Theo

by Amanda Prowse

  THEO

  One Love: Two Stories

  Book 2

  Amanda Prowse

  Start Reading

  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.headofzeus.com

  About Theo

  Theo Montgomery had a loveless childhood, and wants to find his soulmate. Anna Cole grew up in care, and is determined to start a family of her own.

  Then, one day, they meet. Two damaged souls from different worlds. Is their love for each other enough to let go of the pain of their pasts? Or will Theo and Anna break each others’ hearts?

  There are two sides to every love story.

  This is Theo’s.

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Theo

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  About Amanda Prowse

  About No Greater Love

  About No Greater Courage

  Also by Amanda Prowse

  From the Editor of this Book

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Copyright

  I would like to dedicate both Anna and Theo to Mr Tim Binding. Without Tim’s words of encouragement and advice these books would not have seen the light of day. There are times when everyone needs someone to take them by the shoulders and gently steer them back on course.

  Thank you Tim.

  Thank you.

  Anna and Theo are for you.

  I did it.

  X

  1

  1974

  Theo felt the swirl of nausea in the pit of his stomach. He swallowed and looked to his right, along the length of the lower playing field, calculating how long it would take to run back to the safety of the building should the need arise. He knew that Mr Beckett, his housemaster, would be watching from his study, peering through the wide bow window and rocking on his heels with his hands behind his back. He pictured him staring, stern faced, monitoring his every move. ‘You go immediately!’ he’d said angrily. ‘And you undertake the task assigned to you. And I want you to think, boy, think about what you have done! Yours is not the behaviour of a Theobald’s boy! And I won’t tolerate it, do you hear?’

  And Theo had gone immediately, trying to ignore the fear that was making him shake and the sting of tears that threatened, knowing that neither would help the situation. He stared at the dark, weatherworn patina of the wooden door in front of him. Even the thought of making contact with the infamous man in the crooked cottage made his heart race fit to burst through his ribs. He’d heard terrible stories about the cranky ogre that lived within. Theo could only take small breaths now and his skin pulsed over his breastbone. Raising his pale hand into a tight fist, he held it in front of his face and closed his eyes before bringing it to the oak front door, tapping once, twice and immediately taking a step back. The wind licked the nervous sweat on his top lip. It was cold.

  There was an unnerving silence while his mind raced at what he should do if there was no reply. He knew Mr Beckett wouldn’t believe him and the prospect of further punishment made his stomach churn.

  Finally, a head of wiry grey hair bobbed into view through the dusty little glass security pane.

  Theo swallowed.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man asked sternly as he yanked open the door and looked down at him.

  ‘I’m... I’m Theodore Montgomery, sir.’ He spoke with difficulty. His tongue seemed glued to the dry roof of his mouth. His voice was barely more than a squeak.

  ‘Theodore Montgomery?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Theo gulped, noting the man’s soft Dorset accent and the fact that he was not an ogre, certainly not in stature. But he did look cranky. His mouth was unsmiling and he had piercing blue eyes and a steady stare.

  ‘Now there’s a name if ever I heard one. And how old are you?’

  ‘I’m... I’m seven, sir.’

  ‘Seven. I see. What house are you in – is that a Theobald’s tie?’ The man narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Theobald’s, yes, sir.’

  ‘So you are Theodore from Theobald’s?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s some coincidence.’

  Theo stared at the man, not sure if it would be the right thing to correct him and tell him that, actually, it was no coincidence.

  The man nodded, looking briefly into the middle distance, as if this might mean something. ‘And you are here for MEDS?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He tried to keep the warble from his voice; it was his first time in ‘Marshall’s Extra Duties’, a punishment that fell somewhere between detention and corporal punishment. He was grateful to have avoided the sting of his housemaster’s cane, at least.

  ‘Is this your first time?’

