Lobsters (22 page)

Maybe I just disgusted him. And he used the Pax thing as an
excuse to wriggle out of things with me. Maybe I was just a warm-up act and Panda was the headliner.

I tried to console myself that I would have a different sort of life. That it didn't matter that I would never have a boyfriend and I'd always be a virgin. I just want to wake up one morning and be the type of person who is so good-looking that these types of things can never happen to them.

I heard Nan coming up the stairs. She knocked on the door as she walked in.

‘Only me.'

She handed me a mug of hot chocolate.

‘Hannah, if something is wrong … If you're in trouble … you know …'

I had no idea what she meant.

‘I'm not in trouble.'

Did she think I'd joined a gang or something? That I'd run up gambling debts?

‘Not trouble. It's not trouble nowadays. It's just … what it is.'

What the fuck was she on about?

‘Nan. What?'

‘I want you to do everything. Because you can. Anything you want, you can have …'

I stopped staring at the dots on the mug in my hand and looked up at her. Her voice was softer. Her hands were smoothing the same section of her trousers again and again.

‘Nothing is irretrievable, you know. There's no mistake that you can't come back from.'

‘I'm not pregnant, Nan.'

I laughed as I said it but it didn't feel funny. She sighed deeply.

‘You don't seem right.'

‘I'm just nervous. About results.'

She knew I was lying, but what could she say? I watched as she fiddled with her rings. She wears them stacked on all her fingers; each one marks an occasion, a birthday or an anniversary.

‘Which is your engagement ring?' I asked.

‘I didn't have one. We couldn't afford it. But this one is my wedding band. I had to get it widened because my fingers got all fat when I got old. Don't ever get old, it's awful.'

She took three off her finger and handed me the wedding ring. It was a dull gold band. Her plainest ring. I rubbed it between my fingers.

‘How did you meet Granddad?'

‘At a wedding. I was a bridesmaid for my friend Pamela and he was the best man. He was so handsome. But I looked a right state. She got me in this lavender dress that her mum made. Except she was no good at sewing, and it was too short and too tight and made my bosoms look all lumpy.'

‘You must have looked all right if he went for you.'

‘I suppose so. A lot better than I do now anyway.'

‘What was the first thing he said to you?'

‘I can't remember now. He danced with this girl Sue all evening before he came over and talked to me.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Why didn't you ever ask him?'

‘Maybe I did once, I can't remember.'

‘Where did he ask you to marry him?'

‘Outside the Hammersmith Palais.'

‘Did you say yes?'

‘Of course I did! How else would I be sat here with you now?'

We both giggled. I gave her the ring and she put them back on in the same order. Then she took my empty mug and stood up.

‘I didn't mean to upset you earlier.'

‘I'm sorry I got mad. Life just feels so hard.'

‘Sometimes it is.'

She bent down and kissed me on the head.

After she'd gone I lay there looking at my wall. At the models from
Vogue
shoots and the photos of us all on nights out. If only Nan knew how ridiculous it was for her to ever think anyone would want to sleep with me. That I'll never know what sleeping with someone feels like. What sleeping with Sam feels like.

There is no one I can talk to about it because they will just say the standard things. That I'll meet someone. That Sam is a dick. That I'm only eighteen. I almost wish someone would just say, ‘Just get over it. It's never going to happen.' At least it's the truth.

14

Sam

A week after coming back from Woodland, I felt more like an actual adult than I ever had in my life. I was working in an office (sort of), I had a girlfriend (sort of) and I'd had my heart broken. (There was no ‘sort of' about that last one.)

My (sort of) office job was the week's work experience in my mum's friend's office. I'd been there three days and was still not entirely sure what it was they did. The staff was exclusively made up of posh, fit and permanently hungover girls in their late twenties, called either Vicky or Sarah or Sophie.

In between sending me out to bulk-buy pic ‘n' mix for them, they attended meetings in glass rooms with Banksy stencils on the walls and beanbags on the floor, where they discussed ‘social media strategies' and wrote things like, ‘Stats show most retweets happen at lunchtimes' on a massive whiteboard. Below is some sample dialogue from an average day in the office:

Vicky: [Slamming down phone] God, she sounds fat.

Sarah: Who was it?

Vicky: Becky at Judy Morgan's.

Sophie: God, do you think? I think she sounds stunning.

