Colour Blind

by Catherine Cookson

  James straightened up on the step. ‘Him die on next trip, when boilers bust. Sometime I tell you ’bout it…not now. Now we just talk of us, eh? Rose Angela’—he bent above her—‘will you take your hat off?’ The request was humble, as if asking her to confer on him a great favour, but as Rose Angela’s hands went readily to her head he stopped her with a warning movement of his hand, ‘Sh! we got company; I hear somebody.’

  Rose Angela had heard nothing, but, bending forward, she glanced between the wagons, and then saw the Arab.

  ‘It’s an Arab,’ she said uneasily; ‘he’s always about here. He stands by the wall at the bottom of the passage nearly every day.’

  James was in no way perturbed; in fact his expression showed pleasure. ‘Oh, then, that be Hassan. He all right. Like me, he like river. Every day he come to river. He quite good sort, not like some.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes—I work for him ’fore I was sick. He got eating house…he quite rich man. But him not like some…him like the river and talk ’bout places and other peoples.’

  She turned her head and watched the Arab coming into view, and she saw the blank look of astonishment appear on his face when he saw her and James together. James raised his hand to his forehead in salute, and after a moment, during which he stood stock-still, the Arab, too, raised his hand; then came forward.

  ‘You courtin’ river again?’ said James.

  The Arab nodded and smiled, but his eyes rested on Rose Angela; and James, standing up, said with deep pride, ‘This my daughter…you never believe I had white daughter that time I tell you, did you?’

  The Arab continued to smile, and shook his head slowly. Rose Angela did not return his smile, but as she looked at him she thought: Now he will speak to me; if I meet him in Shields he will speak to me, and people will see us, and that will be the end of any name I have left. But this thought did not fill her with the usual fear and apprehension, and she wondered at it. Instead, she felt a new strength flowing through her veins, bringing with it courage. She looked at James. She had a da, and she was going to look after him and keep him safe. She had a feeling of belonging, of moving out of the in-between world in which she had lived her life into another, more steady, planet. In this moment she experienced a sense of exhilaration in which she feared nothing or nobody…no—she made her mind gather the words together and present them to her—not even her Uncle Matt!

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Eleven: The Books

  ‘Go ye down now and put yer spoke in and she’ll do it.’ Kathie leant across the table towards Cavan, who was sitting, his hands clenched on the arms of the chair, gazing stonily at her. ‘She’s got to do it. And why not for, I ask you? To let her brother sleep in her house a few nights. If it was her fancy man there wouldn’t be two ways about it.’

  Still Cavan said nothing, and Kathie went on, ‘Christmas soon upon us an’ all, an’ ye know, none better, how we are fixed for coppers. It’s worse I’m off since they put Terry on that job, with his tram fares and him eating like a ravenous loon, and wantin’ pocket money an’ all…and now this to happen—to bring Matt up for a means test! God in Heaven, don’t ye see it’s less than nothing he’ll get when they know Terry’s bringing a penny in, an’ us havin’ a lodger an’ all? But if he says he’s sleeping out, for there’s no place to sleep five of us in these two rooms, then he’ll likely stand a chance of getting his full seventeen shillings. Don’t you see?’

  ‘Aye, I see.’ Cavan’s voice rasped like a jangle of steel filings. ‘And he’s not sleeping there! He can get a bed anywhere around for five bob or so a week.’ As he glared at his wife he wondered if she was being purposely blind to Matt’s feelings for Bridget—or was she just a fool?

  ‘Five bob or so a week! Will ye listen to him! Five bob or so—the Virgin stand by me side and guide me. We have so much, sure we have, that we can throw five bobs about! Listen to me, Cavan McQueen. My Matt’s goin’ into nobody’s house while his sister sports two rooms with not a soul lying in them.’

  Cavan stood up. ‘If she had ten empty rooms, he’s not going there.’

  ‘An’ who the hell are you to say he’s not goin’ there?’

  ‘I’m the same bloke who used to give you a hammerin’. It’s a long time since you had one, but you’re asking for it now.’

  ‘Go on, ye little bantam, ye try it on.’ Kathie stepped back from the table and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse.

