The Frog Theory

by Fiona Mordaunt

  Smart shoes

  The principal had just settled down at her desk to catch up on some paperwork when a young man burst into her office without knocking.

  ‘Hello,’ she said pleasantly.

  ‘I want to come to your college.’

  Kim looked at her bashfully, taking in her smart shirt and jacket. He was taken aback by how attractive she was and felt very young and stupid all of a sudden.

  ‘Why do you want to come to my college?’ she asked, mildly flattered by the way he looked at her but used to it.

  Kim looked at the floor.

  ‘If you’re not prepared to sell yourself there are plenty of others who are,’ the principal snapped impatiently.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Kim.

  ‘That’s a start,’ said the principal.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘I think I should stop wasting your time’. The principal went back to her paperwork dismissively.

  Kim was used to teachers and probation officers making an effort, trying to understand him, gently coaxing; this was new. ‘What kind of fucking teacher are you? You don’t know anything!’ he accused. It had taken a lot for him to come here and try for once in his life. ‘Sitting behind there in your smart suit with your smart nails and your smart hair and, and…’ he searched for something else to say.

  ‘My smart shoes?’ she suggested with a raised eyebrow.

  Kim shifted awkwardly.

  ‘I couldn’t see your shoes.’

  From the waist down she was concealed by a large, low-skirted desk. Strewn across it were some letters showing her home address, he memorised it, might come in useful. ‘I’m sure they’re smart, though,’ he added politely as an afterthought, wishing to appear respectful after a less than perfect beginning.

  ‘Sit down and tell me your name,’ said the principal.

  He did as he was told.

  Kim Carter. She tapped it into her computer, a computer with a difference. It had a link up with the police and social services; it had been just one of many things she’d relentlessly slashed through red tape for. She could find out anything about anybody who was or had been in trouble – that way she could see the full picture straight away and be more effective at helping.

  She pulled Kim’s files. Ah yes, it immediately flagged up a strong recommendation from his probation officer that he attend her college. She scanned his history. Poor attendance at school and lots of trouble with the police for petty crimes, some more serious, including stealing a red London bus with a youth called Frank Young.

  So, he had a sense of humour.

  ‘Are you still friends with Frank?’ she asked. Kim had to think for a moment before he realised she was talking about Flow; Frank was his real name. He explained that Flow was his best mate.

  How had she known that?

  ‘I know everything,’ said the principal, as if she had read his mind.

  There was nothing violent in Kim’s history, she was pleased to see. He was bright, too, had passed various exams despite his poor attendance.

  Social services had been on and off the scene throughout his childhood because of a mother who was a prostitute but he had never actually been taken into care. Father unknown.

  She looked at him more carefully, giving him her full attention for a moment, and her focus made Kim want to buckle at the knees.

  ‘My PA will give you all the forms you need and direct you to the careers’ officer,’ she said, still observing him closely, ‘and…’ she lost track, something about him pierced her initial layer – not a pleasant sensation.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Welcome to this college’

  ‘Thank you… very much,’ said Kim respectfully, taking his leave.

  Must try harder

  Jackie’s secret phone calls from Ryan had been eating Flow and he tackled her on the subject.

  Good thing, too, because he had got it all wrong.

  Ryan and Jackie had been planning a secret engagement present for him, which hadn’t arrived yet. What present Ryan could be helping Jackie with was a mystery to Flow but she said that was the whole point of a surprise.

  While she had been so generous and thoughtful, he had been doubting her and fantasising about another woman. Jackie was not talking to him and he had suffered their worst argument yet.

  There had been tears on her part, accusations of trust issues, reminders of everything she had done for him since they had been together, amid a lot of high pitched yelling, all of which had had left him feeling like a guilty monster.

  He was going to get a regular job, start making something of his life as Jackie had suggested. She had said that he would never get anywhere with his art, that it was childish and he should be thinking about their future together, earning an honest living.

  That was why he was at the barber’s having his hair cut, looking at the job adverts. He wanted to go to Jackie physically changed as well as mentally changed to show that he was sorry. He resolved to treat her better and to give things his best shot, she deserved that.

  Smash the mask

  Clate went home and looked around at her belongings. What was she going to need for her new life?

  Her passport.

  That was all she wanted to take with her. She opened it and read her name:

  Clea Kate Scott-Davis

  Clate had been a mixture of the two names. Hugo had started calling her that early on in her life and like so many weird nicknames, it had stuck. She made up her mind that from now on she would be Clea.

  Next, she looked through her poems, photographs and other belongings. She got them all in a pile and burnt it in the garden. How would she feel about this in a few weeks, months or years? Was this really the right thing to do?

  She felt an almighty wrench as the reality of it all hit her, as if someone had reached inside her chest and gripped her heart: she was leaving home. She was leaving them, her only family – was it the right thing?

  Then the moments of violence replayed in her mind, most recently the shoe-hitting incident, and her mother’s apathy to Hugo’s behaviour throughout her life.

