Thirty-Eight
‘Here’s your beer,’ Norah said through a strained smile. She’d been getting drinks for everyone; it had felt a little churlish to exclude him. God, she hated being the bigger person. It was so much fucking work.
‘Thanks, babe,’ Max said.
She shot him a look. ‘Sorry, force of habit,’ he mumbled.
Norah was annoyed her mother had invited Max to this. Come to think of it, Norah was pissed at her mother’s presence, too. But she’d invited herself when she heard Norah talking to Freddie about the fayre.
And then Max had suddenly shown up at the door, acting like they were all going on a lovely family jaunt. Clearly, there was some behind-the-scenes business going on between the two of them. Poppy had implied as much.
Norah knew what Max wanted. He’d had his fun, and he was crawling back, cap in hand, expecting his family to come home. There was no way. Norah had tasted her freedom, too, and it came with a gift of purchase. Perspective on their attempt at family. It was clear to see now that it had never functioned at the most basic level. Respect, kindness, empathy—they hadn’t had it. Norah couldn’t show Freddie that that was what a relationship was. He’d only grow up to repeat it. He needed to see a true partnership.
Though, of course, Norah was going to have to find it first. But she worried it wasn’t on the cards for her. She might just be one of those people who couldn’t do it.
Like her mother. She could have found someone else after her father died, but she hadn’t. Norah suspected the trouble was that hiding her difficult nature had gotten tougher as she got older. If that was Norah’s future, too, then so be it. She was done compromising everything, compromising herself. She could be alone forever. It wouldn’t be that bad.
But if Max wanted to watch his son have fun, she wouldn’t have denied either of them that. So here they all were, at the summer fayre. A collection of adults tied together by resentment and need.
Norah watched Freddie jump about on the bouncy castle. Suddenly, she spotted Luna bouncing next to her son. Poppy had to be nearby.
Norah picked Poppy’s long figure out of the crowd quickly and her heart jumped. Poppy turned at that moment, and they caught each other’s eyes. Then Poppy turned away from her to watch Luna bounce on the castle.
Norah heard a mournful sigh escape her own lips.
She wanted to go to Poppy. She wanted to say, ‘Poppy, please, I miss you. Let’s work this out.’ But Poppy had made it clear that she was stepping back from Norah, and her reasons were not unfair. Norah could only hurt herself trying to repair it. The opportunity with Poppy was gone.
‘Something wrong?’ Max asked.
‘Nothing,’ she told him. As if he could understand.
Susan appeared, armed with her usual weapon, a clipboard. ‘That looks fun,’ Susan said, looking at the bouncy castle.
‘You should head in,’ Norah joked.
‘God, no. What? Me? I’m an adult,’ Susan said.
But she watched the kids with longing. She was clearly stressed as fuck. It was the first time Norah had ever felt pity for her.
‘Is that... Is that over the limit?’ Susan asked, frowning.
Norah examined the castle. There was something like thirty kids on the thing now. That did seem a bit...
‘Perhaps I ought to have a word with...’ Susan’s voice quavered.
But she broke off mid-sentence. Because she was too late for ‘a word’. Slowly at first, then with alarming speed, the castle was beginning to tilt.
Children shrieked and slid to one side. Dozens of adults ran forward to help, but no one could scale the moving beast. Norah attempted to push her way through the adults, but they were a thick mass of panic that was impossible to penetrate.
No parenting book had prepared any of them for a rogue bouncy castle, and while the adults yelled to each other, hoping someone knew what to do, the bouncy castle was dragged ever further over by more kids rolling toward one side. It was now balancing on a knife's edge. Norah finally wriggled through a gap and tried to jump on but was quickly bounced right back onto her arse on the grass.
Then, inevitably, the last few kids who’d managed to hold their position anywhere else on the castle lost their grip and were tossed sideways, pulled into the castle’s new centre of gravity.
That final force tipped the scales. The runaway castle flipped right over—throwing the kids onto the grass with a thump—and immediately rolled right on top of them. In the process, it ripped free from the pump and began to deflate on top of them at astonishing speed. The whole thing was like a collapsing star of bouncy horror.
The grownups attempted to leap into action yet again, struggling against each other to get a grip on the deflating castle, Norah among them. But there was no organisation to the effort and no one was getting a good purchase. The material was too heavy and the parents too panicked.
Poppy suddenly appeared on the far side of the castle, ‘Norah! Come with me!’ she screamed.
Norah didn’t hesitate and pushed out of the throng, noting that Susan had fainted onto the grass nearby. Norah decided to deal with that later, following Poppy around the back, where the castle had scrunched to create a gap.
‘Hold it up. I’ll get them,’ Poppy directed.
Norah grabbed the gap and yanked upwards. In went Poppy, like a mole in a hole. Moments later, her head popped back out. ‘I got him!’ And like a damn superhero, Poppy climbed out from beneath the wreckage with Freddie under one arm.
Relief washed over Norah as she rushed to his side.
‘Freddie, are you OK?’ she asked, checking him for injuries.
Freddie nodded, rubbing his head, dazed. ‘I think so,’ he mumbled.
‘I couldn’t find Luna!’ Poppy said. ‘I’m going back in.’ And off she went, back under the plastic scream box.
Max appeared with Norah’s mother. ‘My son!’ Max yelled, the bloody drama queen. ‘My only boy!’
Norah turned to Max. ‘There’s more kids.’
Max was holding on to Freddie, and he looked at her in bafflement. ‘So?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You look after him.’ And Norah followed Poppy in.
Inside the overturned bouncy castle, it was confusing and hot. The once vibrant pink fabric was now a suffocating blanket, trapping the hot summer air beneath it.
