Lobsters (4 page)

‘Tax?' suggested Robin. ‘My dad's always stressing about tax.'

‘Tax is good,' Chris nodded. ‘Or Pink Floyd? My dad talks about Pink Floyd a lot.'

‘Who the fuck is Pink Floyd?' demanded Robin.

‘It's a band. A band that old people like.'

‘Oh, OK.' Robin nodded, satisfied. ‘Great. So, in summary: use your height, say you were burnt in a fire and talk about tax and Pink Floyd. You'll be fine. I'll have six Red Stripes.'

‘And I'll have a bottle of red wine,' said Chris.

‘Fine.'

I turned and walked towards the offie.

‘Use your height!' yelled Robin, as I opened the door. I stood up as straight as I possibly could and entered.

The offie was empty except for a bored-looking man behind
the counter. He was watching football on a tiny TV. The door tinkled as I shut it behind me.

‘Evening,' he said, without looking up.

‘Evening,' I responded.

I did two circuits of the shop before I even looked at the beer and wine. I was psyching myself up.

The man looked up. ‘Can I help with you anything, pal?' he asked, as I was preparing to embark on my third circuit.

‘No, thanks,' I said, and taking a deep breath I grabbed the cheapest bottle of red wine and a twelve-pack of Red Stripe and marched up to the counter. I tried to affect an adult indifference to the whole process. I smiled confidently and whistled as I plonked the booze down.

‘Just those please, mate. Cheers.'

The man looked at the alcohol, then at me.

‘How old are you, pal?'

I gulped. ‘Nineteen.'

‘Nineteen?' He didn't sound convinced.

‘Yep, nineteen. Just turned nineteen.'

He studied my face. I noticed his eyes rest on my hairless chin. I panicked.

‘I was burnt in a fire,' I blurted.

There was a pause.

‘You were what, mate?' asked the man.

‘I … If you were wondering about my lack of facial hair … It's because I was burnt in a fire. That's why it doesn't grow properly.'

The man looked confused. ‘I'm sorry to hear that.'

‘Yeah, it was pretty awful. Not as awful as tax, though. God, I hate tax. Don't you just
hate
tax?'

The man narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes, I suppose it can a bit of an arse-ache.'

Words kept coming out of my mouth. I had no control over them. ‘Sure can. Still, there's no better feeling than sorting your tax out and then kicking back with a bit of Pink Floyd. Am I right?'

The man opened his mouth to answer but at that moment the TV exploded into life. Someone had scored a goal.

‘Oh, bloody hell!' he yelled, squinting at the tiny screen. ‘You've just made me miss a goal.'

I saw my opportunity.

‘Sorry, mate. I'll get out of your way.' I slammed a twenty-pound note on the counter. ‘Here you go – keep the change.'

The man didn't take his eyes off the screen as he watched the goal he'd missed replayed from six different angles. ‘All right, no worries, cheers.'

I gathered up my booze and made for the door. Robin and Chris bear hugged me as I emerged, triumphant.

We jumped on the bus and arrived at the house just after 10 p.m. The house was actually more like a mansion; a massive three-storey palace that looked like it should have servants' quarters.

We got there way too early. If there's one thing I've learnt about going to parties thrown by people I don't know, it's that you should always arrive as late as possible. That way, the host and his/her friends are usually drunk enough that they won't
notice a load of people they've never seen before raiding their fridge, vomiting in their airing cupboard and fingering Gemma Bailey in their gazebo.

If you get there early, you end up being greeted by some incredibly uptight, sober girl who demands to know how you know the person whose house it is. Which was exactly what happened to us. At one point I honestly thought she was going to ask us for ID. Seriously, nightclubs should forget employing massive bald blokes as bouncers and just get in a few posh, teenage girls instead. They'd probably be cheaper and they're twice as scary.

It was just lucky that Chris was with us. As soon as she spotted him at the back, she started giggling and opened the door, saying she hoped we'd brought some booze. Chris's face could get us into any party. He doesn't seem to realize it, though, so it's impossible to resent him. If I was properly good-looking like that, I don't think I'd ever get anything done. I'd just walk the streets all day, enjoying being stared at. Not that I ever get anything done anyway.

Hannah

In the end, loads of people came. People from the year below and people from the year above who are at uni now. People from other schools and people we don't even know. As well as people we do know but don't even like. The house was full. The garden was full. People were sitting under the trampoline and on the
trampoline, and there were even some boys sitting up a tree.

I felt proud for Stella and happy she was my best friend, but I also felt a bit sick. I don't think the minge mutilation and the cupcakes and the bouncing had helped, but I was definitely nervous.

