‘Hey buddy, I brought someone special home today.’

  ‘McDonald’s?’

  ‘No not McDonald’s. It’s even better than that. It’s my best friend from school, Alice.’

  ‘Hi there. What’s your name?’

  ‘Cassius.’

  ‘Cassius, what a great name. Nice to meet you.’

  We shake hands.

  ‘Come on,’ Cassius shouts, running back into the house.

  ‘Hello,’ I say to the young blonde standing at the door, feeling immediately jealous and glad that Gospel can’t see the immaturity of my colours.

  ‘This is Mia, his minder,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I smile, even bigger.

  ‘Let me show you around.’

  It’s like a hotel. We end up sitting in his monstrous kitchen, gleaming worktops and fancy ovens, windows that fill the wall looking out over a massive garden with a treehouse and every toy a child could want. But the energy is stagnant. I don’t know who decorated the place but the energy is not Gospel’s. In every single room there are antlers on the walls or tiger skin on the floor, parts of dead animals like ivories, skins, shells, horns, taxidermied and embalmed species. Gospel is so positive and full of warmth, and his son is so full of life and fun, and yet the flow is constantly interrupted by death, which looms over the place.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Gospel, you’ve done so well for yourself. It’s incredible. Congratulations.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’

  ‘Well that’s a lie,’ I say, ‘but sweet of you.’

  ‘It’s true. I’ll never forget what you did for me. That day changed everything.’

  I shake my head and fold my arms, not wanting to talk about it.

  ‘The rose bush died,’ he says, eyes wide. ‘Of course it worked. Look at me, Alice!’ He raises his arms, their expanse so long, to indicate everything: him, his home, his life. ‘I wrote to you loads after you changed your number and didn’t give me your new one. I even phoned you at the school, but you wouldn’t take my call.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I got them, I just … you know what it was like in the school. When you left, it was weird. I was kind of alone. Had to start again.’

  ‘If you’d kept in touch, you wouldn’t have been alone.’

  I shift uncomfortably.

  ‘You did your Leaving Cert?’

  I nod.

  ‘Yay.’

  We laugh.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then …’ I sigh. ‘Lily got sick. She had cancer on her spine. They operated on her. Removed the tumour successfully but it led to paralysis, so I became her carer.’

  ‘What? No …’ he says, shaking his head, not liking where this is going. ‘What about your brothers. Hugh and …’

  ‘Ollie? Ollie went to prison, don’t ask,’ I roll my eyes. ‘And Hugh moved to Doha.’

  ‘What the … Alice, this is awful, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No, it really wasn’t so awful. And it’s okay now, I’m here in London. Got my own place. Have a job. I was in sales but now I’m a Grow Wild Engagement and Training Assistant at Kew Gardens. It’s a youth project, an outreach programme encouraging people in disadvantaged areas to get involved in plant and fungal science. So, yep. It’s as fancy as it sounds.’

  ‘You’re like Mr Smith at the academy.’

  ‘I am not like Mr Smith,’ I say, laughing at the memory of our poor allotment teacher. ‘Oh, poor Mr Smith. Remember when Simon threw the pot against the wall because there was a worm in it?’

  ‘He’s a cameraman now with Sky Sports.’

  ‘Simon is?’

  ‘Yeah, I met him when I was doing an interview. Couldn’t believe it when he shook my hand. He got over the germs thing.’

  I laugh and decide not to mention seeing Saloni.

  ‘You’ve always liked getting your hands in the soil,’ he says, a smile crawling onto his lips as he remembers. ‘The rose bush died, Alice.’

  ‘I’m just the course administrator,’ I say, waving the repeated comment away, not wanting to go there. ‘So it’s more hands on a computer than in the soil. It’s a twelve-month contract and it’ll be over in a few months so I need to find something else. But everything’s good. I just wanted to see you.’

  He can sense my loneliness and I’m embarrassed, wishing I’d come here as the success he has become, wishing I had another story.

  He places his hand over mine and I feel his warmth through my gloves. Seeping into me, moving up my arm, into my chest. Like a hot cup of tea on a cold day.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he whispers.

