Lobsters

by Lucy Ivison

  I laughed so much I started choking. We talked about York and what clothes I wanted to buy for uni and what accommodation I’d get.

  ‘That ring’s been lucky for me. I reckon it’ll be lucky for you too.’

  It felt like the longest day in the world. By midday I needed a sleep. The rain made the house feel cosy, so I got into bed and watched it hit my skylight. My mum went to meet Linda and my dad went to work. Nan was having a coffee date with a retired plumber called Keith, and I could hear Joe playing computer games downstairs.

  It’s weird to think of my room being empty when I go. Of things getting dusty. Everyone says you shouldn’t go home in the first term because it makes you homesick. When I come back at Christmas and climb into my bed I will be different. I will have changed. It should be exciting, but it makes me scared. Like I want stasis. Everything to freeze. I don’t want to forget how I feel now.

  I don’t know when I fell asleep but when the door creaked I thought it must be Joe.

  It wasn’t Joe. But it was fucking surreal.

  ‘Hey, Hannah.’

  Pax was standing right there in my room.

  Underneath the duvet I was wearing my bra and knickers and nothing else. Which I never do. Only American girls in films wear their underwear to bed, but today I’d got into bed in my clothes and then just wriggled them off.

  I felt massively pissed off with Joe for letting him in the house and just waving him on upstairs without warning me. I stayed lying flat with the duvet up to my neck. I had to admit, he did look amazing. His hair had grown longer over the summer and he was a wearing a pale green T-shirt that matched his eyes.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘This is so weird.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. I should have called.’

  ‘I don’t mean bad weird. It’s just weird you being in my house. I don’t associate you with it. It feels freaky.’

  ‘Sorry. I know what you mean. Like when you see teachers outside school. I’m on my way home, and I haven’t really seen you so I thought I’d come and say goodbye.’

  ‘Oh, that’s so sweet.’ As flattered as I felt, I suddenly wondered where Stella was and what exactly was going on. ‘I was actually just going to watch a movie, but—’

  ‘That sounds great,’ he said, cutting me off before I could finish. ‘My train’s not till five.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘Cool.’

  Why had he left Stella’s three hours early?

  ‘I’m really sorry but I’m not actually dressed,’ I said. ‘I just need to put something on.’

  He laughed and put his hands over his eyes. ‘And I thought my parents were hippies. Is this a nudist house then?’

  ‘No way. We are so not naked people.’

  ‘So you’re the rebel?’

  ‘Stand in the hall for a second.’

  He obliged. From outside the door he said, ‘I have seen girls’ bodies before, you know.’

  I wanted to say, ‘Yeah, Stella’s. Or a load of thin Made in Chelsea type gap year models called India and Effie and Miranda.’ Or Panda. Her popping into my head made me think of Sam. But the thought of Pax seeing the stretch marks on my hips and my not-shaved-for-three-days legs distracted me.

  ‘Oh yeah, what a player you are,’ was what came out instead. I meant it to sound funny, but it sounded matronly.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that …’ he said.

  I wondered how many girls Pax had slept with. And whether he had already slept with Stella.

  ‘OK, you can come in.’

  I didn’t want to care about what I was wearing and if he thought I looked nice, but I did. It felt like a situation we definitely shouldn’t be in. I wanted him to leave, or at least tell me what was going on. I did fancy him. It was impossible not to. But it was just being in proximity to that hotness, nothing else.

  I got out my laptop and we picked Stardust. I felt guilty because I knew Joe was downstairs and it’s the one film we actually both like. Being sat on my bed so close to Pax felt odd. Every time I moved I was aware of my body. I couldn’t relax. It was like my life was in HD. I tried to sit in an attractive way and not breathe really heavily or sniff loudly. I wanted it to feel like mates hanging out, but it didn’t. Bringing Stella up made me feel better, so I did quite a lot.

  ‘Are you gonna miss Stella when you go home?’

  ‘Yeah. Suppose.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll go and visit her in Birmingham?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Why was he being so cold about her? He leaned back and put his head against his arm.