Every time a new group of boys walked in my stomach would lurch in case one of them was Freddie. I kept going into the toilet to check my minge. I'd go in there and pull down my knickers and stare at it. I covered it with some of Stella's mum's expensive cream and put a cold deodorant bottle against it to encourage the redness to go away, but nothing happened.

Back in the garden, Grace even asked me if I was OK. And then she gripped my hand and squeezed it and said, ‘This is
so
exciting!' and threw her arms around me. Everyone thought it was my night. I did too, I suppose.

A bit later, me and Stella were dancing in the living room. Charlie and his stupid hipster hair had just arrived and Stella was doing her best to dance sexily so he would come over, while I avoided eye contact with him to show I thought he was a prick. Then, out of the window, I saw Freddie. I actually felt faint, as if all the blood had drained from my body. For a second I couldn't move. Stella hadn't seen him and for some reason I felt relieved.

I didn't know what to do so I just went back up to the toilet. I sat there for the longest time, just looking at myself in the mirror. Psyching myself up for it. I think I might have spoken to myself out loud and said, ‘Come on, Hannah.'

When I walked out of the toilet this boy was standing right there with an odd look on his face. He was probably thinking I
was a freak who spends ages in toilets giving myself pep talks and holding deodorant against my minge. Imagine if he had been looking through the keyhole. Or maybe he thought I was being sick and talking myself through it.

I panicked. ‘I wasn't being sick,' I said.

Sam

By midnight, the party had livened up considerably. By 1 a.m. it was properly heaving. You couldn't move for people dancing and shouting and trying to get off with each other. Me, Robin and Chris were out in the garden, smoking a spliff with Robin's mate, Ben.

Ben is only a few months older than us but he DJ's in nightclubs, which automatically makes him around 60 per cent cooler. Robin pretty much worships the ground he walks on, but me and Chris aren't totally sure about him. He's all right, but he sometimes wears a trilby.

‘Decent party, isn't it?' said Ben, gesturing around the crowded garden, as some bloke nearly broke his neck leaping off the trampoline.

We all nodded in stoned agreement.

‘It's got nothing on The Greatest House Party of All Time, though,' said Robin.

Me and Chris nodded our agreement again.

‘When was that?' asked Ben.

‘Two summers ago,' I said. ‘There was a swimming pool in
the garden. Chris let Rosie Moss wax his legs and—'

‘And I had a threesome, obviously,' Robin interrupted.

Me and Chris groaned.

‘You did not have a fucking threesome, Robin.'

Ben looked impressed. ‘Did you?'

Robin nodded smugly.

‘No, he didn't,' said Chris. ‘He was getting a blowjob off Sophie Kendry in one of the bedrooms and some girl interrupted them halfway through to try and find some Rizlas.'

‘Exactly,' said Robin. ‘I was in a room with
two
girls and there were sexual things going on. That's a threesome.'

‘It is
not
,' I fired back. ‘It's a twosome with someone looking for Rizlas in the corner. Everyone in the room has to be directly involved in the sexual goings-on for it to qualify as a threesome.'

Robin wasn't backing down. ‘It was a sexual encounter which featured me and two girls. You do the maths.'

‘Right,' said Chris, waving his empty wine glass at Robin. ‘So, when my mum burst in on me shagging Laura that time, that was a threesome with my mum, was it?'

‘It depends how long she stayed in the room,' said Robin, diplomatically. ‘If she just popped her head round the door and then left immediately, then no – it's just an embarrassing interruption of a twosome. However, if she stayed in the room for thirty seconds, rifling through your sock drawer while you were fucking, then yes, I'm afraid you were part of an incestuous three-way.'

‘You're a twat.'

‘A twat who's had a threesome.'

I handed Chris my beer and stood up. ‘I'll leave this debate in your hands. I'm going for a piss.'

I wound my way through the garden, dodging the bodies flying off the trampoline, and wandered upstairs. The bathroom was locked, so I waited outside. The hallway was lined with black-and-white, professional-looking photos of a middle-aged couple (the owners of the house, I presumed), smiling with their arms round each other. I couldn't imagine myself being that comfortable with another person.

I thought I heard a female voice from inside the bathroom. I figured I'd be waiting a while – girls always take ages when they're in the toilet together.

But when the door finally opened there was only one girl standing there – a pretty blonde girl with a slightly panicked look on her face.

‘I wasn't being sick,' she said.

3

Hannah

I can't believe I said that.

He stood there smiling at me for a second and then said, ‘Yeah, me neither.'

We both laughed, and I felt a surge of relief as I decided he probably hadn't been spying through the keyhole at me pressing Stella's dad's Right Guard against my minge.

