Lobsters (14 page)

‘Chill, it was only a joke,' she said.

Pax turned around and looked me in the eye. I had no idea what he was thinking. I wanted to know what he thought about what had happened between us, but he acted like he couldn't even remember it. We all carried on walking. When we got to the club and everyone dispersed to get drinks and go to the toilet, I turned around and walked back towards the hotel.

For a moment, being alone and walking in the opposite direction felt freeing. As if being brave enough to walk away was taking some kind of stand. I knew I was running away from everything, but at least I wouldn't be in some shit club, posing for pictures to make out we were having the best time ever. I texted Tilly and said I felt ill and was going to lie down. Her text back was predictably concerned and sweet.

Back in our room, I lay in bed and listened to the sound of Kavos. Girls shrieking and boys being lairy. Bass from all the different clubs thumping, and random snippets of people's drunken conversations. I pulled the thin sheet up and read
Mansfield Park
. At least my name wasn't Fanny.

I don't know when I fell asleep but I woke up to Stella's laughter coming up the stairs. As she fumbled with the key I could hear Pax laughing too, and then they were right there. They sort of fell into the room and he was kissing her really hard,
and pulling her dress,
my dress
, up around her waist.

I should have said something then but I thought they would realize I was there. But they didn't. They were sort of walking and kissing. She pulled him on to her bed and then out of the corner of his eye, he saw me. He looked up and at me, and then she did too.

She mock screamed and then burst out laughing as if it was the most hilarious thing that had ever happened to her.

‘Awkward,' was all she said.

‘How are you feeling?' Pax said. He was obviously flustered. Well, as flustered as Pax seemed to get. He took a step back from the bed and folded his arms as if trying to make out we were having a normal conversation over a cup of tea.

‘Yeah, I'm fine now. I'm going to go back out and find the others. I'll sleep in Grace and Tilly's room tonight.'

He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

I put my flip-flops on and left the room. As soon as I shut the door I realized I was wearing my pyjamas – the ones with hedgehogs eating American breakfast foods – and that I hadn't even brought a cardigan. I wandered out into the cold. I had no idea where to look for the others. I went to get my phone and realized I had left that too.

Sam

Robin blasted another alien to gooey smithereens and shook his head for the hundredth time that afternoon.

‘You didn't meet a single girl?' he sighed. ‘Not even one? Honestly, Sam, I despair of you sometimes. I really do.'

It was Sunday night – about four hours after my family and I had returned from Sark across an English Channel violently swollen by stormy winds – and Robin and I were sat in my bedroom. I was supposed to be ploughing through the Cambridge reading list, but what I was actually doing was watching Robin massacre an army of extraterrestrial insurgents on my Xbox. I was quite pleased he was getting some use out of it. I hadn't played on it since I was fifteen.

I was actually tempted to tell Robin about the whole Erin thing. Well, at least everything up until the very last bit. I could even have pretended I got a handjob. Which, technically, I suppose I did. An incredibly humiliating handjob, yes, but a handjob nonetheless. When you're still a virgin, they all count.

But I didn't say a word. The whole thing was starting to piss me off, to be honest. If I had actually shagged Erin, I couldn't have told anyone because nobody would have believed me. And I couldn't tell anyone that I had
nearly
shagged her because they'd just laugh at me for screwing up my opportunity in such an embarrassing way. It was a lose-lose situation. I guess that's why they call it
losing
your virginity, instead of winning your masculinity or something.

Since I had nothing to report (or, rather, nothing that I was
prepared to
report) from my Sark trip, Robin gabbled on to me about his week in Florida – failing miserably to conceal his excitement at visiting the Harry Potter theme park (‘They had an actual
Zonko's Joke Shop!') – while he murdered Martians on the Xbox.

In place of any exciting or uplifting girl-related news, I thought about telling him what had happened with Hannah. About how I was the Toilet Boy Cinderella who Stella had gone on about on the double date. But what was the point? Maybe she did feel that same weird connection I felt in Stella's bathroom, but she had a boyfriend. She'd told me so. It was almost certainly Freddie the Waistcoated Twat. When someone tells you they have a boyfriend, what else can you do but try to forget about them and move on?