  ‘I do like Stella …’

  I could sense more was coming but I cut in.

  ‘She’s beautiful. Totally stunning.’

  He didn’t say anything. He picked up the York reading list.

  ‘Oh, shit, I forgot to say congratulations! Stella told me you got in.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Good news about Casper, too. He texted me this morning. Three A’s.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s awesome. I can’t wait to see him later to celebrate.’

  ‘How come you’re not staying up for the party tonight, then?’ I asked.

  ‘I just …’ He looked down at the floor. ‘I just can’t. Got to get back.’ There was a pause, and then he tapped the University of York logo on the reading list with his finger and grinned at me. ‘Hey, so we’ll both be there next month. I’m really glad you’re going too.’

  ‘Yeah, we can go to lectures together.’

  Why do I always say the geeky thing?

  ‘Yeah.’

  There was this weird silence. I wanted desperately to make it normal. To make it like a scene from The Big Bang Theory. For us to be jokey and cool.

  But he stayed silent. Like he was daring me to stay silent too.

  Suddenly, he stood up and started pacing the room frantically.

  ‘I wish I’d never fucking got off with Stella in Kavos. Everything is fucked! If I sleep with her and then dump her I’m the bastard that took her virginity.’

  Why had she told him she was a virgin? Was she a virgin? But that wasn’t the issue. Well, it sort of was.

  ‘Dump her? I thought you loved her?’

  I didn’t mean to say ‘love’ really. I meant that she loved him, I suppose.

  ‘Love her? Love her? You don’t love people until you’re like twenty-three or something. She’s just too … intense. She’s acting like we’re married or something. She’s even put that we’re in a relationship on Facebook. She’s talking about coming to visit me in York during Freshers’ Week. It’s not that I don’t like her, it’s just … too much right now.’

  ‘Why did you come to London then?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because Casper was coming anyway and he told me he was going to hang out with you … And, well …’ He stopped pacing for a moment and looked at me. ‘And the thought of him getting to hang out with you … I don’t know … I suppose I was a bit jealous. I mean, I do like you. I tried to tell you that at the festival.’ For the first time ever, he looked a bit shy. ‘There is something between us. Well, there is for me. And it makes me even more of a dick because now I’ve got myself into this situation with Stella and you’re her best mate.’

  I didn’t know how to react. It was all too much to take in. For a spilt second I wanted to kiss him. Like I had that night in Kavos when he wanted me. He sat back down next to me on the bed, then leaned over and put his forehead against mine. We just sat like that. His mouth was so close.

  ‘I would never betray Stella.’

  He was so close to me that I barely had to whisper it.

  He kissed my cheek and I let him. And then he kissed it again but closer to my mouth.

  I pulled away and looked at him.

  ‘She’s my best friend.’

  And that was it. He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. ‘OK, shit … I’m sorry. I’ll … Maybe I should go, then.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’


  He picked up his rucksack and said, ‘Hannah, please don’t tell Stella about this. It would only upset her.’

  ‘What are you going do, then?’ I asked. ‘You can’t just leave it like this with her.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll call her tomorrow. I don’t want to ruin her party.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘See you in Freshers’ Week, then,’ he said. And he was gone.

  My instinct was to call Grace or Tilly straight away. But I knew that, in some way, that would also be betraying Stella. I felt like this was something that needed to stay between me and Pax. I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. Why was everything so fucked?

  I heard the front door bang; Nan was back from her date. She came upstairs and craned her neck around the door.

  ‘If you don’t want him, babes, then I don’t know what it is you want.’

  And then she winked at me.

  Feeling so many things at once is exhausting. So I just shut it all out and went back to sleep.

  Nan has kept clothes that have memories attached to them. My favourite is a black minidress. It’s got really long sleeves but is tiny. She wore it to her engagement party. There’s a black-and-white photograph of her wearing it in an album. She’s wearing boots that cover her knees and false eyelashes. She looks like a film star. I have tried it on loads of times in my parents’ bedroom but never seriously thought about wearing it out. I’m not brave enough to wear vintage stuff. I’m not cool or kooky. I have nothing. I don’t have Sam, and now I know how liking someone the way I liked him feels, I don’t want to settle for something less. Even if the something less is as good-looking as Pax.

