Already Dead(116)

Cooper felt as though he’d been like those ducks for a while now, splashing about in the wreckage of his life with no real hope or sense of purpose. He’d been in danger of watching everything get washed away downstream for ever.

Of course, you always brought along a lot of baggage as you went through life. Some of it clung so persistently that it could weigh you down for years. But surely there was even more baggage that you left behind, wasn’t there? Memories and experiences, and failed relationships, that you shrugged off and left at the roadside when you moved on. Cooper pictured a mass of sagging cardboard suitcases, all sealed with grubby parcel tape and bulging at the corners. He could imagine a long row of them, standing at the edge of a pavement, awaiting collection by the binmen. There was no point in going back and poking open the lids to look at what you’d left behind. The accumulated mould was likely to choke you, the dust would get in your eyes.

But he was over that now. He really was feeling different today. Perhaps it was time to leave the debris behind.

Cooper looked up, and saw Diane Fry coming towards him. When she realised he’d spotted her she seemed to slow down, her feet dragging as if she never wanted to reach him. And he saw straight away that she had that look again.

From her expression, he knew without doubt that Fry expected the worst of the world. Even today, she couldn’t see any blue sky.