‘You and me, Flow, fifty–fifty,’
‘Fifty–fifty,’ said Flow, and they shook on it, complete trust between them, no need for anything else. Even when the time came that they were earning millions – and that time was going to come – their handshake was better than a contract drawn up by the cleverest lawyers in the world.
The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…
Paris, college, cabbing and refurbishment
Feeling a sudden sense of reckless adventure and the urge to move on, Clea had applied for an acting and dance course at an academy in Paris, which was why she now found herself packing, almost as if in a dream, in order to attend an audition.
Booking the Eurostar and a B&B had seemed daunting so she had enlisted the help of the solicitor who had been more than happy to oblige.
To Clea’s amazement the audition had gone well and they had accepted her. She was very excited and started to prepare. She arranged to rent her flat out and she bought a brilliant “Teach Yourself French” course in order to improve her schoolgirl French.
Although there were many people and lots of socialising going on when she arrived, she discovered that she still felt the need to be by herself. In fact, whenever she was in company her heart began to pump faster and she would become slightly dizzy with nerves, which was why she rented a small apartment alone. She had come too far emotionally to let herself slip back.
She soon got the hang of the Metro and she did make an effort to meet other people on her course. Yes, she got nervous and dizzy, but at least she could go home when it got too much and the more she did it, the easier it got. That way, she could retreat into her own space and recharge whenever she felt like it.
Kim and Flow were working non-stop
Kim was absorbing the coursework like a thirsty sponge, taking full advantage of all the college had to offer whilst the opportunity presented itself. For instance, he was borrowing a top of the range digital camera with tripod and lighting from the photography department so that they could get good images of the flat as they went along.
Steadily, he built the website, drawing on the knowledge of the college IT and website expert in between self-teaching from the internet.
His official course was business planning, strategy and management, but the extra energy to do it all came easily, now that he had a goal in his sights.
Flow was getting up at 4.30am every day to get the hours in with his cabbing. Starting so early, he got airport jobs, which paid the most. He took people home from their holidays or business trips after long haul flights into Heathrow, which meant that he got a good wad of cash before the unpredictable bits and pieces came trickling in.
He would knock off at 2.30pm, a ten-hour day under his belt, get some kip, then pick Kim up from college at five. They would have an early dinner, digest for a bit, then set about decorating.
Topped up with cash from grass sales they had a pretty good income to bankroll their venture, and sinking Flow’s savings in initially had given them a good start.
The first thing they’d done was to knock the back of the flat into one big room, tearing the dirty old kitchen out, renting a skip to chuck it all into, including the garden junk left by the previous tenants.
Glass doors went in across the back wall looking onto the garden, after which they set about turning the new inside space into a kitchen, eating and living area.
Using good lighting, slick kitchen units, a couple of well-chosen sofas, entertainment system and contemporary-looking rubberised floor, they had made an incredible living space.
The rubber floor climbed part of the wall to form a sort of easy to wash basketball bin area with various holes for the rubbish: paper, cans and so on, and some choice spray painting, spot-lit, in that patch of the room.
It was Flow’s ‘tag’ for that particular project, the detail that they had decided from the beginning would set their work apart from anybody else’s, and they had spent many happy hours throwing and flicking things into the various bins from different spots in the room.
‘Of course you can do it!’ Flow looked at Kim uncertainly and surveyed the fillets of fish that they had picked up from the market on the way home from college suspiciously. He prodded the potatoes with a fork. They were nearly done and ready to mash. ‘Come on, Flow, put them in the pan, unless you want sushi for dinner,’ urged Kim.
With a surge of action, Flow seized the spatula and shuffled one of the fillets into the hot frying pan.
‘That’s it! Now hold it down for a bit, not long – easy!’
Kim had been happy to teach Flow to cook when he’d asked, careful not to make a big thing out of it. People always saw Flow as an easy-going, carefree joker but Kim knew that he ran much deeper than that. He could see that this was a big deal for some reason, but the reason didn’t matter unless Flow wanted to tell him.
Just as they finished their last (delicious) mouthful the doorbell rang. Kim jogged down the hall to answer it only to find Jackie standing there.
Jackie had moved back onto the estate with her parents after the split and was none too pleased when she hadn’t been able to track Flow down.
News that Kim had knocked Ryan out had soon got around and Jackie had been to see Ryan, chastising him heavily for dobbing her in, denying the affair to anyone who would listen.
She had rung Flow’s parents, begging them to tell her where Flow was, pleading innocence. Of course they had remained loyal to Flow so eventually, in desperation, she had taken time off work claiming sickness to stalk the cab office, hoping Flow still worked there, and had eventually tracked him to Doria Road.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ said Kim, moving to close the door, but Jackie was too quick, jamming it hastily with her foot. Kim’s heart sank to his feet – was Flow going to go back to her again? She looked amazing and she could be so persuasive.
‘Problem?’ Flow asked, joining him.
‘See for yourself,’ said Kim.