  The person I wanted didn’t want me and I was leaving to go to university at the other end of the country. Tonight was just one night. I could just go to Stella’s party, have fun and not care about anything.

  So I went upstairs and put the dress on. When I came back down, Nan and Mum were in the kitchen. They stopped arguing when I walked into the room and Mum said, ‘When did you get so beautiful?’

  And Nan said, ‘It’s like looking at myself.’

  Mum snorted. ‘Modest as ever.’

  ‘What should I wear it with? I don’t have boots like you had.’

  ‘Eyeliner. And lots of it,’ said Nan.

  So I went upstairs and traced around my eyes three times. Then I just put my Converse on and left like that.

  Sam

  I got the text in the middle of a discussion with my mum. I say discussion – it was more a long, uninterrupted and highly emotional monologue from her about my lack of dedication to French homework.

  ‘Oh, Sam … It’s such a shame. If only you’d concentrated more on the pluperfect tense. You always said that was your weak point.’

  I don’t understand why parents do this. I’ve already let myself down – do I really need the hassle of knowing I’ve let someone else down too?

  The beep of the text message arriving made my mum stop mid-flow and say, ‘Oh, Sam, is that … them?’

  She thought Cambridge was texting me to say they’d made a mistake and I’d actually got in: GR8 NEWZ SAM – U IN CMBRIJ NXT YR! LOL ;-)

  ‘No, Mum, obviously it’s not them.’

  She sighed and went back to fiddling with her coffee cup. I picked up my phone and left the kitchen. It was a good excuse to get out of there for a while.

  The text was from Robin. It read:

  THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO BE ON FACEBOOK YOU DICK! STELLA’S JUST UPDATED HER STATUS TO SAY: STELLA CARMICHAEL IS IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH PAX SINCLAIR!!!

  My heart leapt. There couldn’t be anything between him and Hannah now. If there ever had been anything, that is. Over the past few days, my unsettling feeling about having overreacted at the festival had hardened into a grim certainty. Maybe she had fancied Pax, and maybe she’d even pulled him, but that was before that day we spent together. That day had meant something to me, and I was pretty sure it meant something to her, too. I’d let suspicion and stupidity and my permanently low-flying self-confidence mess things up with Jo; I couldn’t let it happen with Hannah as well. Hannah was different. I really wanted her; I didn’t just want to want her.

  It was strange to miss someone you’d spent so little actual time with. But I did miss her.

  I called Robin straight away. He picked up after just one ring.

  ‘You get my text?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So, it looks like that Pax prick is out of the picture. Well, out of the picture for you, at least. He’s still muscling in on my patch, apparently.’

  ‘I’m not quite sure how Stella qualifies as “your patch”, since you’ve only met her twice, but still.’

  ‘Come on, man – you must be pleased! There can’t be anything going on with Pax and Hannah now. If Facebook says it, it must be true.’

  ‘That’s excellent logic.’

  ‘Cheers. So …’ He paused.

  ‘So, what?’ I asked.

  ‘So, are we going to Stella’s party tonight, now?’

  Stella’s party. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  ‘I don’t know, man,’ I said. ‘What are our other options?’

  ‘Er … We could go to Sophia Demico’s party.’

  I groaned. ‘You said yourself those girls are so boring.’

  Robin corrected me. ‘Boring and fit.’

  ‘I could always stay in,’ I offered.

  Robin actually tutted. He sounded like my mum. ‘You’re not staying in, Sam, for fuck’s sake. It’s results day.’

  ‘Yeah, and my results were rubbish.’

  ‘They were better than mine,’ he said. ‘Technically.’

