I didnt say it was my address, though, did I? There was a pause, while we both allowed the complete stupidity of this observation to float around.

A child, maybe?

She could hear in my voice that shed upset me, so she didnt try to make any more of it.

There was even like a cash reward. Maureen and I had prices on our heads, man! The information had clearly come from that asshole Chas; you could hear the whine in his voice right through the weird British tabloid prose.

But how about if thats an act? Only, the er, the wossname fits his description. The suspect.

So I went home, and I put the television on, and made a cup of tea, and I phoned the centre, and the two young fellas delivered Matty to the house, and I put him in front of the TV, and it all started again. It was hard to see how Id last another six weeks. I know we had an agreement, but I never thought Id see any of them again anyway. Oh, we exchanged telephone numbers and addresses and so forth. (Martin had to explain to me that if I didnt have a computer, then I wouldnt have an email address. I wasnt sure whether Id have one or not. I thought it might have come in one of those envelopes you throw away.) But I didnt think wed actually be using them.

Wood Green! He was all the way up in Wood Green! No. Yes. Sorry.

But heres the thing: I didnt need to say Id slept with him, did I? I could have said wed snogged, or he tried it on, or anything at all like that, but I wasnt quick enough. I was like, Well if its a choice between suicide and sex, better go sex, but those didnt have to be the choices. Sex was only a serving suggestion sort of thing, but you dont have to do exactly what it says on the packet, do you? You can miss the garnish out, if you want, and thats what I should have done. (Garnish - thats a weird word, isnt it? I dont think Ive ever used it before.) But I didnt, did I? And the other thing I should have done but didnt: 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 dont know what I thought, to tell you the truth. Not much, as usual.

JJ That was the first time we knew anything about Jesss 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.

And youre sure hes not putting the disability on? I even thought about this for half a second. Well, you do, dont you, when its the police? You want to make absolutely sure that youre telling the absolute truth, just in case you get into trouble later on.

I did. I was joking. Read my file. Acquaint yourself with recent events.

I cant think of anything, no.

Good point. They were professional, these people.

Oh. I could feel myself blushing at my own stupidity.

Have you seen the papers? No. I dont look at them.

Hello. Weve had reports that your son was causing trouble in the shopping centre on New Years Eve. Shoplifting and sniffing glue and mugging people and so on.

This is the Metropolitan Police.

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 newspapers seem to t九九藏書hink. And I was like, Newspapers?

Which bit have I got wrong? All of it. You pressed the wrong buzzer.

Listen, she said. Was there a reason you came down? What kind of reason? I dont know. Something that might cheer our readers up. Maybe, I dont know, you gave each other the will to go on.

So the whole sex confession bit had been a complete and utter fucking waste of time.

Im going to leave a card with my numbers on it, OK? Ring me when you feel ready to talk about this.

My agent is young, posh and green. I came out of prison to find that there had been a quote unquote reorganization at the agency, and Theo, who used to make the coffee for my previous agent, is now all that stands between me and professional oblivion. It was Theo who found me my current job at FeetUpTV!, the worlds worst cable channel. He has a degree in Comparative Religion, and hes a published poet. I suspect that he plays his football for Allboys United, if you get my drift, although thats neither here nor there. Hes at the chocolate teapot end of the competency scale.

Thats not true.

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.

And youre sure hes not a very good actor? Oh, positive. You see, hes too disabled to act.

So I was sort of enjoying myself, sitting in my flat, drinking coffee and smoking, taking pleasure from knowing that I was sort of famous and completely anonymous, all at the same time. And then the fucking buzzer went, and I jumped out of my skin.

Hes always skint. And Im always skint. If hed been anyone worth selling up the river, hed be halfway out to sea by now.

Well come to that, madam. Can you account for his whereabouts on New Years Eve? Were you with him? I felt a chill run through me then. The date hadnt registered at first.

Maybe Im being hard on myself, because I know there was a little more to it than that, but that was sure a part of it. Anyway, recognizing that I was all washed up had got me on to the front page of the newspaper, and maybe theres a lesson there somewhere.

Did Martin Sharp say anything that gave you a reason to live, for example? People would want to know, if he did.

Theyd got me. I didnt know whether to lie or not. Supposing someone from the home had taken him out and used him as a cover, sort of thing?

Im sure you must have had a reason.

Ah. I see.

I dont know about that.

Im just telling you so you know whats in the papers. Are you surprised? Well, you do swear a lot, for a politicians daughter.

Ive never had anyone from the television in my house. Or a politicians daughter.

I dont think I did.

She didnt say anything. I imagined her standing out there in the street, shaking her head sadly at my pathetic attempts. I vowed not to say another word until she went away.

Oh, hello, I said.

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?

