My Thoughts Exactly: Confessions of a Scarlet Widow

He had a unique, ageless quality about him: he could blend into any social group, mix with children, parents or grandparents and instantly be accepted into their midst.

Freud would classify that as being schizophrenic, but I’m not really sure.  Science wasn’t my forte.

He was a unique contradiction: with a youthful sense of humour, energy and optimism, yet the wisdom and compassion of someone way beyond his years.

Humour rhymes with tumour.  Coincidence?

On the first night I met him he was drunk.

Didn’t I say that like 3 minutes ago?

I was working as a barmaid in his local and one night, propping up the beer taps, he beckoned me over, leant across the bar and whispered: ‘Amy, you’re the most beautiful girl in Byron Bay. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. If you were my girlfriend I’d treat you like a princess every day.’

Two words: beer goggles.

‘No girl wants to date a drunk,’ I spat back.

No man wants to marry a whore.  There, you’re even.

It’s not quite the fairytale start you’d imagine for two strangers who were engaged nine weeks later.

Are you kidding me?  Who wouldn’t want to meet the man of their dreams in a bar?  It’s a great story for the kids.  Oh wait, you never had any, from this guy at least.  My bad.

He returned the next night, and six more after that, each time repeating the promise.

I bet he’s regretting that now as he rolls over in his grave.

He gave up alcohol. I didn’t notice at first, but then night after night he’d come into the bar and nurse a glass of lemonade, to much ribbing from his friends.

Are you sure it wasn’t spiked with vodka?  Lemonade and vodka is quite tasty.

Eoghan intrigued me. I knew he was attracted to me, but why then did he never try to kiss me?

Fact: guys are stupid.  And he was sober.

He’d stay in the bar until the end of my shift, simply kiss me on the cheek, and bid me goodnight, but then the next morning would knock on my door on the dot of seven, to ask if I’d like to go surfing, or to drop in a punnet of strawberries or a bag of warm muffins for my roommates and me to have for our breakfast.

If a guy knocked on my door at 7am, he’d be missing his balls by quarter to eight.  And what the fruit is a punnet of strawberries?

I’d never met anyone quite like him. It was New Year’s Eve, at one minute to midnight, before Eoghan actually kissed me. ‘I won’t let anything hurt you. I want to take care of you,’ he said. And at last, I felt safe.

According to Wikipedia ‘punnet’ is a small basket for displaying and collecting fruits or flowers.

Three weeks later Eoghan proposed, in his a typical fashion: over a plate of beans on toast, as we sat cross-legged in the camper van I’d bought that week, pulling a piece of looped coral from his pocket and offering it as a ring.

Why do I hear banjos playing when I read that?

‘Will you marry me, Amy?’ he asked, raising one eyebrow. Of course, I said yes - there was no other answer. Life was so simple back then.

Actually, you could have said ‘no’.

April 2007 and we’re back in Dublin, Eoghan’s home town. It’s a warm spring morning. He crosses the garden towards me: ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ he says, but his tone betrays him.

I can read that little snippet 10 times and it still doesn’t make sense.  Do you have an editor?  If so, fire them immediately!

I can instantly see he is scared: ‘It’s just, when I woke up this morning, the sight in my right eye was blurred.’

I wonder if he tried rubbing it or treating it with eye drops.  That’s what I would have done.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Eoghan had been diagnosed with cancer just a month after we returned home from Australia. He’s been receiving chemotherapy for six months for the melanoma and he’s overreacting.

You’re right I always remain calm when vision out of my eye is blurred.

‘That could be nothing,’ I tell him. ‘It’s probably just an eye infection. It’ll be better in a day or two.’

You’ve probably had an eye infection or two in your day, right?  I get the vibe that you like it in your face.  Am I right?

A month later as Eoghan is receiving radiotherapy on his brain tumour, I’m called into the office of the doctor who tells me that he has about two months to live. It is an approximation, of course, but his estimate proves to be terrifyingly accurate, almost to the day.

He should add ‘psychic’ to his business card.

‘The human brain can only take one series of radiotherapy in a lifetime,’ the consultant explains. ‘We’ve tried that, but the tumours have been unresponsive, and it appears from Eoghan’s side-effects - his loss of balance, the blurring in his right eye - that the tumours are expanding and the pressure on his brain is increasing.

Under pressure!

‘I’m sorry, Amy. None of us wanted it to come to this.’

Except the Grim Reaper.

‘Is there any chance?’ I ask. ‘No, Amy, not now.’ I try to inhale, but my chest can’t suck in any air.

That’s a first for you isn’t it?

The doctor is still talking, and I wonder what on earth there can be to say.

Just open your mouth and say ‘Ahhh’ and everything will be ok.  You’re a pro, remember?

‘I’m telling you this because I can’t let you plan a wedding for next year,’ he says. He pauses, and the silence is so loud it pierces my eardrums: ‘Eoghan won’t be here,’ he finishes.

Does Eoghan know that?