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

and nasal. I snuck a sideways glance at him for the first time since I’d started talking, and it shouldn’t have surprised me, but somewhere between the M&S chicken-tikka dinner and my father’s bad-joke death, Leonard had dropped off.

As the gentle whistling from his hairy old nostrils followed my story out on the Swansea sea breeze, down on the beach I saw Norman stop, half turn and lift his nose to the wind. For a moment I thought he was going to look in my direction and I raised my arm, but his tousled head bent slowly into his chest and he turned his body down the beach and kept walking.

I dropped my arm back down to my side, but not quickly enough, and I was standing in the street outside my student digs waving my father goodbye, double thumbs-up as he drove away. Back to his first gig in a month after a twelve-hour round-trip drive to Edinburgh in a hired van with me, my bed and six months’ worth of teabags and toilet paper. My hilarious leaving-home present from the man who always knew how to make me laugh. Hold on tight, Sadie. I’ve got you. I shook my head, but not quickly enough, and I was at his funeral, red-eyed and furious that my father was dead and I still had two months’ worth of toilet paper and teabags to get through. It made me wonder if he’d already known. If I could have known. What if I’d known? Down on the beach, the slow-moving speck of Norman kept moving.

I left Leonard dozing and went inside to the suite to retrieve my phone out of my bag. I scrolled through the contacts and there it was, in its handy little alphabetical order. Of course. Leonard’s perfect system made perfect sense. T for Tony Simmons, Swansea, last known phone number. When I tried to remember the last time I’d been able to find what I was looking for on the first try, I had to give up on the first try. I was starting to see the benefits of an organized life.

25

I don’t know if it was the talk with Leonard or because I was genuinely better at it after the practice run with Dan McLachlan, but calling Tony Simmons wasn’t anywhere near as hard as I’d expected. And really, it should have been worse, because he answered on the first ring.

In actual fact, it was the total opposite to what shall forever be known as the Dastardly Dan Debacle (courtesy of Norman, Leonard and a couple of Post-it notes), because Tony Simmons living in Swansea actually sounded quite pleased to hear from me. Which, to be honest, was ever so slightly more disturbing than Dan McLachlan living in Barnstaple never wanting to hear from me again.

‘Sadie . . . ? Wow, Sadie Foreman. Wow! Well, of course I remember you – what are you on about? What a blast from the past! What are you . . . ? How did you get my number? And how on earth are you?’

Now, never let it be said that I don’t know how to learn a lesson, and this time there was no way I was going to blurt out the real reason I was calling. After getting over the shock of Tony answering, I managed to stutter that I was very well thank you very much and I was currently on a road trip up to Edinburgh with my son. It did head off on a bit of a bumbling tangent when I got to the bit about it making me think about my university days, which in turn had reminded me of him, but I felt like I finished quite strongly.

‘And then, well . . . you know how it is, I found you on, err . . . LinkedIn, and as it goes, Swansea was on our itinerary so . . . well, here we are!’

At least part of that was true anyway. According to Leonard, Tony had been far and away the easiest of all the fathers to find, having diligently recorded his squiggly career path all the way from Edinburgh English Literature student to Swansea social worker via a few years of part-time work at William Hill.

When Tony said that of course he’d love to catch up it reminded me that he’d been quite lovely, really, and we probably could have stayed on track for a pretty solid friendship if we hadn’t made the mistake of going back to his flat after that long, boozy afternoon in the university bar discussing the Brontë girls. Which then degenerated into a conversation about whether Liam Gallagher was goon or genius. Which then degenerated further into a story that probably doesn’t need retelling.

Hearing Tony’s voice also reminded me that it wasn’t from lack of trying on his part that we weren’t in fact friends. He’d tried to call me, quite a few times, after I snuck out through his laundry room while he was asleep so I wouldn’t have to see his flatmates. Or him. But after ignoring about ten answer-machine messages and not going back to our shared lecture for a couple of weeks, which turned into forever, it all went quiet and I totally forgot about him. And, I had presumed, vice versa. It took hearing him for the first time in thirteen years to make me realize that I’d actually treated Tony quite shabbily. It’s nice to be nice, Sadie love.

It didn’t seem to be worrying him too much, though, because when I told him where we were staying he suggested we meet up in his favourite café on the seafront nearby. On the off-chance that he’d left ‘part-time axe murderer’ off his comprehensive LinkedIn profile, I mentioned that as well as myself and Norman I’d be bringing my friend Leonard with me.

‘Absolutely, no problem! The more the merrier!’

It didn’t seem like anything would be a problem for Tony, and in that case did I mind if he