Mr Porter waited until Theo had calmed before he answered. ‘I understand why you’re aggrieved...’ He nodded. ‘But here’s the thing: everyone is different and some people can only repeat the choices their parents made because they’re too scared to do anything else. I’m sure your parents meant no ill. They’re probably just very busy people.’
Theo stared at him and shook his head, remembering their honesty pact. ‘I just don’t think it’s good enough.’
Mr Porter sniffed and returned his gaze. ‘Okay, I agree.’ He wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘You’re right. If I had a son, I too would never forget to pick him up from school and I too would sit by the phone if I knew he was going to call. Happy now?’
‘Happier,’ Theo admitted. ‘It’s funny, the date of the start of the summer holidays has been in my mind for weeks and weeks, but I guess it just isn’t important to them.’
‘Well, as I said, they’re very busy people, and—’
‘Can’t you just admit that it’s shit?’
Mr Porter harrumphed his laughter and sighed. ‘You’re right. It’s shit.’
Theo felt the twitch of a smile at the shared swearword, as well as relief that his anger was not misplaced.
A light evening breeze brushed over the hill.
‘I’ve got you something.’ Mr Porter reached into the breast pocket of his checked shirt and handed Theo a little gold safety pin. Attached to it was a delicate fishing fly of green and blue feathers, with a square red bead at the end.
Theo turned it over in his hand and stared at it.
‘Now, I don’t want to hear no more talk of being someone else. Be proud to be you, Mr Montgomery. Wear this somewhere discreet and use it like I do, as a reminder to seek out the stillness. That’s where you’ll find peace.’
Theo cursed the tears that spilled down his cheeks. He was fourteen now and there were lots of things that he didn’t know, but he did know that big boys weren’t supposed to cry.
‘There, there.’ Mr Porter patted him on the shoulder. ‘No need for tears, not today, especially not with this view in front of us. This landscape should do many things, inspire you, calm you even, but it shouldn’t make you sad.’
‘Th... thank you.’ Theo wrapped his fingers around the fishing fly and sniffed as he looked out over the magnificent vista.
‘You’re quite welcome, son. You’re quite welcome.’
*
Theo stood in the front courtyard next morning as instructed and waited to be collected. His pulse raced at the prospect of what might happen if the girl failed to show up. He was certain they wouldn’t let him go back to Barnes on his own, and another night on the camp bed at Mr Porter’s was probably out of the question.
At a little after nine o’clock a red Mini pulled sharply through the gates as its horn let out a tinny beep. A blonde girl in jeans, black espadrilles and a worn, black, cap-sleeved T-shirt jumped out of the driver’s seat.
‘Theodore?’ she asked, pointing at him, chewing gum and smiling at the same time.
‘Yes. Theo.’
‘I guessed it might be you – as you’re the only person stood here with a suitcase and a face like a smacked arse!’ She laughed loudly and bent double. ‘Get in the car. That’s such a cool name – Theo,’ she wheezed. ‘Are you all set?’
‘Yes.’ He placed his case on the back seat and climbed in after it.
‘What are you doing? You think I’m a cab? Hell no! Get in the front!’ she yelled as she slammed the driver’s door and clipped in her seatbelt.
Theo reluctantly left the safety of the rear seat and settled himself in the front. No sooner had he shut the door than the girl drove back out through the gates at speed.
‘What the fuck? That’s actually your school? I’ve never seen anything like it! My school looked like a crappy old office block. I mean, seriously? It looks like something out of a Hammer horror movie.’
‘It feels like something out of a Hammer horror movie.’ He felt his muscles unknotting with every yard they put between themselves and his school.
‘Ha! You’re funny. I like that.’ She twisted her head to the left to get a glimpse of him.
Theo smiled. He’d never been told that before and it felt nice.
‘I’m Freddie, by the way, short for Frederica – named after my dad, the bastard, who did a runner when my mum was up the duff.’
‘I...’ Nervous of saying the wrong thing, Theo didn’t know whether to apologise, sympathise or laugh, so he said nothing more. This girl was unlike any other he’d met.
