From the window of Pete’s bedsit, the rain looked like something that fell in long strands from the clouds, as if God were tipping out an endless stream of translucent thread noodles, so fine and so translucent that they were scarcely visible and disintegrated on hitting the ground. Trying to make out the individual droplets was futile. Pete looked up at the clouds. There was no sign of the rain easing off.
He picked up the two packages he was intending to deliver and made for the door. The first was round, about the size of a football. Pete had not done a particularly good job of wrapping it, and bits of overlapping paper stuck out at odd angles. Depending how you held the package, you could see that the words “Happy” and “Birthday” appeared in a repeating pattern.
The second package was more soberly wrapped in plain brown paper, tightly bound up with shiny, dark brown parcel tape. Pete seemed to have got rather carried away with the parcel tape and had wound it repeatedly around the sides of the package, as if he were anxious that the contents might otherwise burst out unexpectedly. My name and address were on the front of it.
Locking the door of the bed sit behind him, Pete walked down to the street to where his car was parked and set out on his final journey.
If I were filming a documentary about Pete’s last hours it would be incumbent upon me to display the words “RECONSTRUCTION” in large letters at the bottom of the screen whilst an actor played out this little scene. The camera would linger on his mournful expression as he gazed soulfully out of the window. Meanwhile, sombre music would be playing in the background, slowly building the tension and signalling to the audience that something dramatic was probably about to happen.
Of course, I have no way of knowing exactly how Pete felt or what he did before he set out that evening. But I remember distinctly that it was raining – it had been raining all day. And I know for a fact that he had two packages with him that evening, more or less as I have described them.
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