The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson (e book reader online txt) 📕

I knew he must have bought especially, because it was brand new. So then I had the butterflies feeling and I’d got a great new book. Which you’d think would have made me feel pretty good, but instead it made me feel guilty because I’d forgotten to be sad about Jax again, like I did when I was sorting out the Comedy Pot with Leonard. And this whole trip was supposed to be about remembering Jax, not forgetting him.

Then something funny happened and I definitely don’t mean in a good Comic Triple punchline kind of way. I was just standing there trying to say thank you to Big Al for the book, but instead my brain just started thinking about Dan McFartfeatures-Poo-Bottom, who didn’t care even if he was my dad. And about his three boys who might or might not be my little brothers but now I’d never know. And about how Leonard and Iris had got to be best friends and married for five times as long as Jax got to even be alive. And I started crying. Like a baby. Not at all like a twelve-year-old almost stand-up comedian. And I just couldn’t stop, because it looks like the Comic Triple works in reverse too.

It felt like when you turn the tomato sauce bottle upside down and you bang and bang on the end of it and nothing comes out, but then you do one last bang and all the sauce just explodes out of the bottle on to your chips. I reckon Big Al’s book was the last big bang on my sauce bottle because it was like I exploded all over the street, all over Toad Hall, all over Leonard’s car and, for how bad it felt, maybe all the way from Barnstaple to Swansea.

24Sadie

If Toad Hall was a blight on the good name of bed and breakfasts (and it was), Eden Rock Guesthouse in Swansea was a shining beacon of righteousness. When we pulled up out the front it seemed like even Leonard’s old Austin breathed a sigh of appreciation, although my romanticism about that was short-lived when I noticed a delicate wisp of smoke drifting up from under the bonnet to accompany it. But before I had time to worry if the car had plans to retire in Wales and we’d be catching the train to Edinburgh after all, Norman and Leonard were out of the Austin, hopping around to get the blood back into their legs.

‘Holy moly, Mum! Is this it? We’re staying here?’

You’d think the kid had never seen an example of fine Georgian architecture by the way he was staring at the building Google Maps had very kindly directed us to. I took in the sweeping views of the Swansea beachfront and turned back to look at the rather grand entrance of the Eden Rock, and for a second it crossed my mind that I might have made a mistake and booked a place that was actually five hundred pounds a night and not the fifty I’d thought it was. On the spot I decided it didn’t even matter. I would have paid five thousand just so I could see the look on Norman’s face when I said yes.

Because Norman breaking down like that just before we left Barnstaple had terrified me, and although I’d given myself a mental pat on the back for not showing it, not for the first time it made me worry about how easily this thing could go pear-shaped. But I knew there was no way of safeguarding against that completely, short of calling an end to the whole trip. And I wouldn’t – couldn’t – do that. Not to Norman, and now it looked like probably not to Leonard either, judging by his level of investment. How the hell had I become responsible for two people’s happiness all of a sudden? I still wasn’t sure I was up to the job of one.

Which, by the way, must have been pretty clear, because when Norman chose the footpath out the front of Toad Hall to lose it for the first time since Jax died, everybody seemed to know what to do except me. Without even hesitating, Big Al had grabbed him in a massive Hulk Hogan hug, squashing the life out of the shuddering sobs that were bursting from his little chest and shocking them just about into submission. Leonard had produced a perfectly ironed handkerchief from his jacket pocket and, even though I’m ashamed to say it was quite possible Norman had never even seen a hanky in his life before, let alone used one, he took it like it was the most precious thing he’d ever been offered. Even Bill got in on the act by shoving a handful of bacon sandwiches into Norman’s hands.

‘Now, now, there, there. A greasy treat for the journey, boy-o, that’ll sort you out.’

But all I could do was stand there. Like I was in one of those TV ads where everything around the person speeds up and they’re left standing dead still as the world rushes on around them in super-fast motion. Outside, I was paralysed, but inside, I was falling at a million miles an hour and the only real thing I had to hold on to was the warm, pulsing pain behind the scar on my stomach.

The feeling hadn’t subsided much in the four hours it took to drive up through Somerset, Bristol, across the Severn and into Wales. But as I stood in front of the Eden Rock Guesthouse and said yes to my son, it backed off and dulled to an uneasy background hum. Because Norman seemed almost back to normal. Not the old normal, of course, but a passable version of my new, sad son. I’d take anything, though, because anything was better than what I’d seen back there on the footpath in Barnstaple.

Even though we were a day early, the manager of the Eden Rock