CHAPTER 15
The Color of Pigeons
A nonstop train goes zooming through Poets Corner, blasting its horn.
We both startle, the mood instantly broken. Felix whisks his hand from my hair and we stand up, smoothing our clothes and looking everywhere but at each other. In the aftermath of the train, a hush settles: pigeons coo-cooing, Full Moon Lane’s constant quiet hum of traffic; footsteps of passersby and playful shouts drifting over from Meadow Park.
I stare at my feet, which are filthy with sidewalk grime. Perhaps I do have a little bit of Mum’s impetuous joie de vivre after all …
After a minute, Felix scuffs his boot and says, “I’ll never get over how noisy London is.”
I look up, pulling my best you’re bananas face.
“Are you joking? This is idyllic.” I point through the railway arch to Meadow Park. “And there’s that greenery you were looking for.”
“To a city slicker like you.”
“Where did you live before, then, if not a city?”
“Holksea. It’s a village about yay-big, in Norfolk.” He holds his hands an inch apart. “The loudest thing I ever heard there was next door’s chickens.”
“Seriously? You’re a farmer boy?” I smile at this discovery, a fleeting moment of joy—Big Bad Doc Martens Boot-Wearing Felix is a tractor-riding, pig-racing, field-plowing hayseed—before catching his eye again.
He’s looking at me with the same desperate sadness as always, and I’m suddenly right back there with him. Perhaps the two of us are a separate species to everyone around us, one with turbulent sorrow written into our DNA.
Perhaps this is why, when he asks if he can walk me to school on Monday, I say yes.
* * *
As I wander home, I think about The Kiss and the way Rodin uncovered the glow deep within the marble, like an archaeologist of light. If Felix is right about recreating it in porcelain, I’ll have to go back to Mum’s studio.
I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk. Duh, Minnie. Of course I’m going back to the studio! Where else will I unlock the colors and discover what was going through her mind in June? It’s so stupidly obvious, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before. I don’t know what stops me from running there right now, instead of pushing open the back gate and going into the kitchen, where the Professor and Emmy-Kate have vamoosed and Niko is mopping the floor.
The room reeks of bleach. The sink overflows with bubbles. Cupboards are hanging open and empty, their contents piled on the table along with the fridge-door detritus—magnets, notes, photographs, postcards. Alarm bells start ringing in my chest.
Niko ditches the mop and grabs a garbage bag. She flaps it open—it makes a noise like bats taking off—and turns to the table, sweeping almost-empty jars into it. Her arm catches a pile of postcards; one goes tumbling into the bag.
I march over to her and snatch it back from the brink. Mum’s handwriting is on the back. I liquefy, as if I’m holding the goodbye letter all over again and not a photograph of Venice, sent during the Biennale a couple of years ago.
A fumbled finger click drags my attention from the smudged ink. Niko is wearing rubber gloves. She drops the garbage bag between our feet and yanks them off so she can sign, “Where the hell have you been, Minnie? It’s not okay to walk out of the house without a word, in the middle of a conversation.”
I ignore her—and the sour guilt in my stomach—and flap the postcard. “What’s this? You’re throwing away her things?”
“I’m not throwing away anything. That fell in by accident.” She points to a can at random. “We’ve got chickpeas dating back to before the Rainbow Series I, and the fridge magnets are covered in grime. Someone has to clean this place up.”
“Don’t throw any of her things away.”
“Some stuff has to go, Minnie. We don’t need a cupboard full of cigarettes.” Niko stalks over to the sink and grabs a spray bottle of something caustic, squirting it on the counter. Then puts it down and turns around. “I’m not going to throw away anything important.”
“You’d better not.”
She tilts her head back, looking down her nose. “You’re one to talk.”
“What does that mean?”
I can’t work out why she’s being so extra until she signs bitterly, “Ash. He’s in your room.”
We stare at each other for a moment, then she turns away abruptly, starts scrubbing the laminate right off the counter. Chastened, I plod slowly up to the Chaos Cave, where Ash is sitting on the stairs outside my door. I remember what imaginary Mum said, about him being the reason I left the house. Is that true? Did I conjure her as an excuse?
