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Oh goodness me, what to say? I could use the Irish giant’s name because it turned out not to be his real name at all (more on that later), but given there may be some GDPR issues around how the fake name was revealed, let’s call the Irish giant ID.
I met ID at a house party when I was training to be a midwife. I’d almost finished my first year of training and knew I was about to drop out. I felt like I was living a half life that belonged to someone else. I didn’t fit in. I watched on disconnected in lectures, on the wards, during home visits and knew it was all so utterly wrong for me. I hadn’t told my midwife friends yet. But I knew what I knew, so I was a little uneasy and a bit fatalistic. A dangerous combination.
The house party was on the same street I’d hung out with college mates during my A-Levels. Later, newly married with a babe in arms, I’d live at the end of that very same road. Funny how geography brings us back, back, back.
ID was standing on the stairs, beer in hand, towering above me, looking all big and broad. As I ascended and drew level with him I realised the stairs hadn’t created an optical illusion. He was, in fact, huge. A giant of a man. Handsome and tall and capable looking. There was something about him. Our eyes met, stared a little too long and after asking for my number and revealing an Irish accent, well, I was a goner.
Now you have to remember that life was about to turn on its head for me, so my choices were a little impulsive. ID had just finished his law degree and was due to move back to Northern Ireland. I knew I would be leaving the city too, though I had no idea where for. So I did what any lust-sick 19 year old might do and moved into his city centre flat until he left. I was working nights on delivery suite, so he fed me and looked after me in-between sleeping and nipping to Morrisons to buy new knickers and tights. There was no time for washing you see.
It sounds bonkers now just as it did then. I didn’t know ID at all and yet we easily slipped into a homely domestic routine. He cooked my dinner before I left for work; fried chicken, mashed potato and baked beans. Simple but perfect. He was kind and caring, but also huge and strong. I recall little of that week, other than the sensation of being wrapped in love and care.
I had fallen for ID in a big way and hatched a plan to move to Belfast. Suddenly my plan to leave my course turned into a transfer plan. Midwifery wasn’t so bad after all. Not if I had ID’s arms around me. As I was thinking of how to broach the subject with him, low and behold, he suggested it. He said he couldn’t leave me. I had to follow him home. Despite ID probably never having recited a poem in his life, I fancied him my Ted Hughes. This big giant of a man who made grand statements and cosseted me. I was drunk on him, ready to abandon everything.
Turns out my family and friends had other ideas.
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