  She reinforced her promise to herself: no regrets. With that she slammed the kitchen door as hard as she could ten times. She had heard that it got rid of evil spirits and old energy from a place, that you were meant to do it when you moved into somewhere new, but maybe it would work for somewhere old and help to jettison the bad memories.

  Smash, smash, smash went the door, the force of her fury expunged. By the time she had got to the tenth the door hung off its hinges and she left very calmly, her belongings nothing but a smouldering pile of ashes in the garden.

  She didn’t look back, she looked forwards to the main road at the end of the street and at the black taxis that regularly went down it with their alluring yellow lights.

  This time she was going to stop one and it was going to take her to a new life.

  Flow’s haircut

  It was a different Flow who stood on Jackie’s doorstep.

  Instead of the shoulder length curls he now sported a crop. He looked more manly, somehow, and wiser. She liked what she saw but also felt uneasy. Flow was finding a sense of himself and she was scared he would pull away from her and that other women were going to start finding him attractive.

  Coming up with a surprise engagement present that she could say involved Ryan had given her a massive headache but she had done it. She had bought him a car on HP. (Ryan knew a lot about cars.) Her job at Boots chemist didn’t pay much but it was regular and she had never been overdrawn at the bank, so securing finance had been relatively easy.

  Ryan had been useless; he wasn’t the least bit interested in helping her get out of the predicament. She had knocked their little affair on the head, fooling herself that he was upset about it.

  The initial buzz of an indiscretion gave her ego a satisfying shot and was as addictive as any other drug. She wasn’t going to be one of those women who trusted their men blindly only to be walked over;
she was going to be ahead of the game.

  Flow was different from what she saw as the ‘big catches,’ the Ryans and Kims of this world who took a lot more to pin down. He was still pretty immature and doted on her; she wasn’t going to let that go in a hurry.

  Message in a bottle

  When Kim realised Flow was staying with Jackie after all he had walked past Clate’s house at all sorts of times hoping to bump into her, kicking himself that he didn’t have her number.

  He knew the trouble it would cause if he rang the bell, so instead he wrote a note which he rolled up and slid in a beer bottle before climbing up the side of the house in the middle of the night to leave it on her bedroom window sill, partially hidden by the ivy.

  He knew she liked to lean out of the window for the odd cigarette late at night and he knew she would find it, but the weeks had gone by and still he had seen and heard nothing of her.

  He hardly knew her, really, and didn’t want to come over like a stalker. Maybe when she had sobered up she had realised that she preferred Flow? Whatever the reason, she didn’t want to see him so he shoved her from his mind and forgot about her.

  He had come to terms with the inevitable responsibility approaching and had got Leigh to fill in lots of papers with him to try and secure a council flat. She looked very beautiful being pregnant, glowing and fresh, but the mental spark simply wasn’t there for him and he wasn’t going to get trapped into “being a couple” no matter what pressure she applied – which was plenty.

  Unfurl

  Clea had booked into a hotel while she looked for a flat to buy and sorted out her new finances. There had been one thing she’d never been able to do in her life so far and she was sure as hell going to make up for it now: relax!

  She bought a top floor place in Kensington overlooking Hyde Park. It had high ceilings, big windows and plenty of light. She got her legs and bikini line waxed, shut the shears and stayed naked whenever she felt like it, relishing the novelty and freedom of not being watched, feeling herself grow and unfurl in her new surroundings.

  She watched films, read books, dozed in pools of sunshine. She got a laptop and downloaded iTunes, had a haircut, bought some clothes.

  There were so many films and books that she had heard her contemporaries discussing that she had not read or seen. The Usual Suspects. The Godfather.

  The Shawshank Redemption.

  Jurassic Park.

  Groundhog Day.

  Avatar.

  She ordered pizza, Indian take away, Thai cuisine, Chinese.

  The Book Thief, Markus Zusak.

  Bird Song, Sebastian Faulks.

  Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien.

  She filled her fridge with good food and practised cooking.

  She bought music. She blared music! Every genre.

  She ran in the park, lazed around, pleased herself, felt happy in her own skin and, in this way, she happily wiled away months while she caught up on years.

  Good vibrations

  The principal lay back on her bed and luxuriously rubbed massage oil into her body. It was the beginning a regular ritual she forfeited when the children were at home, another reason to be relieved when they went back to school.

  Automatically she reached into the top drawer of her bedside table and took out her vibrator. She found it to be the ultimate release and knowing every inch of her body meant she could bring herself off quickly and effectively; without it she would be a frigid old wreck.

  Usually she wouldn’t think about anything controversial but lately there had been a certain student breaking into her thoughts.

  It bothered her deeply; she had never had a crush on a student, ever, and it broke her rhythm, made her stop until she’d managed to get Kim Carter out of her head, one guilty secret was quite enough.

  Dear Diary,

  Clea’s gone. I’m relieved, really, are you surprised?

  She left all her things in a little smouldering heap in the garden.