  I nod, tears filling my eyes. ‘Thanks. I think I should have gone with you when you asked me,’ I say, laughing, and wiping the corner of my eye quickly before the tear falls. ‘“Come with me, Alice,”’ I imitate him, laughing. ‘“We can live together.”’

  ‘I really wanted that,’ he says.

  ‘We were only seventeen.’

  ‘Yeah, but I meant it.’

  ‘And wow, look how things worked out for you,’ I say, changing the mood, and lighting up. ‘You’re a footballer. You’re a dad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, pinks popping like bursting bubble gum all around him at the mention of his son. ‘He’s the best. Cassius is the best thing that ever happened to me. What about his colours? Did you see them?’

  ‘Of course. They’re swirling around him like mini-tornados. Hyperactive, energetic bright red, bright yellow and neon green. Bundles of energy.’

  He throws his head back and laughs. ‘That’s exactly him. So he’s okay?’ he asks, relief in his voice.

  ‘He’s okay,’ I say. People change, but Cassius’s predominant colour is an energetic, powerful red. I think he’ll be moving through life like a cyclone and may at some point have to learn to slow down; he has none of the thoughtful, focused and logical colours of his dad.

  The front door opens. ‘I’m home,’ a woman calls.

  ‘Mummy!’ Cassius races like hell through the rooms to get to her.

  The spell is broken, we both move our hands away from each other and I wipe beneath my eyes, sit up straight to see the long-legged beauty stride into her home, a yoga mat under one arm, her son under another. Supermodel limbs with skin that glows and hair that shines. If she’s put out by my presence she hides it well, though she does look surprised.

  ‘Hello,’ she looks at me, and then to her husband.

  ‘Baby,’ he says, standing up, going to her and giving her a kiss. ‘This is someone very special that I told you about – a lot: Alice Kelly. Alice, this is my wife Jamelle.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Alice. Oh my God. I’ve heard so much about you.’ She puts down Cassius and her yoga mat, and comes to me, her arms open, then pauses. ‘Oh no, you don’t like hugs. Wait. What do I do?’ She looks at Gospel nervously, then back to me. She squeezes her own chest in a hug. ‘Okay, I’m hugging you.’

  I laugh. ‘Thank you.’

  I’m crying. Gospel is crying. He’s packed his bags. The summer holidays will end soon, he’s finished at the academy, he’s not coming back, he has trials with Burnley, he can’t miss the opportunity. We’ve spent the summer together, I was allowed to stay at his place, his parents became my parents, and now it’s over.

  ‘Come with me,’ he says, placing his hands on my cheeks. He kisses me gently.

  ‘To Burnley?’ I laugh, crying. ‘And what would I do?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything. They’re paying me.’

  ‘I can’t just do nothing.’

  ‘Do what you did this summer. Work in a café, wherever, it doesn’t matter. When I’m a massive football star I’ll make enough money for both of us.’

  We laugh at the dream.

  He blinks, twitches, throws his head back and grunts.

  ‘It’s a nice thought, Gospel, but I don’t think the host family will let me stay with you, besides I have to finish my Leaving Cert. Hugh would go crazy if I don’t. Education is the only way forward,’ I say, imitating him.

  ‘Not if you’re a footballer.’

  ‘Think I have a chance at that?’ I smile.

  He twitches and blinks again. He’s upset, anxious, he’s been acting out more often the past few weeks. He’s nervous. He throws his head back three times in a row.

  He swears loudly, frustrated with himself, and then screams. Not at me, it’s at himself for the part of his body and mind he can’t control. Red bubbles burst around him like an exploding dye pack leaving him surrounded by a red mist. I give him a moment to calm down, for the mist to evaporate.

  ‘What am I going to do when this happens to me at the club?’ he asks, throat raw from shouting.

  ‘It won’t happen. It never happens on the pitch.’

  ‘What about off the pitch?’ Blink, blink, twitch, grunt. ‘What if we’re in the dressing room in the middle of the manager giving us a pep talk and I can’t stop … What do you think will happen then?’

  He has so much orange around his chest.