  The man, who smelt of earth and chemicals, lifted his chin and seemed to be looking at him through his large, hairy nostrils. They reminded Theo of a gun barrel, but one with grey sprigs sprouting from it. The man was old and looked more like a farmer than a master, the kind of person he’d seen up in Scotland when his father had taken him grouse shooting on the glorious twelfth. He shuddered at the memory of that weekend, having found nothing glorious about it. He hadn’t liked it, not at all, and was still ashamed of how he’d cried at the sight of the birds’ beautiful mottled plumage lying limply in the gundog’s mouth. His father had been less than impressed, banning him from the shoot the next day. Instead, he’d had to sit in the car for eight hours with just a tartan-patterned flask of tea and a single stale bun. There’d been no facilities, so he had to tinkle on the grass verge. It was a chilly day and his shaky aim had meant he’d sprinkled his own shoes. Thankfully, they’d dried out by the time his father returned.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He nodded, sniffing to halt the coming tears.

  ‘Well, for a start, you can stop calling me “sir”. I’m not a teacher. I’m part groundsman and part gamekeeper. My name is Mr Porter. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Mr Porter, sir.’

  Mr Porter placed his knuckles on the waist of his worn tweed jacket and looked Theo up and down. ‘You’re a skinny thing, reckon you’re up to picking litter?’

  Theo nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, sir. I... I think so, sir. I’ve never done it before.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, it’s as simple as falling off a log. You ever fallen off a log, Mr Montgomery?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It’s Mr Porter.’

  ‘Yes! Sorry...’ Theo blinked. ‘Mr Porter, sir.’

  Mr Porter shook his head in a way that was familiar to Theo, a gesture that managed to convey both disappointment and irritation. Again, an image of his father flashed into his head. Theo offered up a silent plea that Peregrine James Montgomery the Third, Perry to his friends, would not get to hear about this latest misdemeanour. Theo had been a Vaizey College boy for a little over three weeks. His father had been not only head of Theobald’s House, but also captain of the cricket and rugby teams, earning his colours in his first term. His were big shoes to fill. ‘Don’t you let me down, boy!’ His father’s words rang in his ears like rolling thunder.

  Mr Porter broke his chain of thought, emerging from the house with a large black bin bag and a pair of gardening gloves.

  ‘Here, put these on.’ He tossed the gloves i
n Theo’s direction. They landed on the ground. Theo cursed his inability to catch and scrabbled for them on the path before shoving them on. They were miles too big, sitting comically askew on his tiny hands.

  ‘Follow me.’ Mr Porter marched ahead, striding with purpose. Theo noted that his feet seemed disproportionately large for his small build, though that might have been because of his sturdy green gumboots. He wore a flat cap in a different tweed to his jacket, and a burgundy muffler fastened around his neck.

  ‘Keep up!’ he called over his shoulder and Theo broke into a trot, his knees knocking beneath his long grey shorts.

  They continued in silence for ten minutes, long enough for Theo’s body to have warmed up and for his cheeks to have taken on a flush. It was only four in the afternoon, but dusk was already nudging the sunshine out of the way. Theo liked this time of year, when the air smelt of bonfires and at home an extra eiderdown was placed on the foot of his bed against the chill of his room.

  ‘Here we are then,’ Mr Porter barked as they neared the edge of the field and the narrow lane that led to the older girls’ boarding houses.

  ‘The wind blows a stiff northwesterly...’ He used his chunky fist to draw the shape of the wind in the air. ‘And the litter gets picked up like a mini tornado and carried along until it meets this hedgerow, and this is where it gets stuck.’ They both stared at the hedge. Mr Porter took a breath. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why it matters that the odd rogue crisp packet or strip of newspaper gets lodged in the hawthorn?’

  Theo hadn’t been wondering any such thing. His primary concern was in fact whether or not his fingers would get snagged on the spiky branches. But he nodded anyway, because it sounded like a question.