  ‘Oh, away to hell!’ Cavan waved her off with a deprecatory move of his hand. ‘Don’t tempt me…only listen to this! We’ve heard the last of Matt goin’ to Bridget’s—do you hear that?’

  Kathie was almost black in the face with the torrent of mixed emotions filling her great bulk—her thoughts moved from Matt and the means test to a more personal trouble—more than anything at this moment she desired that Cavan should hit her; his refusal to do so was like an insult. She watched him move towards the door, and so great was her feeling that her usual flow of invective was checked, and she stammered and stuttered, ‘You…you…sod! I’ll get even with you. Ye won’t lift a finger to help yer own kith and kin, but I’ll get even with ye—by God, I’ll get even with ye before many hours have passed over yer head.’

  The door banged and she was left yelling at the walls. ‘I’ll see me day with ye. Like me fine daughter Bridget ye are, getting too big for yer boots—with her loose piece of a girl giving her twenty-five shillings a week. And I know where that ’un ’ll end, too. And she’s another mean sod, for not a penny has she given me since she started. But you’—she flung herself to the window and yelled fruitlessly—‘yer Rosie gives you a backhander, don’t she!’ The sound of her voice echoed around the walls, and the words seemed to fall about her and hurt her. She turned into the room and beat the table in her rage. He hadn’t lifted a finger to her, and she had gone at him like that! Years ago, when the bairns were young, he often landed her one, and then he was sorry and she cooked him a good feed after; but now…now, nothing. Her head swung from side to side. Bridget and Matt were entirely forgotten, only her own failure confronted her. She could no longer rouse her man; nothing she did could touch him. How long was it since he last slapped her a wallop across the backside? Years; not since he had started that reading business. She no longer meant anything to him—she was just a fat hulk that he even turned from in bed at night. He wasn’t always like that—by God, no! At one time she could say yes or nay, but not since he took to that reading. Her head stopped swinging…It was them books that had made him different…he wanted nothing but them books. Pity for herself turned to rage again. She looked towards the shelf that held eight books, all brown paper-backed and stacked according to their size. Cavan had made the shelf and hung it above the bed. As she stared, her fingers cupping one great breast began to twitch, and the fire dropping in the grate sent a glow into the darkening kitchen and showed up her mouth and eyes, stretching in their portraying of her thoughts. Who said she couldn’t touch him? Didn’t she say she’d get even with him? And what better way? She’d let him see she wasn’t dead yet. Scorn her, would he? Sit there, hour after hour, reading and never a word out of him, never a laugh, never a joke? Well, she’d finish all that.

  With three steps and a sweep of her hand the books were scattered over the bed and on the floor, and as she stooped to pick one up the enormity of her intention stilled her hand for the moment. Then with a growl which seemed to emerge from some dark depth, even beyond that of her enormous body, she gripped the pages and wrenched them out; and she threw them on the fire. But the dull glow of the cinders seemed to hesitate before sending even a small flame to lick their edges, and Kathie, taking a poker, scattered the pages, the more readily to catch the flame; and when they were alight she threw on the mutilated book cover. One book after the other followed until the fire was banked high with smouldering cardboard and blackened paper. And when there was no more to tear she thought of the box under the bed—she’d make a clean job
of it. Scorn her, would he? She’d make him sorry he had ever imagined he could live without her. Once his books were burnt he’d be finished, for he’d never have the face to go into Shields to the library; even if he had the nerve he’d never go because he wasn’t decently put on. And whichever way he went—Jarrow or Shields—it meant walking miles there and back; and he hadn’t the boots, anyway. No, she had him right enough. Like some unwieldy animal she went down on her knees and dragged the tin box from under the bed.

  Still kneeling, she went on working in a frenzy, pulling and tearing at the books and telling herself that no-one would slight her and get off with it; least of all that little rat who had chased her for months before she’d look at him. He’d thought nothing about reading in those days, nor did it matter a damn that she could neither read nor write.

  That it was forty-five years ago Cavan had pursued her did not enter into her reasoning; nor had her illiteracy troubled her in the least until recently, when she imagined that part of Cavan’s indifference was bred by scorn of her ignorance. She knew that the days of lovemaking were long past, and she herself was past wanting them renewed, but there had been little acts of endearment between them which, with the years, had taken the place of passion—such as him bringing her a wallop across the backside after being supplied with a good feed, or his feet searching and twining around hers in the night. But during the past two years even these had ceased.

