Colour Blind

by Catherine Cookson

  She turned the handle of the door and, finding it locked, called again, ‘Michael!’

  He mustn’t be up yet, and it was after ten. Likely he had been working most of the night. Automatically her hand went to the beam that supported the roof of the porch, but her fingers, groping behind it, did not come in contact with the key. When she had tried the other side, and been met with the same emptiness, she turned and looked at the blue boat bobbing forlornly against the side of the wharf. She was nonplussed. If he was not down in the morning the key would still be behind the beam, where she left it at night. Again her fingers traced the key’s hiding place; then panic seized her. If he had gone out, he would have left the key. Perhaps he had been taken ill and couldn’t get downstairs…perhaps he was dead.

  ‘Michael!’ She battered with her fist upon the door. ‘Michael!’

  When she heard his steps in the kitchen only the tight painfulness of her face prevented her from laughing with relief, and he had barely opened the door before her hands went out to him. But they found no answering grip. His arms did not pull her to him, exclaiming in horror at the sight of her face, nor did he demand in his impetuous way where she had been until this hour. After staring fixedly at her face for a moment, he merely turned from her and put the width of the table between them.

  As she stared at him in astonishment her whole body began to shake, and her voice, too, trembled as she asked softly, ‘What’s the matter?’

  He did not answer her immediately, but continued to look at her with eyes so coldly blue that she appealed to him as a child might, saying, ‘But what have I done?’

  She watched him pass one lip over the other, and his voice was so quiet when it came as to be scarcely recognisable as his.

  ‘Are you living in Holborn, Rosie?’

  The racing of her heart warned her of what was to come, and she answered with difficulty. ‘Yes, but I was going to tell you…I…’

  A small deprecatory movement of his hand checked her hesitant words.

  ‘With an Arab?’

  ‘No. No!’ She screamed the words at him; and again he checked her, asking sharply, ‘Last night you never went to the fifteen streets, you got off that tram and went back to Holborn, didn’t you?’

  She was unable to answer him—her eyes were fixed on his face like a fear-paralysed rabbit.

  ‘That Arab I chased was waiting for you, wasn’t he?’

  Still no words would come, and he went on, ‘I see he has thrashed you for your duplicity. He has that to his credit, anyway.’

  ‘Michael’—she gasped his name fearfully—‘I’m not living with him. It’s true he was waiting for me. He’s…he’s a friend. He takes me into Holborn. I’m living with my father…the Negro, the one that you painted.’

  She watched his eyebrows rise, then draw into a thick furrow. ‘Your father, eh? My God!’ He shook his head as if at his own gullibility. ‘Rosie, I wouldn’t have believed you capable of such barefaced lying.’

  She leant across the table towards him and cried beseechingly, ‘Believe me, oh, believe me, I’m not lying. I know it looks bad, but I’m not lying.’

  ‘Be quiet!’

  At his low-growled command she straightened herself and tried to draw on what little pride and strength she had left to face up to this man, who was now neither master nor lover. But it was no use. Under his contemptuous glance she not only bowed her head but her body also, and she leaned her hands on the table for support as he went on, ‘May I ask where your mother comes in, in this scheme of things? Why isn’t she with your father?’

  ‘I can explain—’ She made to raise her head.

  ‘Wait. If I remember rightly, you told me your mother was a widow, and that your father died when you were a child.’

  Yes, he remembered rightly, and she could remember his question, ‘Is your father out of work?’ and her answer, to save explanations and more humiliation, ‘He’s dead. He died when I was a child.’

  She spoke with difficulty from under her breath, ‘That was a lie, but it’s the only one I’ve told you.’

  ‘Rosie!’ His tone as he uttered her name was quiet but heavy with scorn. ‘Don’t make matters worse. Look at those.’ He placed two letters on the centre of the table. ‘Do you recognise the writing?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘They are anonymous letters about you.’

  ‘About me?’ Her head came up with a jerk, and her mouth hung agape in amazement.

  ‘Why do you appear so surprised? Everyone isn’t blind, you know; I happen to be an exception. One of those letters, I know, is from Bessie, who tells me it’s about time I found out I was being fooled. Apparently she had her own ideas of why I kept you on. The other is from someone, I should imagine, who knows you very well. One sentence interests me very much. It says you can assume a cloak of timidity and fear so as to hoodwink people. I once said to you that I wasn’t sure whether you were so full of humility as not to be a woman or so full of the wisdom of the serpent that you were being amused by me, and, my God, how you must have been amused! What was your game, anyway? Did you think you could get off with it?’

  ‘Please M—’ She could not now speak his name. ‘Please don’t say any more…you’re wrong. Those letters are full of lies.’

  ‘Yes?’ He picked up one of the letters. ‘This writer points out that you have always been a great source of worry to your mother, and that she tried to stop you from going into Holborn. But you wouldn’t listen to her. Is that a lie?’

  ‘Yes…no…She did try to stop me, but…’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell her then about…your father?’

  ‘Because he didn’t want me to…he was ill, as you know, and changed.’

  ‘How was it I didn’t notice any tender relationship between you during his visits here? Throwing my mind back, I never once remember you even looking at the man. Why, in the name of God, must you bring him into all this?’

