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

she started to cry, but then just when I started to get a bit worried I saw that she was also still laughing.

After the laughing and crying Mum hugged me really, really tight, and even though it was pretty sore on the parts where my scabs had fallen off I hugged her back as hard as I could too. And when she went to let go I still kept holding on, which made her hug me back more, and then it started all over again. It was like a never-ending hug, which is the best kind. And it didn’t matter that it hurt and that it took up a lot of time and that Mum was crying and that I hadn’t had my shower yet so I still stank a little bit like the wee of a thousand Egyptian camels. Because even though neither of us said anything I knew Mum was thinking about Jax at that very moment too.

36Sadie

As it goes, I would rather have made myself a two-gallon cocktail of every stinking potion I’ve ever rubbed on Norman’s poor little body in the last ten years, stuck an umbrella in it and drunk it through a Marmite-dipped straw than endure another meeting with Adam Linley. But just when I’d been about to wheel out a barrow of lies and make a run for it from the pub, wouldn’t you know it, out of the blue he’d said he’d like to meet Norman.

‘You know, just in case the kid really is mine. Probably is, too. I was pretty virile back then, if I do say so myself.’

Which he proceeded to do quite loudly, several more times. Throughout the course of our conversation in the pub he’d seemed to swing between totally obnoxious and oddly vulnerable, with not too much in between. It was confusing, to say the least, but either way, despite having softened slightly towards him since our initial sweaty exchange, I really didn’t want to have to think about the capabilities of what was (mercifully) hidden in the depths of those enormous pants. I’d tried to distract him with the story of Jax, the other possible fathers, the boys’ plan and just why we were on this trip, but he wasn’t to be put off.

So now, in lieu of my preferred cocktail, here we were in the back corner of a coffee shop waiting for Adam Linley, drainer extraordinaire, toastie-maker pilferer and possibly the father of my son. Although I sincerely hoped not.

Basking in the aftermath of Leonard’s Chinese herbs, Norman looked lovely. There was a dusky pink hue to his face, and even though there were still more scabs than twenty-and fifty-pence-sized patches of new skin showing through, after the detritus he’d left on the sheets that morning the score was definitely evening out. But even though glass houses, pelted stones and all that stuff, I was still nervous at the possibility of what might come out of Adam’s mouth when he saw Norman.

The night before, as I’d lain awake for hours with my son next to me shedding skin in his sleep, I’d thought about Adam and all the other mistakes I’d made thirteen years ago and tried to make some kind of sense of it. Which was an interesting experience, because it’s not something I’d ever tried to do before. Matter of fact, it was pretty much the exact opposite of anything I’d ever tried to do before.

When I’d arrived in Penzance with a two-week-old baby, a piece of paper with an estate agent’s number on it and not much else, I’d closed the door hard on my father’s grand finale and everything else that followed in those crazy few months back up in Edinburgh. I just got on with loving Norman, and that was more than enough to concentrate on, I told myself.

But lying in a hotel room halfway between back and beyond, I got to thinking about the stuff I’d left behind that door. The drinking, the blaming, the stupid, careless behaviour, the wilful and deliberate sabotage of the life my father had been so proud I was making. And those tightly packed shelves of anger and resentment for the man who’d been my entire family. The man who made me the world’s best daughter then blew the world apart. The man who’d already hung around too long.

I think I might have come close to pushing on that door the day Norman and Jax made their poster for the Five Year Plan. With all the talk of Edinburgh and that old photo of my father that I hadn’t seen for years. But I slunk away. Because maybe, just maybe, I was too busy trying to prove I was enough for my son to make up for not being quite enough for my father. And maybe I had never wanted to consider that Norman might actually want a say in it. But now it was looking like I might have to crack that door wide open. Even if behind it was the risk of a booby prize like Adam Linley.

‘Sadie! Hey, you there!’ Like I hadn’t seen him coming, and as if you could miss him in that bloody great lump of a mobility scooter. Adam’s navigation left a lot to be desired and, as well as taking out several chairs on the way through the café, there were a couple of small children that had very near misses. At the sound of Adam’s voice, I felt Norman involuntarily shrink down in his seat like he was trying to disappear. You and me both, kid. I grabbed his hand under the table and held on tight.

Adam’s scooter jerked to a halt at our table, running over my bag in the process and barely missing Norman’s legs, which he swung out of the way just in time.

‘Hello again, Adam. Lovely to . . . mmm. Norman, this is Adam. Adam, Norman.’ Norman stuck out his hand and gave him a