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

‘OK, Norman.’

38

The thing about a place as old as Edinburgh is that a decade and spare change doesn’t really make much difference. Heading up George Street in the Austin at gone midnight, it felt like I’d just nipped out for a quick thirteen-year trip to the supermarket. Everything looked exactly the same, and here was I, just another speck of historical dust blown back into town by mistake. Welcome back, you meaningless speck of dust.

Luckily, in a rare moment of forethought, I’d made sure I’d booked our accommodation in Edinburgh before we did anything else, because, call me genius, but I’d had an inkling that finding a place to stay during the busiest week of the year might be a little difficult. I’d still had virtually zero choice by then, but with the assistance of Leonard’s superior googling skills, we’d managed to find an obscure private owners’ website offering what I’m pretty sure was the last room in the last place that could conceivably call itself the city.

Discover your home away from home in Edinburgh at the Soft Fudge Guesthouse, the listing had enticed. Righto, then. Don’t mind if we do, I’d thought. Sounds delicious. There’d only been one room available to book at the Soft Fudge, but from the photos it looked like, in addition to the double bed, there was an alcove with a very wide upholstered window seat, which Leonard had insisted he’d be more than happy to sleep on.

‘Veritable luxury compared to some of the places I had to sleep in the army, my dear. It’ll be an adventure!’

I wasn’t so convinced anyone really needed an adventure like that and I also wasn’t quite sure about having to share quarters that close, but I’d figured that, by that stage, I’d have plenty of other things to worry about and also it didn’t seem like there was an alternative. So there we were.

Thanks to Leonard’s pre-loaded directions on Google Maps, we navigated our way through the city and over to Leith with surprising ease. But finding the Soft Fudge itself proved a little more tricky, because even having the street name and number isn’t all that helpful when the majority of the signs have been bent or graffitied out of recognition. When we turned into what half a street sign dangling from a post declared was ngton stree, it looked like as close to a clue as we were going to get. We crawled along (presumably) Kensington Street and pulled up in front of (apparently) number 14. I decided on the spot that if the last week had taught me anything it was a) never to believe what you read on TripAdvisor, and b) never be fooled into thinking that booking-site photos are even in the same neighbourhood as reality. Or in the case of the Soft Fudge Guesthouse, the same planet.

Norman and I leaned sideways in the car to get a closer look at the place, and I could see Leonard’s foot hovering over the accelerator. For a moment I considered suggesting he floor it and head up to the castle so we could top and tail it in the Austin instead. But when a car behind us tooted impatiently he drove on a little way and pulled over into the only empty parking space to let it pass. In the end, the Austin made its own decision, elegantly stalling the engine and jerking us all forward to a dramatic stop. Clearly, we had arrived.

I wouldn’t have expected to see all lights blazing at that time of the night, but when we unloaded our bags and walked the short distance back to number 14 the place was in total darkness and there was more than a whiff of abandonment about it. I’d been emailed a confirmation with a code to the key safe, but while with any luck there was going to be a lock on our room, we certainly didn’t need a key for the front door. It was wide open and looked like it was hanging on by a cobweb. It wouldn’t have stood a chance against Jax, but at least it would have been a quick way out of its misery.

Norman retrieved the keys, which, thankfully, were exactly where they were supposed to be, and the three of us stepped into the abyss of the Soft Fudge. According to the handwritten note attached to the keys, we were to head up the stairs to the Caramel Suite. We did as we were told and opened a door to both good and bad news.

The good news was that the room was absolutely huge. The bad news was that it had clearly been decorated by a very literal-minded painter and decorator back in the 1970s, because it was like stepping into a diabetic coma. Every surface was a sickly tan (or, at a stretch, caramel), excluding the ceiling, which was beige, and two ancient red velvet loungers and a matching red velvet bedspread across the double bed. But it was charming in an Addams Family meets Willy Wonka kind of way and at least it looked like we’d all fit.

‘Great! There’s lots of room, anyway, isn’t there?’

I was too tired to try and make it sound very convincing, and I saw Leonard eyeing his window-seat bed with what could easily have been a few second thoughts. Norman, though, looked like he’d been given the keys to Edinburgh Castle itself. He’d managed to open one of the big bay windows and was hanging the top half of his body out, craning his neck to get a better look.

‘Wow, Mum! This place is so cool!’

‘Oh my God, Norman, be careful! Don’t lean so far out!’

Norman obediently slipped down the wall and grinned at me. Grinned!

‘But Mum, it really is cool.’

For once in my life, I was grateful to have passed on the Foreman family trait of aiming low to avoid disappointment.

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