Oscar: An Accident Waiting to Happen (6 page)

If Oscar was looking for the perfect, loyal and giving partner, in so many ways Sammy ticked all of the boxes. Unlike his first girlfriend Vicky, who according to Oscar challenged him and pursued her own path despite his protests, Sammy met Oscar at a time when she did not as yet have a clear agenda about her future and was happy to watch him training, and to go to the gym with him, and travel on the underground public train system, the Gautrain, to visit him. Sammy was that dream girlfriend – beautiful, loving, supportive.

For the most part she was able to slot into Oscar’s needs perfectly; she was quiet, undemanding, demure and gentle, obedient when he needed her to be, always there for him, helping him take his prosthetics on and off, a girlfriend who never pressed the Oscar Danger Button.

But as time went on, like Vicky, Sammy grew up and developed more of a sense of herself. Being both bright and stubborn, she began to develop her own agenda, her own life. Once she began to put all the pieces together of what she experienced to be the recurrent incidents of duplicity and disrespect, she began to withdraw, put up boundaries, and grow increasingly intolerant of Oscar.

When she started to pull away, get a job, a life and new friendships, it seemed like Oscar became more and more threatened, critical and controlling of Sam. When she eventually tried to end the relationship, Oscar grew obsessive, desperate and emotional. It felt as if we were all drawn into his world and manipulated to act solely on his behalf.

Like the responses to Vicky that he describes in
Blade Runner
, when she formed friendships at university, outside of her relationship with him, Oscar felt hugely compromised; when Sam began to get work that threatened to take her away from him, make
her more independent and shift her focus off his needs, he freaked out. While he was travelling he would often insist that Sammy Skyped him in her pyjamas, to show him she wasn’t planning to go out anywhere.

It worried me a lot but it was hard to criticise Oscar to Sammy, especially in the early days as she was a young girl, a teenager who was deeply in love. She was also someone who always saw the good in people, so it was very painful for her to come to terms with the real, darker truth about Oscar. She loved Oscar unreservedly and found it almost impossible to completely shut the door on him, constantly forgiving him and continuing to be taken in by his promises to change, and being wounded by his subsequent failures to do so.

The one thing though, over time, that became too obvious to ignore, was evidence that Oscar was two-timing her with other women.

There was an occasion when I happened to spend some time with Jenna’s aunt, who I had been at school with, and somehow Oscar’s name came up. Jenna’s aunt seemed surprised, almost shocked, when I mentioned that Sam was dating Oscar. I said, yes, they are actually at our house right now. She looked confused and then said perhaps Jenna hadn’t told her that they had broken up. My suspicions were suddenly on high alert. Later that day when I got home Oscar was there and I made a point of “casually” telling him that I had run into an old school acquaintance. I kept saying the surname Edkins… repeating it a number of times. I even sat next to him on the couch and showed him pictures. Oscar didn’t blink an eye, he didn’t show a single sign of recognition or discomfort.

From then on I had very strong suspicions around his infidelity.

I think one of the possible signs of evidence of cheating in a relationship is when someone misses appointments or dates or is late without any good reason. I can’t count the number of times he was supposed to pick Sam up for dinner or go out somewhere when he didn’t pitch up, without as much as a phone call or an apology. I hated seeing her like that, all dressed up and waiting
and waiting for hours, then deflated and deeply disappointed as time ticked by. That really infuriated me. My daughter deserved so much more.

After a while, with all the broken promises, the hours spent waiting, you stop trusting the person, and more than that, you stop believing in normal things, you start doubting yourself, you lose both your faith in others and your self-esteem.

Over time all your trust in others is eaten away…

I have often wondered what caused Oscar to be like this: incapable of being transparent and unable to commit to people who loved and cared about him. Perhaps the early and shocking loss of his mom shook him so badly that he was too terrified to connect and bond with someone in case they let him down, or went away or, even worse, died… Maybe his trust in life and love was broken so badly that it became impossible for him to form healthy and lasting bonds with women. Maybe as soon as he felt safe and in love, he had to find a backup or a replacement in case the one he loved disappeared or let him down.

He could not seem to commit to anything besides his running and racing because that was the one thing that he had completely in his control.

Looking back I am always amazed with what ease he could look us all in the eye and claim undying love for Sammy, while doing the same with at least one other woman at the same time. This, of course, made me wonder whether many of the things he had told us were true.

Samantha Taylor and Oscar Pistorius, Seychelles, September 2012.

Samantha Taylor Seychelles, September 2012.

Somerset West, sunset.

Samantha and Oscar, Seychelles, September 2012.

Oscar on cheetah shoot with
Daily Mail,
Pretoria, 2012.

Samantha with cheetah, Farm Inn Wildlife Sanctuary, Pretoria, 2012.

Henry Taylor and Oscar, Dainfern Valley, November 2011.

Samantha, Oscar and Greg, beach in Strand, 2012.

Samantha and Oscar, Samantha’s 18th birthday, Dainfern Valley, November 2011.