Norah pushed forward until her hands brushed against something soft, and she quickly scooped up a small girl—she thought her name was Maryam—her face streaked with tears. Norah held her close, whispering words of comfort as she navigated through the labyrinthine tunnels of deflated plastic. She found the gap and encouraged her through, watching her crawl toward the light.
She turned back around, and right away, she found another child, and it was Luna. ‘Freddie’s mum!’ she cried.
‘Come on, Luna. I’ve got you,’ she said.
Suddenly, she collided with another figure, their bodies bumping in the cramped darkness. A familiar voice gasped, ‘Norah?’
‘Poppy, I’ve got her!’ she said.
She pushed Luna in the direction of her mother, and she watched Poppy lead her out.
Norah decided to keep going. She didn’t know how long it would take to get this thing overturned, and it was bloody hot. Kids might be passing out.
‘Norah, you in here?’ Poppy said from behind her. She’d come back in. ‘They’re out there trying to get it sorted, but it might take a minute.’
‘We’ll have to do it,’ Norah said.
‘If we just stand up, maybe we can lift it enough for the kids to find us?’
‘Let’s try,’ Norah said, and both of them started pushing upwards. But the material was heavy. They weren’t making much headway.
‘Get closer to me. Let’s push the same part together,’ Poppy said.
Norah crawled over to her, and they reached up, their bodies accidentally pushing into each other. Though Norah was in the middle of a minor calamity, she found the time to feel a little awkward and stimulated by the contact.
But they were making progress, pushing up until they were both able to stand. They stepped back from each other to make a gap and a lot of kids were suddenly unveiled. More and more appeared in the centre.
‘I’ll stay here,’ Poppy said. ‘You get them back to the gap.’
Norah led the kids out, and she watched them shuffle out, some of them crying, some of them thinking the collapse was pretty funny now it was over.
Once she was sure they were all out, she went back in to get Poppy. ‘Poppy?’ she called.
She was still standing up in the centre of the castle, her arms shaking under the pressure. ‘They out?’
‘Yes. You can drop it,’ Norah assured her.
Poppy did, and it came down fast, smacking them both down into a pile, their limbs entangled. Norah realised that Poppy was on top of her.
‘You OK?’ Poppy asked, millimetres from her face.
Norah looked up at her, and she was simply overwhelmed by all the words trapped inside her, like kids in a bouncy castle disaster. They had to escape her, at long last.
‘No! You don’t want to talk to me anymore, and I hate it! I want you around. I need you around! Because, because... I’m in love with you!’
Poppy looked down in pure astonishment. ‘I love you!’ she yelled back.
And then the entire castle was suddenly ripped up and away, the parents outside having finally managed to synchronise their efforts to right the rubber monster.
Everyone looked down to see Poppy on top of Norah. Norah and Poppy looked back. Max was agape. Norah’s mother had her hands on her hips, enraged to see her daughter mounted by Poppy.
‘What on earth!’ she yelled.
Poppy climbed quickly off Norah, and they stood up, hot and sweaty. Around them, kids were being reunited with their loving, if a little useless in an emergency, parents. There were a lot of tears, mostly from the adults.
Luna and Freddie ran to their mothers.
Poppy leaned down and hugged her daughter. ‘You OK?’
Luna laughed. ‘That was brilliant. Can we do it again?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘Not a chance.’
‘Everyone got their kids?’ Norah called to the crowd.
There was a chorus of yeses and thank yous between the weeping noises of children coming down from their brief ensnarement.
Norah gave Poppy a lingering, soft look that said, ‘We’ll talk.’ Poppy nodded.
Norah spotted someone giving a dazed Susan a drink of water. ‘God, Norah!’ she called over to her. ‘That was terrible.’
They walked over to her together. ‘I mean, it was unlikely anyone was going to die, but they were scared,’ Poppy said.
‘Don’t downplay it. You were a hero today,’ Norah told her with a light arm bump.
‘If I am, you are,’ Poppy said, bumping her back.
Norah realised they were grinning at each other a bit too much. She turned to Susan. ‘Do you think that’s all of them?’
‘I took a quick tally. I think you got them all,’ Susan said. ‘Thank god you were both here. Everyone else was pathetic. You’re both supermums.’
Norah smiled. ‘Wow,’ she said. To get such an accolade for once in her life and from Susan was... absolutely meaningless.
Norah had done her best today. But that was all she’d ever done. Which meant she’d always been good enough. She’d just never been able to see it until someone she assumed was better than her had said it. Only then was it obvious that they were all in the same boat. Trying to raise their kids as best they could. It could look a lot of ways, but true love was the effort.
At long last, Norah knew a moment of peace in herself. She knew it couldn’t last.
Poppy turned to the grey-haired woman running the bouncy castle. ‘You let this happen. There were too many kids on that thing.’
‘Don’t sue!’ the woman said automatically. ‘I’m on the edge as it is. The cost of air is putting me out of business. I have to go over the limit to keep the thing going.’
‘Don’t worry, Poppy. I’ll handle her,’ Susan said, rolling up her sleeves, becoming her usual intimidating self with delight.
‘Get her, Susan,’ Poppy said with a grin, patting Susan on the back.
‘So you’re happy to let kids get concussions to stay in business, are you?’ Susan asked the woman in her bulldog tone. ‘You should work in the boxing industry.’
Poppy turned from the developing row, grabbing Luna’s hand. ‘I should get her home,’ she said to Norah.
‘We’ll walk with you,’ Norah said with a smile. ‘I better just tell...’
But she didn’t have to tell anyone anything. Because her mother and Max were coming over. Max’s face looked like a slapped arse, but her mother’s expression put it in the shade. She looked ready to choke Poppy to death.