The Frog Theory

by Fiona Mordaunt

  He couldn’t bring himself to ask Flow how his night with Clea had gone as he assumed they had ‘got it together’, and this was a good distraction.

  Flow studied his phone too with a furrowed brow. ‘Something’s going on,’ Kim stated, flicking through his texts and missed calls as the kettle offered its comforting growls. ‘I think we should take a look at YouTube! Seems we might have become famous overnight.’

  It was true. The restaurant had kept his credit card and had been able to give the papers his name, making it easy to find their website with phone numbers and to report on the food fight. It had captured the imagination of journalists everywhere and had gone viral.

  There was a pretty coherent film of the fight on YouTube, taken on someone’s mobile phone in the restaurant, and even an extremely comical snippet of the chase including the manager brandishing the giant peppermill. The films were attracting thousands of hits already.

  ‘First I’m going to catch you, then I’m going to sprinkle you with pepper!’ someone had tweeted.

  Papers and all sorts of other people had been calling Kim, hoping for an interview and more information about the identities of Flow and Clea and the backstory of what had caused the fight to begin.

  More exciting, there were business enquiries.

  Free – national – advertising! (Well, apart from the big chunk of money the Italian restaurant had taken off his credit card, but still.) This was heaven-sent. If only they could call Clea; however, they were in the annoying position of having to wait for her to contact them.

  Clea had no idea of their sudden fame, she had been busy mulling over Kim’s letter. Why hadn’t he kissed her that night?

  Because of Flow. He would never let his best mate down.

  Flow had been the one who asked her out in the first place and he hadn’t been able to make it and, for whatever reason, sent Kim in his place. She hadn’t considered that Flow might like her because he had been with Jackie at the time, but she now knew that they’d split up soon after that.

  And what was it that Kim had said only last night? Something about how over protective he was of Flow after his last girlfriend had ‘done a bit of a number on him.’

  Yes, Kim had refused the kiss because of Flow, she was sure. It sent a warm surge of comfort through her and she was able to carefully patch this new information over the old, leaving a much nicer memory to bed in.

  Clea decided to return the clothes that day to get it over with, not wanting to break up her busy week of flat hunting

  Not wanting to throw herself back to the past like that again.

  She didn’t want to cause a rift in Flow and Kim’s friendship and she had a career to concentrate on, now, real friends, too, for the first time in her life.

  No more dabbling with this thing that had the ability to send her off the rails so easily, she counselled herself as she approached Doria Road.

  She was surprised by the enthusiastic welcome she received from Kim, who quickly answered the door.

  ‘How did you know to come? Did you hear? Did you see it?’

  ‘What? No! I just bought the clothes back,’ she stammered as Kim led her to the main living space and sat her in front of the computer.

  ‘We’re famous!’ he announced. ‘Watch yourself on TV!’

  Clea sat, bewildered as the clips began to play.

  ‘Oh – my – God,’ she said.

  ‘There’s more,’ said Kim, clicking onto the chase with the giant peppermill. ‘This is just incredible for all of us, Clea – we’ve got loads of business enquiries – your information needs to be on there quickly, while people are still interested, and we’ve got to give them more of a story to keep it going. So what’s our story?’ said Kim looking from Flow to Clea. ‘Why did the food fight start?’

  ‘Well,’ began Flow, ‘you were being a shit and Clea got cross and lobbed a strawberry gateau at you!’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ said Clea, nodding her approval.

  ‘Oh come on,’ said Kim, ‘where’s your imagination?’

  ‘Well, what would you say, then?’ said Flow.

  Kim grabbed his laptop and started to type, reading aloud as he went.

  ‘Talented and sought-after dancer, Clea Scott-Davis (see Linked-In profile) dining with two friends who own a new and exciting design company (see website) lost her cool when a disagreement broke out between herself and fellow diner, Kim Carter. None of them will say what the disagreement was over but we are hoping for an interview so watch this space.’

  ‘Ok… but who will write that for us and where?’

  ‘Errr… one of the many journalists that have contacted us, perhaps?’ said Kim, thinking that was blindingly obvious.

  ‘And we can say something fucking whacked like the argument was over what biscuits are best to dunk in your tea, you know – something that makes people go, “What? It was over that?”’ said Flow, warming up now. ‘Like you say chocolate Hobnobs—’

  ‘I would never say chocolate Hobnobs,’ interrupted Kim angrily. ‘They crumble too much, make the tea taste like shit, everybody knows that!’

  Clea concealed a smile as she listened to them banter backwards and forwards.

  They spent some time linking her in with her profile pictures and CV, then Flow took her home, leaving Kim hardened, determined. Clea was Flow’s girl and he must accept that.

  Still, he couldn’t bring himself to ask Flow about how it was going with Clea when he got back and Flow didn’t offer any information. They watched TV, smoked fags, played computer games, and threw things into the bin from various corners of the room.

  The journalist who picked up the story of the food fight used the Doria Road flat as a backdrop, which beautifully showcased their design work, and Clea’s profile looked impressive, with her Paris stint and some professional photos on there.

  It wasn’t long before Clea got an audition for a West End show, bagging a supporting role, and Kim and Flow got a commission to do up a boutique hotel and bar near Bermondsey Street.