I had to accept that Hannah was just a daydream; a weird, brilliant ten minutes at a party, but not something real or palpable. Certainly not something I could tell Robin about. Telling him would have just made the disappointment worse.

So I kept my thoughts about Hannah firmly to myself while Robin jabbed at his controller and banged on and on about how a girl in Orlando had taught him how to mix the perfect mojito.

Suddenly, as if reading my mind, he broke off from his story and threw me glance while a new level of the game loaded.

‘You haven't heard from that Stella girl, have you?' he said.

I shook my head.

Robin clicked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. ‘It was pretty shit of her just disappearing like that at Westfield.'

‘She didn't disappear. She was ill. And anyway, you disappeared even before she did!'

‘Yeah, but only because I was clearly getting nowhere with her mate. What was her name again?'

I watched the TV screen turn green as it filled with alien blood. ‘Hannah,' I said quietly.

‘Yeah, that's it. Literally didn't say a word to me. She's probably an “introspective intellectual” like you. You should have asked
her
out for a drink when Stella fucked off.'

‘I don't think so,' I said, even more quietly.

Robin was hardly listening. ‘Yeah, well, we should have known the Stella thing was never going to happen. How many X's did she put in that first text to you?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Exactly what I said. How many X's, how many kisses, did she put in that text she sent you when she was organizing the date?'

I pulled my phone out and checked.

‘One.'

Robin's eyes widened. He paused the video game and looked round at me. ‘One X? Jesus. Sam, that is pathetic. I get more X's from girls I've rejected.'

I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and folded my arms.

‘Piss off. Maybe Stella's just not a loads-of-X's-on-texts sort of girl.'

Robin laughed and then stood up, dropping the controller on to the carpet. ‘Sam. Listen. I know you're young—'

‘You're four days older than me,' I said. He continued as if he hadn't heard.

‘—but you must understand that the number of X's a girl puts in a text to you is an indication of how much she fancies you. I once got a text from a girl that was
just
X's. Nothing else. Just a screen full of X's.'

‘She sounds like an eloquent young lady.'

‘If by “eloquent” you mean she gave me a blowjob at Matt Farley's eighteenth then, yes, she was.'

‘I didn't mean that, obviously.'

Robin was in full flow now and pacing the room.

‘You remember Alex Spokes? How into me she was in Year 10?'

I nodded wearily.

‘She put six X's at the end of her first text to me. Six.'

‘Are you counting the one at the end of her name?'

Robin blinked. ‘Yeah, all right, five X's. But, still. She was fucking nuts about me, and those five X's proved it. Six if you count the one in her name.'

‘Which you clearly shouldn't.'

‘One X in a text from a girl may well be unprecedented, Sam. You may have uncovered a whole new level of female apathy. If you keep this up, by the time you hit twenty you might even get a text from a girl with
no X's in it at all
!'

I was just about to chuck a pillow at Robin's face when my mum shouted up from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Sammy! What are you boys doing up there?'

Robin rolled his eyes, sat down and unpaused the video game.

‘I'm looking at Cambridge accommodation, Mum,' I yelled back.

‘I can hear that computer game machine,' she responded, her voice wrinkled with concern.

I kicked Robin and he muted the TV.

‘Robin's playing on that,' I shouted. ‘I'm looking at accommodation.'

I didn't hear her sigh, but I knew she had. ‘Perhaps you should be doing something to improve yourself a bit? Why don't you and Robin have a look through some of the books on your reading list?'

Robin made it clear how he felt about this suggestion by pretending to fix and tighten a noose around his neck.

‘All right, Mum! I'm literally reading
The Waste Land
right now!'

I heard the sigh loud and clear this time, as she padded back to the living room.

‘Your mum's always banging on about Cambridge,' muttered Robin as he switched the TV back off mute. ‘If she loves it so much why doesn't
she
go there?'

‘I don't know what she's going to be like if I don't get in,' I said. I was genuinely starting to feel like my parents would be more upset than me if I didn't get the grades.

‘You'll get in easily, man. They love bookworm knobheads like you at places like that.'

‘Thanks, mate.'

‘Plus, you're going to do that work experience thing. What is it again?'