  ‘Well...’ Mr Porter bent down and placed his gnarled hand on the top of the hedgerow. ‘Come nesting time, this rather sorry-looking tangle will be home to birds. I’ve seen blackbirds, dunnocks and wrens all making nests here, nice and cosy for their eggs. They need to do all they can to get the environment right for their little families to flourish. Do you think they want to get their heads caught in a crisp packet? Or read what’s happening in the News of the World?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Mr Porter.’

  ‘Sorry. No, Mr Porter, sir.’

  Mr Porter blinked. ‘So we have a responsibility to pick up the litter and discard it sensibly and safely. And the headmaster and Mr Beckett both see this as a good way to punish boys who break the rules.’

  At the mention of Mr Beckett, his housemaster and the man responsible for school discipline, Theo’s bowels shrank.

  ‘Why are you here, Mr Montgomery? What odious crime did you commit?’

  Theo looked down at the damp grass and his cheeks flamed with embarrassment. He didn’t know what odious meant, but he could guess that it wasn’t good.

  ‘Someone, erm, someone did a pee in my pyjama bottoms.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mr Porter stopped dead and pulled his head back on his shoulders. Clearly this was not the response he’d been expecting. He looked at Theo. ‘Why would someone do that?’

  ‘I... I don’t know.’ Theo blinked. ‘Maybe they didn’t do it on purpose. Maybe they were too scared to get up in the night in the dark and so they went back to sleep even though they knew they needed the bathroom and when they woke up in the morning it was too late, it had just happened.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr Porter sighed and gave a small nod. ‘How did they try and dispose of the evidence?’

  ‘They stuffed them down the back of the big radiator in Matron’s study and when the radiator came on, it was a really bad stink.’

  ‘I bet it was.’ Mr Porter sniffed the air, as if considering this. ‘How did they know they were your pyjama bottoms?’

  ‘They had my name sewn in.’ Theo kept his eyes on the grass.

  ‘Of course they did.’ Mr Porter rubbed his chin sagely.

  Theo kicked at the soft mud with the toe of his black shoes and scrunched up the plastic bag in his hand.

  ‘Well,’ Mr Porter began, ‘if you ever find out who did it, you can tell them two things. Firstly, if they’re ever going to commit another crime, best be sure not to leave any items of clothing with their nametape sewn in at the scene.’

  Theo nodded. This seemed like good advice.

  ‘And secondly,’ Mr Porter said slowly and kindly, ‘you can tell them from me that there is never any reason to be afraid of the dark. Everything is just as it is during the day, like a room without the light switched on, and any talk of ghosties or ghouls is poppycock. Those things don’t exist. They’re just the stories some boys use to frighten others.’

  Theo looked up at the man with the crinkly eyes, red cheeks and hairy nostrils.

  ‘Don’t you forget that now,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t, sir.’

  ‘Mr Porter.’

  ‘Yes. Sorry, sir.’

  *

  Theo made his way across the quadrangle with something of a spring in his step. He wasn’t quite sure if it was down to relief that the o-d-i-o-u-s chore was now over or the fact he’d enjoyed litter-picking far more than he’d expected. There was something about Mr Porter that he liked – the man was far from scary once you got used to him. Granted, he looked a little odd with his wild hair and peculiar smell, but Theo had found his company to be the most pleasant he had experienced so far at Vaizey College. He tried to remember what the man had said about ghosts, that they didn’t exist.

  ‘Poppycock!’ he said out loud, liking the word.

  ‘What was that, Montgomery?’ It was Magnus Wilson, also a Theobald’s boy, two years older and a whole head taller, who called across the walkway.

  ‘I... I’m...’ Theo knew what he wanted to say, but nerves again rendered his tongue useless.

  ‘“I’m a faggot” – it’s quite easy to get out,’ Wilson yelled, and the two friends either side of him, Helmsley and Dinesh, laughed. ‘Where have you been? You weren’t at tea,’ Wilson asked in a manner that told Theo he expected an answer.