But then when I read the story, it wasnt quite so funny. I didnt know anything about Jesss older sistrｅａd.９9csw•cｏｍer Jennifer. None of us did. She disappeared a few years ago, when Jess was fifteen and she was eighteen; shed borrowed her mothers car and they found it abandoned near a well-known suicide spot down on the coast. Jennifer had passed her test three days before, as if that had been the point of learning to drive. They never found a body. I dont know what that would have done to Jess - nothing good, I guess. And her old man… Jesus. Parents who only beget suicidal daughters are likely to end up feeling pretty dark about the whole child-raising scene.

So tidy up.

Why not? Because of Matty. Thats one of the reasons I was up on the roof.

Yes, Im still here.

What does that mean? We dont know. Anyway. Were going to have a crisis meeting.

Please dont. I havent tidied up.

Gosh.

Who is it? Is that JJ? A young womans voice.

Oh.

I tried to think if Martin had offered us any words of comfort she could use. Hed called Jess a fucking idiot, but that was more of a spirit-lifting rather than life-saving moment. And hed told us that a guest on his show had been married to someone whod been in a coma for twenty-five years, but that hadnt helped us out much, either.

Der. And it says Im the Junior Minister for Educations daughter.

The thing was, even though Id started to think things through, I didnt think them through properly. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if Id just given it another two minutes before Id opened my mouth, but I didnt. I just went, Da-ad. And he was like, Oh, no. And I just looked at him and he goes, Youd better tell me everything, and I said, Well, there isnt 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 thats it. And he was like, Thats it, as in end of story? And I went, Well, no, thats it as in dot dot dot you dont need to know the details. So he went, Jesus Christ, and he sat down in a chair.

We thought wed turned a corner. Its always very touching, his insistence on the first person plural. Ive heard them all: Since we came out of prison…, Since we had that spot of bother with the teenage girl…" If there was one cause for regret after a successful suicide attempt, it would be that Id never get to hear Theo say, Since we killed ourselves… Or, Since our funeral...

I cant go anywhere.

Were talking about the safety of people in the Wood Green shopping centre.

Dad pulled back the curtain to sneak a look, and there was someone out there. I wanted to go out and have a go at him, but Dad wouldnt let me; he said that theyd take a mad picture of me, and Id look stupid and regret it.

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.

Are you really sorry? Are you really really really f— sorry? I couldnt believe my ears. I knew the police used bad language, of course. But I thought it would come out more when they were under stress, with terrorists and such like, not on the phone to members of the public in the course of a routine inquiry. Unless, of course, she really was under stress. Could Matty, or whoever pushed him, have actually killed someone?

So well come to you.

Did I fuck him? No I did not! Thanks a bunch! Bloody hell! Martin Sharp! Eeeeuch! And so on九-九-藏-書 and so on until he got the idea.

Which, seeing as the headline was about their supposed suicide pact, got me some strange looks. An Education minister! Holy shit! Youve got to understand, this girl talked like shed been brought up by a penniless, junkie welfare mother who was younger than her. And she acted like education was a form of prostitution, something that only the weird or the desperate would resort to.

Ill tell you the honest truth here: I got off on the story a little. It was kind of gratifying, in an ironic way, reading about myself, and that makes sense if you think about it. See, one of the things that had brought me down was my inability to leave my mark on the world through my music - which is another way of saying that I was suicidal because I wasnt famous.

Why does it say that? Because I am.

And he held up the paper for me to see, and the headline said, MARTIN SHARP AND JUNIOR MINISTERS DAUGHTER IN SUICIDE PACT.

Who is? The four of us. Big reunion. Maybe in the place where we had breakfast.

Whats the description? I dont know why I said that. To be helpful, I suppose.

The four of you looked down over London and saw the beauty of the world. Anything like that? Anything that might inspire our readers? Was there anything inspirational in our quest to find Chas? If there was, I couldnt see it.

Were in them.

Maureen.

Maureen, Im not really a policewoman. Im Jess.

One of those young fellas, say? They looked nice enough, but you dont know, do you? Supposing they had gone shoplifting, and hidden something under Mattys blanket? Supposing they all went out drinking, and they took Matty with them, and they got into a fight, and they pushed the wheelchair hard towards someone they were fighting with? And the police saw him careering into someone, and they didnt know that he couldnt have pushed himself, so they thought he was joining in? And afterwards he was just playing dumb because he didnt want to get into trouble? Well, you could hurt someone, crashing into them with a wheelchair. You could break someones leg. And supposing… Actually, even in the middle of my little panic I couldnt really see how hed manage the glue sniffing. But even so! These were all the things that went through my mind. It was all guilt, I suppose. I hadnt been with him, and I should have been, and the reason I hadnt been with him was because I wanted to leave him for ever.

Between you and me? If you want.

Is any of this true? he said.

MARTIN I suppose it crossed my mind that my visit to Toppers House might be of interest to our friends in the tabloid press. I was on the front page of the paper for falling down drunk in the street, for Christs sake, and some would argue that attempting to fall off a high building is even more interesting than that. When Jess told Chas where wed met, I did wonder whether hed have the wit to sell the knowledge on, but as Chas seemed to me a particularly witless individual, I dismissed the fear as paranoia. If Id known that Jess was newsworthy in her own right, then I could have prepared myself.