‘Dunno really. Just working in an office, I think.'

I had a week's work experience lined up in my mum's friend's office. Mum had arranged it for just a few days before I got my results, as if she thought it would help convince Cambridge to still accept me even if I didn't get the grades. I hadn't given it
much thought. I wasn't even entirely sure what the office
did
.

‘The kind of dickhead who
willingly
goes and works in an office during his holidays is exactly the kind of dickhead Cambridge are after,' Robin announced.

‘That's probably true,' I said. Although I wasn't entirely convinced.

‘Course it's true,' he sniffed.

‘How can you be so calm about results, anyway?' I asked. ‘Do you seriously not care about getting into Loughborough?'

Robin chewed his thumbnail. ‘I do, but I'm more worried about what I'm going to do on my year off. Like, these two blokes I met in Miami were going on about how they'd spent last year teaching at one of those American summer camps. Sounded pretty amazing. Apparently
all
the teachers at these places are ridiculously hot American girls.'

‘Apart from the two blokes who told you this, obviously,' I said.

‘Yes, obviously, apart from them,' Robin snapped. ‘It can't be one hundred per cent hot women or they'd get done by the equal opportunities groups.'

I nodded patiently.

‘So, yeah, I might just do that,' Robin continued. ‘Spend six months living in a tent in the wilderness, shagging hundreds of hot American girls by telling them I'm related to Prince Harry.'

‘What about your beatboxing?'

‘There'll still be time to do that in an American summer camp, Sam,' he said, pointedly. ‘That's the great thing about beatboxing – it's non-location specific. You can do it anywhere.'

I laughed and lay down on my bed.

‘Anyway, look,' said Robin, returning his attention fully to the Xbox. ‘You won't have time to worry about Cambridge or Stella or your lack of X-based texts next week. Because we will be in a field in Devon, at Woodland Festival, absolutely off our tits, without a care in the world.' He cut another alien in half with his virtual shotgun. ‘What do you think about
that
, you big space prick!'

9

Hannah

I only became aware of how ridiculous I looked when I turned on to the main street. No one else was walking by themselves, let alone in their nightclothes. I pulled my massive scrunchie out and tried to cover my face with my hair.

Boys checking you out and waiters whistling at you when you're in a big group feels exciting and fun, but on your own in the dark, the neon lights and the leery men just seem frightening. The girls weren't in the bar they said they were going to be in, or the one from the night before. They weren't on the beach I had seen Pax and Stella heading to, or in the restaurant. They weren't anywhere. Every time I scanned a new bar or stared through a window my chest felt a little bit tighter. I seemed to get more alone and freakish. I was shrinking into a lost child, biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself crying.

I couldn't go back to Stella. I wouldn't. Grace was probably having sex with James; Tilly was probably having sex with Harry.

I reached the end of the strip where the resort finished. There was just a dark road stretching out into countryside. Probably the idyllic type of postcard places I had pictured us frolicking in
before I got on the plane. Standing there felt like standing on the edge of the world. I had never felt as desperate. I tried to think what my mum would do. Thinking about her and home made me start to cry.

I turned around and started walking back. And then I saw Casper standing outside a bar, holding a bottle of beer. My stomach relaxed. There was something about Casper. His independence or his ability to be OK outside of things that made him strong somehow. But weirdly, although it felt like everything was going to be all right because I had seen someone I knew, it just seemed to make me cry even more. I just stood in the middle of the road, with the music and the clumps of drunk girls and puddles of couples getting off with each other, and sobbed. He saw me and came over.

‘Are you OK?'

‘Yeah, I'm fine. I …'

But I couldn't stop. Every time I tried to speak it seemed to make it worse. I could feel snot coming out of my nose. I didn't even have a cardigan. I just wiped it with my hand. The crying and the trying and failing to speak seemed to go on for ever. He didn't move. He didn't touch me. Not even a hand on my arm. He just stood there, in his own little circle of space. Like the moon orbiting the earth. He is the stillest person I have ever met. Maybe he would have stood there all night watching me blubber. In the end his lack of response became so noticeable that it made me pull myself together. Like he coaxed me out of my hysteria though playing social-nicety ‘chicken'.