Flow opened the door wide, uncharacteristically calm and still. Kim stood slightly behind him, the space in the doorway not big enough for both.
‘You!’ Jackie managed eventually, the sight of them looking so well and happy, Flow no longer under her control, affecting her deeply. Her plans to play her innocent hurt-puppy deserted her as pure fury took over.
‘The nerve!’ she blurted. ‘After everything I’ve done for you, you ungrateful git!’
‘I’ve got nothing to say to you,’ said Flow, quietly but clearly.
Well done, Flow, thought Kim, readying himself for whatever was to come.
‘You blinking twit, Flow, how dare you believe that lying cunt Ryan over me, how dare you? Don’t you know he’s wanted me for ages? Say anything to split us up, he would, Flow, anything! You’re so fucking thick, ruining everything we had, all our plans… Nobody was ever happier than we were, you don’t get things that special twice in life… and you!’ she redirected her wrath at Kim. ‘You’re just as bad, egging him on, never could handle Flow loving me, always had it in for us, you did, you’re a cunt, too!’
She tapped her foot a few times while she looked from one to the other expectantly, absolutely brimming with fury now.
‘Well, if we’re both cunts what are you doing here?’ Flow said calmly, her power over him non-existent now.
That stumped her. With no verbal retort left she lost physical control and hurled herself at Flow, madly scratching, pummelling and hysterical. It put Kim in mind of a frenzied cat and he thought how apt the expression ‘cat fight’ was in certain situations.
He didn’t have much time to dwell on that, though, as Jackie’s fingernails were digging into Flow’s neck and drawing blood. Kim grabbed her shoulders firmly and pulled as hard as he could, giving Flow the chance to push her away. They literally bundled her out onto the street and slammed the door.
‘I’ll get you, Frank Young, you see if I don’t!’ she yelled through the letterbox before stomping away.
&n
bsp; ‘Fuuuuck,’ said Flow, doubling over from her punches.
‘Let’s get decorating,’ said Kim, making his way back to the living area as though nothing had happened.
Testing natural chemistry
College was coming to an end and the flat was looking like something out of a contemporary design magazine. Kim and Flow had completed the photoshoot and had uploaded the final images to the website.
They sat there and proudly surveyed the product of their incredibly hard work, thinking about the people they could contact to get themselves out there.
The principal felt a strange pull of sadness, unexpectedly deep, when Kim finished the course and left. On the few occasions they had seen each other around the college or in her office he had been charmingly self-conscious and she had enjoyed their encounters, concealing her own emotions impeccably, as was her moral duty.
She had presented her usual inspirational farewell speech to the class, expecting Kim to come back and say goodbye personally or to at least to turn around and look at her, but he’d just walked out into the world with the rest of them.
Clea’s French experience was going fast and it was nearly time to return to England where she would continue her studies at RADA. She had excelled in all areas and was alive with ambition, hope and happiness. Once in London she could soon audition for roles in West End musicals and anything else that seemed to fit the bill.
Socially she had persevered and had managed to make friends, one of whom, Melissa, had offered her a bed at her parents’ place while they made their own arrangements for a place to share with one other. It meant that she could keep her own flat rented out.
She loved the idea of being with people, now that she had repaired herself sufficiently to enjoy friendships.
Kim and Flow were due to move out of Doria Road and hand it over to Leigh within the next few weeks. Neither of them wanted to return to their homes on the estate – doing that would be a disappointing step backwards. They had got used to their freedom from respective family and friends, it felt like they were on the right path and they needed to keep walking.
The plan was to buy somewhere, a first step on the property ladder, but they were a long way off that so they struck on the idea of renting a garage.
It would be cheap and they could make one liveable fairly easily as long as it had plumbing for them to secretly put in a loo and shower room, then they could save hard for the deposit on a flat. Meanwhile they were enjoying Doria Road while they still had it.
After seeing a possible garage, Kim decided to call on the principal. He had been toying with the idea for some time.
‘Kim!’ she said in surprise, finding him on her doorstep, wondering how on earth he had found out her address but not displeased.
Inconveniently, he found himself struck dumb, blushing and looking at his feet. He had convinced himself that she would be out or that the right words would come to him when he saw her. ‘Come in,’ she found herself saying, ‘have a drink with me’.
Her house, a massive pad in Wimbledon, was full of antique furniture. Funny, Kim had imagined her in young, modern surroundings. She led him into the drawing room.
‘Whisky? Wine? Beer?’ she asked, wondering what she was playing at. ‘Something soft?’
Beer.
The room had a high ceiling and a gas log open fire that looked so real that Kim had to fiddle with it before he’d believe it wasn’t; just the sort of thing Flow would have done – they were spending way too much time together.
The principal came back and handed him the drink.
He sat on a Chesterfield and swigged his beer, not bothering to pour it into the glass she had provided. ‘What brings you here?’ she asked at last. ‘Is everything ok?’
He managed to find his voice.
‘I didn’t say thank you… or goodbye,’ he said. ‘And I did want to say thank you… and goodbye,’ he added lamely, mentally kicking himself as usual for sounding so inarticulate in her presence.
