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Issy had leafed through all the Saturday papers – she’d thought she’d be rushed off her feet, but instead she was beco exceptionally well informed about the world – when the welcome sound of the little bell they’d installed above the door rang out prettily She looked up and snition

Des didn’t knohat you were supposed to do with a baby Ja walked up and down It was still chilly out there, and Ja wheeled about or lifted The doctor had said it was just a touch of colic and Des had said, ‘What’s colic?’ and the doctor had smiled sympathetically and said, ‘Well, it’s the e use when babies cry for hours every day,’ and Des had been taken aback as well as disappointed He had hoped the doctor would say, ‘Give him this medicine and he’ll stop i back into Albion Road, he hadn’t a clue what to do next – the four walls of their little terraced house were driving hiht pop in and see how she was doing Maybe even score a free cup of coffee Those cakes were quite soistering, one, that Des was probably going to expect a free cup of coffee (which she supposed, grudgingly, he did deserve), and secondly that he was carrying a baby as screeching his head off Corinne Bailey Rae frankly could not compete

‘Oh, look at your …’

Issy was never quite sure what to say to babies She was at that age nohere if she made too much fuss over them everyone assumed she was desperately broody and felt sorry for her, whereas if she wasn’t interested enough she was considered bitter and jealous and also secretly desperate for a baby but not able to show it It was a uidance The baby screwed up his face and arched his back in preparation for another howl

‘Boy … it’s Jamie’

‘Oh, little Jamie Hoeet Welcome!’

Jas Des spotted the warning signs

‘Uh, can I have a latte please’

He got his wallet out fir; the noise pollution was already bad enough

‘And a cake,’ pro a cake,’ said Issy, ‘and that’s the end of it’

At that, the little girl at the end of the sofa raised her sad-looking face Issy sirl’s e wail ‘Would your little girl like a cake? Free of charge, we’re newly open’

The woazine, suspicious iht, no, thank you,’ she said, her Eastern European accent suddenly strongly marked; Issy hadn’t noticed it before

‘It’s OK!’ hollered Issy ‘Just this once’

The little girl, earing a cheap and slightly grubby pink top that looked too thin for the weather, ran up to the counter, her eyes wide The uarded, then held out her hands in a gesture of reluctant agree close to the little girl on the other side of the counter

‘Pink,’ came the breathless voice Issy put it on a plate and took it to her table ceremoniously while Des’s coffee brewed

By the ti the baby round the shop, constantthat kept him quiet

‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said to Issy’s concerned look ‘I’ll just take a bite every third circuit’