Issy had leafed through all the Saturday papers – she’d thought she’d be rushed off her feet, but instead she was becoming 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 smiled in recognition.

Des didn’t know what you were supposed to do with a baby. Jamie wouldn’t stop crying unless he was being walked up and down. It was still chilly out there, and Jamie was only happy being 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 word we 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 immediately and your wife will cheer up.’

Turning back into Albion Road, he hadn’t a clue what to do next – the four walls of their little terraced house were driving him crazy – until he remembered Issy’s café. He might pop in and see how she was doing. Maybe even score a free cup of coffee. Those cakes were quite something too.

‘Hello, Des!’ said Issy eagerly, before registering, 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 who was 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 now where 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 minefield.

‘Well, hello, little …’ She looked at Des for guidance. The baby screwed up his face and arched his back in preparation for another howl.

‘Boy … it’s Jamie.’

‘Oh, little Jamie. How sweet. Welcome!’

Jamie took in a great gulp of breath, filling his lungs. Des spotted the warning signs.

‘Uh, can I have a latte please.’

He got his wallet out firmly. He had changed his mind about the free coffee thing; the noise pollution was already bad enough.

‘And a cake,’ prompted Issy.

‘Uh, no …’

‘You’re having 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 smiled at her.

‘Excuse me?’ she shouted to the girl’s mother, over the noise of Jamie’s huge wail. ‘Would your little girl like a cake? Free of charge, we’re newly open.’

The woman looked up from her magazine, suspicious immediately.

‘Um, no, it’s all right, 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, who was wearing a cheap and slightly grubby pink top that looked too thin for the weather, ran up to the counter, her eyes wide. The mother watched her, her eyes slightly less guarded, then held out her hands in a gesture of reluctant agreement.

‘Which would you like?’ said Issy, bending 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 time it was ready, he was marching the baby round the shop, constant movement apparently the only thing that kept him quiet.

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

‘Fine,’ said Issy. ‘How’s business?’

Des marched round the room, grimacing.

‘Not ideal,’ he said. ‘This area has been up and coming for years, but it seems to hit a point beyond which it’s just not going to go, do you know what I mean?’

To a cupcake café? Issy wondered sadly to herself, but instead she just nodded and smiled.

After about the ninth rotation (Issy was absolutely sure this wasn’t ideal for a baby but didn’t feel she had the necessary expertise to offer an opinion), the woman at the end of the sofa, who’d dipped her finger tentatively in the icing of her daughter’s cupcake, eyed Des with sudden decisiveness.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. Des stopped in his tracks. Jamie immediately started up a yell like a plane taking off.

‘Uh, yes?’ he said, gulping a mouthful of coffee. ‘Issy, that really is good,’ he said out of the side of his mouth.

‘Give me your baby,’ said the woman.

Des glanced at Issy. The woman’s face fell.

‘I’m not bad lady. Give me your baby. I help him.’

‘Um, I’m not sure …’

A hideous un-PC silence hit the air until Des realized, with a sense of inevitability, that if he didn’t hand over the baby he would look like he was accusing her of something shocking. Like the true Englishman he was, he felt that inadvertently causing offence and embarrassment would, in the end, be simply too painful. Issy smiled encouragingly as he gave the screeching baby to the woman, whose little girl immediately scampered up on tiptoes to have a look.

‘Sa ziza zecob dela dalou’a

Boralea’e borale mi komi oula

Etawuae’o ela’o coralia wu’aila

Ilei pandera zel e’ tomu pere no mo mai

Alatawuané icas imani’u’

the woman sang, immediately enraptured by Jamie, who, surprised to find himself in a stranger’s arms, had momentarily fallen silent and was gazing at her with his great blue eyes. The woman gently kissed the top of his head.

‘Maybe she’s a witch,’ hissed Des to Issy.

‘Sssh!’ Issy said, fascinated by what the woman was doing. Jamie opened his mouth to prepare himself for another yell, and calmly and confidently the woman flipped the baby over on to just one arm, until he was lying there on his tummy, his tiny arms and legs flopping towards the floor. He wriggled and squirmed there for a second, Des instinctively moving forwards – it looked like he would fall, balanced so precariously on a single limb – and then the impossible happened. Jamie blinked his huge, glass-blue eyes once, twice, then somehow his tiny rosebud mouth found his thumb and he settled. Within seconds, and with all of them watching, as clearly and humorously as in a cartoon, his eyes grew heavy, heavier … and he was fast asleep.