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

mess on the café table and be done with it. So I said nothing. But I was thinking plenty.

Even though Norman was so sure he wanted to do all of this, meeting a father was one thing, but what if, when push came to shove, he just couldn’t pull off his comedy show without Jax? Or what if he did actually make it through his routine and got laughed at all right, but not in a good way? Leonard may have created Little Big Man to get Norman to the Fringe, but could Norman actually be Little Big Man once he got there?

Most of the comedy acts performing at the Fringe would probably have spent years slogging around the clubs paying their dues and hardening their hearts well before they got the balls to front up for something like this. And notwithstanding my pride at his gutsy attempts at the Noble Goat and Swansea’s Got Talent, I couldn’t help worrying that Norman just wasn’t ready for the big time. No matter how small it was. Not even fifteen minutes at the Duke Supper Club on the fringes of the Fringe.

I sucked in my breath as something inside delivered a sharp kick to the back of my scar. It was almost too much for me to bear to think of Norman up there on a stage with only my father’s old jacket to protect him. That jacket had seen it all before and, like me, it already knew how things could end. It doesn’t matter, love. Let’s go home.

Tony and Kathy insisted on seeing us off right up to the last goodbye, which was pretty handy because Tony took over the repacking of the car and, for the first time, it looked like Leonard might actually be able to see out the back window. Even though we didn’t really have much between the three of us, the boot was tiny and our cases seemed to be getting progressively bulgier as the trip went on and my dedication to folding our clothes waned. Leonard’s bag was definitely taking up more room, too, since we’d stopped for petrol at a Tesco garage half an hour outside of Barnstaple. In the time it had taken me to pay for the petrol and buy a packet of chewing gum and a couple of bottles of water Leonard had managed to purchase an impressive array of spicy-smelling toiletries, a pair of slippers and, surreptitiously, a six-pack of underpants to add to his luggage. Although not surreptitiously enough for Norman not to have noticed.

As we’d walked to the café that morning he said he’d thought of a joke about old men’s pants and my third favourite song of all time, Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.

‘Do you think Leonard would mind if I used it, Mum? Should I ask him? It’s a pretty funny one. I . . . I think it is, anyway.’

Leonard was a good sport and I was pretty sure it would be fine to talk about his underpants, although that was before I knew they were going to get an airing at the bloody Edinburgh Fringe. Anyhow, Tony took one look at how we’d just chucked everything into the car and took it all back out again. But in a kindly way, not bossy. I had a sudden very unexpected flashback to that night in Edinburgh. It was a hell of a time to remember, but apparently he packed cars like he approached his work with women. Considered, concerned and very neat and tidy with all the ends finished off.

After a bit of jiggling Tony slotted everything back into the boot and, amazingly, it seemed to only take up about half the space it had before. I had room at my feet, Norman didn’t have to balance his elbows on the just-in-case box of groceries and, all in all, it looked like it was shaping up to be a far more comfortable trip to Bournemouth than the one from Barnstaple had been.

After promising to call and let Tony and Kathy know how the show went, we drove away. When I turned and leaned out the window to wave at them, their arms were already back around each other. My stomach gave a twang when I realized that there, but for a lazy bunch of sperm and a bad attitude, could have been my life. It could have been me and Tony waving some madwoman and her posse off to Edinburgh. Mine and Norman’s lives could have been ordered, neatly laid out, with everything fitting perfectly together like in the car boot. And maybe Kathy would just have been a kindly neighbour. Or my best friend.

But probably not, I decided, because those two were so right together I couldn’t imagine they were ever destined to be anyone’s interlocking piece but each other’s. And as Tony and Kathy blurred into smudges, after all the years of telling myself I didn’t need that kind of anchor I found myself quite surprised to have my head out a car window with watery wind-eyes, wondering just how it might feel.

I snuck a look at Norman in the wing mirror. He already had his wad of Post-it notes fanned out in his hands and was mouthing lines out the window. My own reflection loomed large and I met her surprisingly steady gaze. Your fierceness and your fearlessness. That girl. Was it possible she really had existed?

As we swerved on to the M3 towards the sign that declared Bournemouth to be thataway I focused a little closer on Norman’s lips and, while I couldn’t be sure, some of those lines looked a little bit like what the fuck, shit it all and hell’s bells. If, by some miracle, Tony was right, Norman was going to need every bit of whatever that girl had if he was going to get through this in one piece. And maybe she might make it too.

30

I’d have to say that Adam