Vicky: I really think she sounds fat.

Sarah: Apparently she's stunning.

Vicky: God, she's doesn't sound it. She sounds fat. Like she has fat arms.

I was supposed to be learning about life in the real, adult world. However, the only thing I'd learnt so far is that girls fucking
love
peanut M&M's and it's possible to judge the size of someone's arms by the sound of their voice.

My (sort of) girlfriend was Panda. I didn't intend her to be my sort of girlfriend. It just sort of happened. She texted me the day after we got back from the festival. Rather than a casual, ‘Hey, it was nice drunkenly pulling you a couple of times – do you fancy meeting up again?' message, hers said, ‘So what shall we do on the weekend hun? xxxx'

She clearly assumed we were already a couple, so I just went with it. When I showed him the text, Robin shook my hand and congratulated me on the four X's. It was, to use his phrase, ‘major progress'.

I hadn't seen or heard from Hannah since that night. That's the beauty of not being on Facebook, I guess. Although, since Robin had eagerly befriended Stella about twenty minutes after our disastrous double date, there were still opportunities for some mild stalking. On one occasion, we spotted a few pictures of Hannah and Pax together in Kavos. In one, Pax was clearly sneaking a glance at her in her bikini. I felt a bit sick looking at it.

She hadn't even called or texted. And obviously I wasn't going to call or text her after what she'd said. The trouble
was I struggling to remember exactly what it actually
was
she'd said. It had definitely seemed bad at the time, what with the gin and the ciders and watching Pax's big, tanned hands flapping around her, but I had an awful, sicky sensation in the pit of my stomach that I might have overreacted. I asked Robin what he reckoned, but he just shrugged and said, ‘I dunno, man. It definitely
looked
bad from where I was standing.' And that's what kept running through my head every time I got the urge to send her a late-night text: ‘It definitely
looked
bad.'

In a way, I was glad that results were looming as it gave me something else to worry about.

Me and Chris were round Robin's house watching terrible homemade hip hop videos on YouTube and talking about what would happen if we didn't get our grades, when Chris spotted something on Robin's Facebook.

‘Shit. Stella's having another house party.'

We read the invite in silence. It was happening the night we got our results.

‘Fuck that,' Robin said finally, sitting up in his chair. ‘We can find better parties to go to than hers.'

‘Like whose?' I asked.

Robin paused. ‘Yeah, all right, hers will be the best. I was trying to make you feel better, you twat.'

‘Thanks, man.'

‘Unless …' said Chris.

‘Unless what?'

‘You could go with Panda.'

‘Oooh, Panda! Yes, you could go with your girlfriend, Panda.' Robin had started doing a thing where every time he said Panda's name he pitched his voice up three octaves and pouted his lips. I had considered asking him to stop but annoyingly, it was quite funny.

‘I suppose I could go with Panda,' I said. The idea didn't fill me with joy, to be honest.

‘Do you know what, Sam?' said Chris, as Robin was on the brink of upgrading his high-voiced pout into a little dance. ‘The problem with Panda – if you don't mind me saying?'

‘No. Go on.' I was genuinely interested. I knew there were several problems with Panda; I wanted to see which he thought was most pressing.

Chris nodded and continued. ‘All right, so the problem with Panda is that she's one of those girls who
thinks
she has more banter than she actually does.'

‘Yeah!' Robin nodded excitedly and slammed his fist on the table. ‘Definitely, man. Girls who
think
they have more banter than they actually do are worse than girls who don't have banter at all.'

‘Wait,' I said. ‘So just to confirm – does she have banter or not?'

‘She has
some
banter,' said Robin, diplomatically. ‘She's not one of those girls you literally cannot speak to. One of those girls who are like a different species or something.'

‘Sophia Demico,' said Chris.

‘Exactly,' said Robin.

Sophia Demico is the fittest girl in our school. However, she's
also possibly the dullest human being alive.

Robin continued. ‘Talking to girls like Sophia Demico is a bit like talking to a cat. You say things at them and they sort of blink and move their head to acknowledge that they heard you, but you can see in their eyes that they haven't properly understood. Then eventually they just skulk off to rip up a chair or do a shit in the garden or something.'

‘Are you still talking about Sophia?'

