The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson (sci fi books to read .TXT) 📗

all those years sipping warm lemonade in dark pub corners listening to my father pour his heart out on stage then watching him fall head first into a bottle of Scotch when we got home, I knew enough to know that it mattered all right. It mattered a lot. And Norman had been wearing his ‘I’m OK’ mask so well for so long now it was impossible to tell if he was even still in there behind it, or somewhere else altogether. As I’d searched his face in the wing mirror for clues, I’d wondered if it might even already be too late to call him back. One two three bite. One two three laugh.

The interior decor of Toad Hall was only slightly better than the outside had hinted at, and when Bill appeared, he, too, was the perfect match. He was about a hundred and twenty years older than his picture and slightly more unsteady on his feet than one might expect at three o’clock in the afternoon, but at least he seemed to know the way to our rooms. One for me and Norman, which smelled distinctly of mould and indistinctly of wee, and one down the hall and up a set of three stairs for Leonard, which was so small even the single bed seemed like an imposition.

There was no sign of Gloria, but Bill assured us she’d be cooking our full English breakfast whenever we wanted between seven and nine o’clock the next morning, which Norman was surprisingly excited about.

‘Free breakfast, Mum! Can you believe it?’ I was glad he had something to look forward to in the next twenty-four hours, because, frankly, I couldn’t think of much else that was going to fit the bill.

I unpacked, which comprised taking Norman’s good shirt and my good shirt out of our cases and hanging them in the musty wardrobe. Side by side, they looked remarkably similar, which made me wonder, did I dress like a twelve-year-old boy or did my son dress like a thirty-two-year-old woman? Both options were a little disturbing and I made a mental note to address the issue at some stage.

I was well aware my hanging of good shirts and mental noting were delaying tactics, but I was also well aware there was no way Leonard was going to allow us to deviate from any of the perfectly spaced bulletpoints on his laminated itinerary.

‘Knock, knock.’ On cue, he appeared at our slightly open door, not knocking at all but brandishing said itinerary in front of him. It could have been down to his windblown hair and cheeks, or the fact that he’d removed his tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt, but I swear he was looking ten years younger than when we’d left Penzance just a few hours ago.

‘OK, Sadie, it’s four o’clock. Are you feeling brave, my dear?’ No, I bloody was not. ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained, it’s time to call candidate number one.’

I had to hand it to him: we were right on schedule. Right after 3 p.m., check in to Toad Hall, unpack, check oil and water in car and have slight rest, was the thing I’d been dreading all the way from Penzance. Sadie 4 p.m. call Dan McLachlan to set up meeting. Just like that. Like good old Dan McLachlan was going to open his diary and move a few things around to fit an illegitimate son in between appointments with his broker and his weekly briefing with the deputy prime minister. Because if there was one thing I did remember about Dan McLachlan, it was that he was a guy who was going places. He certainly went places for a couple of nights with me, but I’m pretty sure none of them would have helped progress his career. Not unless he’d switched his law degree to gynaecology. Or drug-lordery.

I don’t know how easy calling a guy you’d had a two-day dalliance with thirteen years ago out of the blue sounds to you, but if you ever have to do it I sincerely hope you handle it better than me. Leonard had already added all the potential fathers’ numbers into my phone, and I’d been going over a vague script in my head for the past week, so it’s not like it crept up on me or anything. But what I really wasn’t prepared for was having to talk to Dan McLachlan’s answering machine. And the fact that his voice sounded exactly as I hadn’t even known I’d remembered it.

Hi, you’ve reached Dan McLachlan, arrogant bastard with good hair and a bad attitude to women. I’m way too busy and important to answer your call right now but if you leave your number I may deign to get back to you at some stage. Or, you know, something like that.

Put on the spot, I stumbled about, trying to sound light-hearted and casual, blurting out some drivel about old times and did he remember me, and just being in town for the evening and I’d love to catch up.

‘And oh, hey, by the way, there’s . . . there’s a possibility you could be my twelve-year-old son’s father. He’s a really great kid. The bomb. The best kid in the world, actually. He, that is, we . . .’

At that point, Leonard began madly flapping one hand in the air and dragging the other across his neck in a desperate cutthroat sign. I didn’t disagree. I’d swerved way off script, because we’d decided definitely – definitely – not to say anything about Norman until I’d met up with the guy and evaluated the situation. And maybe not even then. Norman also looked a bit terrified at the prospect of having to live up to my hype, but it wasn’t until I hung up and dropped my mobile on the bed like a sizzling chip that I realized what that slim, insistent finger that had been tapping at my shoulder from the moment I’d heard Dan McLachlan’s voice had been