“No problem at all, Leonard.”

Without a single false turn along the way, Leonard and I pulled into a parking spot almost directly across the road from O’Shaughnessy’s. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the crowd of people on the pavement outside the pub, but before I had time to start worrying Leonard materialized around my side of the car to help me out.

“Easy there, Sadie. Careful, my girl, steady as she goes.”

I had a second to wonder why on earth someone hadn’t said that to me years ago, before Leonard took my arm gently to guide me across the road. I looked to the left to check for traffic and saw a motorbike veer off and tuck in neatly behind a parked car. A tall, scruffy-looking guy with no helmet and crazy, wind-mussed hair stepped off the bike, then turned to help his passenger remove his helmet. The kid had the same windblown look and, although he was slight, I could see the shape that hinted at the man he’d be soon enough. Confident stance, chin out, shoulders trying to hold up an oversize jacket. The sudden noise of a car horn made them both turn their heads in our direction and my heart imploded into my chest as the boy-man dropped his helmet on to the road and ran straight into my arms.

With my chin resting on Norman’s shoulder and squeezing his body as tight as I dared, it took me all of about five seconds to work out exactly who Mr. Moped was. The how and why he was there with Norman was infinitely less clear, but somehow it didn’t seem important. I’d find out later, or I wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. Now that Norman and I had arrived here, all that mattered was right in front of me. This place. This moment. This boy.

The second Norman and I stepped back from each other he started talking at a hundred overexcited miles an hour. An assortment of unfamiliar names fell from his lips and mingled with abandon into disjointed sentences about disguises and tumble dryers and houseboats and Dave Allen. I felt the words ducking and diving and swirling around me, but all I could do was stand there and stare at my son.

The serious, softly rounded face I loved so much was the same, but there was a set to it that was entirely different. Every part of him was animated and the smile that hadn’t left his face since he’d seen me was so brilliant it made me feel giddy. Even though I couldn’t put my finger on just what it was that had changed about Norman, I knew for certain he wasn’t the same boy who had left Penzance.

It was a few seconds before I became aware that Norman’s chattering had trailed off and he was staring over my shoulder, openmouthed, at the gathering crowd outside the side door leading down to the Duke Supper Club. To my own absolute surprise, fully formed sentences began to slide eloquently out of me.