleeping snake, a big leather belt. Belts need buckles, don’t they?

I jostled the door open with my shoulder and backed the pram in, realising as I did so that there wasn’t room for both Harry and me to fit inside the shop at the same time. In a spirit of compromise (and also because if I’d left him outside Rosie would have found out somehow and killed me), I left the front half of the pram hanging over the step. It lacked a certain dignity for a sales call but I reckoned I’d shot my bolt on the dignity thing, what with the fluffy bunny hanging toy and the Thomas the Tank Engine changing bag.

As the door opened a broken bell let out a buzzing sound which I could feel in my teeth. Beyond the immediate doorway the shop widened, giving room for the racks of music, the guitars hanging on the walls and the stand displaying posters of the latest bands. Between the Fenders the walls were coated with neon flyers for gigs by a DJ called Zafe. At the back of the shop there was a counter with a cash register, but no-one standing behind it. It was dark and there was a smell of polish and old paper, the kind of librarianish smell that asks you to be quiet and not eat anything which might stain.

‘Hello?’

My voice made Harry step up the whingeing a notch. I hoped he wasn’t hungry or wet. I had to admit to a slight squeamishness about both ends of Harry and their products.

‘Anyone in?’

Harry upped the ante on the grouching stakes and 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 pretty well for someone who’s never really been at the sharp end of parenting, and eventually carried Harry back into the shop, wrapped in every clean tea towel I’d been able to find. My unlikely saviour was lounging against the till.

‘Good God! He looks like a junior Roman Emperor!’

‘I’ll get them washed and back to you.’

The scruffy, tight-trousered man eyed up the little shrouded figure and gave a small shudder. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not sure I could ever wipe a mug rim again without thinking about, well, you know. Keep them.’

‘He is wearing a clean nappy.’ I’d replaced the pram sheet with an extra-large towel bearing the legend ‘Glasgow, City of Culture’ which, doubled over, completely covered the mattress.

‘Even so. Now, what can I do for you?’

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