‘It’s OK, darling.’ She starts to stroke my hair, gently tucks a piece behind my ear. ‘It’s OK, hun… come on now…’
I really mustn’t cry. It’s been such a brilliant evening and I don’t want to spoil it.
‘He turned and he saw me then, standing on the stairs. He said something like, “Go back to your room…” But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t doanything. I was literally paralysed by shockand fear, like I’d turned to concrete. So, I did nothing. I just stood there on the stairs and didnothing.’ I drop my chin. ‘I honestly don’t remember much after that, but I do remember the police coming, when they took Ray – and Mum – away. I remember the sing-song of the sirens as the ambulance pulled up outside. Ray Denis, that was his name, the man who killed my mum. He died three years into a life sentence for murder. He slashed his own wrists in his cell and bled to death. And so, that was that!’ I turn to her. ‘Do you want a top-up?’
She hasn’t taken her eyes off me the whole time I’ve been talking.
‘Do you know,’– she props herself up on one elbow – ‘that is just about the worst story I think I’ve ever heard. You must be one hell of a strong woman to have dealt with the trauma of such a terrible tragedy – you’re a true survivor, Erin, do you know that?’
I shake my head, scared to speak in case I dislodge the hard lump in the back of my throat. ‘The guilt, it has tormented me my whole life since. I know I should’ve stopped him, but I… I just stood there, frozen with fear. I should’ve protected her that night; she was my mum. I should have donesomething.’
‘You were thirteen years old, for God’s sake!’ she says. ‘You were just a child!Youwere the one who needed protecting! It wasn’t your fault, Erin, none of it.’ Her brow wrinkles. ‘Who was this Ray Denis piece of crap anyway?’
‘I think he was originally from Australia or New Zealand or somewhere. I think he was a truck driver, one of those long-distance ones. Sometimes he had to travel, and it would be peaceful then, just me and Mum, together.’
‘Did he have any family, any children of his own?’
I blow air through my lips.
‘I don’t know… maybe. I do remember playing with another little girl who came to visit a couple of times, but I could onlyhave been five or six at the time and I can’t remember any names. I think I heard them arguing about it once or twice maybe, though they argued abouteverything, or rather,hedid. Though I’m sure he could’ve lied about that too.’
‘What a vile excuse of a man,’ she spits, angrily. ‘I’m glad he’s dead. Oh, hun, how have you coped?’ She looks at me, her head tilted to the side, her green eyes wide and watery, and a little drunk.
‘Well,’ I sigh. ‘I haven’t really, that’s the truth. Actually, I had a breakdown last year.’ I may as well be honest and tell her everything, what have I got to lose? If it scares her off, then so be it. It means she isn’t ‘my tribe’, or whatever crap my therapist says. ‘I ended up in hospital for a few weeks. I really messed up my teens and twenties, you know, trying to deal with all the guilt, to come to terms with everything, and it all just finally came to a head. I couldn’t cope with the way I was feeling anymore…’
‘Oh, hun, whodidn’tmess up their teens and twenties?’ She rolls her eyes.
‘Yeah, well, I took far too many drugs, I drank too much…’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘And I repeat…’
I manage a smile. She’s being nice.
‘I thought I was coping, but I was just trying to bury it all, you know – bury my pain and sadness under alcohol and drugs and dead-end relationships with men I didn’t evenlike. Anyway,’ – I clap my thighs with my palms – ‘I’m thirty-four now. Time’s running out. I just need to get back on track, make my mum proud. Maybe this new job will be the start of that. Who knows, maybe I’ll meet the man of my dreams, get married and have a child of our own? That’s what I really want, if I’m honest, to have the family I was denied thanks to that evil bastard, Ray Denis.’
‘Yes!’ she says, jubilant. ‘You can doanythingyou want, Erin. Anything you put your mind to, just remember that – and I know that your mum would be proud of you. Look at you!You survived all of this on your own. I don’t know how you’ve done it. You’re a legend, you really are!’ She pulls me close into an embrace, begins stroking my hair. ‘You poor love. Why is it always the good people who seem to suffer?’
I shake my head but I don’t speak. If I dislodge the lump in my throat it will definitely open the floodgates.
‘You and I, we’re the survivors of this world, Erin.’ She continues to stroke my hair gently, like my mum used to when I was a child. It feels soothing. ‘I will look after you – we can look after each other. What do you say, hun, yeah? We’ll take ’em all on together!’
I nod and smile, though tears are now leaking from the corners of my eyes.
‘Together.’
TWENTY-TWO
The next couple of months were intense. Welcome to theSamantha Valentine Show, folks! Boom! There she was, in my life, this beautiful powerhouse of a woman – a super-cool, vibrant, funny, stylish and intelligent woman – who wanted to bemyfriend. And can I just say how much I desperately needed one of those at this point in my life. The transient, largely drug-fuelled ‘party pals’ that I made throughout my twenties could no longer feature if I was to make a proper go of it. Hang out with winners and you’re more likely to become one, right? It also works in reverse.
That summer, I made more memories with Sam than I’d ever made with any other girlfriend – or boyfriend, for that matter. I suppose, in some ways, it was a lot like a love affair – emotional, intense, exhilarating – just without the sex bit, although Sam would often flirt with me outrageously at times. She once told me, ‘If I was a heterosexual bloke and saw you in a club, I’d fancy the pants off you.’ I didn’t think she was gay, but I do think she enjoyed blurring the lines. And truthfully, I found the attention intoxicating.
Sam took me to art galleries and museums that I had never even heard of, let alone been to, quirky one-off pop-ups, andsmall fringe theatres showing avant-garde productions. She was passionate about all forms of culture – acting, music, fashion, books and film and art and photography and travel – all the things I loved and had an appetite for.
Sam loved life like I never knew it was possible to. She seized it by the throat and embraced it all unapologetically. Perhaps surprisingly, she wasn’t pretentious, or a snob, particularly. She was just as comfortable eating cross-legged in front of the telly in pyjamas with a KFC bucket of chicken as she was wearing Prada at a Michelin three-star celebrity chef’s restaurant. She could also be goofy and was often self-deprecating. Once, at a fun fair, I remember how she belted out the song ‘Life is a Rollercoaster’ at the top of her voice in an Irish accent while we were on the Big Dipper. She took her bra off as we did the loop-the-loop and threw it into the air as we screamed and laughed until I had snot bubbles coming out of my nose and couldn’t breathe.
Shopping expos together were always epic, spraying each other with expensive designer perfume in department stores until we went nose blind, testing lipsticks and bronzers on our hands and taking advantage of the free in-store makeovers. I remember she even cut and styled my hair for me once or twice, gave me this glamorous, big, bouncy blow-dry that honestly could’ve passed as a professional job. Sam had an eye for beautiful and unusual things and instinctively seemed to know what would suit me, like she already knew me better than I knew myself somehow.
‘You have such an incredible figure, Erin, and your hair… those eyes… you should be proud of being a beautiful, strong woman. Don’t hide your light under a bushel, hun. Be yourself.’
