In a thousand different.., p.23
In a Thousand Different Ways, page 23
‘Uh, I’ll give you a guess: I was sitting beside her husband, who can’t have been too happy about it either.’
That’s a lie. I don’t think Scott noticed, I don’t think anybody did. I don’t even know if Andy did. His colours wouldn’t tell me. I can’t read him.
He’s stopped pacing. His feet are in one place, but his body is swaying. I’ve hit a nerve. They weren’t a couple but something happened, something secret perhaps.
I take a deep breath.
‘I see energies, Andy. People’s moods in colours, around their bodies. It helps me to see things that other people can’t see.’
‘Oh stop it, Alice. What did he say? Her husband.’
I pause. I’ve just revealed my biggest secret and he’s leapt right over it, swatted it away. ‘Did you hear me, Andy? I’m telling you something important about me, the thing I have never been able to tell you.’ I stand up. ‘I see energies, Andy, people’s energies. As colours. It’s why I wear the sunglasses, it’s why I …’
He topples over slightly even though he’s standing in one spot; he looks at me unevenly, and I think he’s going to vomit. His pupils are huge, so large there’s no hazel in sight. He looks like he wants to cry with the confusion this has caused his brain.
‘What?’
Then he leaves.
We’re lying in bed, it’s the early weeks after we first met. It’s a Sunday morning, it’s raining. I’m basking in the feeling of utter relaxation and contentedness. Rick Stein is on TV travelling somewhere exotic, on a boat, talking about food, cooking food, eating food. We’re talking about nothing and everything. Mostly I listen to him, I love the sound of his voice, so jovial and positive, even the deep-throat just-awake voice.
‘What were you like at school?’
‘Oh you know …’
‘No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.’
‘Quiet. Ish. Sometimes. Sometimes not.’
‘Sounds like the weather forecast for Glasgow. Rain, with snow and a bit of sun.’
‘That’s me. A bit of everything.’
‘What was your school called?’
‘You wouldn’t know it.’
‘That’s why I’m asking.’
‘It was in the middle of nowhere about an hour outside Dublin.’
‘Uh-huh, what’s it called?’ he says, moving a strand of hair off my face and watching me more closely now, sensing the avoidance.
I’m quiet.
‘You didn’t do your final exams, did you?’
‘I absolutely did finish school,’ I say, insulted.
‘Okay,’ he laughs. ‘It sounded to me like you were stalling. Where did you study then?’
‘Clearview Academy,’ I say, placing my head back on his chest and facing the TV this time, away from him. ‘It was a behavioural school.’
He tries to position himself to see my face, but I won’t move.
‘Why were you there?’
I think about it for a moment.
‘I was very angry.’
I daydream about telling him. Have full-on conversations in my head about how I reveal my neuroses. Sometimes he takes it well, sometimes not. I know that I’ll tell him some day. It just needs to be the right moment.
After our argument, he rejoins the continuing party in the B&B breakfast room. There’s a sing-song that starts to fall apart at 4.30 a.m., but even though the singing has stopped, he still hasn’t returned. I imagine him somewhere with Rachel, professing his feelings to her while I cry into my pillow. I can’t sleep. What have I done? It’s not how I wanted to tell him about my aura-seeing. I mean, I never wanted to tell him at all.
I pack my bag. A handful are still up at 6 a.m., talking nonsense, as I pass by the breakfast room and sneak out of the B&B. I hop in a cab, collect the car and get a coffee while I wait for the rental place to open, then get the first train back to London. I’m home by lunchtime, probably before he’s even woken up.
I sleep for most of the trip home. It is not the joyful excursion it was on the journey up with Andy. Now I feel so sad, like there’s a hole in me and I’ve lost something, someone exceptional, but also a great big feeling of inevitability. How could someone like me ever have thought I’d be happy and have normality with someone like him? My subconscious is screaming I told you so while the rest of me is huddled in a corner shouting Leave me alone.
At 8 p.m. there’s a knock on the door.
