For Victor

It wasn’t the sight of Ancient Dame Edna Everage chewing her acerbic way through Micky Flanagan’s crackling.

It wasn’t the sublime James Corden’s rousing speech as an inspirational Smithy.

It wasn’t Jack Whitehall’s turn as Jonathan Ross’s much funnier son.

It definitely wasn’t the painful sight of Davina McCall and an eager John Bishop, hopping around like a child waiting for sweeties, both dangling the vile carrot of a sponsored snog in front of an audience cringing with apprehension. (She’s known as “Shut up Davina” in our house. As soon as she appears on screen, ruining my view of Ashley on Got to Dance, I yell those words at the screen.)

It was one film, of a baby called Victor, who had been rushed to hospital by his desperate parents. They knew they were watching him die in front of their eyes. We were feverishly hoping that the tone of the voiceover would change, the uplifting music would start, his parent’s faces would flood with relief, and a healthier, smiling Victor would be shown to us as he got the blood he needed and grabbed his life back. But that wasn’t what happened.

These simple and devastating words appeared instead:

Victor died at 10pm.

Tears streamed down my face. Each one of us in the room felt the senseless, unfair, devastating loss of that little boy who had only ever known hunger and suffering. It was so stark. So simple. So wrong.

I confess I had been watching Comic Relief with cynical eyes. The sight of millionaires demanding money from us is something I find hard to swallow sometimes, especially when they’re flogging something, a new show, a new single. They get something out of it I thought, even if they’re giving their time for free. During Peter Kay’s sitdownathon he had even kissed a cardboard cut-out of Lenny Henry which clearly demonstrated that he was kipping in the budget hotel that Lenny has put his face to. Is there any such thing as a truly selfless act?

Many viewers may have been feeling a bit of “compassion fatigue”, when so many people are struggling these days. When faced with rich celebrities asking for more it can be easy to switch off. But I looked around me, at my home, my healthy children that aren’t dying for want of a meal or a mosquito net, safe in the knowledge that there’s food in the cupboards and fridge and there will be tomorrow, that there’s water in the taps that won’t kill me.

Victor’s parents, and millions of other parents, have lost their children through famine, poverty and preventable disease. Many more will. Comic Relief, Sport Relief, Children in Need, all of those telethons staffed by gossip mag fodder – they may make some of us want to throw our slippers at the screen but those devastating films that show us the truth of it do still remind us of the horror of life, and death, that others suffer everyday.

Breaking up with a friend

Just over a year ago, a person who I thought was one of my best friends betrayed me horribly. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say it escalated from her doing something really wrong to me to her blackmailing and threatening me. 

It took me a long time to get over it. There was definitely a grieving process; denial "How could she do this to me? It will blow over", to anger, "How could the bitch do that to me, after all I did for her", to, eventually, acceptance "She was always crazy, I'm better off without her". 

In fact, the anger I felt towards her only left me a few months ago - I had stopped having those conversations you have in your head, in case you ever bump into them again, had stopped fuming at the injustice of it all. But although it was out of my conscious mind, it was still burrowed deep in my subconscious, like an evil stinking worm.

I would have horrific and violent dreams about her, I’d scream at her until my head exploded. It was pretty screwed up. That’s gone now though and as the anger and hurt faded, reflection took their place.

As I thought back on our friendship, I realised that I had always made excuses for her, because I thought she was vulnerable. She had gone through a terrible break-up with her partner and I was the one who propped her up, the one who brought her back into the world, the one who stuck by her and listened when everyone else had given up. She’d even asked me to have her children for her if anything happened to her. So when she turned on me, it had really hurt.

But there were things she had done that I realised had always been totally unacceptable, but I’d let her get away with them, because I accepted that she was a bit unstable, a bit vulnerable. She had no filter on what she said, and to whom. Including me. 

I thought about all the parties I’d invited her to, when I’d had to warn other friends who had not met her yet about her. She’d sit down and start raving on to people she’d never met before about the size of her latest man’s penis, or how she could barely walk that day because of what she’d been doing the night before. This would be played out a kid’s party. That is no joke. She did it in front of my mum once, who practically faints at the mention of the word S.E.X. It was awful, I had to leave the room, when I should have stopped her there and then.

She though everyone fancied her, man, woman, whatever. 17 or 70, it didn’t matter, everyone was after her. It was quite funny until she came to me and said, 1) My boyfriend had been flirting with her, 2) My dad had been flirting with her at school pick-up. It makes me feel sick even thinking about it now, not because it was true, but because I know for a fact she was deluded. I won’t say what they said when I told them, but she should have been under no illusion. I should have stopped her there and then.

She badgered friends of mine with long texts about her sexploits. She’d talk loudly and derogatorily about her ex in front of her teenage son while his face burned.

As I reflected on all this, I thought “What the hell have I been doing? I should have stopped all this a long time ago”. But when she was being a good friend, she had been the kindest, loveliest person, which is why I probably stuck it out. I thought I was the stronger one, so I laughed off her weirdness, but when she turned on me so quickly, the scales fell from my eyes.

And with that falling away, I also realised that during the years of our friendship, from time to time, I’d had to take a break from her. To withdraw because her behaviour, frankly, did my head in. Then I could come back to the friendship refreshed. She never really noticed because she was so self-obsessed; if I wasn’t around, she’d just talk to a stranger at the school gate about her latest conquest.

So I’ve let it go now. It doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t eat me up with anger. I have wonderful friends and I’ll stick with them. With the people who support me, that I support, and we have an equal love and respect for each other, not some dangerously balanced minefield of a friendship.

I should have stopped her then, but it’s stopped now, and she was the one who brought it about. As with all bad experiences, now I’m out the other side I’m grateful for what it’s taught me.