Page 9 of Secrets at the Little Music Shop

‘I didn’t hear him.’ But two seconds later I did, as Harry’s wails floated through the substantial structure of the cottage. ‘Do you want me to go?’

‘No.’ Rosie sighed and took her glasses off. ‘I’ll try another feed, that might settle him.’

‘Anything I can do on the card front while you’re gone?’

She gave a long, slow blink as though her eyes were tired. ‘It’s all fine. I’ll get Harry off again and come and finish these. Saskia wants them all by the day after tomorrow, so I’ll have to make it a late one tonight.’

‘Woah, I thought you said she wanted them by the weekend — even that would be going some.’

‘She changed her mind.’ Rubbing her back wearily, Rosie began climbing the stairs. I heard her go in to Harry with a rather curt, ‘Now what do you want?’ and then the rocking sound of Harry being fetched from his cot. There was a loud creak as she sat on the edge of her bed, and then a silence which lasted until I’d finished my wine. I went up and peeped through her door. Rosie was stretched on the bed, fully dressed and fast asleep, with Harry alongside her, nipple still in mouth. His eyes were screwed tight shut and his tiny starfish hands had relaxed into sleep. I picked him up gently and laid him in the cot. Apart from a momentary jerk as the cool sheets touched the back of his head, he didn’t move. I covered him and then his mother, although I drew the line at tucking her boob back into her dress. I pulled her duvet up and turned out the light. Then I went into my own room and flopped down on the divan.

Wine buzzed pleasantly around my head and gave rise to a pretty little fantasy, where my jewellery was discovered by a hugely wealthy woman — make that Madonna — who dragged me from obscurity to follow her around the circuit as her personal designer. Reality tried to intrude by asking what the hell Madonna would be doing hanging around Ben Davies’ backstreet establishment, but I ignored it, and fell asleep to pleasant imaginings of a villa in Portugal, returning to Britain only to annoy Saskia with my new, famous friends.

At three o’clock in the morning I was woken by Harry. I pulled my pillow across my ears and reminded myself how lucky I was to have a roof over my head. Did a few nights of disturbed sleep really matter that much, in the scheme of things?

Harry let rip with another screaming bellow. How did Rosie stand it? In fact . . . I took the pillow away from my ears to check . . . why hadn’t she gone to him? Rosie hated to hear Harry cry; she’d normally haul him up onto her shoulder at the merest hint of a grizzle.

‘Rosie?’ I got out of bed and whispered against the wall. ‘Hello?’

Harry, hearing me, redoubled his efforts. I went across the landing and into the room in case Rosie had been stricken and confined to bed or something. She wasn’t there.

‘Rosie?’ Picking Harry’s warm, wet body out of his cot, I held him against me. He shuddered with the force of his crying, twisting his head away from me in rejection. ‘Sssshh. It’s all right.’ I tried to soothe the baby, but all I could think was that something was very wrong. Rosie never let Harry cry himself into a state.

I tiptoed down the stairs, Harry’s little fists clenched in my hair and his forehead banging against me like a heavy metal music fan listening to Motorhead. Rosie was downstairs, hunched over the table brushing powder paint over seed heads.

‘Rosie? What’s up, couldn’t you hear him?’ I touched her on the shoulder and went to pass Harry over, but she cringed away, holding up her camel-hair brush to ward me off.

‘I . . . I just can’t cope with him right now, Jem. That’s all. I thought . . . I thought he’d go back off to sleep after a while. I really need to get these cards done.’

Her face was blotchy and streaked in the miserable light from the table lamp. ‘Are you OK?’

A frantic, desperate nod. ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly. I just need to do these cards otherwise Saskia won’t let me keep supplying her. If I get all this done tonight I’ve only got the last bits to finish off before I deliver them.’ She was avoiding looking at Harry. ‘There’s a bottle in the fridge, will you warm it up and feed him? He should go straight back down afterwards, and then I—’

‘Rosie.’ I spoke carefully but insistently until she met my eye. ‘I’ll gladly feed Harry and change him and settle him and anything else his little heart desires. But, and I want you to listen to me, but, I will only do it if you agree to go back to bed. Now.’

‘Jem, I—’

‘NOW, Rosie!’

I’m not usually this stern. Hell, I’m not usually stern at all. In fact I’m Miss Pussycat Pushover, but it had the desired effect. Rosie went all kind of limp and turned for the stairs as if she’d had a run in with a stage hypnotist. Harry stopped crying and gaped at me, with his mouth all round and just the right size and shape for the bottle teat I shoved between his lips a few moments later.

I stared down at his blissful little face as he sucked and wondered what the hell I was doing. Middle of the night and I’m feeding someone else’s baby while they go and sleep. When did I get so altruistic? Although I had to admit it was nice, snuggled up while Harry fed, watching his body relax. Like being a mother without all the tedious nine months being sick and getting fat stuff. And no saggy belly or enormous tits either.

As though even the merest thought of enormous tits had beamed out through the ether, there came a tap at the window and Jason’s shifty profile pressed itself against the glass. ‘Anyone up in there?’ he hissed.

‘Only me.’

‘Oh. I just finished pulling an all-nighter, saw the light was on. Got any coffee that doesn’t taste like it’s already passed seven sets of kidneys?’

I shuffled to open the door, Harry tucked under my arm. ‘All right, but can you whisper? I’ve sent Rosie off to bed and I don’t want her to find any excuse to come back down.’

‘’Kay.’ Jason kicked his boots off and came in. ‘I’ll put the kettle on then, yeah?’

Harry’s eyes began to close and his sucking eased off. He became a warm, damp weight in the crook of my arm and by the time Jason came back into the tiny living room bearing two steaming mugs and a spare packet of biscuits, Harry was fast asleep.

‘Rosie been working then?’

I laid Harry down on the sofa so that I could take my mug. I’d only once attempted to hold a hot drink whilst cuddling him, and Rosie’s resultant screech had been audible in Dorset.

---