‘Well, that’s nice of you,’ she said, looking at him in cool amusement from her armchair, sipping her whisky. ‘It was a pleasure to have you at the college, Kim. What are you up to, now?’
His plan for a garage to live in suddenly seemed very silly and immature so instead he blurted out.
‘I missed you.’ Like that was somehow less immature.
Natural chemistry. Bugger! thought the principal, trying to remember her place.
‘Kim… you know there’ll never be anything more than friendship between us, don’t you?’
The usual cool of her voice was compromised and Kim was acutely aware of it.
He took in her long legs and was sure, for the first time, that she had feelings for him and his nerves were gone. He walked towards her and dropped to his knees at her feet.
‘I don’t know why, but… every time I see you I want you,’ he said, looking up at her.
She raised a cool eyebrow.
‘It’ll pass,’ she said, smiling, willing her heart to slow down.
He began to kiss his way softly up her legs, completely at ease.
‘Have you nearly finished?’ she asked, but found she couldn’t move as the sensation pulled her in.
He went slowly higher, pushing her skirt up her smooth thighs, his hands dwarfing her slender frame, and she started to lose control to the moment. ‘We shouldn’t… I shouldn’t…’ she began breathlessly as he gently teased.
Her body was responding warmly to its first human contact in so long. She willed it again to stop but she was so sick of fighting herself and so desperate for a real person to fuck her.
He pulled her roughly towards him so that she was hanging over the chair, her skirt riding up around her waist, her legs around his neck and, at last, she was free of conscious thought, pulling her knickers harshly aside, ripping them.
She let him eat and lick, holding his head roughly against her, wreathing with his rhythm until she started to come.
Kim didn’t stop until he was sure she had finished her orgasm. Her breathing began to slow and he pushed her gently back on the chair, dizzy with restraining his own pressing needs, but in that moment she got up, snatched the ripped knickers from the floor, brushed her hair out of her face with her hand.
‘My God,’ she said, ‘I’m old enough to be your mother, what have I done?’ She stalked out of the room and he heard her go upstairs and slam a door.
The principal had locked herself in the bathroom and was looking in the mirror with her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t had sex with anything but her vibrator since finding Mike in bed with her sister and the depth of the orgasm had taken her aback.
Her passionate side stared back at her, triumphant to have escaped after so long, naughty and radiant, eager for more.
‘You don’t look like my mother, if that’s any consolation,’ Kim said through the door.
She opened up, peering around.
‘You have to go,’ she said. ‘Pleeeease…?’ she begged.
‘Ok,’ said Kim, smiling. ‘But when you’ve got your head ‘round this, let me know.’
She found herself giving him a huge smile back, hiding coyly behind the door like a kid as he disappeared down the stairs, out of the house.
She breathed a contented sigh and got into the shower, humming to herself, singing a little bit of Abba into the loofa. She felt a strange sense of being here, now, under the hot water with no thought of tomorrow. Relaxed, happy, the dark mass of guilt crouched somewhere in the corner of her soul temporarily supressed.
Why don’t you join us for dinner?
There was a day when Clea felt compelled to return to Fulham, just to look at the house. Did she want to see her mum? She didn’t really know but she needed to revisit something tangible to measure her emotions.
As she stood in front of her home of so many years she was surprised to find that she felt so disconnected. She had changed inside and out, moved on, left all of those bad feelings behind.
With a shudder she hurried away before she bumped into her mum or Hugo, ducking down Doria Road towards the main street where she could jump on a bus or grab a taxi back to the life she had built.
She quickened her step just as Flow came out of the flat on a fag-run, bringing them face to face, almost in collision.
‘My God,’ said Clea, her face breaking into a smile. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘Clate!’ said Flow, stepping back and returning the smile.
They walked to the shop together and chatted easily about all the things they had each been up to and Flow found himself asking her to join them for dinner at the Italian.
Although Clea was apprehensive at the idea of seeing Kim again, she was already in the mood for revisiting her past so – why not? She gratefully accepted and soon found herself walking into the flat with Flow.
‘You’ll never believe who I found on the way to the shop!’ Flow called happily from the hall.
They walked through to the main room at the back where Kim was leisurely stretched on the sofa mindlessly flicking around the TV channels.
‘Wow,’ said Clea, looking around, ‘absolutely amazing place!’
The hairs on the back of Kim’s neck rose at the sound of the familiar yet long-ago voice and he swivelled around.
‘It’s Clea,’ said Flow. ‘Not Clate,’ he added.
Kim took in the amber of her glance and felt his stomach twist.
Clate, or Clea, had changed. She looked relaxed and happy and was not hiding behind her hair these days.
And he was every bit as attracted to her as he had been before.
‘You remember each other, don’t you?’ said Flow.
‘I certainly do! Hi Kim, how are you?’
Whatever connection they had previously shared seemed to be all around them like an uncomfortable, unfinished subject.
The Frog Theory Page 8