She put her toast on the side table and ran her hand through her bleached blonde mane a couple of times. ‘Maybe you should come back tomorrow?’ she suggested.
Flow might be rubbish at detecting lies in Jackie – he loved her and love could be blind, but when it came to other people, there was no beating him.
‘Going for a slash!’ he said, leaving Kim standing awkwardly like a forlorn child.
Leigh had been caught out somehow, Flow knew it and an informal little chat with the ward sister revealed precisely what Leigh’s problem was.
‘Were you constipated or something?’ said Kim rudely when Flow got back.
Kim was standing exactly where he had left him, except that he had thrust his hands deeply into his pockets as if he was trying to push himself through the floor.
‘Sorry mate!’ said Flow amicably, not offended; Kim was always cranky when he was uncomfortable in a situation. ‘You ready to go, then, or what?’ he asked, coming to the rescue.
‘Seems so,’ said Kim. ‘Leigh says she needs her rest and the baby…’
‘Routine checks,’ interrupted Leigh, and they said their goodbyes.
‘Leigh’s baby isn’t yours, it’s black!’ Flow said as they strode out of the hospital together.
‘You what?’ said Kim, confused. Flow waited while he processed the information. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to the pub!’ said Flow.
There were two pubs that Kim and Flow visited most frequently, a small one down a little side road which was called The Cottage, or the Durrell Arms on the main drag of Fulham Road, which was larger, more lively and had pool tables. Tonight they started at The Cottage, sitting at a small table with their pints.
Kim felt unbelievably relieved, like a character in one of those cheesy films where your life seems set to go a certain way then a twist of fate gives you another chance. He kept taking great big breaths as if he was about to say something meaningful, only to expel a contented sigh.
‘Will you stop doing that,’ said Flow.
‘Doing what?’ said Kim.
‘The big sigh thing, it’s really annoying!’
Kim shrugged; he was unaware that he was doing it. They sipped their lager, contemplating the room for a while.
‘You did it again!’ said Flow.
‘What?’
‘The fucking sigh thing!’
‘Sorry,’ said Kim, putting his hands up in a hopeless gesture, ‘I’m not doing it on purpose… anyway, you annoy me most of the time!’
‘Thanks,’ said Flow, ‘dick,’ he added. ‘Don’t look now… blonde by the door, red shirt. Now you can look.’
‘Nice!’ said Kim. It wasn’t long before she was joined by a friend, and they took surreptitious glances whilst silently sipping their beers.
The one good thing about Flow’s arguments with Jackie was that it temporarily released him from his shackles so he could relax, check out other women and generally be a lot happier. In his abandon Flow did a funny, squeaky sounding sneeze, which resulted in beer coming out of his nose, a silly amusement that set them giggling like a couple of children. They sat there quivering conspiratorially with their backs to the rest of the pub.
‘What are you two laughing about?’ said a female voice. They looked around to see the girls they had been eyeing up.
‘You don’t want to know,’ said Flow, gathering himself.
‘How about you buy us a drink?’ said her friend.
‘Ohhhh, no, I don’t think so,’ said Flow. ‘I’ve just had a row with my fiancée and he’s just lost a baby…’ He nodded towards Kim. ‘We’re very depressed.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Vodka and coke,’ said the other one, cheekily.
‘Get out of it,’ said Kim, ‘haven’t you heard of sexual equality? You should be buying us drinks!’
‘Ok,’ said the first girl, ‘what’s it to be?’ Kim and Flow exchanged glances.
‘Are you serious?’
The girl crossed her heart seductively.
‘In that case…’ said Kim.
Worried sick
Flow put his key quietly in the lock, fully expecting Jackie to be asleep, so he was surprised to find her sitting cross-legged on the sofa, fully dressed with no make-up on, looking tearful and wide eyed.
He prepared himself for the onslaught.