‘So how old are you? Twelve?’
‘No.’ Her guess both irritated and embarrassed him. ‘I’m fourteen.’
‘Christ, okay... Fourteen! I’m nineteen and you look a million years younger than me.’
Again, he decided that silence might be the best policy.
‘So what’s the deal here? Your parents actually forgot to pick you up? How whacked is that? I nearly pissed myself laughing! I guess it’s lucky you’re fourteen or whatever and not a baby. You could easily have been one of those kids whose parents leave them outside the supermarket and when they go back for them, they’ve been nicked.’
Theo stared at her, not sure which kids she was referring to but feeling a wave of concern for them nonetheless.
‘Have they left you anywhere before?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t think so? Jesus, what kind of people do that? It’s hilarious! Completely off the scale!’
Theo didn’t think there was anything funny about it. He stared out of the window.
Undeterred by his silence, Freddie continued. ‘I have seriously never heard anything like it – how could they just forget to pick you up?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘They’re very busy people.’
‘I should cocoa, but that doesn’t really cut it – how busy do you have to be to forget you have a kid?’ She wrinkled her nose.
Far from taking offence, he was a little reassured by her being so shocked, feeling, as with Mr Porter’s reaction, that it legitimised his own response. It made her seem like an ally of sorts.
‘But I guess shit happens. So what music do you like?’ Freddie rattled on without giving him time to reply. ‘I love ABC. Do you know their stuff? They’re brilliant. I’ll let you borrow my tape if you like.’
‘Thank you.’ He found it hard to keep up. Freddie spoke so quickly and changed the subject without warning, not bothering to pause for breath.
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ she asked suddenly.
His face coloured as he had just that second been thinking about Kitty. He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘What? You are kidding me? A good-looking boy like you? I would have thought you’d be beating them off with a stick!’
He shook his head again, wishing they could go back to talking about ABC.
‘My boyfriend and I just finished. His loss. Cheating arsehole!’ She yelled this out of the window, as if the message might carry on the wind and land in the boyfriend’s cheating arsehole ear. ‘It’s good though, in a way,’ she continued, using brute force to crunch the gearstick through the sequence at every corner. ‘I mean, if we’d still been going out, I wouldn’t be here today.’ She smiled at him. ‘And this is an adventure!’
He wished she didn’t feel the need to yell everything.
‘Thank you very much for driving me to the airport.’
‘No worries.’ She grinned at him, still chewing her gum.
‘I think my ticket is waiting for me, I’m not sure where, but I know I’m flying to Nice.’
‘Yes, you wally, and I’m coming with you!’
‘You’re coming with me to Nice?’ He twisted in the seat. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ she yelled. ‘Because why not? And because it’s the best fucking job in the world! I get to hire a car, pick you up, fly first class, sit by a pool for weeks on end and then fly you home! Hell, yeah!’ She banged th
e steering wheel. ‘The Riviera here we come!’
He wondered how this had been arranged. ‘Do you know my parents?’
‘Not exactly, but I used to nanny for the Mendelsohns?’
Theo shook his head. That name meant nothing to him.
‘Charlie Mendelsohn used to work with your dad and then moved to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, and I looked after his kids when they were in London.’
‘You’re not my nanny?’ Theo asked. That would be too much to bear.
‘No, you dick!’ She tutted. ‘You’re fourteen. I’m your companion.’
He looked out of the window and felt a familiar ball of rage and embarrassment growing in his stomach.
‘Don’t look like that! You seem mightily pissed off and I am far from the worst companion in the world.’
Theo ignored her, closed his eyes and rested his head on the juddering window. He decided to feign sleep.
*
Getting through to the departure area had left him flustered, but with his suitcase and Freddie’s holdall whisked off on a conveyor belt, they now had two hours to kill. As they were debating whether to go and eat or find a place to nap, Theo spied Helmsley and his younger brother making their way through the banks of seats and heading in their direction.
‘Oh shit!’