  I have always avoided touching him when he is like this – for me and for him. I’ve sensed he hasn’t wanted anyone near him when he is highly upset and vexed, any more than a caged lion would want to be patted. The pale orange of low self-esteem, his low sense of self-worth, his discomfort and self-consciousness, brings the red mists of rage; for him they go hand in hand. He has worked hard while at the academy to manage the rage, taking deep breaths, breathing in slowly, holding it and letting it out, going for runs outside, doing laps of the pitch or yoga exercises. But those tools aren’t acceptable or accessible when you’re in normal life, you can’t always run out of a room and race down the road, you can’t always stop an uncomfortable conversation or a heated argument to breathe deeply in and out. Sometimes the tools they’ve taught us can’t prepare us for life, but the very living of life, of finding ourselves in those uncomfortable situations will give us tools of our own. He will have to find this in the changing rooms when surrounded by his peers and his heroes. My heart aches for him, and I fear for him. How long will he last there, how will they treat him? Will they realise that his talents on pitch far outweigh the motor and vocal tics off pitch?

  I take my gloves off and place my hand over his chest. It goes through the pale orange, but I leave it there. I feel his battle with himself; a control conflict, and it becomes mine too.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘It’s always right here,’ I say, trying to ignore his feelings that are transferring to me. It’s the first time I’ve told him this. We’ve talked before about his colours but never his colours of discomfort, I don’t know if he knows there’s a difference. The orange always clings to him here, as if trapping his chest and causing the tics, the blinks, the twitches, the grunts. I guide him to the floor, and we sit opposite each other.

  I put two hands in the orange and move my hands around. For once I’m not afraid that it will get on me. I want to take it away from him. It moves with me side to side, but it’s thicker than it looks. Sluggish, like mucus, yet hard like it needs to be broken down. I place my hands on his chest. No wonder he can barely catch his breath. It’s strangling him.

  ‘Why is it here?’ I ask. ‘In this place of all places.’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘I read something about trauma,’ I say, swallowing, not sure how he’ll take it. ‘When we experience trauma, it gets stored in the subconscious, like an echo. It sits in our energy field disrupting our natural flow of energy. I think this is an echo. It’s not related to anything that’s happening now. It’s nothing to do with now.’

  He tries to move, uncomfortable with the conversation. I hold on to him.

  ‘It’s all around here,’ I say, moving my hands around in it. I can’t feel it, but the colour moves like thick gunk under my motion.

  The more attention I give it, the more the orange grows. He blinks, he twitches, he grunts.

  ‘What did the therapists at school say to do?’ I ask.

  ‘Breathe. Look at the things in the room I’m in. Five things, then four things, then three things …’

  ‘Forget that. Just tell it to fuck off,’ I say.

  He starts laughing.

  ‘Fuck off!’ I shout at the orange at his chest.

  ‘Fuck off!’ he yells, joining in.

  We both yell it over and over again, stronger and louder, getting all our frustrations out.

  I close my eyes. I have so much love for him. I don’t want him to leave, but I want it for him. I don’t want him to be bullied in the dressing room, this kind, beautiful soul. I don’t want him to have a day of worry. I want him to have the perfect life that he deserves, for all his wishes to come true. If anyone deserves it, it’s him. I want to take it all away from him and make the world easier for him. I want it, I want it, I want it so badly.

  ‘Alice,’ he says suddenly, and I open my eyes.

  ‘What?’

  He’s breathing normally. The orange from his chest is gone.

  But my hands are on fire.

  I stand up and run outside, out through his kitchen where his mum and dad have abandoned reading the Sunday papers to listen to us through the door.

  ‘What’s going on?’ his dad asks.

  ‘Leave them, they’re arguing,’ his mum says.

  I run into the garden. Gospel chases me. My hands are on fire, like two flames have taken over my hands. I fall to my knees on the grass and I push my hands into the soil beside the rose bush, as far down as they can go, until the flames go out.

  I fall back on the grass, exhausted. He lands beside me and we stare at the sky.

  ‘It got on my hands,’ I say simply.

  ‘Well, maybe an orange tree will grow,’ he says.