‘No, that last bit was just cats. As far as I know. But anyway, you get what I'm saying. Panda's not like one of those girls – you
can
actually chat to her.'

Chris leapt in. ‘Yeah but because you
can
chat to her, she thinks you
like
chatting to her.'

‘Exactly,' said Robin. ‘Just because she's not mortally offended by sex and swear words, she thinks she's one of the lads.'

I considered this. It seemed pretty spot on.

‘Sam can confirm whether or not she's one of the lads, can't you, mate?' said Chris, nudging me in the ribs.

‘Well, he
can't
, actually,' Robin grinned. ‘Since he hasn't actually seen or felt her genitals. Have you done
anything
with her yet?'

‘Like what?'

‘”Like what” means no.'

‘No, it means fuck off.'

Robin snorted. ‘Honestly, Sam, if you haven't shagged her, or
anyone
, by the time you go to uni, you might have to start telling people you're religious, or something. That's the only feasible explanation for still being a virgin at this age.'

I chucked a pillow at his head. Chris laughed, and switched off the computer.

Hannah

On the way back from the cinema, the train broke down at Ravenscourt Park and everyone had to get off. Stella and I walked to the end of the platform, where we had stood every day after school since we were eleven. We sat on our bench.

‘We'll probably never be at this station again.'

Stella rolled her eyes. ‘That is such a
you
thing to say.'

‘Well, why would we? The only thing that's here is school.'

‘Georgina Foster lives over there.'

‘You fucking hate Georgina Foster. You spread a rumour that she got off with Mr Donaldson.'

‘She probably did – she frickin'
loved
science. Do you remember when she did that display where she fried the Play-Doh and talked about Zac Efron's hair?'

‘That was Esther.'

‘Ergh, I hate Esther too.'

‘You hate everyone.'

‘Except you.'

‘And Pax.'

‘He doesn't count. He's a boy.'

I kind of liked hearing Stella say that. She'll never be one of those girls that is obsessed with someone. Well, she does get obsessed, I suppose. But not outwardly. She'd never admit it.

‘You do like him though.'

‘Well, he's really fit and really cool. What's not to like?'

She was right. What had happened between me and Pax at the festival flashed into my mind. I was still struggling to work out if what he had done was wrong. Whatever the case, Stella was selling him short. Blokes who are that hot usually act like massive dicks, but he didn't.

‘You and him are perfect.'

I wasn't being disingenuous. I meant it. There was nothing of any real substance between me and Pax. There's a photo of him and Stella in Kavos on Facebook. They mirror each other's perfection, and make a sort of glowing sun of limbs and symmetry and gloss.

Are you excited about seeing him?' I asked her.

‘Yeah, of course.'

Pax and Casper were coming up to London at the end of the week. Stella and Pax had been speaking for hours every day since Woodland and they were basically an item.

I was really looking forward to seeing Casper again.

Stella looked at me. ‘Sam is a cunt,' she said.

Even Stella never says that word.

‘I know,' I said, then felt guilty for saying it. Stella had been Sam-bashing enthusiastically ever since we got back from Woodland. I just let her get on with it. It was better that she thought Sam was just a ‘c' word who had randomly broken my heart, than for her to know there had ever been anything between me and Pax. Especially as there
definitely
wasn't anything between us now.

‘He really is, Han. And he's a fucking nutter. You deserve better. He is not your lobster.'

‘You don't believe in the lobster.'

‘Whatever. I believe
you
believe in the lobster. It's like fairies. It comes to those who believe.'

For Stella, this was a pretty profound thing to say.

‘Well, why don't you start believing in the lobster?'

‘Because what's the point of finding The One now? Say we found The One tomorrow … It would just ruin everything. We'd have to go to uni with the shackle of the lobster. Basically wearing Sebastian from
The Little Mermaid
round our necks.'

‘Stella, Sebastian is clearly a crab.'

‘He's a lobster, you moron! We'll google it when we get back. Anyway, Freddie loves you – why don't you just go out with him?'

I wanted to say ‘Because I want Sam to want me', but Sam clearly didn't want me. If he ever had, he definitely didn't any more.

We'd seen on Stella's Facebook that Panda had written on Robin's wall: ‘Can u put me and Sam down for Ben's next night plz hun??'

Stella had just snorted and said, ‘Ugh, she's such a
twat
. He deserves her.'