Eminent Co-Stars

By Harriet Corke

 There are conflicting accounts of how I met my best friend, but mine is the right one. (She has a terrible memory.) It was her first day at nursery, and I was chosen to be her partner on a group outing. As we lined up at the crossing, I grabbed her hand. In a second she had deftly freed herself from me, and walked across the road unaided (and unsafely). 

Ironically, we grew up to be so close that someone once asked, “Are you two twins, or you just stuck together?” Even more ironically, she grew up to be a stickler for road safety and still chastises me about my unsafe road-crossing practices. 

Rebecca never questioned why I was the way I was. Every day we got wrapped up in some sort of game in which there was always equal participation. Everything flowed as freely and easily as the chemicals between test tubes in her child-friendly chemistry set. Even when we created a suspicious green substance, nothing seemed out of hand. We just laughed, panicked a little, and flushed it down the toilet. 

My friendship with Rebecca is the purest form of love that I have ever known. It has never waivered, or changed, even when the exchanges between us were practically non-existent. It gave me my first hope that my life wouldn’t be pure loneliness. 

As a child with additional needs, your life is spent being hounded by a succession of adults who think they will be the one to change your life. To this end, changing your life means changing you: fitting you into the mold of acceptable normality, ensuring you are not difficult or disturbing or afflicted by oddness. My friendship with Rebecca was considered odd. It was unexplainable, and just a little co-dependent. At the end of our reception year, we were separated in the hopes we would make new friends. It seemed to me to be an impossible task. Rebecca was the only one who understood me. What if she was the only one who ever would? 

My first day in my new classroom. I sat, uncomfortable and confused, on the scratchy carpet. I turned to see who was sitting next to me. Instinctively, I smiled at her. She smiled back and, as if by magic, we became friends. 

Jamie was very different from Rebecca and I. She was confident and exuded an aura of brightness. When I think of our six-year-old selves I think of her multicoloured hair bands and bright, mischievous smile. She knew things I didn’t. 

As it turned out, she knew more things than most people. She, at eight years old, was the one to crack the code. She was the one who persuaded me to speak. 

 We were playing at her house one Saturday when she came up with an idea for a new game. 

“I’m going to pretend to be you. You’re going to pretend to be me. And then we’re going to go downstairs and talk to my mum.” 

We got into character and went downstairs. 

“Hello, I’m Harriet,” she whispered. 

“Hello, I’m Jamie,” I said. 

My greatest performance to date. 

Contrary to what we believe, the violent imposition of reality does not always lead to a

“wake-up call” of some kind. Figures of authority tried to change me, but it was my friends who really did. They cared for me. My breakthroughs were real and joyful - and they were mine, not events to be co-opted by those who claimed to cause them.

I am extremely lucky to have found friends in every corner of my life. My first friendships with these two extraordinary people are the reason I had the courage to seek them. If I hadn’t found kindness or acceptance, I would never have been able to grow. And so those simple days of playing silently with a friend mean so much to that little mute girl inside me. They still catch her unawares, catching her breath and making her say to herself