It’s him. He looks like he’s been in a fight with himself, as if he’s crawled from the mountains to meet civilisation for the first time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, stepping inside and hugging me tight, so tight I can barely breathe.
I’m confused. I was the culprit. I told him something crazy and then I left him there.
He breathes me in, and it tickles my neck. ‘I’m so sorry.’
We hold each other for a long time and I don’t want him to stop because I don’t want to talk. Talking will get me in trouble again.
He pulls away and looks at me.
My eyes are puffed from twelve hours of crying. My nose is red and sore from blowing it, I’ve chewed on my lips, bitten down all my nails.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Of course not. When I woke up I didn’t know where you were. I couldn’t even remember leaving the wedding.’ He rubs his face. ‘I’m so sorry. I remember looking for you at the wedding,’ he says, scrunching up his face, then he shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. I was very drunk. Jamie said I was a disgrace.’
‘Jamie from your chemistry class.’
‘Yeah, how did you know …? Look, I can’t remember anything …’ he says, watching me, warily, wondering if and when I’m going to pounce. ‘I shouldn’t drink whisky. It makes me … angry and …’ He sits down, woozy. ‘I’m actually definitely not drinking again, until the weekend.’
I smile.
He doesn’t remember anything. I feel quite elated. Yet frustrated too, that I had to experience all that, and he doesn’t even remember, he gets to be wiped clean. I move away from him and fill the kettle with water, flick the switch and fold my arms, waiting for it to boil. Not remembering could be a convenient lie for him, but I’ve no way of knowing for sure. I can’t read him.
‘You said that I embarrassed you,’ I say finally. ‘In front of your friends.’
He shakes his head.
‘No, Alice.’
‘That I’m cold.’
‘No.’
‘That I’m not fun. That I’m distant. That I don’t touch you.’
‘I was so drunk—’
‘It came from somewhere, Andy.’
‘It was a load of drunken confused crap, Alice.’
I could pretend I never told him, live the lie for longer, pretend he never reacted the way he did when I told him, but I know I can’t. And all of a sudden the anger is gone because he’s right about all of those things he’s feeling, and he needs to know why.
‘I need to talk to you about something.’
‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t break up with me.’
‘Listen to what I have to say and then we’ll see who wants to break up with who,’ I say nervously, but ready, pulling the sleeves of my jumper over my hands and sitting down on the couch. He joins me.
I take a moment to compose myself.
‘When I was eight …’
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ he says, taking my hand. ‘I think I know. You don’t have to.’
‘You don’t know and I need to tell you. When I was eight, I started seeing people’s moods and energies as colours.’
It’s not what he was expecting.
He takes a moment to maybe judge if I’m serious or not, maybe see if this revelation matches up with my behaviour. I don’t know, but I appreciate the time he gives it.
‘Synaesthesia,’ he says. ‘My mate Johnny has it with music. He hears notes as colours.’
‘Right,’ I say, surprised. ‘So you’re kind of familiar. It could be explained as that, but this is slightly different. I see people’s energies around their bodies, which is why I wear sunglasses. It can give me a headache when there are a lot of people, which explains the migraines. It’s why I wear gloves. It’s why I don’t like being touched. Other people’s moods can rub off on me. I’m sensitive to how other people are feeling. Moods seem to want to go to me, like anger, or sadness, or grief, or happiness. I don’t want other people’s moods, I want my own.’
He thinks about it for a moment. I can see his brain ticking over. Does he want to be with someone like this? Do I have a psychosis or is it real? Should he try to fix me or accept it? Walk away or stay? He’s still holding my hand at least.
‘But being around people is healthy. Sharing emotions is good. Your happiness is my happiness,’ he says, finding a way to understand what I’ve said.
‘I know,’ I say, surprised to be having a greater conversation beyond the basics of whether it’s real or not. ‘Some sharing of emotions is good. Some basking in good feelings and bad feelings is good. I’ve learned that. I can’t be completely disconnected, though sometimes I do disconnect for myself, and that’s when you say I’m cold. Or distant. And you’re right,’ I say quickly, before he jumps in with another apology. ‘You’re right, Andy: I do numb myself to other people sometimes, and it’s a bad habit, but now you know why I’m like that. On a busy street, or in a busy bar, or at a wedding, for example, if I bump into every person and feel what they feel, then … it’s too much. Just before I met you, I learned how to shut it all down, but doing that made me sick. So I’ve had to learn how to be a part of it without being affected by it.’
