I thought about all this, lying in bed listening to the rain, looking at the room I sleep in now, another room in another city.

I looked at the objects that make it my room, the calendar on the wall, the colour of the curtains, the photographs.

I thought about all the other people who’ve slept in this room before me, about what traces they’ve left behind.

It took me a long time to get to sleep.

And when I woke up in the morning the room felt different, haunted, and I had to get out of bed quickly.

It had stopped raining, finally, but the street outside was still wet, swathes of dirty water across the road, sodden pages of newsprint glued to the pavement like transfers.

Perhaps the words will soak into the stone I thought, yesterday’s stories imprinted like cave paintings, like a tattoo.

I left early for work, I didn’t want to stay in my flat after the previous day.

I couldn’t face cleaning up the broken plates or reading those leaflets again.

I got dressed and slipped out of the door without any breakfast, down the steps and past the back door of the shop downstairs.

There was a cold wind, but it was a dry wind and it felt good on my skin and I sucked big mouthfuls of it into my lungs.

There was a girl with a striped overall standing by the back door of the shop, smoking, I’ve seen her there before.

She smiled and said hello and I was surprised so I think I only nodded.

I walked along the main road, the wind blowing across my face, the traffic steaming slowly past me in fits and starts and stops.

I felt better than the day before, much better, I could feel the blood in my cheeks and the light in my eyes.

I felt like a spring was uncoiling inside me.

I could feel the creak and sing of my muscles loosening, like a child bouncing on an old leather sofa, and the faster I walked the better I felt.

I began striding, my arms swinging, my bag banging against my back, my shoes click-clacking on the pavement like a runaway metronome.

It had been weeks since I felt like that, since I felt such a simple exuberance at being alive and outside, and I felt cleansed by it, by the noise and the light and the wind all rushing in upon me.

I wanted to sing.

I wanted to run.

But I managed to contain myself, and keep a blank face, and anyone seeing me would only have thought I was late for work.

I walked myself out of breath in the end.

I stopped at a cornershop by the ring road and went in to buy something for breakfast.

The man said good morning and I smiled and nodded.

I bought a bread roll and some fruit, and I sat on an upturned milk crate outside to eat them.

The man came outside and began arranging his boxes of vegetables, straightening the price labels, wiping off the dirt.

It’s better day is it? he said to me, yes I said, much better.

Yes he said, and he stood back and looked up at the sky like a soothsayer, too much rain, is bad for the heart, you know, do you know what I mean?

I smiled and said yes and stood up, holding my banana skin, not knowing what to do with it.

Tags: Jon McGregor Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net