  ‘Yeah, but you got what you needed! And anyway, I can’t just phone Cambridge and say, “In case you didn’t realize, my results were technically better than my mate Robin’s, so that should now make me eligible for your university.” I’m fucked, man. I don’t know what I’m going do.’

  ‘Even more reason for you to go out and get absolutely off your face.’

  I considered this.

  ‘I do want to see Hannah again,’ I said.

  I thought Robin would either laugh or sigh at that statement. He didn’t. He just said quietly: ‘Yeah, man. I know. That’s why we should go.’

  There were a few seconds where neither of us said anything. I could hear the clink and splash of Mum washing up in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, finally. ‘It seems like too much to fuck up Cambridge and get publicly rejected by Hannah in the same day.’

  Robin snorted. ‘Sam, firstly that won’t happen. Probably. And secondly, fucking up Cambridge could be the greatest thing that ever happens to you! It means you can come with me to the American summer camp shag-a-thon, for a start.’

  A few days ago, this statement would have seemed totally laughable. Now, it suddenly seemed like a genuine option.

  ‘So?’ said Robin. What do you reckon? You can stay inside, weeping about your B in French, or you can grab life by the nuts!’

  I laughed. I genuinely didn’t know what to do. I wanted Robin to make the decision for me. All I could think about was how much I wanted to see Hannah’s smile again. I knew it would be awkward after the way I’d just walked off at the festival, but I didn’t care. I had to see her again. To apologize. To tell her how I felt. To try to turn that amazing day at the festival into something more substantial.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Fuck it. Let’s go. We can always leave if it’s shit or if there’s any drama.’

  Robin sighed. ‘Let’s face it – with Stella and Hannah around, there definitely will be drama.’

  16

  Hannah

  Stella’s was packed when I arrived, and it was still early. People clearly thought this would be the most mental of all the results parties. They were right.

  Tilly and I danced like crazy people to cheesy ’80s music and we took photos pretending to present Oscars to actors we fancy. Stella
took loads of pictures of me in my dress doing Twiggy poses.

  I sang to Bob Dylan – ‘when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose’ – and danced all by myself. When I finally flopped down next to Tilly on the living room floor she pointed not-very-subtly across into the kitchen.

  ‘I can’t believe he came,’ she said.

  Charlie was standing, looking shifty, by the fridge with one of his rancid mates.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he actually cares about Stella, do you?’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘I know. It’s just weird because now she has a boyfriend. You would think he’d feel a bit awkward.’

  We watched Charlie open the fridge and take out a yogurt before tearing off its lid and digging into it with his finger.

  ‘I don’t think Charlie is exactly a sensitive guy.’

  Tilly laughed. ‘Her and Pax seem really serious, though.’

  On Facebook they had been ‘in a relationship’ for the last ten hours. If Charlie cared, eating Petits Filous and drinking beer with his mate, you wouldn’t have known.

  Nine hours ago, Pax had been sitting on my bed. But now he was gone and with no one at the party able to confirm that it had happened, I was beginning to wonder if it actually had.

  I could see Grace getting stressed about the number of people streaming into Stella’s house, and Ollie trying to calm her down, as usual.

  ‘It’s not even your house and Stella clearly doesn’t care,’ he laughed as he put his arms around her.

  Stella clearly didn’t. She was right in the thick of it, like always, laughing, talking and dancing at hundred miles an hour.

  It was getting so hectic and mental that I went upstairs into Stella’s room and sat on the bed. It felt like a museum. Some sort of exhibition about a time that had passed. History. Collages of photos from Year 7 until now, tickets to gigs we’d been to and films we loved, napkins from restaurants on which we had written lists of the people we had kissed. For so much of my life I had felt her room was our room. Her lilac wallpaper with tiny pansies on that had gradually been eroded by posters and photos. You couldn’t even see it any more. But I knew it was there. The dramatic part of me thought of leaving her a note, telling her that Pax wasn’t as into her as she thought. But that felt cowardly and melodramatic. And I wanted to tell her. I felt as though I should. If I kept the secret for him it was as though I was on his team, when of course I was on hers.