The Frog Theory
Fiona Mordaunt
Dedicated to Diana Mather
for being generous, loving and kind, thank you.
“If I got rid of my demons I’d lose my angels.”
Tennessee Williams
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Four introductions
The window incident
Probation
The fight
Job interview
Chuck me a rope
The party
Inside Clate’s house
The frog theory
Mr Whippy
The solicitor
Smart shoes
Smash the mask
The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…
Testing natural chemistry
Food fight shocks locals!
The doctor will be with you shortly
Australia
The kiss
Epilogue
Copyright
Four introductions
Kim
As Kim walked to Bishops Park from the council estate he lived on in Fulham, he stopped to light a cigarette, turning his back to the wind to shelter the flame that leapt and wriggled from his lighter.
By day, the park was a leafy world of people exercising themselves, children and dogs but by night, transformed by darkness, it was a top local nightspot for the kids from the surrounding council estates.
Kim slid through the gap in the fence, which was their entrance, and made his way to the playground area where people tended to congregate.
He could see his best mate, Flow, arguing with his girlfriend Jackie, and he wondered what Flow had done to piss her off this time – you could tell by her body language she was having a go.
‘Ryan!’ Kim called as he walked into the playground, giving the arguing couple a wide berth. ‘You buying?’
Ryan had grown up on the same estate as Kim and Flow.
‘Give me an eighth.’ Ryan handed Kim some cash and took the small package.
‘Same,’ said Pat, who was standing next to him.
Pat was the runt of the Nixon family, a clan of feared criminals, though he wasn’t involved in criminal activity himself.
Kim looked around to see who else might be buying tonight. Sheema and Paula, girls from his own estate, would definitely take a bit, although Sheema wouldn’t have much.
Sheema had that kind of silky black hair that looks like an advert, always shining, and Paula, well, she was ugly. That’s the cruel truth of it. Some people just don’t have any luck when it comes to genes. She was a hard bitch, too, maybe to compensate.
The pair of them were sitting on a wall by the paddling pool whispering secretively, the way girls often did in his experience – best left well alone.
Jackie had stopped yelling at Flow so he opted to go in their direction next, greeting Flow with a manly slap on the back.
‘He only went and smashed my watch!’ Jackie complained, laying the heart of their argument bare.
‘It said on the front it was shatterproof,’ said Flow, defensively.
‘And you put it to the test,’ finished Kim.
If ever they went past a wet paint sign, Flow would stick his hand in it to see if it really was wet, and when they’d been at school, if there was a label saying “fireproof” on anything, he’d have to put a match to it, just to check it was true. Kim had learnt Flow’s peculiar logic over the years; it didn’t matter whether material possessions were his or not – these impulsive acts were the norm. If Jackie hadn’t worked that out during the time they’d been dating and was stupid enough to let him have her watch, well…
‘He said “Let me see your new watch”, then he takes it off my wrist, looks at it and smashes it against the blimmin’ wall!’ lobbied Jackie.
‘Which proves my point that it wasn’t actually shatterproof, was it? And if I had realised it was going to smash I wouldn’t have done it, would I?’
‘Sounds like misinformation on the part of the manufacturers to me!’ said Kim, thereby pledging allegiance to Flow.
Jackie drew her mouth tight like a coin purse poised to burst, her focus trawling to Paula, gesticulating wildly from her place on the wall.
‘Looks like you’re wanted!’ said Flow.
Jackie’s face relaxed, dropping the argument in favour of the promise of gossip, she spun away from them with a haughty flick of her hair.
‘Skedaddle?’ said Kim, once she was out of earshot. It was the opportunity they needed to ditch her for the evening.
But Flow hesitated, undecided, lit a fag and stayed put.
That was the thing – Jackie had a hold over Flow. It was Friday night and the old Flow would have gone to the pub, played some pool, nicked a car, HAD A LAUGH.
Kim just didn’t get it.
Clate
Clate’s stepfather, Hugo, had a nasty habit of bursting in on her while she was getting dressed, or finding a reason to shout at her just as she was about to leave, so she got ready as fast as she could, grabbed her schoolbag and flew out of the house.
Damn! She had forgotten her gym kit; she had to go back in.
‘I want a word with you,’ said Hugo, looming above her while she stood in the laundry room hastily cramming the kit into her PE bag. He was brandishing a mug as if he’d found stolen goods. ‘It was in your bedroom!’ he announced accusingly.
‘Sorry, I’ll put it in the dishwasher,’ said Clate, trying to take it from him.
He held it out of reach. ‘That you choose to live like a slob is your own affair. That you choose to let it affect your mother and me is not! Why should we have to put up with your slovenliness?’
‘You shouldn’t.’ Clate was meek, eager to avoid a row and get the hell out of there.
‘Your room is like a stinking boudoir, it makes the rest of the house smell,’ he continued.
‘I’ll clean it when I get back from school.’
