Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
The next couple of months were intense. Welcome to the Samantha 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 be my friend.
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, and small 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.’
We even started running together. Usually, I’d begrudge having to run for a bus, but it meant I got to spend an hour before work with my amazing new friend and keep fit at the same time. It also meant I wasn’t as desperately lonely.
Sometimes, we’d meet during my lunch hour at work, grab sandwiches and sushi and still lemonade from Pret and eat them under our favourite tree in the park, a comfortable silence passing between us as we people-watched the world go by – it was a glorious summer that year, days of endless sunshine just rolling into the next.
That’s how it felt, being with Sam, like I was standing in eternal sunlight whenever I was around her, and as a result, I began to view the world through a different lens.
Slowly, I was starting to build the confidence that I lacked and that had held me back for so long. I felt so grateful to have met her.
There was one particular night when we got dressed up and she doused me in Baccarat Rouge perfume – her ridiculously expensive signature scent.
We spent the entire evening flirting outrageously with these three slick city traders in some achingly hip and expensive hotel bar in the city – something I would never have had the guts to even think of doing before I met her.
I gasped out loud when they footed our champagne bill for the night – it was topping ￡500!
‘See,’ – she’d nudged me, giggling as we’d made a hasty retreat, trotting off in our heels – ‘I told you that stuff is magic, didn’t I?’
But even after a few intense weeks of seeing her practically every day, and as heavily invested in our friendship as I had become in that short time, I knew very little about Samantha Valentine.
She was an open book and an enigma at the same time – a complete paradox, looking back on it.
Intermittently, I would ask her questions about family and life, just stuff that would come up in general conversation, only she was masterful in the way she could divert and deflect any topic, quickly turning the spotlight back on to you without you even being aware she was doing it.
She often used humour to distract – she would sometimes randomly just burst into song, or start speaking in a daft accent.
Ah yes, accents – Sam was brilliant at them, exceptional even, better than most trained actors on the telly.
She could mimic anyone from any place or region or country, even, and sound like she was born and bred there.
I’d be in fits of laughter, stunned, and so impressed at how effortlessly she could seamlessly slide from Cockney to Geordie to Scouse to Scottish to Spanish to South African – like it was second nature.
‘You’re ridiculously talented!’ I’d tell her, seriously. ‘Honestly, you should have your own TV show!’
Now, of course, I see it for what it really was – diversion tactics.
I see everything now. In retrospect, by showcasing her incredible interchangeable, chameleon-esque talents in a bid to distract me from asking questions, Sam was also showing me who she really was – someone who could transform into anyone at the flick of a switch, a pretender, a fake.
Only I didn’t identify it back then. I didn’t recognise the red flags, even though they were waving at me like a Soviet Union protest march.
I didn’t even know what to look out for.
I certainly couldn’t have had any idea I might be in any danger.
Also, and perhaps importantly, Samantha was a woman, and I had learned, been taught even, to mostly be wary of men – they were the true enemy, not beautiful, funny, kind, intelligent women, like her.
One thing I did know about Sam, however, was that her mum now lived in Perth, Australia – ‘She remarried some alcoholic hillbilly,’ or so Sam told me – and they weren’t particularly close.
I clearly remember her telling me that because looking back, it had felt somehow different when she’d said it, like on a subconscious level I instinctively knew she was telling me the truth, perhaps the only time, as it turned out.
‘She’s also an alcoholic.’ She sighed. ‘We don’t really communicate much anymore. Sometimes I think I would like to pick up the phone, but I already know how that conversation would go… What do you think you would say to your mum now, Erin, if you could have one last conversation with her?’
I’d never had a friend like Samantha before.
The time and attention she gave me during those few months was heady and seductive.
Like the drugs I was doing my best to steer clear of, I lapped it up like the starving, lonely addict that I was.
But I knew something wasn’t quite right. Little things didn’t add up.