‘Good,' I said. ‘Neither of us has vomited at this party.'

‘
Yet
,' he said, raising his finger and putting on a mock-stern face. ‘Neither of us has vomited at this party
yet
. There's still plenty of time left. Don't write us both off so easily.'

We laughed again. You don't usually laugh two proper
actual
laughs within a few seconds of meeting someone. I looked at him closely. I had definitely never seen him before. Not at a party, not at school, not on Facebook. Not anywhere.

He was tall, really tall in fact. He looked as though he hadn't quite grown into his height. As if he was a bit apologetic about people having to look up to speak to him. He put his hands in his pockets and slouched to try and minimize the issue. He had brown, curly hair that fell in front of his brown eyes. I noticed his trainers were really battered and had been bound together
with gaffer tape. There was something gentle about him. He looked kind. And fit. Really fit. In a scruffy, cool sort of way.

He nodded towards the bathroom and said, ‘Well, I guess I should … you know.'

I jumped out of the doorway. ‘Oh yeah, sorry. Of course.'

He smiled at me shyly then looked down and ruffled his hair. I didn't want that to be it, I wanted to keep talking to him.

‘Watch out … It's quite … intense in there,' I said, because it was the only thing I could think of to say.

He stepped inside the bathroom and held the door open as he looked around. ‘Oh my god. Yeah. Seriously. It's like a James Bond villain's toilet.'

He was right. The entire room was painted dark purple, with little flecks of gold dotted about, and there was a massive mural of a stag on one of the walls. Stella's mum got this woman in to paint it specially. The shower in the corner had no curtain or wall around it. You just showered in the room.

‘It's called a wet room,' I said, and blushed because the word ‘wet' is rude when you say it within five feet of a boy.

‘It's a bit like standing inside a blueberry,' he added.

‘Yeah. It's purple, though, not blue, so it's more like standing inside a Ribena bottle.'

‘I
love
Ribena.' He said it like he'd just remembered that Ribena existed.

‘Me too,' I said. ‘Hot Ribena's even better.'

‘Yes!' His eyes widened like he was having a mini-epiphany. ‘Hot Ribena is amazing. I can't believe I've met someone who knows about hot Ribena.'

We grinned at each other, and I felt that warm, tingly feeling you get when you find something in common with someone you like.

Suddenly there was a roar of laughter and commotion from the garden. The boy walked over to the bathroom window and, without thinking, I followed him inside, letting the door click shut behind me. I was alone in a wet room with a boy I'd just met. Ordinarily, this kind of situation would have required at least two weeks' preparation with Stella, Tilly and Grace, planning out exactly what I should wear, what I should say, how I should act. We'd have probably even practised. Without a dress rehearsal I was feeling slightly panicked.

We stood side by side at the window and peered down at the chaos in Stella's garden. My arm was inches away from his. Two massive, troll-like boys were having a drinking competition, while everyone around them cheered and chanted.

‘Oh my god,' I said, as we watched one of them pour a whole pint of beer into his mouth before putting the glass on his head, burping loudly and getting thumped on the back by all his mates. ‘That's insane. I don't think I could even down a pint of
water
.'

‘It is quite impressive,' the boy agreed. ‘I'm not sure how that skill could ever come in handy in life, though – being able to drink a lot of liquid very quickly.'

‘Maybe if you were drowning in a really small pond?' I suggested, and he laughed.

It was so weird. Even though he was hot and funny – my dream combination – I didn't seem to need a dress rehearsal.

On the other side of the garden a boy and a girl were greeting each other with a kiss on the cheek. The girl pulled back after one kiss, but the boy leant in for a second. There was an awkward moment where the boy tried to style out his mistake without the girl noticing.

‘Oh, I hate that,' I said, pointing. ‘When you do one kiss and the other person tries to do two and then you both try and make out it's fine. It's so awkward.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘I always manage to get that wrong. I seriously think there should be a law that says once and for all how people should greet each other. We should just decide on one thing and stick to it. I'm sick of going in for a handshake and having the other person go for a hug, or doing two kisses when they've already pulled away after one. It makes life unnecessarily complicated.'

I nodded. ‘You know they do
three
kisses in Italy?'

He sighed and shook his head. ‘That's just taking the piss.'

‘And who's got the time?' We both squinted down at the couple, who were now exchanging cheek kisses with each other's friends. ‘I kind of miss the days when we didn't have to pretend to be proper adults all the time. It seemed to change so quickly from us being kids and acting stupidly, to kissing each other on the cheek and having to know which clubs are cool.'

This was the type of statement that Stella would never have permitted me to say in front of a boy. She would have died if she knew I'd said something like that. But he didn't look embarrassed or weirded out in the slightest. He was smiling back at me.