  I silently doubt very much that anything will grow there anymore. But maybe Gospel will now. We start laughing hysterically.

  Gospel’s father tuts, watching us from the door, then goes back inside.

  The old adage ‘You’ll find what you’re looking for when you stop looking,’ is nonsense. I never stopped looking for the man with no colours. Not from the moment I lost him. I looked out for him everywhere, particularly on the Tube, as if it was the only place a creature like him could live. I looked for people like him, people without colours, but he remained a phenomenon because I never found any.

  Until I found him.

  It’s 9 a.m. and I’m standing at the corner opposite the Tube station entrance. I’ve been here since 8 a.m., thinking it a good time to cover all angles and all average work starting times. Of course he could have been in the area for pleasure, to visit someone, or a salesman perhaps, but that only presented a depressing conclusion that I would never find him again, so I returned to Plan A: him working in the area. I did entertain the notion that he’d been so deep in his book and listening to whatever he was listening to that he may have missed his stop. I’d spent mornings at the other Tube station, too, searching for him.

  But this morning here I am at the corner, with a view of the Underground steps and every which way he could go from there, pondering whether I should risk getting a bottle of water from the shop or to stay put at my post. The ‘just five more minutes’ mantra is endless torture, and so I decide to stay until 10 a.m., but when 10 a.m. arrives I want to stay for five more minutes. Perhaps a bottle of water and five more minutes. As I’m having this internal argument, he appears. He steps up to the top of the stairs, navy-blue suit, white shirt, open buttons, trainers, bag over his back. I actually cannot believe it. Nine months later. I freeze in shock then realise I need to move before I lose him again. He takes a right, so I run across the road, a car beeping as I narrowly avoid being hit as it rounds the corner, and I follow him on the path, hurrying and slowing down according to my overexcited, panicked inner voice.

  He walks slowly, strolls, everyone overtakes him in fact. He’s like a stone stuck in a stream, blocking everything behind him and sending people gushing around him. He wears the same headphones, a suit with trainers, the same bag. I try to keep track of where we’re going but I know that I’ll never be able to retrace my footsteps. My eyes are on him and his lack of colour. Now that I can see him up close and examine him, I can confirm there really is no colour. After a while I start to relax, settling in to the fact that I’ve found him. He walks across the side streets, sometimes waiting for pedestrian lights, sometimes running across just in time. Unreadable and no rhythm. I’m enjoying myself now, watching him in the flesh after thinking about him so much.

  He’s taller than me. Slim build,with black wavy hair, wavy curtains, and short at the back. I want to see more of his face and I rely on the bus and passing traffic on the side streets for that so I can view his reflection.

  Older than me. Mid to late thirties but I don’t know exactly, age isn’t my forte. He’s handsome, but not in a way everyone would turn to stare. The kind of face that gets better the longer you stare, which I do. He has a button nose that seems too small for his face at first glance, but it’s cute.

  He looks over his shoulder at me at one point, at a side street, when a car passes. I’m standing too close. He smells clean, fresh, like he’s just showered. I don’t know the names of scents. Maybe there’s gym clothes in that bag, maybe he’s just worked out and taken a shower. Maybe he’s going to work out now. There’s so much about him that I don’t know, least of all his inner feelings, his soul. He crosses the street and I allow more space between us.

  He takes a right and I do too.

  There’s only one building that dominates this dead end, only one place he could be going and therefore the only place that I could be going to too.

  New Horizons Youth Work Centre.

  ‘Hi Andy,’ a guy says, walking past him.

  ‘Hey Greg,’ he says in a Scottish accent. My heart leaps. Andy, from Scotland.

  ‘Isn’t your class almost over?’ Greg teases, looking at his watch.

  ‘I’m teaching them about endurance,’ he shouts back. ‘They’ll need it.’

  ‘Ha,’ Greg retorts.

  I stop walking as Andy nears the building. That’s it. He’ll go inside, I won’t see him anymore, but at least I’ll know he’s in there. I wonder how many entrances and exits there are. If I should wait and follow him home or have faith and come back tomorrow. Of course I’m going to follow him home; anything could happen, he could get fired today for being late and never come back. I’d never find him again.