The Frog Theory

by Fiona Mordaunt

Kim managed a bit of a smile. At least, he hoped it looked like a smile. She had ignored his beer bottle letter, didn’t want him. Maybe she was going to want Flow and he was going to have to accept that.

  Magnanimously.

  ‘Let’s go and eat, I’m starving,’ said Flow. ‘We’re going to the Italian place down the road,’ he said, for Clea’s benefit. ‘Celebrating.’ He explained that they had finished their website.

  They ordered quickly as the kitchen was about to close. Pasta carbonara for Flow, house speciality for Kim and seafood salad for Clea.

  Try as he might and he tried very hard, Kim could not relax. He withdrew mentally instead of contending with his emotional confusion, and thought about what he needed to do next to link their website to the search engines as he chomped through his food.

  Clea took his aloofness personally and it flung her back to memories of bad times.

  The Brogue Slamming Against Her Head.

  Insubordinate Bitch.

  This unexpected telescope to the past put her on edge.

  Luckily, Flow did most of the talking and the food was delicious, which helped keep those thoughts at bay, and free-flowing wine added to the good feelings.

  ‘There are places in Thailand where the girls shoot darts out of their, you know…’ Flow waggled his eyebrows knowingly. ‘You must of heard of them. Anyway, there was this underground replica of it in Soho we all went to for a laugh and our mate Pat got hit, right in the temple, didn’t he, Kim? We all ended up in A&E!’ Kim didn’t answer. ‘And Ryan pulled one of the nurses…?’ nudged Flow further, looking at Kim expectantly.

  The mention of Ryan momentarily brought Kim to the conversation but he was soon gone again. ‘I’ll just talk to you, then, shall I?’ said Flow good-naturedly to Clea.

  ‘Suits me,’ she said, with a sideways glance at Kim who was chomping through his meatballs like some sort of machine.

  ‘Oh my God, what you did to Hugo’s car? You did do that, right? I saw you… sitting on the roof. How could I have forgotten to ask you about it and to thank you, until now?’

  She’d left home after that.

  The Brogue Slamming Against Her Head. Insubordinate Bitch.

  Fuck – off – bad – memories! She instructed firmly, concentrating as hard as she could on listening to what was going on inside the room rather than inside her head.

  ‘That was Flow!’ said Kim, proudly, putting his knife and fork to one side, suddenly back in the conversation after finishing his meatballs.

  Maybe he was just hungry, thought Clea. ‘He can do anything,’ said Kim, ‘I’ve never seen anyone as good – he should have gone to art school. His mum and dad tried to make him too but he wouldn’t leave the estate.’

  ‘Yeah… That was more about hating being institutionalised, though. School was never my thing. I just get this mood and I can do it, paint, spray stuff. But I don’t always feel like it and it’s always for a laugh, I could never do it as a job until now, like this, with Kim – and it doesn’t feel like a job.’

  They explained that the rubberised bin area at Doria Road was the creative “tag” for that particular project and had a laugh about how often they’d ended up playing at chucking things into it.

  ‘Have you ever been caught? While you were spraying?’

  ‘Nah! Been chased, though… Got chased the night we did the car didn’t we, Kim?’

  But he was gone again.

  What was it with him, tonight?

  I can’t stop them anymore, thought Clea, her negative emotions finally busting the carefully constructed dams of her mind.

  Kim didn’t like her, nobody liked her when it really came down to it, and why should they? What was there to like? She was just a stupid, idiotic little girl and would never get anywhere in life, not really.

  She found herself missing what Flow was saying entirely for at least ten minutes while her mind taunted her, Hugo’s horrible voice so loud, so insistent and so determined to be heard. Flow clapped his hands together.

  ‘Dessert, anyone?’

  Kim gave a long yawn and gazed longingly towards the door. Clea was just absolutely gorgeous and he couldn’t take this. He flung his credit card on the table, about to ask for the bill so that he could make his escape and leave them to it as the waiter approached with a dessert trolley. ‘Dessert trolley! Retro,’ commented Flow, looking with appreciation at the display.