He went to the small, open plan kitchen, put the kettle on and placed teabags in two mugs, then peeled off his top, which smelt of cigarettes and kebab, and flung it onto a chair in the sitting room. Jackie looking longingly at his smooth back. Flow’s mother was black and his father white; his skin was the most beautiful colour and so smooth.
The silence was unbearable.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked quietly.
‘Out with Kim,’ he answered truthfully.
They had shared a couple of drinks with the girls (they wanted to return the round), before ditching them kindly and moving on for some pool and then a smoke on the roof of the Glass Block, finishing things off nicely at about 3am with a kebab.
‘I love you,’ she said, choked up. ‘Why do we keep arguing?’
Flow leant against the kitchen unit, crossed his arms and looked at the floor as the kettle bubbled. He dwarfed the kitchen area with his six foot three frame.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘You tell me,’ said Flow, pressing the lid of the freestanding bin so that it flipped up with a satisfying whoosh.
He poured boiling water onto the teabags and left them for a minute before stirring one around and pressing it against the side of the mug so that it moulded itself into the bowl of the spoon and stayed stuck there when he lifted it out. Now he applied his right index finger to the tip of the spoon, gripped the handle firmly with the left, facing it away from him like a slingshot and catapulted the bag expertly into the bin – splat! He repeated the well-practised routine; a childish game which left arcs of tea in its wake. It worked best with round teabags.
Ordinarily it would drive Jackie crazy because she was always cleaning old tea off the floor and sides of the kitchen units, but now all she could think of was how much she would miss him and the arcs of tea if he wasn’t around.
‘I know you look at other women,’ said Jackie.
‘Looking isn’t doing anything about it, though, is it?’ said Flow, pouring the milk and adding sugar – two for him, a Sweetex for Jackie. The teaspoon clinked around the mugs.
‘No…’ said Jackie. ‘But it still pisses me off.’
‘You look at other men.’
She wondered what he knew.
‘No I don’t!’ she said defiantly. He crossed the room in little more than two steps and handed her the cup of tea with the Sweetex in.
‘Anyway, I’m going to bed,’ he said, making his way through the flat. He heard her following him with busy little steps and felt a sense of being worn down and worn out. ‘Can we talk about whatever it is you need to talk about another time?’ he asked pleadingly, thinking longingly of his motorbike magazine, comfortable bed and perfect cup of tea.
She slapped his face.
‘How dare you!’ she yelled. ‘I’ve been sitting here worried sick, you hear me? Worried sick!’ She crossed her arms, angry tears in her eyes. ‘Look at you! Like a massive child! Without me you’d be nothing, you hear me? Nothing.’
‘Everyone hears you, Jackie,’ said Flow calmly, thinking of the neighbours. ‘I can’t take this anymore. What do you want from me? Everything I do is wrong.’
‘I want you to grow up and to appreciate what you’ve got. You’ll never find anyone as good as me, never, you hear? Think about everything I’ve done for you The car! You wouldn’t even be cabbing without me, you’d have no money apart from what you made drug dealing – you’d probably be in jail by now with raggedy long hair!’ she said, warming to her subject as she created an alternative Flow. ‘Do you know how many men would kill to go out with me?’
‘How many?’ said Flow.
‘Lots,’ she said. ‘That’s how many! I get offers all the time but I don’t even look and there’s you eyeing up that girl. I SAW YOU!’ she screamed. ‘I give everything to you, my love, my life and this… this is what I get,’ she said, sinking to the floor crying. ‘And I put up with it…’ she said, ‘I put up with it because I love you and I see… I see the man you could be,’ she sobbed.
Was he really such a monster? Was he really so bad? And did he really eye up some girl without realising it?
His background was so loving and easy that he expected to find those qualities in others, looked for them, whereas Kim was prepared. He knew human nature at its best and worst. In a way Kim’s mother had got him ready for the world better than any other parent he knew.
Kim had independence and an ability to look after himself in every way. He had done his own washing since he was eight and knew how to cook basic stuff from an even younger age: beans on toast, baked potatoes in the microwave, then he could cook whatever you wanted as he got older.