‘Make sure you do!’ he snapped, finally relinquishing the mug.
She flung her bags to the floor, seized the mug and hurried down the long hall to the kitchen, loading the offensive item into the dishwasher as quickly as possible before turning to find him just behind her.
She took a sharp intake of breath. Whack! He had slapped her face.
‘That’s to ensure you don’t forget!’ he told her with a sneer.
She pushed past him, tears stinging her eyes, grabbed her things and made her escape, slamming the front door as hard as she could. She gave his stupid Porsche a hard kick as she passed it, too.
Hugo checked his tie in the mirror. These young girls thought all they had to do in life was bat their eyelashes and stick their tits out; well he knew better. He took a tough line with Clate but if it wasn’t for him she’d have gone and got herself pregnant or something by now.
‘I can’t believe you’re late again, Mr Berry’s after your blood!’ whispered Sarah.
‘So what’s new?’ Clate took her place at the desk beside her.
‘I just thought after all the bollockings you’ve had lately… It’s not like you live that far away! Are you trying to get expelled?’
Clate unpacked her bag, deftly slapping an exercise book and pencil case onto the desk.
‘You know, for a best friend you really know how to rub things in,’ she said through clenched teeth.
‘Hugo up to his normal tricks, then? What did he do this time?’ Sarah asked eagerly.
Clate didn’t answer. Sometimes she thought Sarah actually enjoyed hearing the grief Hugo put her through. Besides, she’d become aware that the whole class was silent and looking at her, including Mr Berry, their English teacher.
> ‘I see that you’ve decided to join us, then!’ His voice was heavily laced with sarcasm. ‘And what, may I ask, was the pressing activity that kept you away from the first ten minutes of the lesson this time?’
Clate couldn’t think of an answer so she kept her silence and began to blush until he pressed her for one.
‘Well? We’re all waiting.’
‘I got my period and had to go home to change!’ she blurted, leaving the statement to float chaotically around the room.
‘Nice one!’ said Sarah quietly, with an air punch under the desk that only Clate could see.
Now it was Mr Berry’s turn to blush. Clate felt a little surge of relief as he swivelled towards the board and continued the lesson, leaving her to slither off the hook.
The morning was over and it was time for lunch.
‘I want you to come to a party with me… I’ll do your make-up and lend you clothes,’ said Sarah, sliding her tray past the soggy vegetables and towards the chips. Clate reminded her that she was grounded.
‘You’re always grounded, I’ve thought of a way around that. You can’t spend your whole life cooped up in your bedroom.’
‘I s’pose.’ Clate was doubtful.
They found a free table to eat at and she listened in disbelief as Sarah revealed her elaborate escape plan.
‘I’m not jumping out of a God damn window!’ Clate told her when she’d finished.
‘It’s not like it’s that high,’ protested Sarah, ‘what are you nervous of?’
‘I could break my neck, that’s what I’m nervous of!’
‘Like you’re going to. Anyway, you jump off that pole thing all the time when you do your gymnastics.’
‘That’s different, there’s a safety mat underneath me. Besides, what if I get caught?’
‘What can they do to you that they haven’t done already?’ Sarah asked imploringly, blue eyes wide.
Sarah had a serious crush on her big brother’s friend and said friend was going to be at the party so Sarah had to be there – it could be her chance to get noticed.
‘So get your brother to take you, easy!’ reasoned Clate.
‘Don’t you think I didn’t consider that? He said no already.’
‘Amy?’ (Sarah’s other best friend).
‘Too pretty… no offence!’
None was taken.
‘I don’t know, Sarah.’ Clate spiked some chips and mopped them ponderously in the palette of ketchup on the side of her plate.
The principal
The principal had nothing left to throw up but the dry retching continued.
She knew exactly how to handle this, though, no big deal. She simply inhaled and exhaled deeply as she did in her yoga classes until she began to calm down and, when she had recovered sufficiently, made her way to the kitchen to fix herself a smoothie.
‘Hello you beautiful little thing,’ she crooned, stooping to rub the ears of her old cat, which was weaving itself fluidly around her legs. The air was thick with the comforting rumble of his purr. ‘Hoping for some milk, are you?’
Ten years ago she would have been fixing herself a whisky and sparking up a cigarette, but a lot had changed since she’d split up with her husband.
They’d met on a film. Her part was just a very small cameo appearance. She had been modelling at the time, to the chagrin of her mother, and, according to the casting agent who had been scouring the modelling portfolios, she had exactly the right look for this particular scene, during which she didn’t even have to talk, just stand.
Mike had been the cameraman on the set they’d gone and fallen in love, plop!
She had ignored everyone’s advice about taking things about a bit more slowly and they had married after knowing each other just three months.
A year later she had given up modelling to have their first child, going on to have another soon after that. It wasn’t easy, in fact it was really bloody difficult, but she had thought they were doing ok.
