‘Why didn’t you ever tell me that?’

  Anyway, he’s sixty-five years old, only a year away from receiving his state pension, and he doesn’t ever want to go back.

  ‘Jeffery’s dad is looking for a driver,’ Izzy says at Sunday lunch when Andy makes the announcement.

  ‘Dad’s not driving vans,’ says Joy. ‘He’s sixty-five years old.’

  ‘Excuse me, I’m in the room, I can hear you. I’m not so old that I’ve lost my hearing,’ Andy says.

  Though he has a bit, in his left ear, I have to say everything at least three times. It makes me impatient and he accuses me of constantly being in a grump.

  ‘Dog rescue,’ Billy says. ‘We can set up our own. I’ll work there with you.’

  ‘Plants and animals,’ I say, thinking of what Naomi told me when I first met her, God rest her soul.

  It’s not the first time Billy’s mentioned it; he’s been talking about it for years. Andy buys into his dream and suddenly everyone is very serious about this. It’s a big change and we sell the house in London and move our life to Lincolnshire. A house with land to house the dogs. Billy and Izzy work there too. Billy prefers animals to people any day. Izzy is a little lost and I’m keen to help her in any way I can, even if it means working with her less patient father. Considering Andy’s previous job, it’s ironic really, but we keep them apart, Izzy driving the van that transfers the animals.

  One day I find Andy at the kitchen window, watching Billy in the courtyard outside as he gathers the dogs for their food. There is a curious expression on his face.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do you not worry?’ he asks. ‘About Billy? That he’ll never find a woman. That he’ll be lonely. And don’t give me that “you don’t need love to be complete” rubbish,’ he says, predicting my response.

  ‘I’ve never said that. You don’t need a man or woman to feel complete, but you certainly do need love,’ I say, going to him at the window and resting my head on his shoulder.

  I feel his kiss on the top of my head.

  ‘He’s always alone, he rarely goes out. He hasn’t any relationships that I know of. Apart from with you,’ he says with a smile. ‘Maybe if you stop being everything to him, he’ll start looking elsewhere.’

  ‘No mother can be everything,’ I say gently, but it’s true. I blanket my children and every aspect of their lives because I never had a mother who did that.

  ‘Do you see anything? That would explain why he always wants to be alone? You can tell me, you know. You keep too much to yourself.’

  ‘Andy,’ I say with a laugh. ‘You used to tell me not to tell you.’

  ‘That’s when they were teenagers, I didn’t want to know. But now I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Billy’s never alone, he’s always with the dogs.’

  ‘Exactly my point!’

  I watch him. Jim, our veterinarian, works alongside him. I smile at the rosy pink passing of colours to each other.

  ‘No,’ I say simply, then move away, gathering my paperwork.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ he asks. ‘No, what? No, you’re not worried?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he’ll ever meet a woman.’

  And on that response I leave him, with a wink, to mull over my words.

  Andy isn’t the only one for me. Not in the way I believed when I first set eyes on him and felt the instant magnetic pull. Before we’re married we travel to New York for a short break. It’s not a surprise trip, he knows I hate surprises and I’ve prepared myself for it. If I can survive a city like London, surely I can survive New York. The colours and the people are different and it takes me a moment to feel the altered energy that flows and throbs but it is essentially the same experience for me. We are in FAO Schwartz buying toys for his niece and nephew when I feel someone looking at me, that tingling feeling I get when eyes are on me. I look around and lock eyes with a man in the queue beside us, a young man, my age, handsome, and we hold each other’s gaze for a moment, a moment longer than we should, before I look away, feeling a large silly smile unable to leave my face and a desire as great as the children’s in the shop who want, want, want everything on the shelves that they touch.

  I try to pull myself together and not attract Andy’s attention when I realise, after a delayed reaction, what is so very different about the man. He has no colours. I instantly look back at him and our eyes meet again. This time, he’s caught and looks away again, but I don’t. I can’t take my eyes off him, as we shuffle along the queue, sometimes him going ahead of me, sometimes him falling behind. I have the same physical reaction as I had with Andy on the train. My body responds in the usual way it does when it wants something, in a surge of adrenaline. I can’t stop looking and nor can he. A ludicrous back and forth staring competition, catching each other out, looking away again, grinning stupidly.

  ‘Alice?’ Andy asks, snapping me back to reality. ‘What’s that about?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘What’s his deal?’

  ‘Who?’

  He glares at me then.

  ‘I was day dreaming, sorry.’

  I could have told him the very big news that I’d just seen another man with no colours, but I needed time to process it. When I saw Andy on the train with no colours, I felt, as did Hugh, that I had to find him, that he was someone who could hold the key to something for me; unlock my caged future happiness. I thought he was the only one of his kind. I even believed, in my greatest throes of falling in love during the honeymoon stage, that this entire colour skill was in fact a gift given to me in order just to find him. It was a sentimental belief that has since passed, but who’s to say there isn’t a colourless person in every village, town and city in the world waiting for me? A special mutant group of humans sprinkled throughout the earth whose sole purpose it is to accommodate my life journey. Perhaps they are a map of how and who with to live my life and I can see the way. Am I to follow these people like a trail, hopping from one to another throughout my life like stepping stones until I reach the end? A kind of monkey bars from person to person, legs dangling wildly, while hanging on to one to await the next. And can you truly hang in there tightly, one-handed, when the other is grappling around in the air for the next? Which man do you stop at, which relationship do you invest yourself in, when do you say this is it … and so on go the great looping thoughts.