  The waiter described the dessert options whilst Kim rudely drummed his fingers on the table and looked distractedly around the restaurant.

  Clea felt her anger rise like boiling milk.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the waiter, picking up a large strawberry gateau.

  ‘No, no… we sell it by the slice, you no eata the whole thing!’ he exclaimed, These English could be such pigs.

  ‘I’m not going to eat it,’ said Clea, her face alight with mischief. ‘Kiiim,’ she called, and as soon as he looked at her she squidged the cake soundly into his surprised, glum face.

  There!

  That stopped everything.

  The people at the surrounding tables stared at Kim as the bulk of the impressive pudding made its gloopy way down his front.

  A moment later he seized a gooey-looking lemon meringue pie and plonked it onto Clea’s head like a pillar box hat.

  ‘Mon dieu!’ cried the waiter, throwing his hands into the air.

  ‘Hey, that’s French,’ said Flow as Clea swiped a chocolate gateau and plied Kim with it. Kim retaliated with a tiramisu. They were gaining momentum and when they ran out of desserts Clea whipped a salad from a nearby table.

  The manager hurried over to intervene; a bread roll hit him hard on the ear and his primal urge to fight was set free. He was near the bread basket and a good shot, which they soon discovered as they ducked and weaved the painful jabs.

  Some people in the restaurant had begun to cheer and whoop, taking photos and films on their phones, whilst a spattering of more sober onlookers sat, aghast.

  ‘You are un-fucking-believable,’ snarled Kim through five inches of food. Clea, still dodging the well-aimed missiles from the manager, made her way around the tables and out of the door.

  Kim chased her down the street with Flow closely behind and then came the manager, huffing and puffing, brandishing a large peppermill above his head.

  Being fit as she was Clea managed to put on an extra burst of speed and jump onto a passing bus.

  ‘I’ll get you for this!’ Kim yelled, shaking his fist at the number 22 as it whizzed off up the King’s Road.

  Then it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have had a clue what to do if he’d have caught her.

  In a matter of seconds Flow caught up with Kim and they continued to run from the manager, still in pursuit with his peppermill but fast losing ground.

  ‘I haven’t got her number and she doesn’t go to her mum’s anymore, you shit,’ said Flow, full of fury when they finally stopped, safe. He foraged for his phone and dialled the cab company he worked for. ‘Plus I’ve got her purse, she left it on the table in the restaurant,’ he said, showing it to Kim like an officer’s badge as he waited for them to pick up his call.

  ‘Then she’ll come to the flat, won’t she?’ said Kim, remembering that in the flurry of the moment he had left his own card on the table, too. ‘I’m sorry. But she’s the one who threw the fucking… strawberry fucking… cake thing,’ he struggled for the words.

  ‘You were being a shit! No, not you!’ he said to the controller who had answered his call. ‘I need you to radio all drivers in the SW area and ask them to look for a girl, about five foot ten, blondish, covered in food. What? No, I’m not joking! There’s been a food fight, just do me a favour and put the call out,’ said Flow, increasingly frustrated. ‘And call me straight away if you hear anything,’ he finished, pressing end and returning his attention to Kim. ‘What the fuck was up with you?’ he said, quizzical more than angry now.

  Kim sighed one of his big sighs.


  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, eventually, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Really… I am,’ he added, when Flow showed no signs of responding.

  Ordinarily Kim would have been absolutely honest with Flow but this was a difficult situation. He couldn’t very well tell Flow that he had some seriously confusing emotions about his new love interest.

  ‘I just… after the Jackie thing I’m scared for you… for our friendship,’ he put forward, feeling like a real shit. ‘I thought I’d be ok but when it came to it I just felt… threatened.’

  There, that was kind of true. Flow clapped him on the back.

  ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘Women can make things complicated!’ He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Kim – a peace offering.

  Meanwhile, the bus conductor eyed Clea suspiciously, nervous of a passenger who looked like they were covered in… was it pudding? Presently he asked her very politely, from a distance, to get off his bus.