Ash is wearing a blanket of bleak. His guitar is ignored at his side and he’s staring off into space. It empties my insides out: He looks like an Ash without music, the same way I’m a Minnie without color. Fear arrives: Maybe he saw me with Felix Waters. What was I even thinking, arranging to walk to school with him? Confessing my monochromacy, letting him run his fingers through my hair! I didn’t even tell him I have a boyfriend.
“Hey…” I poke Ash’s knee with my toe. He looks up, and the freaky, music-less version of him is replaced with an unsmiling one.
“Hey, Min.” He examines me from flushed face to dirty feet. It feels like he can see right down to my conscience. “Where’ve you been, mucky pup?”
“Meadow Park,” I lie, sitting down next to him and resting my head on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel right, and I sit up straight again.
“Yeah?” asks Ash uninterestedly. Almost … annoyed. “Did you forget I was coming over? I texted you.”
“I left my phone in my room.” This, at least, is true. “Sorry.”
“Your phone, your shoes, me.” He sighs, lifting my hand into his. Our fingers refuse to interlace, and sit there, lumpenly. “What’s going on with you lately, Min?”
“What do you mean?” My voice is loud in response to what feels like an accusation.
Ash twists toward me. His round eyes are warm as they search mine. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you are. But this isn’t the first time you’ve left your phone behind and gone wandering off. I feel like…” Ash chews on his lip. I chew on my guilt; it tastes like seawater. “Like you’re avoiding me and that. That you’re not all there. Like you’re disappearing on me.”
“Disappearing?” I can’t believe he said that.
He screws up his face. “Bad choice of words. I mean, you’re always zoning out. And … Niko told me some dude was over this morning?”
I gasp, trying to turn it into a deep breath, my face burning. “That was Felix,” I mutter. “He’s new at school. We got assigned to be homework partners in art.”
Ash frowns. “And you were doing this homework barefoot in the park?”
“Artist, remember?” I say, making my voice bubblegum like Emmy-Kate’s. “We’re nuts.”
Gradually, the concern clears from Ash’s face. “That’s good, Min,” he says. “I’m glad you’re, you know, feeling better about stuff. Getting back into the swing of things.” His spare hand begins drumming absently against his thigh, the music coming back to his body. “Listen, party at my house tonight. I’m DJing. You want to come?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. Ash’s face clouds over, so impulsively I add, “But do you want to come with me to my mum’s studio tomorrow? After school.”
“All right. Yeah, can do. I mean, if you’re sure,” he says, not sounding elated about the idea. His hand is super-drumming now. Any minute now, he’ll grab his guitar. I have about ten seconds left of his full attention.
“Ash, do you know a sculpture by Auguste Rodin?” I ask. “Called The Kiss.”
“No, but I know a sculpture called The Kiss by me, Shashi Gupta.” He smooches my cheek, holding the pose even when I start to laugh—I can’t help it. When he pulls away, he grabs his guitar, starts tuning it. “You know me and art, Min,” he adds,
bending over the guitar. “In one ear and out the other.”
I try again: “What would you say if I told you I couldn’t see colors anymore? Like, everything was in black and white. Even you and me.”
Ash doesn’t look up. He chuckles softly to himself, adjusting the tuning pegs. “I’d say you’re cuckoo,” he says, shaking his head in amusement, but I can tell he’s not really listening anymore. “Is this what they teach you in art lessons these days?”
Then, with a wink, he starts to play.
Duck Egg
(An Ongoing List of Every Color I Have Lost)
Eggshells. Emmy-Kate’s swimming towel. Mum’s eyes when she was starlit. A painting I love called Blue and Green Music by Georgia O’Keeffe.
CHAPTER 16
Blanc de Blanc
Rain steals into my dreams, pattering on the attic roof and tapping at the windows. On Monday morning I roll over and stick my head underneath the curtains, peer out at the garden, now underwater. The deluge knocks all energy from me.
