Lobsters (2 page)

He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.'

He sparked the lighter and held the flame against the corner of the book's cover.

‘Why isn't it burning?' he demanded. ‘Nothing's happening.'

‘It's laminated, you dick.'

The flame was just about managing to turn the plastic-coated corner a faint browny-black colour. If we were going to use this method on every book, we'd be here all day.

‘Why the fuck do they laminate them?' snapped Robin, extinguishing the lighter.

‘Probably to stop people like us burning them in buckets.'

‘Those bastards,' he murmured. ‘They're always one step ahead. Maybe we could just burn the inside pages. They're not laminated.'

‘Then we'll be left with a bucket full of empty book covers. What are we going to do with all those?'

Robin chewed his bottom lip as he considered this. ‘We could cut them up into little pieces and bury them? Or put them in a box and throw them in the sea?'

‘The sea? We live in London. The sea is at least an hour away.'

‘So? I could get my mum to drive us to Brighton when she gets back from work.'

‘This is beginning to sound like more hassle than it's worth, to be honest.'

Robin groaned and stood up. ‘You need to perk the fuck up, Sam. If you're still like this tonight, then I'm ditching you as soon as we get through the door. End-of-A-levels parties are the best parties ever; that's common knowledge. I'm not having you ruining this one for me by whining on all night. This might come as a surprise to you, given your lack of experience in the area, but girls don't exactly get turned on by blokes constantly complaining about French exams, you know.'

Maybe he was right. Maybe I could look at the French Fuck-up as a positive thing. The beginning of an entirely new and unplanned chapter in my life. No university, no job, no proper conventional future: I could totally reinvent myself, starting this evening.

Robin only heard about the party tonight through his mate Ben, who knew about it via a friend of a friend. So, there was a good chance we wouldn't know
anyone
there. I could become someone else. I could start introducing myself as ‘Samuel'. That might make me sound deeper and more intelligent. I could be Samuel the mysterious drifter; Samuel who wears long coats and smokes roll-ups and gazes off into the middle distance
enigmatically during conversations. Rather than plain old Sam, who fails French exams and tries to burn plastic books.

The problem is, you have to have done something with your life before you can start going around calling yourself Samuel. You have to have
achieved
something. Samuel Beckett, Samuel L. Jackson, Dad's mate Samuel who drives a Porsche and used to go out with Nigella Lawson: they've all earned the right to those extra letters. What have I ever done? Won a Year 9 essay contest and fingered Gemma Bailey in a gazebo. I'm hardly in line for a knighthood.

I'd always thought that getting into Cambridge would be my big achievement. But now that I'd screwed up French – and I definitely
had
– I was going to have to find something else instead. I just had no idea what.

You won't find many virgins called Samuel, that's for sure. You remain a Sam until you get past fingering, I reckon. Or at least past gazebos.

Robin picked up the bucket and stomped off towards the house.

‘Right, let's just give the fuckers to Oxfam and be done with it,' he muttered.

Hannah

Stella and I were sitting at the bus stop where we had sat hundreds of times before. Except this time I was in extreme pain.

‘I've been mutilated. I think I'm in medical shock,' I said. ‘Have you got any sugar?'

Stella handed me a packet of Starmix. ‘It's just hair,' she said. ‘You don't say you've been mutilated when you go to the hairdresser, do you?'

‘Yeah, but what happened to me
in there
was not like what happens at the hairdresser.'

Stella had booked me in to have my bikini line waxed as soon as she had found out Freddie was not only back but coming to her party.

‘Hannah, honestly, it's just because it's your first time. Shit, all your first times are happening at once,' she announced, slightly too loudly.

The lady next to us shot a disapproving glance in our direction, and I winced.

Across from the bus stop is a gigantic H&M poster of a model in a neon pink-and-white string bikini. She looks amazing, all impossibly long and brown and perfect. The poster has been there for ages. Looking at it used to make me feel quietly excited. Because that was going to be me. I was going to go running and do my mum's Davina DVD and wake up having morphed into an H&M campaign version of myself. But, obviously, none of that had happened, and I looked just the same as always.

‘I'm going to buy that bikini for Kavos,' Stella said.

We were going away together in a week, and I wasn't prepared at all.

‘She's definitely had her bikini line waxed,' I said, nodding at the poster, ‘and it
definitely
wasn't her first time.'

Stella shrugged and got out her phone, probably to text Charlie. She wasn't intimidated by the model in the bikini because she is effortlessly cool. She's petite, olive-skinned, naturally sexy and mysterious, and boys always fancy her. She loves video games and blokey films like
Pulp Fiction
and
Scarface
. Her dark brown hair is dyed with random bits of lilac, and last summer she got a snowflake tattooed on her wrist. You can't see it in winter, but it appears when she tans. Out of all of us, she is the closest to H&M girl.

Me, Tilly and Grace don't even come anywhere near. Tilly is tall and willowy with freckles. Her hair is her best feature. It's straight out of a pre-Raphaelite painting, auburn and flowing with curls at the end. Grace used to be plain until sixth form but, like my mum says, she has ‘really blossomed', especially since she stopped wearing massive shapeless jumpers as her everyday look.

