So Dad got straight on the phone and talked to his office and told them what I’d told him
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 I’d slept with Martin than to know the real reason we were together. The real reason would kill them. Which would make me the only family member left alive, possibly, and even I’m making up my mind which way to go. So if the papers had got hold of the wrong end of the stick, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Obviously it would be pretty humiliating at college, everyone thinking I’d fucked the sleaziest man in Britain, but it would be for the greater good, i.e. two alive parents.The thing was, even though I’d started to think things through, I didn’t think them through properly. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d just given it another two minutes before I’d opened my mouth, but I didn’t. I just went, Ad-ad. And he was like, oh, no. And I just looked at him and he goes, you’d better tell me everything, and I said, well, there isn’t much to tell really. I just went to this party and he was there and I had too much to drink and we went back to his place and that’s it. And he was like, that’s it, as in end of story? And I went, well, no, that’s it as in dot you don’t need to know the details. So he went, Jesus Christ, and he sat down in a chair.But here’s the thing: I didn’t need to say I’d slept with him, did I? I could have said we’d snagged, or he tried it on or anything at all like that, but I wasn’t quick enough. I was like, well if it’s a choice between suicide and sex; better going sex, but those didn’t have to be the choices. Sex was only a serving suggestion sort of thing, but you don’t have to do exactly what it says on the packet, do you? You can miss the garnish out, if you want, and that’s what I should have done. (‘Garnish’ - that’s a weird word, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever used it before.) But I didn’t, do me? And the other thing I should have done but didn’t: before I told him anything, I should have got Dad to find out what the story in the newspaper was. I just thought, Tabloids, sex… I don’t know what I thought, to tell you the truth. Not much, as usual.So Dad got straight on the phone and talked to his office and told them what I’d told him, and then when he’d finished, he said he was going out and I wasn’t to answer the phone or go anywhere or do anything. So I watched TV for a few minutes, and then I looked out the window to see if I could see that bloke, and I could, and he wasn’t on his own any more. And then Dad came back with a newspaper - he’d been out to get an early edition. He looked about ten years older than he had before he left. And he held up the paper for me to see, and the headline said, ‘MARTIN SHARP AND JUNIOR MINISTER’S DAUGHTER IN SUICIDE PACT’.That was the first time we knew anything about Jess’s background, and I have to say that my first reaction was that it was pretty fucking hilarious. I was in my local store, buying some smokes, and Jess and Martin were staring at me from the counter, and I read the headline and whooped. Which, seeing as the headline was about their supposed suicide pact, got me some strange looks.