I hide under the duvet until my alarm clock shouts a warning, then waste ten minutes banging on the bathroom door, where Emmy-Kate is busy steaming herself like a lobster. Then I give up, racing back upstairs and weatherproofing my hair: weaving it into two plaits, wrapping them around my head. In the mirror is a pen-and-ink-Heidi version of myself. Late, I throw on a dress and tights, pick up my bag, and grab the studio key. It falls from its ribbon again, clattering onto the desk. Eff. Carefully, even though I don’t have time, I slide it back on the ribbon and tie it in a double knot around my neck.
Downstairs, rain has smothered the house in despair. The kitchen has a pallor that reminds me of gardens in winter, when the earth freezes over, roots go dormant, and not even weeds grow. Niko is at the table, slumped over a plate of burnt toast. She glances up, sees me hesitating in the doorway.
“Hurry up, Minnie, you’ll be late for school…” The command is listless, with none of her usual regal authority. And she’s distracted as she leaves for SCAD, abandoning her charred toast, drifting from the room.
The only sound is the rain’s insistent thrum and the wind as it whips through Poets Corner and into every nook and cranny of the house. Then a knock at the back door.
It squeaks open to reveal Felix Waters and about half the sky. He’s sopping, dripping all over the floor as he steps inside. It’s as if the direct descendant of young Monet walked into the kitchen. (Dictionary definition of tall, dark, and smoldering.) How am I only just noticing this? Felix is gorgeous. My cheeks flame.
“Hey, Minnie,” he says, shaking the rain from his hair. “You ready?”
I nod, speechless. We’re walking out the back door as Emmy-Kate clatters into the room from the hallway. She takes in the scene—Felix and me, side by side—and tilts her head. “Is that your toast you’ve burnt, Minnie? Gosh, it’s really ashen, isn’t it?” She sounds like a human stinging nettle. She glares pointedly for a moment, then pushes past us, storming off to school.
“Have you thought any more about The Kiss?” Felix asks as we start fighting our way through the rain as well. “And what we talked about on Saturday, about getting your colors back by making something?”
“Yes, actually,” I tell him. I’m distracted, keeping an eye out for Em. But she’s miles ahead and cloaked from view. It’s one of those washout autumn cloudbursts that floods gutters and steams buses. Every car that swishes past sends up sheets of water. Without thinking, I say to Felix, “Actually, I think I’m going to go back to my mum’s studio after school.”
“Oh yeah?” Felix gives me a disconcerting look, then veers abruptly sideways, ducking under the awning of the Bluebird Bakery and through the door.
I follow him inside. The bakery smells of bacon and damp and heat; the steamy air instantly undoes my plaits. I fluff my hair out to hide my burning face, wishing I hadn’t mentioned the studio when I’m meant to be meeting Ash there.
“What are we doing?” I ask over the clank of the coffee machine.
Felix replies with something I can’t quite hear. I shake my head. “What?”
He leans down, cupping his hand to my ear. “Trust me,” he says in a warm, low voice, like he’s confiding a secret. “I discovered the chocolate croissants my first week here. Worth being in London for. And a girl can’t live on ashen toast alone.”
Felix straightens up, ordering croissants as though nothing has happened. I’m knocked sideways. I concentrate on listing the pastries behind the glass counter, trying to shake off the feeling of him whispering in my ear—how intimate it felt, like he was peeling off my bra. God. Where are these thoughts coming from? And what about Ash? Danish, cinnamon bun, iced bun, pain au chocolate, almond croissant, English muffin, muffin, palmier, Felix’s hand on my cheek, his warm breath …
“Tell me about your mum’s studio,” he says once we’re out in the rain again, croissants in hand. “You said go back there?”
“Um.” I’m pushing my hood down to eat my croissant, and my huge hair starts blowing every which way; wet strands whipping across my face as I answer. “I haven’t been there in a while. Like, all summer. But if I want to get my colors back…”
“… it has to be there,” Felix says, understanding immediately. “What do you plan on making?”