  Theo felt anger and fear ball in his gut like a physical thing. He wanted to shout back, but he didn’t have the confidence or the words. ‘I’ve been doing MEDS,’ he whispered.

  ‘Ha!’ Wilson laughed. ‘With Porter, the old homo? Where did he take you? Up the back alley?’

  His friends snickered.

  Theo shook his head. ‘No, but near the back alley, to... to the hedge.’

  The boys’ roar of laughter was deafening. Theo had no idea what was so funny and now he was embarrassed as well as frightened. He wanted to cry but knew that was the worst thing he could do. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheek until it hurt. The taste of iron and the seep of blood into his mouth was the distraction he needed.

  ‘Heard you pissed the bed, is that right?’ Wilson said.

  ‘No! It wasn’t me!’ Theo kept his eyes down and willed his heart to not beat quite so loudly, for fear of them hearing it. His legs swayed, as if they belonged to someone else.

  ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ Mr Beckett offered crisply as he swept by with his hands clasped behind him and the cape of his black robe billowing, bat-like, as he moved.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ all four boys said with their heads lowered.

  ‘Prep should be your main focus at this time of day, not loitering in the quadrangle. So off you go!’

  The three bigger boys jostled each other as they ran off towards the dorms.

  I want to go home. I just want to go home. Theo closed his eyes and concentrated on not saying the words out loud. If he did, he’d probably land himself in more trouble than he could cope with.

  *

  It was now Thursday, the day Theo longed for. This was the day each week when just before bedtime he was allowed to call home. Having waited all day in eager anticipation, he lined up outside his housemaster’s study along with the other boys in his year. One by one they were called in and handed the telephone. It was, as ever, ringing by the time it was deposited in hi
s hand, giving him less opportunity to plan what he wanted to say. Actually, this was a lie, he knew exactly what he wanted to say, but he was more concerned about what he could say while under the watchful eye of Mr Beckett, or Twitcher, as he was known among the boys on account of his left eyelid, which blinked rapidly and seemingly with a will of its own.

  ‘Perry Montgomery.’

  The booming sound of his father’s voice answering the call sent a stutter to Theo’s throat. He wanted to be brave, wanted so badly to make his father proud, but it was hard when he was fighting back tears and what he really wanted to say was, ‘Please, Daddy, let me come home! I hate it here and if you let me come back, I promise I’ll be good. I’ll try harder not to cry on the grouse shoot. I miss you so much! Let me come home!’

  But of course he would never do this, especially not with Twitcher sitting only three feet away.

  ‘Daddy, it’s me, Theo.’

  ‘Ah, Theo old boy!’ His father sounded pleased to hear from him and this alone was enough to lift Theo’s spirits while at the same time causing more annoying tears to gather. ‘One second. I’ll fetch your mother.’

  And just like that, his father was gone.

  Theo wanted to talk to him; he always wanted to talk to him. The trouble was he never had anything of interest to say, and even if he had, his father didn’t have the time to hear it. He remembered summoning up his courage before walking out to the garage in the summer, determined to talk to his dad. The sight of him holding a chamois leather in his big hand, preoccupied as he buffed the paintwork on his pride and joy had left Theo flustered. ‘I... I...’

  ‘For God’s sake, spit it out!’ his father had yelled, and Theo had turned on his heel, embarrassed, and hotfooted it back up to the safety of his bedroom. He’d sat on his bed and stared at his tiny, sausage-like fingers, wishing that he could be grown-up with big hands like his father’s, certain that when that time came, when he had hands like his dad’s, he would know exactly what to say.

  Today was no different. In fact, trying to think of ‘chitchat’, as his mother called it, was even harder with an audience. He pushed the earpiece close to his head and could hear his father’s voice. He pictured him standing in the lamplit hallway as he called into the dark recesses of their grand Edwardian house. ‘Stella! It’s the boy on the phone!’