  Deaf to all sound but that of her rage, she did not notice the opening of the door; and so astonished was Eva’s Johnnie at the sacrilege being perpetrated that he could not speak. For a time he remained still, watching his grannie; then silently closing the door, he ran off to tell his granda, whom he had just left standing at the corner of the street.

  ‘Granda! Granda’—he flung himself against Cavan’s legs—‘me grannie’s gone off her chump—she’s throwing your books on the fire!’

  Cavan had not run for years, but now his running had an arrow’s swiftness to it that far outstripped Johnnie’s youthful legs; nor did his speed slacken until he reached the kitchen door. Still in his stride, he flung it open and was brought up sharply by the sight of the fire piled high with his treasures. Kathie turned and confronted him, pieces of charred paper clinging to her hair and face, which, with her frantic exertion and the heat, was looking like a great red balloon. For perhaps a moment Cavan stared at her, his mouth and eyes stretched wide; then rushing forward, he plunged his hands into the smouldering mass, and flinging handful after handful on to the floor, began to stamp on it, seemingly unaware that they were no longer his books, but small pieces of paper, most of them charred.

  Standing amid the smoke and the paper, Kathie taunted him as he thrust his hands again and again into the now flaming jumble; and when, as if at a given signal, he stopped his vain efforts, her voice faded away in her throat, and she stood slumped, watching him looking helplessly down at the debris. He lifted his head and stared at her through the smoke, and she saw how useless had been her effort. Not even this would make him lift his hand again to her, for in his eyes was only sorrow and pain.

  Her flesh seemed to shrink from her bones as she watched the tears gathering in his eyes—never had she known her man to cry. She watched him stumble to a chair and sit down, and spread his burned hands out before him on the table; and when he dropped his head between them and began to sob, she, too, groped for a chair and sat down; and the knowledge that Cavan was not made hers again by the loss of his books but gone from her for ever made her great body tremble. Entirely forgotten now was the cause of the row, and she began searching her mind for a reason, asking herself what had led her to do such a thing. A surge of emotion she was unable to understand and had no power to control rushed upon her. Like a penance, it filled her with sorrow and regret; feelings that were both new to her, so new that they made her fearful—of what, she didn’t know. She only knew that she was sorry and she must cry…she, who had laughed so much in her life, must cry as if for the first time. Slowly and painfully her sobs mingled with Cavan’s; and the sound and the sight scared Johnnie, who was standing staring through the window; and since his mother wasn’t in he ran to tell his Aunt Bridget.

  Bridget was standing in her favourite position, hand gripping the brass rod and her eyes resting on the words ‘Grieve Gillespie, Jarrow-on-Tyne’ on the stove. How many times during the years had she faced a problem standing thus, and mostly about the man behind her now? She stood listening to his voice, soft and whining, and she thought for the countless time, Oh, if he were only dead! and for the countless time she was shocked and grieved at her thoughts.

  ‘Just for a little while…I won’t be in your way.’

  ‘Matt’—her voice, too, was soft—‘I’ve told you. You can’t stay here…Look, don’t let’s have any more rows over it—I’ve told you what I’ll do—I’ll give you a few shillings towards you getting a room for a week or two.’

  ‘But why should I, when you’ve got two rooms doing nothing? And what’ll folks say? They’ll think it funny, I’ll tell you, when me own sister won’t take me in for a night or two.’

  Bridget sighed. ‘It’s immaterial to me what people say.’

  ‘Is it?’ There was a challenge in his tone.

  Bridget did not reply, and he went on, ‘If your great managing director was to ask, he wouldn’t be refused—he never has yet.’

  ‘You know that’s a lie!’ She swung round on him. ‘He’s never stayed here at nights.’

  ‘No, he gets what he wants before that.’

  She raised her hand and dropped it helplessly. ‘Matt—you’re not staying here, and that’s final.’