  All was steaming ahead.

  They had dismantled their crop of grass from the roof of the flats, sad to let go of their first successful little business venture but realising it was time.

  They were soon to move out of Doria Road, having rented a flat near Bermondsey Street, now that they had the work to bankroll it, instead of pursuing their garage idea.

  Kim had finally got through to the principal on the phone after lots of failed attempts and she had been aloof, saying health issues and the politics of him being an ex-student had stopped her taking it further, but he had managed to persuade her to come and talk to him face to face.

  Flow had gone off to Spain for a holiday with his mum, dad and brother so unusually, Kim had the place to himself.

  ‘Wow!’ said Kim when he opened the door to her. She was so beautiful, he thought, and she smiled at his appreciation, despite herself.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘this is what you were working on all that time, huh?’ she gestured at the impressive surroundings, taking a turn around every room.

  ‘Yep,’ said Kim, opening the fridge. ‘Whisky? Wine?’

  ‘Try tea,’ said the principal. ‘I’m driving.’ Kim flicked the kettle on.

  ‘Tea,’ he said, lining up the mug and the teabag. ‘Just Tetley, hope that’s ok? Haven’t got any of that la di da shit.’

  ‘Tetley’s fine,’ said the principal, sitting on one of the sofas.

  There was silence as they waited for the kettle. ‘God damn it,’ she said. ‘Just give me a whisky! I lied about driving here.’

  Kim prepared the drinks without comment and sat next to her. ‘Can we just fuck?’ she said, feeling the Devil whirl her away in his incredibly fast car.

  It was Clea’s first night on stage. All went well, only a couple of little mistakes that nobody noticed, and the cast hit the town afterwards to celebrate, still in costume. Clea’s was a short, gold, figure-hugging dress. Gold-flecked hair, dr
amatic make-up, involving gold, and impossibly high gold shoes. She didn’t usually drink much but she sure made up for it tonight, keeping pace with her contemporaries who were much more used to it.

  When one of them offered her a bit more than a drink she didn’t hesitate and found herself snorting something white off a wrap.

  She was suddenly totally overwhelmed, out of it, insecure.

  It was just her, alone in the world, same as always.

  All she could think was that she had to find Kim. She had to get to him, to see him. He would know what to do, he would take care of her, make the frog jump out of the water; nobody else could do it like him.

  ‘Doria Road,’ she whispered to herself as she searched for a black taxi, clutching her purse full of cash.

  Kim was surprised to hear the bell ring. He thought that Flow had come back early for some reason and had lost his keys so he imagined for a moment he was dreaming when he saw Clea standing there like a pillar of gold.

  ‘I need you,’ she said, clearly the worse for wear and swaying slightly.

  ‘Flow’s in Spain,’ he answered.

  ‘Flow?’ she said, confused, thinking that wasn’t who she wanted to see at all. ‘It’s you I need… to sort out the frog,’ she explained, holding the doorframe to steady herself as the principal came to the door to see what was going on, fully dressed, ready to flee a difficult situation if necessary.

  ‘Everything ok?’ she said to both of them.

  ‘The frog theory,’ said Kim, twigging. ‘Clea’s in hot water.’

  ‘I just finished the first night of the show… drank too much and I actually think I might be sick so…’ she left the sentence hanging.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Kim, ushering her down the hall towards the bathroom.

  Clea slammed the bathroom door.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked the principal, eyebrow raised.

  ‘Flow’s girlfriend,’ said Kim.

  ‘Wow,’ said the principal as they sat in the sitting room. ‘The one from the food fight, of course.’

  Presently Clea swayed unsteadily in. She approached the principal and stared at her in a way that the principal found most unnerving.

  ‘What are you looking at? Why are you looking at me there?’ she asked.

  Clea’s eyes had settled on a patch on the principal’s chest, the patch where a doctor had done tests after ongoing X-rays only last week following persistent pain in that area – a lump that was getting bigger, nestling between her lung and her heart. He’d taken a biopsy and sent it to a lab where at this moment it sat somewhere in a jar waiting to be analysed. Just a small incision, nothing Kim would have noticed, or anyone else, for that matter, yet this girl stared like she knew.

  ‘Your secret’s killing you…’

  ‘Leave her, stop…’ Kim interrupted.

  ‘No,’ said the principal, ‘let her carry on’.

  ‘Near your heart, next to your lung… I can see it,’ said Clea. She held her hands towards it and the principal felt a great warmth in the place where the pain came and went. It felt as if hot light particles were dispersing the mass she held there; it was a peculiar feeling. Clea held her hands close and shut her eyes for a good few minutes.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Kim, eventually.

  ‘I told you,’ said Clea, ‘her secret’s been killing her… it’s like it can’t stay in anymore and it’s got to get out’.

  ‘What secret?’ said Kim.

  ‘Shut up,’ said the principal, her heart pumping frantically. Kim backed towards the kitchen area, his hands up in surrender.

  ‘It’s not too late…’ said Clea, ‘I got it.’

  They locked eyes and the principal felt full of light.

  ‘Can you see what I did?’