“I don’t know yet.” I take another bite of croissant, and my mouth floods with liquid chocolate. It makes my brain blur. I shouldn’t be talking to Felix about the studio—an arthead who’s a fan, who found our house easily enough. What if he shows up there? “She mostly worked in earthenware. But I thought I’d try porcelain, like you said…”
“Yeah?” Felix swivels, looking down at me, a dark smile forming. “You want me to show you how? I’m not saying I’m an expert, but I’m pretty good.”
I take another bite of warm croissant to give me time to think. The chocolate tastes like leaf buds in spring. “I do,” I say eventually, “but not today. I kind of need to go there alone.”
“Got it.” Felix nods, finishing his croissant and balling up the paper bag, drop-kicking it into the trash. We’re almost at school, but I don’t want us to be there yet.
Clearly, neither does Felix, because he stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, and turns to me. I’m afraid to look at his face. I watch our feet instead. Our boots are being pelted with rain, shimmering white splashes of it.
“Minnie…” Felix says my name in a strangled voice, pulling my head up like a magnet.
Our eyes meet and lock. After a few thousand years of staring at each other, he swipes a hand through his hair, knocking his beanie into a puddle—I don’t think he even notices. Water is streaming down his cheekbones, running over his lips. My rib cage contracts in a slow, painful squeeze.
“Jesus, you’re so pretty,” he mutters.
And in the last second before the bell rings and makes us both late, I hear the beat of my own heart, like a gleaming gold clock.
Gold
(An Ongoing List of Every Color I Have Lost)
Chocolate coins, the end of a rainbow, sunsets, shooting stars, secrets, Felix.
CHAPTER 17
The Color of Moonstone
By the time school finishes, it’s no longer raining; the sky is scrubbed clean of cloud. I decide to walk the couple of miles to the studio. As I pick my way along Full Moon Lane, stepping between sidewalk rivers, I feel like I’m caught on a river of my own, swept away by Felix’s reckless words to me this morning. During our art lesson, the tension between us required an exhibition title: What Happens Next?
And now here I am, on my way to meet my boyfriend.
Like half of south London, Mum’s studio sits between overhead railway lines. She has a solo space taking up the whole of one of the arches—the others are shared by painters, furniture makers, jewelers, craftspeople, collectives. Soggy bunting snaps in the wind as I enter the huge, brick-walled yard. Each studio has a giant, semi-circular metal door, made for a supersize Bilbo Baggins. Most of them are shut, l
ight spilling from the cracks, reminding me of Niko and her candlelit séance-Ouija-whatevers.
Ash is loitering next to Mum’s, wearing a ginormous sheepskin coat. He’s bopping his head, tapping his foot, doesn’t take off his headphones as I approach. Acting as though his first time at her studio is as inconsequential as queuing for a late-night kebab.
“All right, Miniature!” he yells.
I wince, gesturing at my ears.
“OH YEAH,” he shouts, pulling them off. A drop of rain lands on his face. The afternoon is growing cooler, the air softer. I’m afraid Ash will read me like an open book—or a neon sign by an English artist called Tracey Emin, looping light-up handwriting saying:
MINNIE AND FELIX ARE … SOMETHING
But all he seems to see is my enormous halo of hair. “I like this look,” he says, fluffing the curls with a finger. “Bananarama meets Bon Jovi.”
I have no idea if that’s a compliment, but I say: “Thanks.” Another quick splat of rain lands. “How was your house party?”
“Banging.”
Neither of us moves to kiss each other. Ash and Minnie have been replaced by robot versions, who aren’t sure of the correct motions. I plonk my arms around his neck and he steps politely forward into my embrace. The hug feels hollow, like a tree. Our bodies are slotting into each other’s angles automatically, but the rain has wiped out Ash’s lemon-coconut scent and the essence of us. We’re not quite fitting together.
I take a couple of steps backward. It’s starting to rain again for real now and, all around us, it’s transforming the yard into the scene from thirteen weeks ago. Puddles begin to ripple and polka-dot as the sky drops down, the air shifts, shadows coalesce.
“Brrrr. Are you ready to head inside?” Ash asks, tugging on his earlobe. I barely hear him. I’m looking into the past, at flashing red lights reflected in every puddle.
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