  I do a lot of soul searching on this trip, while simultaneously looking out for the man that I never see again. My distraction is understood to be down to my general weirdness and awkwardness when faced with any new people, places and scenarios. After days of forensic studies into each inch of my body, mind and soul, I reach a finding that turns out to be more liberating than initially feared; Andy is not the only one for me, but he is the one I’m choosing.

  No marriage is perfect but we work hard at it. We are fortunate that one of us has the will to keep it alive during the moments that count, that at no time when things get dark both of us want to give up. A marriage requires two people doing their part, yes, but not necessarily always at the same time. At all times it needs at least one. Sometimes one on the ledge and the other to talk them down. Someone to stay awake at camp to make sure the fire doesn’t go out.

  I realise over time that even though I’ve never been able to see Andy in the same way as I see others, I’ve learned to read him as well as I can read everyone else. I know Andy’s soul as deeply as I know a stranger’s, and though I can know a stranger on first glance and scan them like an X-ray, it has taken me years of hard loving to get here with him. Perhaps it’s having to work harder with him that makes the results more rewarding, the understanding of him deeper.

  My love, my best friend, my flawed and loyal lover.

  white

  I SEE ANDY’S COLOURS ONCE.

  They drift up from his body, up, up, up from his roots and out through his head, as he lies in my arms, his wrinkled skin, pale skin and bone, with mine. He is wrapped in a blanket in my arms, like a baby, when his breathing starts to change, and his colour appears for the very first time.

  A wonderful white. The rarest colour of all. Pure light. A higher power, a soaring spirit, the defender of all.

  ‘Oh darling,’ I whisper. ‘Oh darling. I see you.’

  The brightest white of them all. My angel.

  I tell him this.

  I kiss his lips and watch him leave.

  But he stays around in places. I catch his brilliant white around the house, on the children and the grandchildren, especially Louis, who is so like him. I see him when I’m not expecting to sometimes, in our favourite holiday destination, his brilliant white around a rock that was his favourite place to perch and watch the sea, or at places and things I didn’t know he held so dear. On a sweater I often wore, in his favourite corner of his favourite bar, around the dog he walked every day, who remained his faithful friend by his side until the end. I learn even more about him in his death.

  ‘There you are,’ I say now and then, catching sight of him. ‘There you are.’

  Days that are too short, nights that never end. I have too much time to think,

  About him,

  About everything,

  That we did together,

  And every moment that we spent.

  Every look,

  Every touch,

  I have too much time to think about how the only person who had no colour,

  In his departure has drained the most colour from my life.

  They’re all around me now. I can’t see their faces, my eyesight has faded, but I can see their energy colours. I come in and out of the room without sense of time. All my family, my three children and their spouses, even Charlie, Izzy’s ex-husband, is here. I’m grateful for that, setting bitter disputes aside to be here for me. Torn apart by love, brought together by a different kind of love; everyone here is bonded by the only thing that ever truly counts in the entire insane journey. My eight grandchildren are here. Izzy is holding my hand, dear sweet Izzy who has always been afraid to let go. They say newborn babies don’t realise they are separate people to the mother or person that is feeding them. I used to feel it with her the most, so attached we were practically one, a physical and mental closeness that never really went away. I hear her sniffles as she tightens and loosens her grip on mine.

  I won’t be leaving on my own, and I’m glad of that, but I don’t want to leave them behind. I cannot sever her grip; when you hold on for so long for your children, all your life, for them, it is impossible to leave for yourself, not when they hold on so tight. But we can’t all linger here forever, somebody has to leave first, and I don’t want to be alone. With all that I have witnessed in my life, I don’t know where I’m going. I have watched so many others leave and parts of them stay behind, linger in the places and the people they love best. I wonder whether I too can be with the people in this room and the people who have left. If that is why we scatter, some of us here, some of us there, one foot in this world, the other foot in the other world. In life, I have felt pulled as a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a colleague. Perhaps it’s only in death that there is enough of us for everyone and everything.

  I long for my Andy. Ten years without him. I long for my brother Hugh, gone five years now. It has been a long time since I saw dear Ollie, killed so young in prison, but I want to see him now, the little boy who played quietly at the playbox of broken toys, longing for love and connection. Naomi, who opened my eyes, helped me remove the shades and the barriers, helped me to live in the light. My dear dad. Long gone Lily.

