In Too Deep by Billy O'Callaghan

patient and that if there was anything they could do she need only ask.
    With great care, Maggie unlaced her husband’s boots, then turned them, first one and then the other, towards the window. In the pale yellow light of a low-slung conch moon, she surveyed the damage, confirming with her fingertips the full extent of the scuffing. Polish would cover the worst of it she decided with a sigh. Then she undressed and climbed across Paudie’s inert body to her own side of the bed. She lay there for a while, her eyes closed but the wash of the moonlight through the window still brightening her thoughts. She felt very small, almost childlike, and after some interminable length of time she drifted off into a light sleep, soothed by the scrape of laboured breathing beside her.
    By morning, it was clear that something was very wrong. Paudie had not moved in the night; he lay there on the bed sheets, still dressed but for his boots, his breath still rattling in shallow heaves, his face sagging from the depths of a stony coma. Maggie shook him gently and his head lolled leftwards, revealing a black crust of blood that had seeped from his ear and down onto the pillow. She screamed, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere beyond her body. The world dimmed, just for an instant, and she had to steady herself against the bedroom wall to keep from passing out. The blood was a molten puss, with the thick, clammy texture of treacle, and her first thought was that his shirt was ruined, that she’d never manage to get such a stain from his collar.
    After a few minutes Dan Hartnett from next door arrived at the window, his wife Kathleen at his side. He tapped at the glass, said that they thought they had heard a scream and asked if anything was wrong. Everything came apart then. Violent sobs tore from her, rocking her body. Kathleen held her, gently, as though afraid that a strong embrace might inflict serious damage. Then the worst of the shock subsided and through stuttering gasps she told them how Paudie had been brought home and how she had dismissed it as just too much porter. God knew it wouldn’t have been his first time passing out drunk. She hadn’t realised it was something more serious until she saw the blood. They listened, nodding in sympathy, then led her out of the bedroom and sat her in the old armchair by the empty fireplace. Kathleen stayed with her, holding her hand, trying to whisper words of solace that felt hollow and sounded worse. Dan hovered unsure what to do. Then, finally, he drifted outside, and within an hour an ambulance arrived, drawing up outside the door with sirens wailing.
    Paudie had suffered a stroke. The doctor who explained the situation was a tall, slender man with a long narrow face and hangdog eyes, and when he introduced himself Maggie had been too distracted to catch his name. She thought it might have been either Brown or Bowen. He was elderly, or appeared so, and he dressed in a dark suit of some material made shiny with age. A white carnation bloomed on his left lapel, looking ludicrously out of place with the sepia tones of the hospital surround. He showed Maggie to a seat then moved behind his desk and considered her openly. She had a sense that he was helping himself to the secrets of her soul, and when he spoke his voice had the soft, gently indefinable quality of smoke.
    â€˜The night spent drinking probably masked any early warning signals, Mrs O’Reilly. From the tests we have carried out, it appears that your husband had a minor stroke first. You said that the men he was drinking with told you he had fallen from his barstool? That would be in fitting with a small aneurysm. A sudden numbness or weakness down one side, dizziness, the loss of balance or co-ordination. Of course, the problem is that such symptoms can also be caused by inebriation, which is probably why no one even thought to send for medical help. Later, we believe that he suffered a major stroke, some