‘Does Lily have the same thing?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘And I don’t have bipolar disorder, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t worry, I asked myself the same thing, growing up. Even when she hadn’t been diagnosed, I wondered. But no. I think I have this because of her, she’s the source, but not because of anything hereditary. When I was little I hated how unpredictable she was. It made me so anxious, wondering what kind of woman I would wake up to, or if she would suddenly snap. I wanted to be prepared for what came next so I started studying her, trying to read her. I started seeing her moods as colours. I was sent to Clearview Academy because I didn’t know how to cope. And then after the academy I hid at home, blaming her, because I didn’t know how to cope. Then I got tired of being in the shadows and I came here. Then I saw you.’
‘That’s why you always look at me like that. Like you’re reading me.’
‘No,’ I laugh. ‘This is where it gets weirder. Andy, you’re the one person I can’t read. That’s why I saw you on the train that day, that’s why I followed you. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who has no colours.’
‘What am I, the devil?’
‘No. I think you’re the one who …’ I try to figure out how to put in words what he does to me. How he challenges me, makes me feel real, human. ‘You’re the one who …’ I begin again, completely unable to explain.
‘I’m the one,’ he says, smiling.
‘Him,’ Andy says, nudging me on the Tube.
I look up from my book to where he’s discreetly nodding.
‘Deep blue,’ I say.
‘Conservative,’ he says, and I nod. He beams like a student who’s gotten full marks. ‘What about him? I bet he’s wearing women’s underwear beneath that suit?’
I snort with laughter and a few faces turn our way. I rest my head on his shoulder and chuckle.
We’re outside the youth club. I wait for him and he walks out with a student. There’s a man waiting for her, beside his car. I’d noticed him already.
‘Hey,’ the man says with a grin, dimples in his cheeks, looking like a puppy dog.
‘You know him?’ Andy asks, and she nods.
‘Got the car here, thought I’d surprise you,’ the man says. He opens the door to his car.
Her face is unreadable. To everyone but me anyway.
Andy looks at me, a questioning look.
I shake my head.
‘Actually, Jasmine, I forgot something inside. Do you mind coming back with me? Sorry, man, we won’t be long,’ he says to the guy waiting.
‘We really have to go,’ the man says.
‘Yeah, but this is important,’ Andy says with a cheeky smile. ‘Blame me.’
He goes back inside with Jasmine. A few minutes later he texts me and tells me to meet him around the side exit door.
‘Bad guy?’ he asks.
‘Very bad.’
‘Metallic-y bad?’
I nod.
‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘He looked like a boy band member. Thank you,’ he says, kissing me. ‘You want to eat out tonight?’
On our first proper date I tell Andy that I’ve tickets to the Crystal Palace versus Aston Villa game. He doesn’t support either team but he loves football, he’ll go to any game, any time, anywhere. I’ve hooked him, thanks to Gospel.
I don’t tell him that we’ll be seated in a corporate box, because I didn’t know that. There’s a meal beforehand in the box, and when we sit outside, Jamelle, Gospel’s wife, has ensured that all the seats in the box in the row in front of us, beside us and behind us are clear, just for me. Jamelle sits beside me, ‘Is that okay?’ A long-legged glamorous species with large sunglasses, who ignores the cameras pointed at her as she watches the game, though she doesn’t actually watch the game, instead talks through a problem they’re having.
‘I didn’t design the interior of the house,’ she says. ‘He was living with someone else before me. I moved in and it was like that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful house, you’ve seen it. But it feels, I don’t know,’ she closes her eyes and shudders. ‘Maybe it’s because she decorated it, maybe I’m just being stupid. I can live with it, but it’s more for him, he gets very … antsy, you know? Like he’s got all this pent-up aggression. He needs to get out all the time. You know him better than I do, why am I telling you,’ she says.
