Matt had lain all through the night and most of the day concealed between the wall of a warehouse and a rubbish dump. He had slept fitfully through the night, and each time he had woken he had groped at his head. Once he woke up laughing and punching at the air. When daylight came he kept awake, but did not move from where he was. He could not tell himself why he was staying here, but instinct was telling him that he must hide. There was a pile of shavings among the rubbish, and after a while he burrowed into this and lay trying to find something to hold on to in the hollowness of his head. He could not remember his name, nor where he had come from; he only knew he had been running…running, running. But when he thought of himself running he felt disappointed, and groped at the feeling, but the reason for this, too, evaded him.
Although a drizzle of rain was falling, he did not feel cold, only hungry. But he was loath to move, until the fading light of the afternoon urged him to get up. And he had to struggle out of the shavings, for his limbs felt heavy. He gazed about him, but did not know where he was. The river meant nothing to him, and he turned from it and walked with dragging step to where an opening showed in the wall beyond the refuse heap. It was an alleyway, and at the farther end he could see people passing in the street; and, strangely, he did not fear them now, but had an urge to be near them. Yet, once in the street, he walked close to the wall, keeping his head down. He turned the corner and crossed a road as if he knew where he was going, and he had walked quite some distance before he stopped. He was beside a short passage leading into a yard. Some way beyond, on the pavement, two men stood talking to an Arab. He turned his back on them, and as though he had done it before he lifted his eyes to the tin plate nailed above the arch and read ‘River Court, 1, 2, 3 and 4’. Then he went along the passage and into the yard, and looked from one to the other of the four doors leading from it.
In the centre of the yard a woman was emptying slops down the drain, and as she banged the bucket to dislodge some filth she turned and glanced at him, and he hung his head. She took no further notice of him, but went to a tap near the wall, rinsed the bucket, threw the water on to the yard, then went through an open doorway.
Matt looked around the yard, selected a door, and went towards it. As he reached it his hand went to his head again, and his fingers moved over his scalp. Two children coming through the doorway looked up at him, then continued on their way; and he walked into the hallway and up the stairs without meeting anyone. But when he reached the second landing he heard voices, and he stood still, listening. First a man’s voice, then a woman’s. The woman’s did not come often, but he waited for it. It was soft, scarcely above a whisper, and his mind clung to it, and he knew that he knew it. It began to form a substance in the hollowness, yet he could not pin it down, for when he groped at it it evaded him, moving away swiftly, almost becoming lost in the void again, until the whisper was renewed. Then he could feel it, the something that would bring him back. But when, for a seemingly long time, the woman’s whisper did not reach him, he began to mount the stairs, pausing on each tread to listen. He was halfway up when he saw the feet through the banisters. They were close together, the woman’s and the man’s. He mounted still farther, until now he could see the back of the man’s head. Then he was at the top of the stairs, and the woman moved her head and he saw her face, and he knew.
Now he knew what he had been trying to remember: his life that had been wrecked, his days bare and his nights empty, and all because of her. And he had come back to level things off. Once he had done this he would be happy, and the remainder of the void within him would be filled again. The woman saw him and became petrified, so petrified that she could make no sound, and at the sight of her fear he experienced a feeling of pure glee. And when the man who was shielding her with his body turned, the way was clear, and he sprang.
His hands clawed at her flesh, and he felt her body under his as they went down together. He heard the rattle of pails and tins as they were scattered about them. Then he was no longer on the landing but swinging into the air. And as he fell the second time he clung to the thing that had lifted him and bore it with him. He was fighting now like a madman, with his teeth, his fists and his feet, until fresh hands tore at him and fresh faces milled around him…white faces, dark faces; and hands, thousands of hands; and voices, crying and screaming. Then as suddenly as the void had begun to fill, so it emptied again. He still fought and struggled, but now only to get away, because he had become afraid of something, not of the pain from the blows, but from something welling inside him. Above the noise and stamping of feet he heard a high scream; then the struggle ceased abruptly.
He was on his knees, and the front of his coat and shirt were ripped away, and on his bare chest there were spatters of blood. Someone was holding his arms, and someone else had hold of his hair and was pulling his head back. The strain on his neck was excruciating, and from this angle all he could see was an Arab standing some distance from him. His eyes strained from the face down the man’s side to the knife clutched in the brown hand.
Then the grip on his hair eased, to fall away altogether. And now his eyes were looking at the floor and the dirty boards spattered with blood, and he felt a rising gurgle of laughter moving up through his stomach. But before it reached his lips it changed. He saw it changing. It was in the centre of the great empty void that was him. He saw it disintegrate, then form again. And it formed into a sorrow that he knew was his life. And the weight of it became so great inside of him that he felt he must tear it out. But he had no means of doing this, and he knew it. Then into the stillness came a terrifying sound. It was the thing that had frightened him, the thing that he feared. It was the sound of his own weeping.
Stanhope looked from the sobbing man to his arm. The long gap in his greatcoat, coat and shirt looked like a series of jagged red lips. He was feeling no pain; from the moment when a red hot needle seemed to rip his skin the arm became numb. His main feeling was one of amazement. Even in the heat of the fight he had felt this amazement, when he realised that the Arab was trying to knife him. When he first saw the knife gleaming in the Arab’s hand he wanted to protest against its use on Matt, but the milling of six bodies, for by then Murphy and two other men had joined the fray, made it impossible. When the knife slit the front of his coat he thought it was an accident, but not when he felt the prick of it between his shoulder blades. He had untangled himself from the arms that were trying to hold Matt down and turned, filled with fury, yet still amazed, to where he thought the Arab was, for in the dimness of the landing it was fast becoming difficult to distinguish one figure from another. Almost at the same moment as he heard Rose Angela scream he felt the knife go down his arm, and he was thrown against the wall by the force behind the blow.
