‘Maybe she suffers compassion fatigue,’ he’d said.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s where someone has to be so nice and understanding and kind and giving in their job that they forget about themselves. They don’t have anything left to give. Have you ever imagined how stressful it must be for her to work in an emergency unit?’
I hadn’t. I had honestly never thought about that in my life. She never talked about work, maybe because what she saw was so full-on. And I never asked. To me she was just someone who slept, froze dinners and left notes and texts for me to make my life difficult and to control me like some evil overlord. But working ten- and twelve-hour shifts must have been pretty hard. Twelve hours is two of my school days back to back.
Part of me wanted to tell my dad that if he paid her some child support maybe she wouldn’t have to work so much, but I didn’t say anything.
Sometimes, when she got up in the morning, Mum looked so tired. If I asked her where my school shirt was or some other little thing she would just lose it, telling me how irresponsible I was and that I needed to grow up and that I never lifted a finger around the house. Which totally wasn’t true. But it kind of was.
Compassion fatigue made me think about her in a whole different way. She was full up, which made me feel really sad for her. Maybe her working so much wasn’t turning out that well for either of us.
TWENTY-FIVE
6A OR 6B
The lift opened and I stared at two doors lit by dim fluorescent light – 6A and 6B. The ‘A’ on ‘6A’ was slightly twisted to the right.
Which apartment was hers? The tangled vines of sleeplessness confused everything. Harry’s apartment is downstairs on the left so that means Scarlet is on the right. Left. Right. A. B. 6B. She’s in 6B. What if the cop had returned to the apartment while I was sitting in the dumpling place? What if he was watching me now through the peephole?
I trembled and gripped Magic’s lead tight. She panted and drooled, excited or worried. I moved carefully out of the lift, across the minefield of squeaky floorboards, and knocked gently on the door of 6B.
I checked my phone: three per cent battery. No response from Mum yet. This happened when she was busy. She couldn’t check her phone if she was trying to keep someone alive. And how was she to know that checking her phone tonight might keep me alive?
Mum?
I pocketed the phone and listened for thumps or footsteps or a creaking chair. It was late, ten-thirty maybe. I prayed that Scarlet would open quickly, that anyone would, except the policeman with the moon face.
If I had somehow picked the wrong door, I was ready to run as fast as my crutches would take me. Which wasn’t very fast. I would take three steps at a time, maybe four, and I would scream like a maniac, alerting every person in the building. Not that anyone would open their door to help, I figured.
I didn’t hear anything at all.
I knocked again, slightly louder this time.
Footsteps. Very light. Padding towards the door. Socks or slippers.
Then silence.
Someone was standing on the other side of the door, watching me.
Please let it be Scarlet rather than her mother, I thought. I stood up straight and forced a smile, which probably made me look crazy.
A lock twisted. A chain jangled. I took two steps back from the door as it inched open.
TWENTY-SIX
SCARLET’S APARTMENT
Scarlet’s slightly puffy, just-woken face appeared in the gap between door and jamb.
‘What do you want?’ she croaked, squinting against the sickly yellow light from the landing.
‘Could I come in? Please? I need to tell you something.’
She looked uncertain.
‘It’s important,’ I said. ‘I’m worried. I don’t know where else to go.’
She looked at me the way the police officer had, sizing me up. Her face disappeared from view and the door closed. The chain slid across and the door swung open. Her hair was wild. She wore a pink onesie with thick, pink socks.
‘Don’t judge,’ she said. ‘Whose dog?’
‘Sorry, I–’
She bent down and ruffled Magic all around the face. ‘Cute,’ she whispered. Magic licked her neck and chin. She took the dog by the collar. ‘My mum’s asleep. We have to be quiet.’
I followed Scarlet and Magic down the dark, narrow hall to the lounge room. The apartment smelt like food. Something spicy. Magic’s never-been-cut toenails tapped loudly on the floorboards. We passed an open bedroom. It was dark and small with an empty single bed. Scarlet’s, I figured. There was a closed door on the left and a little bathroom – shower, sink and toilet. Then a tiny kitchen. A very different layout to Harry’s place. The same size but different.
The lounge room was shabby, which surprised me. I always imagine that other people must have perfect lives and live in perfect houses, have perfect families with perfect cats and well-behaved guinea pigs. I had assumed that about my dad, too. Not that I thought he had a guinea pig.
Scarlet’s place was hectic. A giant messy bookshelf filled one wall, with books parked at odd angles. There was a torn orange lamp on a table in the corner, a ratty old rug, vases and ornaments everywhere, magazines and papers on every available surface. Like Mum’s and my house, it was stuffed with life. Harry’s apartment felt temporary, like he was just surviving there for a moment. Scarlet’s apartment looked and smelt and felt like lives were being lived there.
I moved carefully towards the wide glass sliding door and peered out. I couldn’t see the other balcony from there. Still, my stomach flipped.
‘Does your dad know you’re here?’ Scarlet whispered, taking a seat on the tired grey leather couch. She flicked on the TV in the corner of the room and turned the sound down low.
I shook my head. ‘He didn’t come home.’
‘Why not? Did you go to the police?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘What happened?’
Magic sniffed around the room, licking crumbs from under the coffee table. A music video played on the TV. An old hip-hop clip with a guy wearing a clock around his neck.
I had rehearsed what I would say but now I hesitated, unsure where to begin.
‘What?’ she asked, seeing my fear.
‘The man who I told you pushed the other man from the balcony…’ I whispered.
‘Did they catch him?’
I shook my head.
‘So what happened?’
‘He’s a police officer.’
Scarlet looked at me blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw him. Half an hour ago.’ I tried to keep my voice from shaking all over the place. ‘He was in uniform, in an office at the police station just down there.’
Scarlet watched me carefully, her left hand slowly scruffing the fur on Magic’s neck.
‘I swear it was him,’ I said.
‘Why would a police officer–’
‘I don’t know. But it was definitely him.’
‘That’s crazy. Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘Did you see him close up?’
I thought about it, then shook my head.
‘From me to the front door away?’ she asked.
I looked down the darkened hallway and shrugged.
‘Further?’ she probed.
‘Yeah.’
‘Twice that far?’
I nodded. ‘Maybe three times.’