‘Definitely,' he said. ‘I remember the exact moment it all changed. I went away on holiday in the summer of Year 9, and when I came back all my mates were kissing girls on the cheek. That was it – we were all suddenly grown-ups. I remember going to a party and getting the piss taken out of me because I tried to high-five one of my girl mates.'

‘I actually quite like a high five,' I said. ‘It's friendly and informal but there's also not much risk of embarrassment. Unless your hand–eye coordination is really bad, and you slap the other person in the face or something.'

‘OK, well, that settles it,' he said. ‘The new law will decree that
everyone
must greet each other with a high five. No hugs or handshakes or multiple cheek-kissing.'

‘Sounds good.'

‘Or,' he said, ‘if it's a really important occasion – like two prime ministers meeting, or something – a high ten is acceptable.'

‘Agreed,' I said.

‘Shall we high-ten on it? I think this qualifies as an important occasion.'

‘Definitely.'

We slapped hands. In Stella's bathroom. With the door shut. For just a couple of seconds, we stood there, grinning at each other.

Then I heard footsteps outside in the corridor and someone knocked on the door.

‘Hello? Excuse me? Is anyone in there?'

Grace's voice. I love how Grace is polite even when she's drunk.

‘Yeah, Grace, it's me,' I called back through the door.

‘Oh my god! I've been looking everywhere for you! Is everything OK?' Then she affected a sort of primary school stage-whisper. ‘It's not your fanny again, is it? It can't be
that
bad. Do you want me to come in and check it out?'

A wave of utter mortification shot through me. The boy slapped his hand over his mouth to suppress a laugh, before giving me a sideways ‘this-is-unbelievably-awkward-isn't-it?' sort of smirk.

Before Grace could divulge any more highly personal, minge-based information, I quickly yelled back, ‘No! Grace, please … I'm fine. I'll be out in a sec. Are you all right?'

‘Yeah, fine, but you need to come downstairs
now
. Freddie's here! He's asking where you are.'

Freddie. I'd totally forgotten about him. I'd been thinking about him all night, but he'd completely disappeared from my thoughts since I opened the bathroom door. At the mention of Freddie, the boy's embarrassed grin dissolved and he just blinked and looked down at the floor. I tried to think of something to say, but nothing came.

‘Come on, come on! It's time for you and Freddie to get jiggy with it!' Grace finally lost all patience and rattled the door handle. It swung open and she gasped as if she'd found me with a hippopotamus.

‘Erm … hello,' she said to the Toilet Boy.

‘Hello,' replied the Toilet Boy.

‘Sorry, I … thought it was locked. I didn't realize there was … anyone else in here.' She said that to me rather than him.
‘It's just that …
someone
's downstairs waiting for you, that's all.' Her eyes were boggling like a crazed lunatic.

‘OK,' I said, slowly. ‘Cool.' I turned to the Toilet Boy. ‘Sorry, I'm supposed to … I said I'd …' No proper sentences were forming, so I left it at, ‘I'd better go.'

He nodded and put his hands back in his pockets. ‘Cool. See you.'

As we marched down the corridor, leaving Toilet Boy in the toilet behind us, Grace reached down and held my hand. ‘Oh my god. I am
so
sorry,' she hissed. ‘Who is
he
?'

‘I'll tell you later,' I said. I'd just caught sight of Freddie at the bottom of the stairs.

Sam

Freddie. Of course there was a Freddie. There's always a fucking Freddie.

In films and books you're allowed to meet pretty girls in bathrooms without any Freddies popping up to ruin it, but in real life, you
always
get Freddied. Or, at least, I do.

She – the Ribena Girl – just muttered something about having to go, and then walked straight out the door. I didn't even get the chance to introduce myself – Samuel or otherwise.

I listened to her friend whisper excitedly at her as they disappeared down the hallway. I just stood there, staring at that stupid fucking stag painting on the wall, and wondering what had just happened.

Nothing
had happened, really. Not in a tangible, something-I-could-brag-about-to-Robin-and-Chris kind of way. All their stories with girls involved proper, physical activities – kisses, bra removals, handjobs, or threesomes that were technically not threesomes. They certainly didn't involve high tens and discussions about hot Ribena.

All that had happened was that I'd had a conversation with a girl in a bathroom. Why did
that
feel like a big thing when, in Robin's eyes, it wouldn't even have warranted a text message?

Maybe because it was all so …
easy
. Talking to girls is usually a nightmare – trying to find the perfect balance between saying things they want to hear, and saying things that don't make you come across as an utter knobhead. There was none of that with the Ribena Girl. It just … flowed.