Flow had tried to cook dinner for Jackie one night and when he was still in the kitchen an hour after starting Jackie found him trying to mash uncooked potatoes. She had laughed until she cried and he had pretended it didn’t bother him – Flow the joker.
Maybe he did need to grow up, maybe she was right.
He felt so lonely and broken. Where was the smiling, sexy, fun girl he enjoyed being with so much? Where was good Jackie? What had he done to make her behave this way?
Though he wouldn’t change his own family for the world and the way his mother had done everything for him – cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing – he envied Kim his ability to be alone and to look after himself.
He didn’t realise how much Kim needed and relied on him, too. Flow was Kim’s family.
‘Come,’ said Jackie, holding out her hand. He pulled her to her feet. ‘Let’s not argue, let’s start fresh.’
How many times had he heard that?
She stroked his chest and dropped to her knees.
Maybe this time it would work.
Leigh’s pickle
‘You’ve got yourself into a right old pickle, haven’t you?’ Leigh’s nan would have said.
‘Yeah, a hot fucking chilli pickle, Nan, the kind that burns your arse off on the way out,’ Leigh said out loud to the room before resting her head back in her hands, half expecting her nan’s ghost to appear and chastise her for swearing.
It was at times like these that she wished she had female friends to turn to, but somehow she’d managed to sleep with all of their blokes at some point, rarely a good way to bond with women.
Her mum had been sympathetic, similar things had happened to her. She had three children by different dads; life was too short to try and plan it – ‘What’s meant to be will be’ was her motto.
She had suggested telling Kim that the baby was a genetic throwback but Leigh knew that wouldn’t wash. She had then suggested trying to borrow a baby of a similar age but how long could they keep up that pretence? ‘Just long enough to get the flat, love,’ Leigh’s mum had said. ‘He’s a man, he’s not going to come over that often!’
Nice attitude.
Leigh was many things: needy, sex mad, inclined to buying too many shoes, even, but she was not a lying, manipulative bitch. Therefore she had decided to come clean and so far the numerous attempts at an appropriate text message were not going well. She surveyed the latest:
Baby not yours. Sorry.
No! Not right.
What was she going to do?
Doorbell.
Muffled conversation and a slam as her mum let someone in, then a man’s footsteps to her bedroom door.
Kim. She looked at him guiltily.
‘I was just trying to text you,’ she said, running her hand through her hair a couple of times and getting up, brushing herself down nervously as if she were dusty.
‘Oh yeah?’ said Kim.
‘Yeah,’ said Leigh. ‘Thing is…’ she began. ‘Thing is…’ She pointed towards the Moses basket in the corner.
He looked in the basket. ‘I’m so stupid,’ she said, bursting into tears.
Kim felt very sorry for her; there was no bad in Leigh, she was just a bit of a needy nymphomaniac was all.
‘Come here,’ he said, taking her in his arms, ‘it’s going to be ok, you’ll see’.
‘It was such a shock,’ she spluttered. ‘I was so sure it was yours then I saw it an’ I remembered the time with that other bloke.’
Kim wiped her charcoal grey tears with his thumbs. ‘Look what you’re doing to your mascara!’
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be,’ said Kim. ‘I think we can help each other out.’
Now she was listening.
Kim had been thinking about a possible business idea: an imaginative, top-end re-furb company. He needed perfectly kitted out premises to photograph and make a website from – somewhere he could show potential clients.
They could easily take on the council flat as planned but instead of Leigh moving in straight away, Kim could have it for six months to a year first, refurbish it and get his business off the ground before passing it on to Leigh.
She was happy and relieved; a flat to look forward to was better than no flat ever. A flat all decked out was even better.
Kim left Leigh to feed the baby and began to walk to the park.