I think it's really hard to see yourself how other people do. I have naturally blonde hair, pale blue eyes to match my pale skin and a totally average body. On a good day people might call me pretty. On a really good day.

The bus came and Stella strode to the back while I waddled slowly behind her, trying to keep the burning pain around my minge to a minimum.

‘You're walking like an old person,' Stella said as we sat down.

‘Well, it hurts.'

She rolled her eyes.

I wanted to ask her about Charlie Allen, about
her
virginity and what was going on between them. She is a virgin
by choice
,
which is a distinct category from just being a virgin. She has done everything
but
with Charlie. He is her fuck buddy without the actual fucking part. Or the blowjob part because that totally grosses Stella out. He's fit, but behind her back we all say he's a prick who's using her. We know he deals drugs but we don't talk about it. She says she's happy with the way things are between them, but I don't think that's really true.

I can't ask her though, because the whole her-and-Charlie thing is a no-go area. She'll never admit there's a problem, so we all have to pretend there isn't one. She can ask any of us anything, but we are not allowed to do the same back. Stella is just different like that; she's a closed book.

She is also the kind of person who just has house parties and is relaxed about it. Her parents have gone to France for the whole summer. You would think she would want to go with them, but she never does. This is the second summer they have let her stay home alone. They get her Marks & Spencer food delivered every week and transfer her pocket money by direct debit.

‘Are you still getting a bob?' Stella asked.

‘I don't know. I don't know if I'm brave enough.'

‘You are way too uptight about hair.'

‘Yeah, well, I need to do a lot of things before uni.'

Stella got out her phone again. ‘Shall we consult the list?'

Last month, deep in revision hell, we had made an action plan of all the things we had to do before uni.

‘“Hannah”,' Stella read out. ‘“Fall in love and lose virginity”. Well … one of those is getting ticked off pretty quickly… OK, next we've got, “Get an amazing body. Get good at fake tanning.
Get a new look. Get a bob. Practise having slow mannerisms to appear more enigmatic. Be less giggly and more intellectual.”'

I groaned. ‘Oh god, there's so much to do. Can you add “Cope with failing history” to the list?'

‘OK, you might need to prioritize. What about just getting a bob and sleeping with Freddie?'

I sighed and fished a fried egg out of the Starmix bag. I don't know when everything got so complicated. Eighteen is supposed to be the age when you become an adult. When you are complete. How can anyone feel finished by now? I don't even feel started. I haven't done anything, I haven't been anywhere. Everyone around me seems so sorted. It feels like suddenly it's the norm to be in a long-term relationship. To be having sex like it's no big deal, and have had your bikini line waxed to do it. It's like so much has changed since Year 10, but then at the same time nothing has. Sometimes I wish I could be fourteen again and just not worry about all this stuff. About what people think of me, and how I come across in social situations. When every weekend we used to sleep over at Stella's house and eat ice cream and drink cups of tea. I hate it that now people are constantly expecting me to have become something. And like I'm a failure because I just haven't. Everything seems like it was easier in
Pride and Prejudice
. My nan was married at eighteen. Married. I can't even operate an iron.

When we finally got to Stella's house, I went straight up to the bathroom to fully assess the horror beneath my knickers. As if it wasn't enough having pale red legs with veins showing through and weird albino blonde hair and looking like a hobbit wife, I
was now also deformed.

I didn't tell Mum where I was going because that would have been weird. I know for a fact there are some things she would never do. Like blowjobs and polyester clothing and KFC. I would bet a lot of money she has never had her bikini line waxed.

I can see why people become feminists now. All those years of PSHE telling us about crabs and the UN and mind-maps. Why didn't Miss Smart just get up and say, ‘As well as voting and learning to drive and being a good citizen, one day you will have to go into a room and put on a pair of knickers made of tracing paper and let a woman you have never met before pour hot wax on your minge.'

It looked like a raw, bloodied chicken with a Mohican. And I was supposed to be losing my virginity
tonight
.

Sam

Chris bounded up the stairs two by two. We heard him coming about a minute before he opened Robin's bedroom door. He stood on the threshold, beaming at me with his arms outstretched.

‘Yes, Sammy! The boy's finally all done and dusted!' He yanked me towards him and gave me a lung-busting bear hug.

He and Robin had both finished their final exams three days ago, so Chris was clearly eager to have another ‘last day' to celebrate. He hadn't yet heard about the French fiasco. I almost couldn't face telling him.

It was a few hours after the (attempted) book-burning, and the three of us had agreed to meet at Robin's before heading to the party. I'd gone home to change, but hadn't actually done much more than put on a fresh T-shirt. I was still wearing my busted-up trainers with gaffer tape holding the soles in place. On answering the door to me, Robin had looked me up and down, groaned and told me that girls didn't usually respond well to the ‘tramp vibe'.

Chris, on the other hand, looked annoyingly good, despite the fact he'd also clearly made no effort whatsoever. He was wearing a shabby chequered shirt and the same jeans he'd had since Year 10. His bushy, black hair was even wilder than usual and he hadn't even bothered to shave the patches of stubble that were dotted across his cheeks. When you're as good-looking as Chris, you don't have to bother with decent clothes or a hairbrush. You're beyond all that.