  ‘Because I’ve told you…he’s my father.’

  Stanhope scrutinised her for a moment, then said softly, ‘And the Arab is just a friend? He waits for you each night and takes you home?’

  Knowing her answer would bring down his contempt on her head, she hesitated before saying. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you take me for? If it had been a white man I would have had my doubts, but an Arab! And to term him a friend. You know as well as I do that no man, black or white, could be merely a friend to you, and an Arab least of all.’

  Oh God! It was like the scene of her frequent dismissals over again, only intensified a thousandfold. She had often wondered what her master would be like were he in a real rage. Then, she had thought, his bellow would reach such volume as to scare even the bravest. She had never imagined that his rage would produce no bellows, that his voice would be low-toned and even. Nor had she imagined that his eyes could express such disgust and a disdain that would make her feel unclean, unmerited as it was.

  The terrible coldness of his manner was having a numbing effect on her already failing senses, and as his voice went on she had to grip the edge of the table for support.

  ‘And your face…the Arab didn’t do that?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  In spite of her faintness her words carried conviction. But when he asked, ‘Who did then?’ and she answered, ‘I fell on the stairs,’ he made a sound like a laugh.

  ‘Do you take me for a fool altogether? In my young days I used to box, but had I never given or received a blow between the eyes I would know that it was a fist that had hit you.’

  Rose Angela knew that there were levels of pain she had not yet probed. What she was suffering now would be nothing compared to the agony that would be produced by the emptiness of a life separated from this man’s…She must tell him about Matt.

  ‘It was a fist. My uncle did it—the one that wrote that letter. He’s always hated me and lied about me.’

  ‘Oh, your uncle, now! Is he lying when he says you have been turned
out of situation after situation because of your double-dealings with men, and that you’ve never kept a job more than a few weeks?’

  Rose Angela stared at Stanhope without seeing him. What was the use? Living or dead, Matt’s work went on. She could do no more; yet through all the turmoil of her feeling ran a thread of bewilderment at what appeared to her a determination on Stanhope’s part not to believe anything she said, for only last night hadn’t he told her it was her honesty that had altered his opinion of women?

  Then, as she stood swaying on her feet, his voice, losing its levelness and sinking into his throat with bitterness, brought her sharply back from the oblivion that was upon her; and she knew part of the reason for his unrelenting attitude towards her, for, as much as he hated her at this moment, he hated and loathed himself even more.

  ‘Last night I asked you to live with me, but after you had gone I knew that wouldn’t be enough…I must marry you and make sure of you. Make sure of you…that’s funny, isn’t it? And when this morning I received these two letters it was history repeating itself, for all this has happened to me before. When I was about to be married, twelve years ago, I received such a letter as that.’ He flicked Matt’s letter with his nail. ‘The girl was as beautiful as you, and as practised a liar.’ He paused for a while, and ran the side of his finger across his lips as if wiping something distasteful from them. ‘I felt a young fool, then, but now I feel an old one. And that I find harder to stomach!’

  Now she knew the uselessness of trying to convince him. The giddiness swam over her again, and his voice came to her as if from the end of a long corridor, saying, ‘There’s a week’s wages in lieu of notice. And you may keep the brooch. It is of some value, as doubtless you expected when you asked for such a simple gift.’

  When the mist cleared from her eyes she found that she was alone. She hadn’t heard him go. His movements, like his voice, were now quiet and final. She leant over the table, her body trembling. Her hand went to her throat, and, groping at the brooch fastening her blouse, she undid it and placed it on the table near the money he had laid there. Then unsteadily she left the kitchen.

  Outside, she stood watching the sun’s watery rays reflected on the river. It was over—just like that…

  She walked on, almost blindly, over the rails and sleepers and she wondered vaguely why she was shedding no tears, for inside she was crying as she had never cried before: in many ways at one and the same time, like a child that had been misjudged, and like a girl who had been spurned, and like a woman who had drunk bitterly of humiliation. The child was crying, ‘It’s always the same. Oh, I wish I was dead! Oh, I wish I was dead!’ And the girl was crying, ‘He believed everything in that letter, about the men an’ all.’ But the woman’s cry overshadowed the others, for she was crying, ‘It’s my colour. If I’d been all white he would have let me convince him, in spite of that other girl. Last night he said colour didn’t matter, but I know, I know. It will always matter, and balance the scales; it’s still like when I was a child.’

  She drew to a halt and stared at the river. The fitful gleam of the sun had vanished, leaving the water a broken mass of steely grey. There was a way out—it was deep by the broken wall, and once in she would never get out. There was only her da to really mourn her; and then not for long, for he would soon go…Mourning. All her life had been one long mourning; mourning because she was what she was. She was tired, so tired, and her face was like a sheet of hot pain. She had been born to misery, so why had she imagined that anything might come right for her? And of all things, Stanhope’s love! She had been like a child, firmly believing that a fairy tale could become reality.

  She started to run over the sleepers, tripping and stumbling like someone drunk. She passed the railway carriage and was deaf to Murphy’s voice calling after her. And she had actually mounted the broken wall before she was pulled to a halt.

