JESS

When Martin pulled me outside, I did that thing where you decide to become a different person. It's something I could do whenever I felt like it. Doesn't everybody, when they feel themselves getting out of control? You know: you say to yourself, OK, I'm a booky person, so then you go and get some books from the library and carry them around for a while. Or, OK, I'm a druggy person, and smoke a lot of weed. Whatever. And it makes you feel different. If you borrow someone else's clothes or their interests or their words, what they say, then it can give you a bit of a rest from yourself, I find.

It was time to feel different. I don't know why I said that stuff to Maureen; I don't know why I say half the things I say. I knew I'd overstepped the mark, but I couldn't stop myself. I get angry, and when it starts it's like being sick. I puke and puke over someone and I can't stop until I'm empty. I'm glad Martin pulled me outside. I needed stopping. I need stopping a lot. So I told myself that from that point on I was going to be more a person out of the olden days kind of thing. I swore not to swear, ha ha, or to spit; I swore not to ask harmless old ladies who are clearly more or less virgins whether they shagged doggy style.

Martin went spare at me, told me I was a bitch, and an idiot, and asked me what Maureen had ever done to me. And I just said, Yes, sir, and, No, sir, and, Very sorry, sir, and I looked at the pavement, not at him, just to show him I really was sorry. And then I curtsied, which I thought was a nice touch. And he said, What the fuck's this, now? What's the yes sir no sir business? So I told him that I was going to stop being me, and that no one would ever see the old me again, and he didn't know what to say to that. I didn't want them to get sick of me. People do get sick of me, I've noticed. Chas got sick of me, for example. And I really need that not to happen any more, otherwise I'll be left with nobody. With Chas, I think everything was just too much............