JESS
It didnt take long for the papers to find out. A couple of days, maybe. I was in my room, and Dad called me downstairs and asked me what Id been up to on New Years Eve. And I went, Nothing much, and he went, Well, that isnt what the neers seem to think. And I was like, Neers?
And he said, Yeah, theres apparently going to be a story about you and Martin Sharp. Do you know Martin Sharp? And I was, you know, Yeah, sort of, only met him that night at a party, dont know him very well.
And so Dad goes, What the hell kind of party is it where you meet someone like Martin Sharp? And I couldnt think what kind of party that would be, so I didnt say anything. And then Dad was like, And was there… Did anything… All tenterhooks or whatever, kind of thing, so I just dived in.
Did I fuck him? No I did not! Thanks a bunch! Bloody hell! Martin Sharp! Eeeeuch! And so on and so on until he got the idea.
It was fug Chas, of course, who phoned up the neers. Hed probably tried before, the little shit, but he never had much to go on then, when it was just me. The Jess Criartin Sharp bo, though… uable. How much do you think you get for something like that? A couple of hundred quid? More? To be ho, Id have do if I were him.
Hes always skint. And Im always skint. If hed been anyone worth selling up the river, hed be halfway out to sea by now.
Dad pulled back the curtain to sneak a look, and there was someo there. I wao go out and have a go at him, but Dad would me; he said that theyd take a mad picture of me, and Id look stupid a it.
And he said it was undigo do that, and in our position we had to rise above it all and ighem. And I was like, In whose position? Im not in a position. And he went, Well, you are, whether you like it or not you are in a position, and I go, Youre in a position not me, and he said, Youre in a position too, and we went on like that for a while. But of coing on about it never ges anything, and I know hes right, really. If I wasnt in a positiohe papers woulderested. In fact, the more I act as though Im not in a position, then the more Im in a position, if you see what I mean. If I just sat in my room and read, ot a steady boyfriend, thered be no i. But if I went to bed with Martin Sharp, or threw myself off a roof, then there would be the opposite of no i. Thered be i.
When I was in the papers a couple of years ago, just after the Jen thing, I think the feeling was I was Troubled rather than Bad. Anyway, shoplifting isnt murder, is it? Everyone goes through a shoplifting phase, dont they?
By which I mean proper shoplifting, boosting Winona-style, bags and clothes and shit, not pens and sweets. It es just after ponies and boy bands, and right before spliff and sex. But I could tell that it was different this time, and that was when I started to think things through. Yeah, yeah, I know. But better late than never, eh? What I thought was this: if it was going to be all over the papers, it was better for Mum and Dad to think that Id slept with Martin than to know the real reason we were together. The real reason would kill them. Maybe literally. Which would make me the only family member left alive, possibly, and even Im making up my mind which way to go. So if the papers had got hold of the wrong end of the stick, it wouldnt be such a bad thing. Obviously it would be pretty humiliating at college, everyohinking Id fucked the sleaziest man in Britain, but it would be for