  Her colours flash before me, like a kaleidoscope montage of everything she was, a woman so trapped and a woman so lost. The colours aren’t terrifying as they once were; she was so very lost, trapped in a fog, on stormy seas and needed guiding to a safe harbour. It’s been so long since I saw her colours, and yet they are so familiar, they offer comfort to me for the first time. Maybe she is my lighthouse now, guiding me in. She put me in this world and she’s on the other side like a beacon.

  ‘Mammy,’ I say, suddenly feeling like a child again.

  Izzy gasps, and I’m back in the room again.

  ‘Leave her be, Izzy,’ says a voice, gentle now. ‘Let her go.’ My Joy. I don’t want to leave my Joy. My rose-golden nugget who brought my world to another place, to a level I never knew existed. All my babies, who now have their babies, whose babies will have their babies. All in this room, curled up together as if in a womb, a family fortress. The levels and layers of living. The underground webs, the symbiotic relationships. The ones we can see, the ones we can feel. Transitional colours. Transitional rooms. I drift, I come back. I drift again.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ Joy says, beside me now. Izzy is holding my hand, she won’t let go. Billy is by my feet, rubbing them gently, rooting me to him. Joy kisses my cheek, brushes back my hair, whispers in my ear. ‘Go to them.’

  Yes. I must do that now.

  And suddenly I am so light, weightless, and I can’t see them anymore, no bodies, just their glorious lights, reaching out to each other and filling the room.

  All they are, are light, as all I am is light.

  I have had a life-long relationship with colours. Enduring them, confronting them, accepting them, surrendering to them. Our bodies act as a prism in the light and all the colours shine through us like an ever-changing light show. At times I felt like I was trapped in a prism prison, but light gets through the cracks. I learned to find the cracks that became my connections to outside. I have seen and felt them all; all the shades, tones and variations of every colour in the spectrum.

  I have experienced others’ pain and I’ve experienced my own.

  The colours of rage,

  Of hate, envy and greed.

  The colours of confusion, frustration,

  Of betrayal and fear.

  The colours of lust, of longing, of loneliness.

  The colours of happiness,

  The colours of hope,

  The so many colours of love.

  Insipid, vibrant, vivid and sharp,

  One by one and all at once,

  I have seen and felt,

  All the colours of living.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It takes a lot of people to publish a book, and so enormous thanks to HarperCollins UK, particularly:

  The wonderfully artistic and clever Claire Ward for coming up with the perfect title, which is derived from the Oscar Wilde quote, ‘Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.’

  My long-time editor Lynne Drew for the encouragement, support and guidance, Kimberley Young, Kate Elton, Charlie Redmayne, the indomitable Anna Derkacz, Lucy Stewart, Hannah O’Brien, Abbie Salter, the sparkling Liz Dawson, and all the whizzes on the wider team. Team HarperCollins Ireland: Tony Purdue, Patricia McVeigh, Jacq Murphy and Courtney Fitzmaurice. It’s an honour to work with you all and I cherish it.

  The fantastic visionary team at the think tank headquarters that is PFLM: Theresa Park, Abby Koons, Andrea Mai, Emily Sweet, Kat Toolan, Ben Kaslow-Zieve, Charlotte Gillies and the team.

  To Anita Kissane, Howie Sanders and Kassie Evashevski at Anonymous Content, and Chris Maher.

  In a Thousand Different Ways is entirely fictional, though of course even pretend things grow from the seed of real things. I read A Little Bit of Auras: An Introduction to Energy Fields by Cassandra Eason, and while I interpreted it in my own way for the sake of my story, this research book was part of the story’s building blocks.

  Sending thanks and love to the people at the centre of my world; Mimmie, Dad, Georgina, Nico, Rocco, Jay, Gia. And all my wonderful friends for the chats, tears and giggles.

  Thanks to my tribe; my David, my Robin, my Sonny, my Blossom … my everythings …

  Keep Reading …

  If you loved In a Thousand Different Ways, why not try one of Cecelia’s other uplifting and emotional novels …

  ‘A warm and bittersweet tale about finding yourself through family and friendship’

  Sunday Telegraph

  Read now

  ‘An illuminating and touching father/daughter story about memory, childhood and secrets’

  Woman & Home

  Read now

  ‘Witty, playful, entertaining but also thought-provoking, salutary and empowering’

  Daily Mail

  Read now

  About the Author

  Cecelia Ahern is an Irish novelist whose work was first published in 2004. She is read around the world in forty-seven countries, in over thirty languages, and has sold over twenty-five million copies of her novels. In addition to her novels, she is also the author of a highly acclaimed collection of stories, Roar, which is now an Apple Original series on Apple TV+.

  Cecelia Ahern lives in Dublin with her family.

  Also by Cecelia Ahern

  PS, I Love You

  Where Rainbows End

  If You Could See Me Now

  A Place Called Here

  Thanks for the Memories

  The Gift

  The Book of Tomorrow

  The Time of My Life

  One Hundred Names

  How to Fall in Love

  The Year I Met You

  The Marble Collector

  Lyrebird

  Roar

  Postscript

  Freckles

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street