  I couldn’t stand to watch her, feeling like a withered old fruit myself, my soul sucked out by the hoover of life, what hope did I have to give her? I could have told her that life was an unpredictable Catherine Wheel flinging incidents and nasty shocks, little disappointments leaving their horrible burns…

  Why would Hugo want my old sagging skin? I’m never going to be truly wanted again. It’s not just my age, it’s my lack of sparkle. I’m one of those people that life ‘got’ in its slow, patient, invisible way. Nothing dramatic like a fire or a plane crash. It’s the little things that you don’t notice at first; this bill, that wrinkle, the murder on the news. It all starts to build an invisible cage.

  No, she’s better off away from me, that’s why I’m glad.

  Another chance

  Flow honked the horn of his car three times and waited until he could see Jackie wave at him through the window of Boots in High Street Kensington where she worked, before driving off to wait for her by the staff door.

  He always tried to pick her up on a Saturday if he was anywhere near the area. The job hunting hadn’t really gone that well so he had started cabbing. The money was good and it gave him the freedom to work extra hours whenever he wanted. Jackie and him had rented a small flat in Hammersmith together and were saving hard for the wedding.

  Mindlessly he watched as the perfumery girls and shop people filed out, some chatting to friends, others meaningfully striding towards a car or familiar face.

  It wasn’t long before Jackie appeared, clicking her way towards him on high heels. He admired her compact figure and the air of purpose in her sexy walk and felt a stab of guilt that, despite his best intentions, he managed to disappoint her so often. His face broke into a smile as he prepared to kiss her hello and ask her how her day was; maybe he could break their saving plan for once and take her somewhere special tonight?

  She got into the car and slammed the door hard, folding her arms. Since Flow had got his hair chopped off and had bought some new clothes girls were showing more interest in him and she knew he was more than aware of that, testing it out. She hated it, made her blood boil, and she was determined that Flow wasn’t getting away with it.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ said Flow.

  ‘You know what!’ snapped Jackie.

  ‘Suit yourself, I’m not going to try and guess.’

  ‘I saw you eyeing up that girl.’

  Flow let out a sigh of exasperation. He was getting pretty sick of her accusations, which were nearly always unfounded. He had no idea what girl she was on about.

  He put the stereo on loud and they drove home without discussing it, but he knew it wouldn’t stop the argument that was surely coming.

  Kim had received the call to say that the baby was on the way and had been ringing Flow constantly but he wasn’t picking up, so he had long given up the idea of a lift in his cab. Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to go through this without him.

  Answer your phone, you prick!

  At last he got through and found that Flow was in the middle of yet another humdinger of a row with Jackie. He was getting seriously worried that Flow was going to lose himself in her twisted clutches.

  Talking of twisted clutches, this one was fucked, he thought to himself as he drove, struggling to get Ryan’s van through the gears. It had seen better days, having been nicked, hotwired, found and returned more times than any of them could count. Ryan had never got around to having a new ignition put in and it could be started with a screwdriver, penknife or similar implement, which was handy local knowledge if you happened to need a vehicle and you had the good fortune to see it parked somewhere.

  Kim hadn’t got around to taking his driving test yet but he could drive well enough. He indicated right off Fulham Palace Road and swung into Biscay Road, to find Flow running towards him at a fair pace, looking harassed. He stopped before running him over and Flow dived into the passenger seat.

  ‘Drive!’ he instructed. Kim sped off as best he could in the old tin can whi
te van. Jackie stood in the road blocking their path. ‘Reverse!’ Flow instructed.

  Kim whacked the van clonkily into reverse and backed up as fast as he could before doing an impressive and dangerous fluky spin, which left them facing the other way around, miraculously missing any parked cars in the narrow street because of a large gap reserved for a removal lorry.

  ‘What the fuck?’ said Flow, holding his heart and hyperventilating.

  ‘Relax!’ Kim chided as Jackie’s image shrank in the side mirrors.

  The spin hadn’t been in the plan; it had been an override reflex action to get them out of trouble fast, and it had rattled him too, but he wasn’t going to show it. ‘Thought you’d given up?’ he said as Flow ripped the plastic off a packet of fags and stuck one in his mouth.

  ‘Emergency!’ Flow said, riffling through his pockets for a lighter. Kim pushed the electric van lighter down as a backup plan. ‘Fuck!’ said Flow, coming up empty handed. ‘Fucking cunting fucking bollocks!’ he swore. ‘No light!’

  The van cigarette lighter popped up and Kim passed it across.

  ‘Em!’ Flow grunted, muffled by the cigarette pursed in his lips. He held the orange glow against it and puffed frantically until he was surrounded by swirls of smoke. ‘Ahhhhhhhhhhh!’ He breathed out and Kim didn’t interrupt while Flow collected himself. ‘I’m guessing the baby’s on the way, then,’ Flow said when he’d had sufficient puffs to become vocal.

  ‘You guessed right,’ said Kim; they were nearly at the hospital now.

  Kim and Flow found Leigh propped up in a hospital bed eating a slice of toast. ‘Where’s the baby, then?’ Kim asked, his adrenalin high, heart pumping. ‘I thought you’d still be having it!’

  ‘It came really quick,’ said Leigh, ‘and they’ve taken it away for some tests… nothing serious,’ she said with a little shake of her hair.