  Bridget’s rage was always more bearable to Matt than her indifference or her reasonableness. Now she was trying to be reasonable, to put him off with soft words, and it maddened him. Why was she trying to put him off? He knew why—because of that dirty half-caste. It was strange that although he hated Tony, the feeling was as nothing compared with that which even the thought of Rose Angela could rouse in him. Rose Angela still stood as a symbol of the thing that had taken his Bridget away from him; every part of her reminded him of the man whom he held responsible for his distorted face and the frustrations of his life.

  Years ago he would have taken what he deemed his just revenge on Rose Angela’s face, but for the knowledge that in doing so he would be cutting himself off forever from Bridget. The hate of Rose Angela the child had been bearable because he knew that Bridget bore her no real love, but from the time he sensed the change in Bridget’s affections his hate, when Rose Angela was present, often made it almost impossible for him to restrain his urge to destroy.

  He would not admit to himself that the reason Bridget was refusing him was because she didn’t want him in the house—he could not face the fact that his Bridget did not want him. She was, in his mind, the only one who did want him. And were it not for that ’un she would take him in like a shot; it was because of her he was being refused.

  ‘I know why you won’t have me here.’ He addressed Bridget’s back as she took a tablecloth from the dresser drawer preparatory to laying the table. She did not answer him, and he went on, ‘It’s because of that ’un, isn’t it?’

  Still Bridget made no rejoinder.

  ‘Well, it looks as if that reason will soon be moved.’

  Bridget swung the cloth over the table.

  ‘She’s changed her fancy man. The funny thing is, the other bloke must be in the dark, as she’s still working for him.’

  ‘What badness are you concocting now?’ Bridget’s mouth was grim as she jerked round and faced him.

  ‘I’m concocting nothing—it’s the truth. She’s picked up with one of her own kind.’

  The muscles of Bridget’s face sagged, and her voice shook as she said, ‘Matt, be careful—I can only stand so much.’

  ‘You’ll have to stand this sooner or later; if not from me from somebody else.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She’s
thick with an Arab.’

  Bridget remained still.

  ‘You don’t believe me? Well, get on to Jack Rundall. He was with me the first time I saw them. She was standing talking to an Arab in the open near the ferry, as brazen as brass she was, and he eating her with his eyes.’

  Matt was quiet now, both inside and out, for he had roused Bridget not to anger but to fear. Her face was stiff with it.

  ‘No!’ Her whisper was scarcely audible, but Matt heard it and said, ‘It’s true. And then there was last night, I watched her. The same Arab was waiting for her near the river, at the end of the cut that leads into Holborn. I saw them under the lamp. She gives him her hand and they start talking, then off they go, right into Holborn…into a café affair; and you don’t have to be told what those places are.’ His voice had assumed an almost sympathetic tone.

  Bridget whispered again to herself, ‘No, oh no, Rosie.’

  Last night she was late—it was nearly nine o’clock when she came in. She had been late other nights, too, because, she said, there were some people staying with Mr Stanhope and she had to cook a late dinner. It sounded so feasible, and she had tried not to think there might be another reason for the lateness…and all the time she was going with an Arab. Oh God! Bridget folded her arms about her waist and began to rock herself…Not that, not an Arab. Yet could she be blamed? What example had she to follow? What had she thought all these years about her mother marrying a black man, not to speak of what she knew of Tony?…But an Arab! James had been handsome in his way, but the Arabs were like weeds. And then, what about her master?

  Bridget had just said she cared nothing for people’s gossip. For herself, she could bear it; but when it touched her daughter, it tore at her. Because of Bessie Grant, people had for months looked askance at Rose Angela, but now she would be stamped ‘a real loose piece’; and she wasn’t bad, somehow she wasn’t bad. Lately when Bridget covertly watched her daughter’s face she was forced to say to herself, ‘If she’s bad, then there’s no good in heaven or earth.’ No, she wouldn’t believe it—Rose Angela would never go with an Arab, she had always been afraid of them. This was another of Matt’s tricks. He was evil—she stopped her rocking—but strangely enough he wasn’t a liar. This fact forced itself on her mind and she muttered to herself, ‘Oh my God, there must be something in it, somehow.’ And Matt said Jack Rundall had seen her and all. If that was so, then most of the fifteen streets knew about it by now. Suppose they did to Rose Angela what they did to Rene Batten a few years ago…pelt her out of the streets. Oh Holy Mary, don’t let this happen to my lass!