  Since Clea didn’t have enough money for the fare, her purse nowhere to be found, she hopped off quietly, the gaze of many judgemental eyes burning her back. She was mortified, alone, and quite a long way up the King’s Road.

  Her best option was probably to walk back to Doria Road looking like some kind of crazy tiramisu swamp monster to try and get her purse back, the only possession she’d left Melissa’s place with that afternoon.

  Cursing her stupid temper, she was fighting back tears when a cab pulled up beside her.

  ‘You a friend of Flow’s?’ the driver asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘how do you know?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Just… what the fuck! Is that tiramisu…?’

  ‘Partly,’ she shrugged apologetically.

  ‘Just… wait,’ he said, phone in hand, hazards on. ‘I’ve found your bird,’ he said into the phone, ‘and unless she’s prepared to sit on top of the car and hang onto the roof-rack there’s no way I’m taking her anywhere covered in that!’

  After a while and a few ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’ he hung up and handed Clea some money. ‘Go in there and get some bin bags to sit on,’ he said, pointing to a late night supermarket not far off.

  ‘Thank you,’ Clea replied meekly, bracing herself for the sort of looks she just knew she was going to get in the supermarket, tears starting to flow freely down her face.

  How could she have got herself in such a mess? She was better than this nowadays and she was so cross with herself.

  ‘Oy!’ called the driver, taking pity and beckoning her back, ‘just wait by the car and don’t let it get towed. I’ll get the bags!’

  They were soon pulling up next to Flow and Kim who were sitting on the pavement waiting for them down a side road.

  ‘Look at the state of you,’ said the driver, handing Kim the roll of bin bags. ‘Worse than her,’ he said, pointing at Clea. ‘Now you two best not trifle with me,’ he added with a chuckle as he prepared to pull away from the kerb, shaking his head.

  Back at the flat they paid him extra for his trouble and stood in the hall, not wanting to get goo all over the place and very much at an uncomfortable stalemate.

  ‘So,’ said Flow in the end, ‘at least neither of you got eaten on the way home!’ He looked at them hopefully, praying for one of them to break the atmosphere.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kim with a crooked smile that made Flow want to cry with relief. ‘I guess that’ll teach me to be rude.’ He looked apologetically at Clea who didn’t meet his eye. ‘Just looking out for my friend,’ he continued. ‘His last girlfriend did a bit of a number on him… overprotective, what can I say? Forgive me.’

  ‘I…’ began Clea. ‘You…’ she tried again. ‘Me!’ She gave up for a moment. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s me who should be sorry. I can’t believe I did that, I’m so sorry. I mean… throwing food! I just don’t know… who was that? I guess I must be really fucked up… I just… it was seeing my mum’s house again, feeling all… fucked up, I… oversensitive, just…’

  ‘Would you like to go and get a shower?’ Kim interrupted, desperate to save her from this.

  Clea nodded gratefully and Flow showed her to the bathroom, and gave her a towel and some of his clothes which would be too big but ok for tonight.

  It was too late for Clea to go back to Melissa’s (midnight curfew), so it was agreed that she would stay at Doria Road and go back in the morning.

  Flow showered last as he was the least affected, leaving Clea and Kim in awkward silence, sitting on opposite sofas.

  ‘I just need to ask you one thing – why didn’t you reply to my letter?’ said Kim eventually.

  ‘Letter?’ said Clea, blankly. ‘What letter?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Kim, ‘the letter I left you in the beer bottle, on your bedroom window sill? You must have seen it when you had a smoke?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Clea innocently. ‘I never stayed… I…’ It was too hard to say that she had run away so she finished her sentence differently in the end. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Kim ‘but it’s good to know you didn’t get it… explains why you never called.’ He felt the need to keep filling the silence around them as the information visibly circled around Clea’s mind.

  Kim wanted her to call him? She had been so convinced that he had hated her.

