Oscar: An Accident Waiting to Happen is the inside story of ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor’s tumultuous romantic relationship with the athlete. Told through the eyes of Sam’s mother, Patricia Taylor, it tracks the heady days of young romance when 24-year-old Pistorius met her 17-year-old daughter, Sam, and became part of the family’s close circle. The next two-and-a-half years would be a roller-coaster ride of extreme highs and dangerous lows as Pistorius’s growing international celebrity, emotional fragility, broken promises and recklessness consumed the Taylor family. This is an extract from the book.
The next day was the actual day of Greg’s 16th birthday. I got up early and asked everyone to sign the card. I must say I did find it quite odd that he hadn’t bought Greg a present, not even a token gift or a card or anything. I had begun noticing this side of Oscar.
Despite being incredibly well off – he was earning millions a year at this stage – he found it very hard to give. He seemed to hold on to everything. He was always saying how much richer everyone else was than he was.
The day before, for instance, while we were driving to the wine tasting, Oscar had begun talking about all the Nike shoes he had – he used to get in the region of R100 000 ($10 000) worth of free sponsored Nike goods every month – whatever he wanted, he could get.
So as he was driving he jokingly said that he wanted to ask Nike to give him a pair of shoes in every age from baby size to adult, so that when he had kids one day, he would have a pair for each milestone. We all laughed and enjoyed the story, but there was an awkwardness left hanging in the air after he finished.
He always used to say to Sam that she should choose a pair of Nikes, and he would get them for her, but in all the time they were together he never produced them… I found it strange that he didn’t seem to have any recollection of his promise as he told us the story of Nikes and his future children. Sam, who was studying for her marketing degree and working part time for me, wasn’t earning much money, but always gave him presents – beautiful Christmas and birthday presents – whereas he almost never gave her anything, not even a Christmas card. It was very strange that he couldn’t even give a token of his good wishes.
It’s not that Sam expected it, but she was over the moon when he did give her a bunch of flowers on Valentine’s Day.
He would often say things like: “I’m shopping for your Christmas present” or “I am going to get you this or that”. There were always promises, but then nothing would come of them.
I was often amazed that he would come visit or stay at our house and never bring a thing, not a slab of chocolate, or a bottle of wine, as most people would, when visiting. It just never seemed to enter his head.
He didn’t seem able to think beyond his own needs. But once, when we were all out with friends of his and I took out my purse to pay, his friend stopped me, saying Oscar would never allow me to pay, as he always took care of the bill.
I noticed then that whenever there were friends of his out with us, he always paid the bill graciously.
I must say he was generous to his brother and sister – he bought Aimee a car, he often gave to charity and he gave freely to people like car guards and the homeless.
But over time I got to witness something in Oscar that just couldn’t or wouldn’t allow himself to give, and I don’t only mean material things, I mean giving from the heart, from a space within. It seemed to stem from a much broader, much deeper, much sadder place…
I think it had a lot to do with him feeling isolated, like a poor neglected little boy who had no real family. It was as though he felt deprived on a very core level and as a result it felt to me like he couldn’t relate to the emotional needs of those around him. In fact, when he was around our family, among people who found it easy to give and take, I think sometimes it brought out the worst in him.
There were times that he appeared to me to almost regress into a dark and semi-infantile space after spending time with us, like during that weekend of Greg’s 16th birthday.
Greg had also invited Ashley, a good friend, who flew in from Johannesburg for the celebrations, and Greg had made a plan to go ten-pin bowling. We Googled places and found what sounded like a cool alley at Canal Walk in Cape Town.
As usual, my older son Ty, like a typical varsity student, had a Sunday-morning hangover and was running late, so things started a bit slowly. Oscar began to get antsy. Gone was his laid-back, relaxed vibe from the previous day. He seemed anxious and kept saying we needed to get moving.
When Oscar was in a good mood, he was great, but as soon as he got into a foul one, it was hard not to be affected by it. I always felt very uncomfortable when his moods switched from good to bad.
We were still getting ready when Oscar started to become restless, pacing, getting up, looking for things in his bags, then sitting down again. Eventually I couldn’t take the tension and told Sam, Oscar and Alex to go ahead to Canal Walk and we would meet them there once Ty arrived. They went ahead and once my oldest son got to the house, we were ready to join Sam, Oscar and Alex, who were having breakfast at Mugg & Bean.
They had just finished breakfast when we arrived. We sat down to order and, as we did, Oscar immediately wanted to get up and do something else. I kept quiet, trying not to get tense, since it was Greg’s birthday.
Oscar, Alex and Sam decided to go and see what the ten-pin bowling looked like. Off they went while we finished our breakfast and waited for Greg’s friend Ashley to join us.
As we were finishing, Sam phoned and said, “Mom, the tenpin bowling here isn’t nice, I don’t think we should play.”
Well, that really infuriated me, since the ten-pin bowling was Greg’s special request; it had nothing to do with whether Oscar liked it or not. But Sammy kept insisting that the ten-pin bowling really wasn’t “very nice”. I assumed she was being prompted by Oscar in the background.
So we paid the bill and joined them. Even though we had come all the way into town because Greg had wanted to play, eventually they convinced all of us that the ten-pin bowling was a bad idea. So we returned to our cars, still unsure of what we should do next.
I could see my birthday son was disappointed.
It was becoming obvious that this day was no longer about Greg, it was becoming all about Oscar.
Now, with our plans in pieces, everyone got on their phones, trying to decide what to do. Oscar suddenly said he wanted to go back home, with the usual “I can’t handle being seen in public” line. Then Sammy and Oscar convinced everyone to go to Caprice in Camps Bay for cocktails. It was lunch time by now, that’s how much time we had wasted, just milling around doing nothing.
The weather wasn’t great, it was overcast and windy, perfect ten-pin bowling weather, but not really suitable for Camps Bay cocktails. We all arrived at Caprice and everyone ordered drinks.
I felt very uncomfortable – it was my 16-year-old son’s birthday, so going for cocktails was not actually appropriate. Here he had his young friend with him, and they were wanting to have fun, go bowling, not spend hours sipping on adult cocktails.
At that point, Oscar got on his two phones, SMSing, instant messaging, bbming and intently texting. He definitely seemed agitated, angry about something. It felt like something was up.
But he wasn’t divulging anything. I was acutely aware of how all of this was ruining what should have been Greg’s special day, and was very distressed.
With each text it seemed his mood was growing fouler. It was clear there was something amiss.
Later, I wondered who on earth he could have been having such intense communication with. I couldn’t help but feel suspicious. What was he hiding?
As the afternoon progressed, from initially being irritable and anxious, he now grew incredibly quiet and sullen. The atmosphere at the table was heavy from his mood.
I kept trying to keep the fun element going, for my son; I was all too aware that this day was being entirely spoiled by Oscar’s strange behaviour. What really struck me was how unaware he was of the uncomfortable atmosphere he was creating, of how inappropriate his behaviour was. What should have been a joyous occasion was now ruined.
Finally I asked him what was wrong.
* Oscar: An Accident Waiting to Happen, by Melinda Ferguson and Patricia Taylor, is published by MF Books at a recommended retail price of R195.
The Star