The unlikely scenario of Ryan and Jackie had started to seriously niggle him. He was so sick of seeing Flow struggle in that relationship and he wanted to make sure they weren’t messing about – he wanted to look out for Flow as Flow looked out for him.
There was probably nothing in it but he bypassed the sacred rule that said you kept yourself to yourself regarding other people’s romantic issues, and asked Ryan straight. Ryan couldn’t answer, it was true.
Kim shook his head in disbelief and disgust. He had been their mate.
‘She came onto me, Kim—’ Kim put his hand up to stop him saying anything else; he already felt like hitting him and he didn’t want to make things worse. ‘It’s over now, anyway, we finished it.’
Smack.
Ryan was out for the count in one hit. Paula came running over and Kim walked off before Ryan came around because he knew he’d only knock him out again.
Splitting up
This wasn’t going to be easy and required ammunition:
Cigarettes.
Puff.
Skins.
Beer.
Whisky chaser.
Good music (check iPod in pocket).
Location – the roof of the Glass Block, of course.
‘What’s up?’ said Flow, appearing at the top of the lift shaft looking worried. Kim got straight to the point.
‘Jackie and Ryan… it was true.’
‘What? When did you find out – how?’ said Flow, ashen.
Kim told him about Jackie turning up in the Forest of Dean at the building job – how he didn’t put two and two together at the time, hadn’t sussed it.
‘But it kept playing on my mind so I just asked him straight, today – knocked him out,’ finished Kim, cracking open the bottle of whisky, cutting to the chaser.
‘All those times she accused me of doing it,’ said Flow, angrily, ‘and it was her fucking about, that twisted bitch! She told me I was a monster… she ripped me up, I’ve been through hell’.
‘I’d have been put into care a thousand times if it wasn’t for you, Flow, and I didn’t look out for you properly when I should have.’
‘Come on… Ryan was meant to be our mate, neither of us suspected him.’
Flow’s phone buzzed.
Jackie.
Two missed calls and a text.
Worried sick. u’ve been gone hrs. How cld u do this 2 me? We agreed, no disappearing. u better b in casualty unconscious 2 do this 2 me again. If I don’t hear frm u in 20 min I’m calling your Mum + checking hospitals.
Flow knew she wouldn’t do any
of those things. She would sit at home and wait for him like a vicious guard dog the way she always did. Get a taxi all the way from Hammersmith to Fulham to look for him? Pay money? He didn’t think so – and she wouldn’t dare call his mum in the middle of the night.
He threw the phone off the roof as hard and as far as he could and watched it shatter in the distance.
Kim’s phone buzzed.
Jackie.
Is Flow with you?
He threw his phone off the roof as hard and far as he could too – solidarity! They could get new phones, new numbers, then the bitch couldn’t call them.
‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ said Kim, clear minded, starting another play list on the iPod before sitting down again. ‘We’re going to go into another business together, get off the estate, go places, you and me.’
The night was clear and there wasn’t a siren to be heard in London that night. ‘I’ve got the flat,’ Kim carried on. ‘You keep cabbing, work all hours to buy the materials and we’ll kit it out together.’ He took a swig out of the whisky bottle and handed it over to Flow. ‘Every place we do will have your art on a wall somewhere, it’ll be our trade mark, like a brand – a signature – maybe a big piece sometimes, a whole wall… small other times, just a little tag, or even a quirk like… I don’t know, I’ll think of something. People like brands and names, trust me on that, makes it something special.’
‘Hmm,’ said Flow, momentarily distracted from his troubles as he imagined Kim’s vision. He was hooked.
They discussed the ins and outs into the small hours. Kim would study during the day and at night they would do the place up. They would photograph it and use the images to put on a website. They’d hook a big client, developer, or a hotel, and be out before the authorities got wise; hand it over to Leigh as planned.
Flow and Jackie had saved a fair bit for the wedding and Flow would take his half out that night, before Jackie got wise, to start them off. Even with what she’d done he didn’t want to take more than his fair share.
The Frog Theory Page 7