In Too Deep by Billy O'Callaghan Page B

askew.
    A memory hung over me, one from years before, dating back to the time I had gone to visit my aunt in hospital. Jenny, my father’s sister. I must have been dreaming about her, though it didn’t feel that way, and what I was remembering was what had happened, nothing particularly fantastic at all. She’d undergone an operation – for a woman’s problem, I think; something painfully routine and permanent – but when I arrived at the hospital she was asleep, drunk on medication. Her bed was in the far right corner of a very bright six-bed ward, and I stood around for a minute or two just looking at her, thinking to myself how strange she looked, not really like her usual self at all. We had been so close growing up; she was twelve years older than me but we lived near one another and, as an only child, I had always looked upon her as a big sister. When I was eight or nine years old, I used to imagine that one day we’d marry, and of course I was too young then to understand that such a thing could never happen. I loved her that much, though, and I know she felt the same way about me. But then time played one of its deft tricks, and a day came when we were both more than a little shocked to realise that the ties had been undone and our lives had somehow grown apart.
    That afternoon in the hospital, sleep, combined with the trauma of the surgery, had reduced her to a lump, and made a further stranger of her. Huddled under crisp white linen sheets, she looked old and overweight, a pulp of waxy flesh, dyed blonde corkscrew hair and brand new cerise pink silk pyjamas, and her face held a pointed expression, most probably because of the pain. Worry lines had slit faint ruts into her forehead with a determination that even the after-effects of an anaesthetic couldn’t rub smooth, and her mouth constantly pursed and puckered, the lips pale without their daub of lipstick, as if she was speaking inside her dreams. When I was eight or nine, I’d been sure that one day our age gap would narrow enough so that it ceased to matter, but in actuality it had only seemed to widen.
    I stood there, as I’ve said, for a minute or two, thinking that maybe it would be okay for me to just stoop and kiss her, a simple peck on her cheek or her brow and just for old times’ sake, but a feeling of discomfort stirred and began to swell, eventually forcing me to turn away. The ward, because of its stillness and high ceilings, seemed to yawn emptily, and I had reached the door before I realised that a girl was watching me from the bed to my left. I smiled at her with some embarrassment, and I was about to push the door open when she smiled back. For some reason, that stopped me. There was something about her expression that seemed so forlorn I just couldn’t bring myself to ignore it. I hesitated for an instant, then moved to the side of her bed. I glanced around for a visitor’s chair, but found none, and she shuffled her body awkwardly and sat up in the bed, drawing up her legs in a way that made some room on the mattress and seemed to invite me to sit. I nodded, understanding, and perched on the edge of the bed; all very proper, but friendly too. The mattress was firm and didn’t dip much beneath my weight. I had brought a small bunch of flowers for Jenny, nothing fancy, just some posies, and I held them out to this girl on impulse, sensing perhaps that she truly needed them.
    â€˜Well,’ I said. ‘The rain’s stopped. The way it’s been falling lately, I was beginning to think the government had stock in the stuff.’
    Her face tensed with confusion, in a way that brought out the fully stupidity in my words.
    â€˜My name is Billy,’ I added, and held my breath for a return.
    Her name was Marketa. Her English, when it finally came, was soft and slow, fluent enough, but a long way from natural, withered in places and in others thickly over-pronounced, and she spoke with