‘I don’t know him better than you,’ I say.
‘Oh come on, you’re his first love.’
Andy visibly sits up at that and I wish he hadn’t heard. I’d told him Gospel and I had been friends at school and that we’d dated, I’d prepared him for that just in case it came up, but I hadn’t mentioned anything about love.
‘Maybe I’m just being stupid,’ she says.
‘You’re not,’ I say, keeping my voice down, so Andy doesn’t hear. ‘It’s the animal stuff, you have to get rid of it.’
Her eyes almost pop out of her head.
‘It’s a stagnant energy. All the skins, the horns, the stuffed tiger or whatever that was. Get rid of it. It blocks the flow in the house.’
‘You felt that?’
‘Straight away.’
‘Oh my God, I knew it,’ she says excitedly. ‘He loves that stuff but he’ll get rid of it if it’s because you say so.’ She brushes up against me, excited, then moves away quickly. ‘Sorry. I want to hug you but I won’t. I’m a hugger. This is so hard.’
She makes me laugh.
‘I hope you let him hug you,’ she says, whispering and looking at Andy. ‘He’s cute.’
He chooses that moment to jump up and shout foul language at the ref.
The few people in the box turn around to look at him, the foul-mouthed Glaswegian.
‘Sorry,’ he says, to me, not to them, sitting down again.
‘What do you see in him?’ Gospel asks me once, when we’re out for drinks in one of Gospel’s choices, a fashionable cocktail bar where he has a photo taken with everyone who asks. It’s a double date. Andy and Jamelle are deep in conversation about his work. He’s so deeply passionate about the kids he works with, I love how he speaks about it.
I think Gospel is jealous, in fact I know he is, I can see the colours swishing around with his honey coloured happiness like the beginnings of a washing machine cycle. It’s not attractive and it’s ridiculous because Jamelle is the most beautiful creature, inside and out, that I have ever met.
What do I see in him? I smile. ‘He’s kind. He’s funny.’
Gospel’s eyes narrow as he watches Andy, trying to detect this supposed kindness and funniness from him.
‘What colour is he?’ he asks. ‘I bet he’s not honey. Can’t beat honey.’ He puffs his chest out.
‘He doesn’t have a colour,’ I say, to Gospel’s confusion. ‘That’s what’s so perfect. All I know is, the second I let my guard down, I found him.’
I’m home from the academy for Christmas and I’m counting the days until I can go back. I’m regretting not taking Gospel up on his offer to go to his house, but I wanted to see Hugh. Only Hugh decides at the last minute not to come home; says he has exams he needs to study for and he’s working in a bar in Cardiff and can’t take time off. All the excuses he can think of. I feel as devastated as Lily does about him rejecting us. I wear my blue cloak of self-pity as she does. For Christmas dinner we eat depressing packaged sliced turkey, the kind for school lunch sandwiches, buttered cabbage, carrots, mash and gravy in a microwavable meal tray. My mashed potato is burned on the outside and stuck to the tray but it’s miraculously cold in the middle. She bought tubs of jelly and custard for dessert. She drinks two bottles of wine, works her way through a packet of cigarettes, we have an argument and she goes out until late. I hear her come in in the early hours and trip her way up the stairs. She stays in bed for St Stephen’s Day while I plant myself on the couch all day eating from a box of Quality Street that Saloni my secret Santa gave me, watching back-to-back Die Hard films. Best day I’ve had at home in a long time.
Or it could have been if I wasn’t so worried about Ollie. He’d stuffed dinner into his mouth as quickly as he could without saying a word, this man-child with chin and upper-lip fluff who I barely recognise, then went out with his idiot friends doing who knows what. A big group of them, all in puffer coats they can’t afford and hoods up like they’re a Grim Reaper fan club; trouble, the lot of them, the only eleven-year-old in a group of teenagers. I don’t want to know what he’s done or had to do to earn their respect and attention. He still sucks up her colours, charging himself off her with her negative energy before taking it out to the world with him.
