About my friend Sam

Who always keeps a room for me

(TW suicidal ideation)

Like all the best school friends, Sam and I were thrown together by proximity. Our families had both moved to Milton Keynes at the same time and we started our new school on the same day. It was terrifying. We were two awkward eleven-year-olds, very obvious outsiders from small towns, with our weird accents (mine Yorkshire, hers Gloucestershire) and we clung to each other, despite everything else about us being almost entirely different. Sam was athletic (she was in the school swim team), stylish (she wore actual branded clothes) and fancied by all the boys. I was chubby, my clothes were all off the market, and I was too-clever-for-my-own-good (and definitely NOT fancied by all the boys).

We never would have become friends had we met now, but as it was, our lives became inextricably intertwined. We were constantly being separated by well-meaning teachers at school - to prevent us from chatting and giggling our way through every lesson - only to weave our way back to each other and it’s the same in our adult lives. Circumstance and choices have sometimes made us drift away for periods of time, but we always find our way back to each other. The only rule of our friendship is that Sam keeps a bedroom for me in case everything in my more chaotic life goes spectacularly badly (which it has done more than once). Every time I’ve needed a place to stay, Sam has provided it. Her house has become my sanctuary.

Forty-odd years of friendship in, we are more like sisters now. We know what buttons to press and take the piss out of each other relentlessly. Love is always there, but often unspoken. It’s hidden in knowing exactly what will make the other person laugh (Sam is one of the funniest people I know), understanding what their response will be to what’s happening in the world, and messaging each other in the kind of shorthand that comes from this many years of friendship. That’s why when I got this what’s app from Sam earlier this week, it felt really significant.

You see about 7 years ago I was sick. Very sick. I was experiencing a deep depression that wouldn’t lift. I had been signed off from my job for months and was existing in a fog. I felt like a ghost, haunting my own head. The only thing I really remember about that time is the deal I did with God/the universe that if things hadn’t got better in six months, I would be ‘allowed’ to take my own life. There are very few other memories. In the absence of feeling they don’t get imprinted in the same way.

But things did get just better enough for me to change my mind (the reasons for that are for another day) and as I slowly began to crawl out of the darkness, it became clear that my life needed to change in some drastic ways. In fact, I needed to change EVERYTHING. I called Sam one November day in 2016 and asked her if I could come and stay ‘one more time,’ then put my entire life into storage and moved in with my best and oldest friend for the next two years while I slowly put myself back together and began to build a new life. The comfort and familiarity of her presence, the kindness of allowing me the space to do this, and the trust that I would get better were all part of what healed me, and it’s something I will be forever grateful for.

I left Sam’s house again five years ago now and moved to rural Somerset. I started writing. I got a dog. I became a part-time bookseller, and this year, my first novel was published. Sam was at the launch and is in the acknowledgements. She was also the person I stayed with when my mum got sick a couple of years ago, then again when my dad died, which also happened this year (they all live near each other). It’s no coincidence that one of the main themes of The List of Suspicious Things is female friendship. I feel like I’ve been given a second (third? Fourth?) chance at life, but throughout it all Sam has held my hand and kept a room ready. Just in case.