  ‘Look, it’s so long ago I don’t really remember what it said, now – just to call me, my number and stuff. I was worried I had upset you.’ He looked away from her puzzled expression, too endearing.

  She didn’t push further.

  He liked that. ‘Anyway, I’m going to bed,’ he stated and took off.

  Clea wasn’t sure whether Flow was expecting any romance but avoided the possibility by offering to sleep on the sofa, stressing how tired she was after everything that had happened.

  Although Flow tried to talk her into his bed, to be a gentleman more than anything else, saying that he would sleep on the sofa, she got her way and now lay there in the dark with her eyes wide open.

  Would the bottle with the letter in it still be there?

  If so, what did it say? Maybe he’d wanted to explain why he hadn’t found her attractive; she cringed at the thought.

  It had been such a huge deal for her at the time, shattering her confidence, and she felt she had to know.

  Quietly she made her way to the front door, slipped on her shoes and left the door on the latch.

  It was about 4.30am by now and she was soon in the garden of her old house in Alderville Road, looking up at the bedroom that had been hers for so many years. By quietly moving the garden table beneath the window she was able to stand with a stick and poke around in the ivy.

  Sure enough, tangled amongst the leaves, nestled a beer bottle.

  Her heart began to beat faster.

  She placed one of the garden chairs on the table, then by balancing precariously on that she was just able to nudge the beer bottle free with the stick and send it falling towards her.

  She caught it neatly in her hands, replaced all the furniture and made her escape.

  Back at Doria Road she found the door as she had left it, snuck back in, and closed it quietly behind her before tiptoeing back to the sofa.

  But getting the note out of the bottle was no easy task. It had fallen right in.

  First of all she shook the bottle upside down hoping that it would slide out.

  Not a chance.

  The roll of the note had expanded to fit snuggly around the inside of the bottle.

  Next, she tried to reach it by sticking her little finger inside with the bottle upside down, wriggling it like a demented worm.

  No joy. Finger too short, not even touching the edge of the paper.

  She tried her ring finger.

  It got stuck, only coming free after a forceful jerk.

  POP!

  ‘Shhhhhhh!’ she scolded herself in the dark.

  She realised that the only way she was going to get to the note was to
smash the bottle.

  Too noisy.

  She was going to have to wait, burning with curiosity all the while.

  As soon as daylight broke she left the flat. She had shoved her clothes, her purse and the bottle into a plastic Sainsbury’s bag, leaving a note to say thank you, promising to return the clothes.

  Dressed in Flow’s tracksuit bottoms, enormous on her, twinned with one of his outsized hoodies, she made her way back to Melissa’s knowing that she could not reasonably knock on the door until 8am or so, but pleased to be able to travel whilst there weren’t too many people to see her strange appearance.

  Now, where and how to smash the bottle?

  Whacking it on a wall would work but what about all the broken glass that would leave? A dog or a child could cut itself.

  The most sensible thing was to wait until she was alone in the house then to put it in a bag and smash it with a hammer, or rolling pin.

  Then there was no guarantee that the note would even be legible, after all that effort, it was so very frustrating!

  Clea finally got her chance at about four o’clock that afternoon while the family were out.

  Trembling slightly, she placed the bottle into a bag, just as she had imagined, took it into the garden and gave it a good whack with a rolling pin.

  Smash!

  And there sat the letter.

  She plucked it carefully from the broken pieces of glass and unrolled it.

  I really wanted to kiss you but couldn’t. Let me explain, I’ve looked for you everywhere but it’s like you’ve disappeared. Call me and if you’re in trouble I’ll come and get you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Kim X

  Clea stared at the note, his phone number clearly printed at the bottom: ‘really wanted to kiss you but couldn’t’. All that time she had ached and all that time the letter had been just there, sitting in the ivy.

  Food fight shocks locals!

  ‘Locals were shocked when a food fight broke out between a young lady and two young gentlemen in a quiet Italian restaurant in Fulham…’

  ‘Must be something wrong with my phone – fifty-two missed calls!’ Kim said to Flow as he flicked the kettle on for another cup of tea.