He didn’t realise he’d spoken aloud until Freddie placed her hand on his arm.
‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Nothing, it’s just a boy from school who... who...’ He didn’t know where to begin, how to phrase exactly just how miserable Helmsley and his best mate made his life.
‘That guy?’ She thumbed in Helmsley’s direction.
Theo nodded quickly, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen. ‘Please don’t speak to him! Please! He’ll only tell Wilson!’
‘Who’s Wilson? Jesus, are you afraid of them?’
‘I...’ Theo still couldn’t find the words. He sat down on a vacant chair and shrank back in the seat, wishing he was invisible, which made a pleasant change from wishing he was Angus Thompson.
Freddie, however, had other ideas. She sat down next to him and began laughing loudly, so loudly that several people looked in their direction. Theo didn’t know what to do.
It had the desired effect. Helmsley glanced across and grinned. Then he jabbed his brother in the ribs and the two made their way over. Freddie laughed again and placed her hand on Theo’s chest. Theo’s skin jumped beneath her touch. ‘You are hilarious!’ she shouted.
‘Montgomery!’ Helmsley called. ‘We’re off to Florida, where are you going?’
‘Who the fuck are you?’ Freddie turned suddenly to face Helmsley, who opened his mouth and faltered.
‘I’m... a friend of Montgomery’s.’
‘Don’t lie! If you were a friend of his you’d know not to call him Montgomery! Plus, if you were a friend of my boyfriend’s, he’d have told me about you and he hasn’t.’ With that, she lifted her legs, stretched them out over both of Theo’s and placed her hand in his hair.
Helmsley’s eyes widened. ‘I just wanted to...’
‘Just wanted to what? Sod off!’ she fired back.
Helmsley grabbed his brother by the shoulder and they walked off briskly in the direction they’d come from.
Astonished, Theo looked at Freddie. To his even greater surprise, she kissed him sweetly on the cheek.
‘He looks like a right stuck-up prick.’ Again, she made no attempt to lower her voice.
‘He is.’ Theo smiled at her, changing his mind about her in an instant. She was right, she certainly wasn’t the worst companion in the world.
*
The drive from Nice to St-Tropez was fantastic. His mother kissed Freddie warmly on the cheek in the arrivals hall, like they knew each other, and thanked her profusely for bringing her son safely to her. Theo rolled his eyes at his new fake girlfriend. The way his mother spoke made it sound as if they had climbed mountains and trekked through the wilderness instead of sitting in first class and overdosing on cold lemonade and over-chilled chicken sandwiches. He put on the sunglasses that someone had left in the glove box of the black and burgundy Deux Chevaux and they drove along the winding coastal road with the top down and the warm wind blowing away the cobwebs. With no cigarette smoke to breathe in, his travel sickness was kept at bay. Theo felt good, in fact he felt great! He was away from school and, better than that, Helmsley thought that Freddie was his girlfriend!
‘What are you looking so smug about?’ His mother patted his thigh.
‘Life!’ he called out with his arms over his head.
‘How marvellous!’ His mother beamed. ‘Does this mean I’m forgiven for getting in a muddle over the dates?’
‘Of course you are. Shit happens!’ He smiled, happy to get away with swearing in front of Freddie.
The three of them laughed out loud and Theo knew that how he felt at that exact second with the sun on his face and holding the attention of these two women was a moment to treasure, a moment when all good things felt possible. He liked feeling this way. He liked it very much.
La Grande Belle, the house his parents had rented for the summer, was both vast and beautiful. Its pale stone seemed to change colour depending on the time of day and bright pink bougainvillea clung to the walls, twisting round the ironwork of the Juliet balconies at the shuttered first-floor windows. These had the most beautiful views over the little village of Gassin. Theo stared out from his twin room at the sparkling azure swimming pool, the ancient olive grove and the sea beyond.
