Collecting Cooper Read Online Free PDF Page A

wearing black hoodies and jeans and looking like they’ve all just come from court and getting ready to do something that will send them back. I watch the city and see nothing dramatic has changed; a couple of new buildings and altered intersections, but for the most part it’s identical to how it was before; those who don’t look defeated by it are those doing the defeating. On the outset of my prison stay, four months seemed like a long time for me, and it seemed like time on the inside would come to a standstill while on the outside it would fly by. Now it looks like I haven’t missed a thing.
    Clouds of smoke erupt from behind the bus and add to the smog stain that’s building on the back window. The bus pulls over every few minutes and the numbers on board shrink and grow. By the time we hit the suburbs there are only two other people onboard besides the driver. One of them is a nun, and the other is an Elvis impersonator decked out in full Elvis-Vegas-style sequins, and I feel like I’m in the middle of a setup to a joke. The folder Schroder gave me stays on my lap—unopened—the entire time. It has a green cover that is held closed by two rubber bands that I flick with my fingers every now and then. It takes a little under thirty minutes to reach the bus stop closest to home, and it’s a five-minute walk from there that takes me eight in this heat.
    Normally this time of year you can’t go fifty meters without passing somebody mowing lawns or planting flowers, but the weather has pushed those activities to the end of the day when the heat has died down, so I walk the distance to my house in relative silence. Ninety-nine percent of my neighborhood is identical to how it was before. The remaining percent is made up of recently subdivided properties with brand-new homes. The sun bakes all of it, me included, and Schroder’s money has almost turned to soup by the time my house comes into view.
    I’ve never been more pleased to see it. Part of me was sure I’d never see it again, that the only way I’d be leaving prison was in a body bag after being shanked. It’s a three-bedroom house with a black, concrete tile roof and gardens that are tidier than I’ve ever had them. My parents have been looking after the place. I find the key they hid along the side of the house for me. I head inside and it certainly feels like coming home. It’s a lonely house but it’s nice to be in a room that doesn’t have concrete walls. The fridge is stocked with fresh food and there’s a vase of flowers on the table with a Welcome Home card leaning against it. I call for my cat. He doesn’t show up, but there’s a half-empty food tray on the floor, so my parents have fed him this morning. I sit the flowers outside before my hay fever kicks in. While I was in jail my house was broken into but nothing stolen, the window they smashed has been replaced. I leave the file on the table and take a long shower, but the feeling of prison remains on my skin no matter how hard I scrub it.
    When I get out I examine myself in the mirror. I haven’t seen myself in four months. I’ve lost weight. I jump on the scale and find I’m almost ten kilograms lighter. My face is thinner, and for the first time ever my stubble is coming through gray in places, matching the gray coming through around my temples. Great—I’m on my way to looking like my father. My eyes are slightly bloodshot too. This is how I used to look last year when I was drinking.
    I put on some summer clothes and feel more relaxed. I want to go and see my wife more than anything. Bridget has been in a care home for the last three years. She sits in a chair and stares out atthe world and doesn’t speak and hardly moves and nobody really knows for sure how much of her is still alive. There has been progress—or at least a hope of progress. The accident that nearly killed her left her with broken bones and torn flesh and in a coma for eight weeks, it punctured her left lung