There’s a weightlessness about the morning as if London’s floating on a sea of light: maybe it’s his limbs limbering up, adjusting to this new regime. For some days now Hook has abandoned watching what he eats and drinks and feels much better for it. Similarly he’s tried to stop worrying what he thinks, says or does, and already new worlds of possibility have opened up.
As he walks through a parched playground Hook realises he’s been censoring himself for so long it’s become unconscious; and, as his tinnitus is only noticeable now it’s gone, so his self-censorship has only become apparent now he’s stopped editing his thoughts and taken a fresh look at the world.
Across the park a row of shops cling grimly to a condemned estate; a newsagent is open. Mullen’s tabloid isn’t one he usually takes but today Hook buys a copy with Monica’s usual broadsheet and a can of SuperBrew to clear his head, and sits on a shaded bench in the tatty park to read.
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