  ‘Here, here! Steady on. What is it, lass? What you running like that for?…Look, stop it!’ Murphy put his arms tightly about her, restraining her until she suddenly became still. ‘That’s better. What is it? What’s happened to you?’

  She leant against him, her head resting on his greasy muffler, and he held her gently until she murmured, ‘It’s him.’

  ‘Him? Who?’ asked Murphy.

  ‘The guv’nor.’ She used Murphy’s’ own term for Stanhope. ‘He won’t believe me. He won’t believe I’m not living with Hassan.’ She was speaking slowly, with the dull simplicity of a child, and Murphy stared at her perturbed as he repeated, ‘Living with Hassan? God Almighty! What put that into his head?’

  ‘Matt. Matt sent him a letter, and Bessie too.’

  ‘Why, blast the pair of them for lying skunks! Look, lass, come inside the cabin a minute and get yourself warmed; you’re all in.’

  She allowed him to lead her back and into the railway carriage, where he sat her on the backless chair before the fire and began clumsily to chafe her stiff hands, talking all the while and trying to break through the strange light in her eyes. And he looked apprehensively at Pete when she broke in on him, saying dully, ‘He was going to ask me to marry him, and I would have been Mrs Stanhope then, Murphy.’

  Murphy pursed his lips and jerked his head approvingly. ‘Aye, fit to marry anyone, you are, Rosie…you’ll marry him all right, won’t she, Pete?’

  Pete nodded, sparing his words as usual.

  ‘Not now,’ she said, ‘because it’s all happened before.’

  ‘There, there then. Are you warmed?…I’ll brew some tea. There ain’t any milk, but it’ll be hot. Been through a bit too much, you have. Lean back against the wall…he’ll marry you all right, don’t you worry.’

  ‘No…he wouldn’t believe about Matt…about him always being bad.’ Murphy’s hand became still for a second as he measured the tea into the black can, and his eyes darted towards Pete’s; then he turned the thread of her thoughts by saying, ‘Not that Pete and me want you to marry and be skedaddled off to some place else, do we, Pete?’

  Pete shook his head.

  ‘Best friend we’ve ever had, you’ve been. Not many like you about. No wonder yer da dotes on you. It’ll be a bad day for all of us when we lose you, I can tell you that.’

  Bad day for all of them when they lost her…best friend they’d ever had. She felt a momentary glow of comfort…there were kind people in the world—these men were kind. And they believed in her, they who had known her so short a time. Not like her mother, who knew her even before birth, and him who last night had told her he adored her from the moment he set eyes on her and would continue to do so every moment of his life.

  The crying and inward sobbing began to mount. It was Pete’s unused voice that caused her pent-up tears to break, betraying himself by look and word as he said briefly, ‘Nobody’s good enough for you…the Stanhope bloke nor nobody else.’

  This was a long speech for Pete, and as Rose Angela looked at the dwarf his love penetrated the mist of her mind, and all the pain within her gathered itself into her throat, and as it found release she covered her face with her hands and sobbed, great tearing sobs that convulsed her body.

  The men stood helplessly by, gazing at her bent head. When the sobs, gathering on themselves, threatened to choke her, their hands hovered towards her but did not touch her. It was as if they both realised that this safety valve must not be checked. Twice the crying died down, only to burst out afresh, and it was only when her body sagged almost double that Pete intervened by motioning to Murphy to give her the tea.

  Clumsily Murphy straightened her hat, saying, ‘Come, Rosie, lass, and have your drop of tea.’ He took the mug from Pete’s hand and held it to her lips. ‘There now, drink that, and we’ll get you a drop of water, for your face and hands are in a mess.’ His voice was placating, he was humouring her as if she were still the strange distraught child he had pulled from the wall.

  But after she had sipped the tea she spoke to him, and her voice was as he knew it. ‘I’m sorry,
Murphy.’

  Murphy’s face showed his relief. ‘There, there, it’s all over now.’

  She sat in silence, the two men watching her. Was it all over? Wasn’t there more to come?

  ‘Where is Matt?’ She asked the question as she stared down into the mug of black tea.

  After a pause Murphy muttered, ‘We don’t know.’

  She cupped the mug in her cold hands and the steam rising from the tea wafted about her face. ‘What happened last night?’ Her voice betrayed her premonition.

  There was another pause before Murphy said, ‘We chased him and he went down the drop alley.’

  ‘The drop alley?’ She looked quickly up at Murphy. ‘But there’s no way out of there but the river.’

  Pete’s eyes were fastened on the floor, and Murphy turned his head aside as he replied, ‘I know. Me and the fellows waited to see if he’d come back, and Hassan and Pete went along to the sculler steps to nab him if he came up that way. But he didn’t come…’ He paused, and then went on hopefully, ‘He could have swum along the river and come up somewhere, though, and is hiding out, trying to scare us.’

  Rose Angela looked through the carriage window to where the river was moving swiftly in black and grey patches. ‘He couldn’t swim,’ she said flatly.

  Neither Murphy nor Pete made any comment or movement, and she went on fearfully, ‘There’ll be an enquiry if they find him, and if there are any marks on his body…’