Who is it? I wondered if I could have a few words with you? About the other night? How did you get this address? I understand you were one of the people with Jess Crichton and Martin Sharp on New Years Eve? When they tried to kill themselves? You understand wrong, maam. This was the first sentence from eith九-九-藏-書er of us that didnt have a question mark at the end. The low note at the end of mine was a relief, like a sneeze.

Oh, I wont be able to sort anything out for today.

I nearly ran out after her - I was, as we say, missing her already. I liked being the temporary center of her world. Shit, I liked being the temporary center of my own, because there hadnt been too much there recently, and there wasnt much there after shed gone, either.

Why were you going to jump off the top of a tower-block? It was purely whimsical.

And a woman reporter came round to JJs flat and asked him whether we came down for an inspirational reason.

Im afraid it couldnt have been my son, I said, like an eejit. He has a disability.

How do you know? Because you didnt deny you were JJ. And you asked how Id got this address.

Hed be a very good actor if he was.

By which I mean proper shoplifting, boosting Winona-style, bags and clothes and shit, not pens and sweets. It comes 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, everyone thinking Id fucked the sleaziest man in Britain, but it would be for the greater good, i.e. two alive parents.

And then, the next day, it became a whole lot less funny. There was another headline, and it read THERE WERE FOUR OF THEM!, and in the article underneath it there was a description of these two freaks that I eventually realized were supposed to be Maureen and me. And at the end of the article, there was an appeal for further information and a phone number.

Whos in them? We are. Well, Martin and I are in them by name. What a laugh, eh? What does it say? It says that me and Martin and two other mystery, you know, people had a suicide pact.

Im sure he was, madam. But were not talking about his safety, are we?

I met her up there. Her and a couple of others. We came back down again. And here I am, in the land of the living.

I wont put on any airs or graces. Well see you at five.

And he said it was undignified to do that, and in our position we had to rise above it all and ignore them. 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 course going on about it never changes anything, and I know hes right, really. If I wasnt in a position then the papers wouldnt be interested. 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, or got a steady boyfriend, thered be no interest. But if I went to bed with Martin Sharp, or threw myself off a roof, then there would be the opposite of no i九九藏書nterest. Thered be interest.

Yes, I believed you.

And that gave me three hours to sort everything out, put everything away. It does drive you a little bit mad, a life like mine, I think. You have to be a little mad to want to jump off the top of a building. You have to be a little mad to come down again. You have to be more than a little mad to put up with Matty, and the staying in all the time, and the loneliness. But I do think Im only a little mad. If I were really mad, I wouldnt have worried about the tidying up. And if I were really, properly mad, I wouldnt have minded what they found.

I was going to jump from the top of a tower-block.

I began to flush again. I didnt want them here.

So Dad got straight on the phone and talked to his office and told them what Id told him, and then when hed finished, he said he was going out and I wasnt 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 wasnt on his own any more.

You believed me, didnt you, you silly old bag.

He was perfectly safe.

We could come to you.

I wasnt with him, no. He was being looked after.

It was fucking Chas, of course, who phoned up the newspapers. Hed probably tried before, the little shit, but he never had much to go on then, when it was just me. The Jess Crichton/Martin Sharp combo, though… unresistable. How much do you think you get for something like that? A couple of hundred quid? More? To be honest, Id have done it if I were him.

And then Dad came back with a newspaper - hed been out to get an early edition. He looked about ten years older than he had before he left.

My agent called first thing, and read the story out to me - I only bother with the Telegraph at home now.

No, no. Ill think of something. When are you thinking of meeting up? Later on today.

Anyway. A couple of days later the phone rang, and this woman with a posh voice said, Is that Maureen? It is.

You had to give the guy a little credit, though, I guess. To me, the evening had consisted of four miserable people, failing dismally to do something they had set out to do - something that is not, lets be honest, real hard to achieve. But Chas had seen something else: hed seen that it was a story, something he might make a few bucks off of. OK, he must have known about Jesss dad, but, you know, props to the guy. He still needed to put it together.

Ill tell you Gods honest truth, even though itll make me sound as if I was feeling sorry for myself: I thought they might see each other, but theyd keep me out of it. I was too old for them, and too old-fashioned, with my shoes and all. Id had an interesting time going to parties and seeing all the strange people there, but it hadnt changed anything. I was still going back to pick Matty up, and I still had no life to live beyond the life I was already sick and tired of. You might be thinking, well, why isnt she angry? But of course I am angry. I dont know why I ever pretend Im not. The church had something to do with it, I suppose. And maybe my age, because we were taught not to grumble, werent we? But some days - most days - I want to scream and shout and break things and kill people. Oh, theres anger, right enough. You cant be stuck with a life like this one and not get angry.

We thought wrong.

Because I can never go anywhere.