  ‘No,’ said Clea. ‘I just saw your tumour and got a sense of your pain, that’s all. Like you’re getting a sense of mine – although you can’t quite place it.’ She began to stagger.

  ‘What is it?’ said Kim, striding back into their space. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m so dizzy,’ said Clea with a half-hearted laugh, her eyes glittering.

  ‘Did you take anything?’ he said, shaking her urgently and looking in her eyes.

  ‘Some white powder,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it was,’ she added, before passing out.

  The principal was well versed in the ways of resuscitation and drug overdoses. Together they sorted her out and put her in Kim’s bed to sleep, then returned to the main living area.

  ‘What was all that stuff about a secret?’

  ‘She knew,’ said the principal, ‘She said my secret was killing me.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kim, ‘I was there.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ said the principal. ‘She was right. I had a tumour right where she did that thing, and I do have a secret.’ She sank to the sofa holding her hand over her heart. ‘Give me another whisky!’

  The weird thing was that the pain had stopped and it really did feel like the tumour had gone. ‘I’ve never told anybody – how did she know?’

  She took the much needed drink, and the story, from the time she had caught her sister in bed with Mike, began to spill out. ‘It seemed so easy, I just… told my sister to get dressed and go home and she did, without looking at me or saying a word, then I said to Mike that he should go back to Australia, where he came from. I gave him ten thousand pounds to agree I could tell everybody here he was dead.

  ‘And he got on a plane with the cheque in his pocket. That was it, gave up his life and everyone in it here… for ten grand.’ She paused to take some whisky, clutching the glass like a crystal ball. ‘Like I said, it seemed so easy, maybe I had some sort of breakdown, watching my beautiful children grieve a parent like that, it twists me up and disgusts me that I caused them so much pain. I told them he’d gone home to see someone and died in a car crash.’ She sipped again, feeling sick as the words came out, needing to dissolve the rising bile with the comforting liquid. ‘People have affairs and get divorced so often I think it belittles how devastating it is, I literally – lied.’

  ‘I thought you were going to say you’d killed him,’ said Kim at last. ‘Which would have been a lot worse, obviously.’

  She looked confused and full of self-loathing as her secret sprawled territorially around the room. ‘I think we all do things that disgust or disappoint ourselves at some point,’ he continued, hoping to comfort her.

  ‘Have you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kim, not offering any more information although she waited.

  He contemplated the thing he had in mind, unsure whether to share it with her, more because it wouldn’t make her feel any better than out of any need to protect himself.

  It was the bike pedal incident that had happened when he was seven; only two people knew what that was really about – himself and the man who did it.

  Kim had been playing with Flow and Pat outside on the estate after school and they had needed a magnifying glass to see whether they could direct the sun’s rays through it and set fire to some old twigs. (They had tried using Pat’s glasses to no avail).

  Kim remembered the magnifying glass they had at home and, despite express instructions not to go into the flat, had decided that he would gallantly go and get it.

  Quietly he let himself in and crept to the lounge, and found the glass exactly as he had remembered next to the phone. His mum used it often, always saying she should get her eyes tested but never getting around to it.

  He was home and dry with the object of his mission, almost out of the flat, when unusual noises coming from the bedroom had halted him.

  Curious, he had crept towards the noise, a man grunting – not quite in pain but something else. The bedroom door was ajar, plenty of room for a small boy to peep inside. From his view point he could see the end of his mum’s bed, over which she hung, face down, hair touching the floor and, on top of her, a large man moved rhythmically, the so
urce of the grunting.

  As if he felt Kim’s stare he had looked up, and it seemed to heighten his pleasure to discover his young voyeur. The man maintained eye contact the whole time, moving faster and faster until, finally, he shuddered and stopped.

  Kim fled before his mum saw him and told him off for coming into the flat but he wasn’t fast enough. The man was upon him, smashing his head on the pedal of a bicycle that leant against the wall in the hallway before he knew it.

  The memory had remained vivid but the feelings that went with it had changed with time and experience.

  Initially:

  He had seen something he didn’t understand but it had not been unpleasant, simply a new experience; he was fine with that.

  He believed that the man had punished him because he had gone into the flat when he had been told by his mother that he shouldn’t; he was fine with that.

  As he got older:

  He had seen his mum buggered by a client: not fine with that.

  The client didn’t stop when he saw him because it heightened his pleasure: not fine with that.

  Kim himself had stayed and watched rather than walking away: not fine with that.

  The client had knocked him out on the bike pedal: not fine with that.

  His mum was a prostitute: not fine with that.

  In fact, the list of things he wasn’t fine about just kept getting longer as more time passed.

  He wished that he had been repelled and had stopped looking.

  But he hadn’t been repelled, he had watched right through to the end. He had been a curious, excited little boy.

  There it was.

  He had been too young to have moral obligation and he had to forgive himself or it would keep corrupting him forever as it tore through his thoughts.

  The guy had knocked Kim out because the incident had exposed a part of his own character that had disgusted him. He might like going to a prostitute but to involve a small boy? He’d lashed out physically, frantically calling upon his personal spin doctor to make a story he could live with; it was the boy’s fault, not his.