She’s two feet from the edge. A mass of blackened leaves in the gutter, and beyond that, somewhere far away, the pavement. Her hand is snagged on a nail: three inches of rusty iron between herself and the long drop. She can hear him in the bedroom, now. Has no idea where she’s going to go from here. But she pulls her knees in underneath her and worms her way upwards until her hand is no longer taking her weight. Something’s happened to her arm. It seems to have lost all its strength, and there’s a grinding, searing pain at the top of her chest, as though two snapped ends of something are rubbing together. A wave of giddiness breaks over her. She shakes her soaking rat-tail hair like a dog and the screech of protest that shoots through her body brings her back to the world.
The nail is deeply embedded in her heartline. Cher kneels up, stares at the ragged tear that starts at her wrist and runs the length of her palm, where it dragged through and formed a brake. It’s missed the big vein in her wrist by nothing more than a miracle. There’s blood spreading over the lichen on the tiles, but it’s spreading, not pumping.
A sound at the window, five feet from her face. She jerks her head up and sees Thomas, leaning on the windowsill, blinking from behind his tinted specs.
‘Oh, Cher,’ he says.
‘Keep the fuck away from me,’ she says.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.
She doesn’t know how to answer. The question is so unexpected, his benign smile so calm, that she’s completely thrown. She looks down at her hand again. Can’t stay like this, whatever I do, she thinks. Takes hold of the hand with her left, grits her teeth, counts to three and yanks it upwards before she can lose her nerve. Feels the world swim away from her, gasps, and is free.
She starts to edge away from the window. Her flip-flops slip and slick on the rain, throw her feet out in front of her, and she flails, slides, sees the gutter heading fast towards her, gasps again at the pain. A tile snaps and breaks free, skitters downwards, over the edge. Cher freezes. Counts one, two, three before she hears it shatter on the concrete below.
‘You should come in from there,’ says Thomas. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘Fuck off!’ she snaps. Remembers that she’s in the middle of a city, in the late afternoon. Starts yelling. ‘Help! Somebody! Help me!’
Come on. Come on. Somebody’s got to hear me.
Another tile breaks off. The roof is old and decrepit, like everything else about this house.
Thomas puts a finger to his mouth and hushes her. What is wrong with this man? He seems to think this is some kind of party game. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Come inside.’
Yeah, right. So you can turn me into a stick doll. ‘Help!’ she shouts again. ‘Christ, please! Somebody help me!’
Thomas shrugs and puts his hands on the windowsill. He’s coming out after her.
She kicks off her useless flip-flops and scrambles upwards, tiles flying out from beneath her grip. It’s hard going, one-handed, the injured arm flopping like someone’s cut its strings, but desperation lends her strength. If he gets to me, I don’t stand a chance. He’s twice my size, and this hand is useless. Where is everybody? Where are they? They can’t all be taking a nap and sleeping. Not through this.
She reaches the ridge and straddles it. Peers down into the street, looking for a sign that someone, anyone, has heard her. The Poshes’ SUV is gone from the driveway, and all the kids’ toys have been taken inside. Don’t say they’ve gone away. That bloody woman.
From up here, Northbourne looks beautiful: all tiles and treetops, elegant chimneys whose brickwork embellishments you never see in among the riot of plastic fascias and sandwich boards. Nothing moves in the street below. She can see the roof of the station, but if there’s anyone there they’re under cover, waiting out the rain. In the far distance, between the tree trunks, she can see a few lonely figures walking on the common. They’ll never hear her. And if they look up, all they’ll see is leaves.
Thomas stands up. Teeters for a moment as he finds his balance, then folds his arms and grins at her like a death-head.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ says Cher, and can hear how pathetic she sounds. Like some girl in a teen movie who’s about to have her head cut off. Oh, fuck, she thinks, but that’s what I am. That’s exactly what I am. ‘I mean it,’ she adds, tentatively, but it doesn’t sound convincing.
‘Cher,’ he says, ‘you don’t have a lot of choice, you know.’
‘Get to fuck, you loony bastard.’
To her surprise, he looks hurt. It’s as though he doesn’t realise that there’s anything odd about what she’s seen. As though, in his mind, she’s the one in the wrong, the interloper.