It was the middle of August when she’d made a trip to her mother’s house in Devon with the kids. Her mother had come to accept that her beautiful daughter had married this, in her opinion, rather undeserving man, and she did all she could to support their relationship.
Knowing how hard two little ones could be on a marriage she had instructed her daughter to go home and enjoy her husband; she would look after the children.
The principal had gone shopping for a new dress and nice underwear, even had her hair done, and had raced home to surprise Mike.
A sixth sense told her to be quiet when she entered the house and, like a really bad film, she had found him in their bed with her younger sister.
Life as she knew it was over.
English had been her major at university, before she got into modelling, and she’d applied for a job that she’d seen advertised in the paper, teaching English at a comprehensive school; her mother approved.
She’d got the job and found that it suited her well. Drawn increasingly towards working with problem teenagers and young offenders, she quickly became a leading authority on dealing with that sector of society, so much so that she was headhunted for the job of principal at one of the roughest colleges in London.
In just six years she had turned it around and it was now the most successful place for problem teenagers and young offenders in the country. She had achieved more than she ever could have imagined, because inside, where it really mattered, it was a mess and if she stopped, even for a little while, it started to get messier.
Hungrily she gulped the drink, panic attack abated.
Flow
So-called because he was so laid back and always went with the flow – could draw a caricature of anyone and graffiti a wall in minutes using spray cans or markers; it was his thing – his gift, you could say.
Of everyone Kim knew, Flow was luckiest when it came to family and Kim was luckiest too because he got to be a part of it. Flow’s Mum and Dad had always been happily together and his nan and grandad, good people, lived on the estate as well, in the block next to Kim’s.
Flow’s mum and nan cleaned people’s houses, made a packet, and his dad was a handyman – painting and decorating mostly, he often took Flow and Kim on jobs, gave them a bit of work here and there.
Biologically speaking, Kim only had his Mum, who was on the game, top of her profession in her younger days and highly sought after. She famously slept with royalty and other bigwigs, made a mint.
She wouldn’t have consciously chosen motherhood and it showed but everyone liked Kim’s Mum, they joked that she must have slept with some superhuman to have come up with Kim; privately, it made her feel better about having no idea where he came from.
Why did she stay on the estate when she had that much money? Nobody knew. Best guess: maybe her friends on the estate were the closest thing to family she had and she needed to be near them.
‘Mum!’ Flow yelled from his bedroom. ‘Got any wrapping paper?’
He had bought Jackie a new watch, exactly the same as the one he’d smashed. He still didn’t understand why she was so pissed off about it but he did know buying her a new one would make it better.
No reply.
‘Muuum!’ he yelled again.
No reply.
He trudged off to find her in front of the telly watching EastEnders, feet up, sipping vodka and orange, her favourite tipple after a hard day at work.
She pretended she hadn’t noticed him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’
‘Of course I heard you,’ she said calmly. ‘Wrapping paper is in the second drawer down left of the kitchen sink along with sellotape, scissors and curling ribbon.’
Flow knew better than to argue or to ask why she couldn’t have simply yelled that information back to him instead of making him walk all the way to the sitting room.
‘Thanks,’ he muttered, going off to collect the necessary equipment. He hated it when Jackie was cro
ss with him because she withheld sexual favours.
Armed with the parcel, he confidently made his way to her place in the Glass Block, the tallest on the estate, home to his and Kim’s crop of grass, too, cleverly concealed on the roof.
He took the stairs because the lift always stank of piss.
Kim, meanwhile, began to walk to the park. He had a date at the benches by the river with hair advert Sheema.
Sheema had managed to fix up a date with Kim using Paula and Jackie as go-betweens – so that was what they had been whispering about the other day. Kim had never really considered Sheema in that way before but, offered to him on a plate like that, he wasn’t going to say no. She was pretty, she was nice, she had shiny hair. Why not?
People would go to the benches by the river if they wanted get more closely acquainted. He sat next to her and noticed that she smelt of soap and shampoo. They didn’t waste much time and were soon in a long, soft snog.
It was nice.
The window incident
Sarah and Clate had stayed on late at school to attend their self-defence class. Clate was good at it and enjoyed practising the moves; anything to avoid going home for a bit longer.
They were in the sixth form and it was referred to as a college, but as they had both been there since they were eleven, it still felt like school.
As they walked home they discussed the finer details of Sarah’s plan. Tonight was the night.
Clate had come around to the idea of jumping out of the window. Sarah was right, it made sense to bypass the creaky stairs.
She could drop down into the garden, go through the patio doors, then creep along the ground floor of the house and out of the front door, using her key to turn the lock as quietly as possible when a car went past to muffle any sound.
‘And if you get caught?’ said Sarah.
‘I’ll text gobbledygook letters so it looks like I left my phone keypad unlocked and text you by mistake so that you don’t get into trouble too.’
The Frog Theory Page 1