‘I'm so sorry. I think I'm just tired.' The socially accepted
excuse for being mental.

He nodded. No words. But I saw his eyes notice the hedgehogs with bagels.

‘I've lost everyone. And I'm locked out. Do you know where Grace and Tilly are?'

‘No. Me, Jordan and Harry split from the others.'

He looked across at the bar. I could see the outline of Jordan pulling some girl. Casper was the only one not pulling someone. He would have every right not to want to hang out with me after yesterday, but I couldn't bear the thought of being left alone again.

‘Do you want to get a doughnut? I saw this man selling hot doughnuts.'

He nodded but then I remembered.

‘Except … I don't have any money.'

And then he smiled. Just a tiny bit. He couldn't help it.

I linked his arm and we walked down the street. His quietness seemed to feed my confidence and I started jabbering away. We bought the doughnuts and I told him about messing up my History exam.

Gradually he talked more and held my gaze. I told him about wanting to see some of the island and he showed me a tree at his hotel with this weird waxy stuff trickling down it. We wondered if it was amber.

From out of nowhere, when we were huddled together looking at the bark, he said, ‘If you don't have anywhere to sleep you can stay in mine and Jordan's room. I mean, Jordan probably won't … come back …'

‘Thanks.'

It wasn't really that weird. Neither of us said ‘just as friends'. It didn't need saying.

The room stank of boys' feet and stale beer and there was sand all over the floor and in the sheets. I clambered gratefully into bed.

‘I'd offer you pyjamas but …' We both looked down at the bagel-munching hedgehogs and laughed.

We lay in the dark, which wasn't really dark at all because of the lights from the clubs. I felt like it was a ‘now or never' moment. I wanted to be brave and actually verbalize an unsaid thought for once in my life. I wanted to be someone who actually had guts.

‘I'm sorry I kind of blanked you yesterday at the club, I just felt really awkward.'

‘It's OK.'

‘I just … I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not really enjoying … Everything is going wrong …'

And then I told him. About Freddie and my virginity curse, about Stella and the dress. And Sam and the buried night. And about Pax. And how he had wanted to kiss me. About feeling ugly and pale and fat. About being scared I've failed my A levels. About feeling guilty that I'm so moody at home sometimes. It felt like I was confessing. But mostly it just came back round to Stella.

‘I think I hate her. But if I hate her then who do I actually
like
?'

We were both just lying staring up at the ceiling. We didn't turn to face each other. I thought he wasn't going to say anything
for a bit but he's someone who only speaks when they know what they're going to say.

‘Stella is just one of
those
girls. You keep saying about her being stunning. And she is really fit. But so are you, Hannah. Pax wanted you because you're pretty and smiley and actually nice.' He laughed. ‘Blanking me last night excepted. Because you didn't leave your mate to puke her guts up alone. If you want to be Stella so much then just
be
her. It's not like it would be that hard. Getting boys to want you isn't hard. They already do. You just
think
they don't. You're in her shadow because you choose to be there. Just tell her to fuck off. Or don't. Whatever. Pax might want to sleep with her but it doesn't mean he thinks she's cool.'

I just lay there. And I realized he hadn't told me anything about himself, or that I'd rambled on so much he hadn't had the chance. But maybe he didn't want to. We fell asleep as the sun was coming up.

If Jordan was shocked, or even vaguely interested in the fact that I was in his bed when he walked into the hotel room the next day, he didn't show it. He smiled, took his T-shirt off and walked into the bathroom.

‘Your mates are looking for you, Hannah,' he shouted through the door. ‘I met them earlier and they asked me if I knew where you were. Can't believe Pax and Stella threw you out. That's
well
harsh. They should have known ol' Casper would come to the rescue.'

‘He's my knight in shining armour,' I shouted back. ‘You actually are.' I said quietly, just to him.

I knew it would be a massive drama. I had a sinking feeling
about it in my stomach. Like being in trouble at school. I walked slowly back towards the hotel. I saw them before they saw me. All huddled together, with the rest of the boys. Grace saw me first and ran over. She hugged me. The others followed.

Stella spoke first. Of course.