They had arrived during naptime and the rest of the party – various friends of his parents – had retreated for a postprandial siesta behind the carved wooden doors of their bedrooms. He was standing by his bed, trying to decide between unpacking and exploring, when he heard a loud splash. Running to the window, he saw that Freddie was already in the pool. Her blonde hair floated behind her, on top of the water, then she twisted and dived under again and everything but the pale soles of her feet disappeared. She bobbed up again, this time further along the pool. The water clung to her sodden T-shirt and black bikini bottoms. He watched, fascinated, as she pulled herself out of the water and lay cruciform and panting on the marble slabs. He ducked down out of sight, his heart beating very fast, and wondered what Kitty, the swimmer, would look like in her bikini.
Wary of discovery and unable to take his eyes from Freddie’s slender form and the droplets of water shimmering on her skin, he sat by the window and tried to control his breathing. He wiped the slick of sweat from the dark, fuzzy down above his top lip and recalled the wonderful weight of her legs resting over his at the airport, and that sweet kiss on the cheek...
‘There you are, boy!’
His father’s booming voice made him jump. He hurriedly stood up and raced over to the bed, where he fiddled with the buckles on his suitcase – anything to occupy his shaking hands and distract his roving gaze, busy with the image of a semi-dressed Freddie.
‘Sorry about the mix-up, but no harm done, eh?’ His father laughed, strode forward and patted his back, as if they had simply ordered the wrong milk or inadvertently jumped a queue. ‘We had planned to pop back and collect you, but time kind of ran away with us. You know how it is. The days and nights merge into each other out here.’
Actually, Theo didn’t know ‘how it was’, but he smiled anyway, wanting to get the holiday off to the best possible start. ‘It’s okay, Dad.’
‘Good. Good.’ His father beamed and wandered across to the window. ‘Well, well, well.’ He locked his fingertips together behind him and rocked back and forth as he stared down at the pool. ‘Is that the little hottie that chaperoned you?’ He turned to nod at his son. ‘Goodness me, Theodore, no wonder you’re transfixed by the view! I tell you what, if that’s the welcome committee you get, I bet you want us to leave you behind every time.’ He laughed. ‘I have to say, I wouldn’t mind where or when I was left if it meant I got to spend hours with
that. Good Lord above, will you look at her?’
Theo stared not at the pool but at his father’s expression. It sent bile rising into his throat. His father’s eyes bulged and his mouth was slack.
‘I’ll let you get on.’ He winked and left the room with a spring in his step.
Theo wasn’t sure what bothered him most about his father’s behaviour: the fact that his ogling of Freddie made him feel uncomfortable, jealous, even, or how it sent a tremor of sadness through him on behalf of his mother. It was a hard thing to explain. He continued to slowly unpack and, even though he had only just arrived, already saw the shiny veneer peeling from this beautiful day.
Having deliberated long and hard over what might be appropriate to wear, he decided eventually on tennis shorts and his gym shirt and then made his way downstairs. By now, at least half a dozen couples were sitting around the vast wooden outdoor table, which was illuminated by large pillar candles burning in glass lanterns. Some were sipping cold flutes of champagne, others enjoyed long cocktails, and all had the sun-kissed tans that came from spending days lounging by the pool.
‘Here he is!’ his mother called out and he felt the familiar awkwardness descend. ‘For those of you who don’t know, this is our son, Theodore – Theo to friends!’
‘Ah, Theo, I hear they left you at bloody school? Unforgiveable, if you ask me! What kind of parent does that?’
‘Oh do shut up, Pepe! Stop stirring!’ His mother laughed and threw a cork at the man, who ducked and winked at him, to show it had all been spoken in jest.
‘Darling, this is Pepe and Jemima, and then Leopold and Nancy...’ She continued pointing out each couple as Theo nodded and mumbled ‘How do you do?’ knowing he would never remember who was who. ‘Saskia and Konrad, Marcus and Pauly, Jennifer and Duncs – and Daddy and me you know!’ She laughed and gave a small clap.
‘Or does he? I mean, the poor sod hardly ever sees you, and don’t forget, you did leave him in school!’ Pepe shouted this loudly, and the whole group chuckled their laughter.
Theo Page 6
