“Hey, Mum?” My son’s soft voice brought me back to now and the sound of distant strangers’ laughter drifting up from the Swansea Beach. Come in deeper, Sadie, I’ve got you, love. “Do you reckon either of the Franks did get a certificate too?”

Tell me how you could not love this kid.

“Oh, for sure, yeah. I reckon they both got one for joint best and fairest.” There was such a long pause I wondered if he hadn’t heard me, because normally he’s so polite he laughs at my attempts to make jokes. Just to encourage me, I think. And because he really, really loves me.

“Yeah. Hey, Mum? I’ve been thinking. The certificate... I mean, I know it was only for trying and stuff, and I didn’t really win anything...but it’s got to count for something, don’t you think? So I... I was thinking that maybe when we get to Bournemouth, well, maybe...”

Norman looked down at his feet and sat down heavily on the bed.

“It’s just that, Mum, I’m... I’m not sure if I should do the open mic show in Bournemouth. Like...like maybe I could use the time to just practice on my own instead. Or in front of you guys? I mean, maybe that would be even better than an open mic because... I... I don’t know, what do you think?”

Ahh, you don’t want to know that, Norman.

I’d seen Leonard and Norman hunched over the laptop the night before, checking and double-checking on the Bournemouth open mic details. I knew Leonard felt responsible for the Swansea’s Got Talent mix-up and he wanted to make sure the next show was exactly what it was supposed to be: a regular, out-of-the-way pub with a lame open mic night. But not quite so out of the way and lame as the Noble Goat. It was a fine line and, I guessed, a pretty big ask.

I sat down on the edge of the bed next to Norman and stretched my arm around him. I felt his body relax as he leaned on my shoulder and, right then, with that small, dear head so close to mine, I wished for the answers to motherhood more than any other time in my life. Any of them. A tip of a cap would do at this stage. I’d been so quick to jump into this plan, be the cool mum, make this crazy dream come true, because I didn’t know a real way to take away his pain. But what if everything I was doing was just making things worse? Just for a moment I wondered what it might be like to have a second opinion on all the important decisions. A sounding board, a voice of reason, someone else who loved this boy like I did. Another hand to hold ours. I gently moved Norman’s head from my shoulder and knelt on the floor in front of him.

“Norman, listen to me. Of course if you don’t want to do the open mic, you don’t have to. Of course. We don’t have to go to Bournemouth at all. I mean, I don’t have to call the next guy if you don’t want and...we don’t even have to go to Edinburgh if you don’t want to.” The show must go on, Sadie. “The show doesn’t always have to go on, Norman.”