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A Novel
by Julietta Henderson
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And by the way, that's another thing I know. That you can't trust your timing, no matter how good it's been in the past. Not even for people as excellently funny as Ronnie Barker or Dave Allen or Bob Mortimer. Or Jax.
Because even if you nick a little bit of money for sweets every weekday morning from your mum's purse, even if you accidentally-on-purpose leave your stepfather's car door open so the cats get in and wee on the seats, and even if you're the naughtiest kid in the whole school by a long shot, when you're eleven years, 297 days and, from what the paramedics can tell, anything between twelve and sixteen hours old, it's definitely not a good time to die.
Stare straight ahead and think about nothing.
3
Sadie
SQUASHED INTO THE end of the pew with my body leaning into the shape of the space that Norman's made, I could feel the tense and release of his arms as his small boy hands curled in and out of fists. The buttoned-down cuffs of his sleeves rode up ever so slightly with every movement to reveal the trail of psoriasis that spread triumphantly down to the second knuckles. His face was blank as a brick. Dry eyes staring straight ahead.
Just hold on. Hold on, son. You'll get through this, I murmured reassuringly. Telepathically. But Norman's hands kept on curling and flexing, and then I noticed his chest was keeping time, rising and collapsing with the movement of his hands. I knew what was lying in wait underneath the thin fabric of his shirt, so then I had another thing to worry about.
Like we needed it. The moving huddle in the aisle parted from the back as Jax's parents set off on their million-mile walk, and without turning my head I felt more than saw Josie Fenton hesitate ever so slightly as they passed us. But then they were gone. And my son's eyes remained fixed on some invisible point that I could only hope lay somewhere far, far beyond the awfulness of the moment.
A good forty minutes after the last person had left, I reached for Norman's nearest hand and closed it gently between mine. The chill of the empty church had sidled deep into my bones and I was shocked at the heat of his raw knuckles on my palms. The voice in my head began stage-whispering nonsense louder and louder and Norman's hand stayed rigid in its fist. But I didn't need that voice to tell me what I'd already figured out about thirty-eight minutes before. I wasn't going to be nearly enough for this.
I had to admit, it looked like he wasn't getting my message, possibly because my best telepathic motherly voice was being all but drowned out by the other, very much louder one that lived in luxury inside my head. Fuck you, Sadie. You can't even get this right. As usual, it wasn't pulling any punches.
The priest who had never met him declared the end to Jax's life and people began shuffling out of the pews as fast as they could, as if death might still be hanging around, looking for company. They knocked our knees, murmured apologies and spilled their overflow of sadness all over us.
4
THERE'S A GOOD chance Norman's father is one of four people. Now I know how that makes me sound, but it's a fairly reasonable alternative to the other scenario, which is that he would quite possibly have been one of several more if circumstances had allowed.
But anyhow, who provided the champion Y chromosome that coasted up a lager-and-lemonade river to victory in my ovaries never really came up in Norman's first twelve years of life. Mainly because I'd pretty much convinced myself that I was all the parent he needed. I was enough. And, to be fair, Norman had never given me any reason to question my conviction, no matter how many mistakes I made on the job. And there's been a lot, believe me. Which you probably do, based on first impressions.
I never knew a thing about boys until I became the mother of one, even though, in theory, a boy is just a smaller version of a man and clearly I thought I knew quite a lot about them at one point. As a general rule, I've found men don't really require any complicated directions, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get exactly what's on the tin when you bring one home. And serves you right, most of the time. But it turns out a boy is nothing like a man at all, because they could definitely do with coming with some directions. And when you bring one of them home, before you even get him through the front door he's already got your heart scrunched up in his fat baby fist like a bad betting slip. And he's starting to squeeze.
* * *
I named my son Norman because there was nobody to tell me not to. And because I liked it. That could have been my first mistake and, who knows, maybe I would have listened if someone else had been there to say that Charlie or Harry or Freddie might be a lighter load for a kid to swing onto his back and carry around for an entire lifetime. That other children, and even adults who should bloody well know better, might find a thousand cruel ways to use a name chosen with love to try to bring your boy down. That maybe, just maybe, naming a postmillennial baby after a 1950s comedian was not the best idea I'd ever had. Although you should know that it also wasn't the worst.
Excerpted from The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson . Copyright © 2021 by Julietta Henderson . Excerpted by permission of Mira. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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