‘Are you alive? We have been looking for you for hours. Literally hours. Where have you been? I thought you were dead and that someone had dismembered your body and fed it to one of those mangy street cats.'

‘I'm alive.'
No thanks to you
, I thought. I didn't say any more. I channelled Casper. I wanted her to work for it.

‘Well … Where
were
you?'

‘I stayed with Casper.'

Pax narrowed his eyes and stared at me. Then he looked down at the floor. The other boys all started laughing.

‘Fucking hell. He's a dark horse.' James was clearly shocked, even if Jordan hadn't been.

Pax looked back up at me. I could tell he was surprised. The other boys started messing about making stupid jokes but Pax stayed silent, looking at me every so often. Grace, Tilly and Stella were trying to read me. I could have gone into a massive explanation about how nothing had happened, but why should I? They would know soon enough. If Stella wanted a drama, I would give her one. I knew the girls were desperate to quiz me. They would know we hadn't slept together, whatever the boys might be thinking.

I went back to our room. The dress was on the floor in a puddle. I didn't pick it up. I sat on the end of my bed and
prodded it with my foot. The image of Stella falling backwards in it and taking Pax with her replayed in my mind.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Han?' It was Tilly.

I opened it and she walked in, beach-ready, her bikini on under her dress and her stripy cotton tote filled with towels and magazines.

‘We've found a place on the beach. I was just coming to get you so you wouldn't get lost again.'

‘I didn't get lost. What was I supposed to do? Sit there and watch?'

‘We were all really worried.'

‘I couldn't find you, I looked for you everywhere. Where were you all?' I wasn't that angry any more, but I didn't want to let it go just like that. I wanted to stand up for myself a bit.

‘We thought you were asleep, Han. We obviously didn't know you were wandering around …'

‘Yeah but Stella knew. I didn't have my phone. I was in my pyjamas. I literally looked like Cathy from
Wuthering Heights
wandering around looking for my long-lost love.'

‘Come on, you love those pyjamas. I swear you wore them to mufti day once.'

‘No, I wore them for the getting-ready-for-bed race for Comic Relief. Which is a bedwear-themed event.' I looked at her and we laughed together.

‘I'm sorry, Han. It must have been really shit. I would have freaked out. So … what happened with Casper? All the blokes are making out like you slept together.'

‘Eugh, boys are so gross. Maybe I
should
just sleep with him. At least he's actually interesting. I dunno exactly what I think I'm holding out for.'

‘Your lobster.'

‘Well, I suppose we are at the seaside.'

We laughed again, and suddenly that memory of Toilet Boy in the wet room flashed across my mind.

‘What's Stella doing anyway? She's finally slept with Charlie and now she's getting with someone else.' I didn't say Pax's name.

‘Yeah, I know. They didn't do it last night though.'

For some reason I felt relieved.

‘They did other stuff.'

I felt weird again. The word ‘stuff' can pretty much mean anything depending on how you say it.

I put on my bikini, packed a bag with
Ariel, Mansfield Park
and a packet of Starmix, and we left.

When we got to the little camp they had made on the beach I walked past Stella and over to Casper, but I didn't sit down.

‘I'm going to go rock-pooling,' I said.

‘What?' Grace sounded confused.

‘I don't like lying on the beach all day. I want to do something. Go exploring.'

Casper stood up and put his flip-flops on. ‘Yeah, I'll come,' he said.

Pax looked up. ‘Sounds good. I love rock-pooling. And you're in safe hands with Casper and me. We've been rock-pooling since birth.' He stood up and shook out his T-shirt.

Stella put her magazine down. ‘Are we all, like, five years old? Pax, maybe the point of their expedition isn't to actually go rock-pooling. Whatever rock-pooling is.' She looked at him pointedly, like he was a bit dense. She knew there was nothing between Casper and me.

Tilly and Grace didn't say anything but the boys laughed. Pax stood holding his T-shirt. It was the first time I had seen him look embarrassed.

‘Don't be stupid. Anyone can come.' I said it to all of them but I was aiming it at Pax. I half wished he'd come just to piss Stella off. ‘There's a shop up there that sells buckets and spades and fishing stuff.'