And now there was quiet on the landing; even the people crowding the stairs were quiet; and Stanhope thought he must be light-headed when, in a matter of seconds, the stairs were emptied of people as if a hand had wiped them away. Doors on the landing, which had been open and filled with shouting women, were now closed. He saw the two men who had been very prominent in the mêlée glide like vapour down the stairs. And now there remained only Murphy, who was holding the kneeling Matt by the arms, Rose Angela, who was pressed tight in the corner of the walls, the Arab and himself.
He looked at the Arab, whose face appeared a dull grey, its expression a mixture of hate and bitterness, and he thought: The dirty greaser! He tried to do me in. And he’ll try to pass it off on to the madman there. A flame of intense anger swept over him, and he knew that if he himself had a knife handy at this moment he would ram it home into the Arab’s chest. His anger impelled him from the wall, and, shouting a gabble of words, he lunged at Hassan. But before he could reach him, Murphy was between them. He struck at Murphy with his good arm until, without any warning, his strength left him and he had to lean on Murphy for support. The sweat ran into his eyes, blinding him for the moment. Then again he was looking at the Arab. But the Arab was now staring
at Rose Angela, and she at him. For a seemingly long time he watched them stare at each other, until he pulled himself from Murphy’s hands and stumbled towards them.
Hassan, turning his eyes from Rose Angela to Stanhope, seemed to be on the point of saying something; but, instead, he allowed his curling lip to convey the contempt he was feeling. Then, unhurriedly, he walked across the landing and into the black well of the staircase.
There seemed to be nothing left now but the sound of the crying. It was like the crying of a lost child, with snuffles and breaking sobs. And again, from the support of Murphy’s arm, Stanhope gazed down in stupefaction at the man sitting on the floor, his clothes torn from his body and his face and chest spattered with blood. He could not reconcile this whimpering heap with the maniac he had been fighting, and to his disgust he felt a faintness overcoming him, and he retched.
James lay with his eyes closed. His heart was beating rapidly, but not so rapidly as it had done two hours ago. Then he had thought that each beat would sever the slender line with which he was holding on to life. His heart was pounding now because of what was to come, for at any moment the door would open and Bridget would be in the room.
He had thought he did not want to see her, but now he knew he had been lying to himself by way of comfort. What she had done with her life since he left her did not hurt him any more, nor was he worrying about what effect his changed appearance would have on her; not for much longer would he suffer from vanity or pride or whatever it was that had made him hate the idea that she should see him looking anything but…the big fine Negro man.
The murmur of whispering voices floated to him; Rose Angela’s and the painter’s. He was a man after his own heart, that painter, stubborn and generous. The doctor had been stubborn man too; he say the painter must go to hospital, and the painter, he say he not go. The painter was worried in case Hassan come back, but Hassan no come back, and that good thing. Yet he was sorry, very sorry, for he liked Hassan, and he wished things had worked out different, for he no want Hassan or any man to hide like he had to hide. But now Hassan think that painter put pollis on him, and he lie low for time. Yet painter generous, for he had the chance when pollis ask him who stab him, and he say he not see man who did it. And when pollis ask could it be Matt, painter still say he not know.
James had always felt that life was full of strange contradictions. Things had puzzled him, and when he groped into the deep depths of himself in search of answers, he had only become more puzzled. Yet he would have stood by the theory that once you love, you always love, and once you hate, a groove is seared in the mind, a groove that can be filled with nothing but itself. He would have rejected the idea that he could allow pity to fill the groove, yet the groove of his hate for Matt had been filled with pity when he watched him for the last time through the open door and saw him propped against the banisters, crying, ceaselessly crying. There was something improper in a man crying like that, but instead of arousing his scorn, pity for this man who had directed his life into tragic channels rose in him; for, to all intents and purposes, Matt was a dead man. He was gone now; they had taken him away. And the doctor was gone. And Murphy was gone too…to fetch Bridget.
Life was strange. A man wanted something, and he got it; and he thought it make him happy; and he thought all things that came of it must be good things because it made him happy. He had wanted Bridget, and he had got her. And he was happy for a time. But it was not good. For sixteen years he paid for that bit happiness. And others paid too…Rose Angela, she paid; she paid too much. And Bridget, she paid; just how much he did not know. But she paid all right. And now Hassan, he pay. And Matt; yes indeed, he pay; he was bound to pay in some way. Everything in life must be paid for, but some things were charged too big a price. He had wanted the painter for his Rose Angela, but this, too, would have to be paid for, and by her.
The hoodwinking of himself, the pretence, the daydreaming, all fell away, and in a moment of illuminating truth he knew that because of his folly his daughter must pay and go on paying, for, as Hassan said, inside Rose Angela was black, and the tragedy of his race lay buried in the blackness. In what way she would be called upon to pay he did not exactly know: perhaps with babies who would be black outside as well as in.
She had a saying that the priest had told her. It went: God is colour-blind. He had always had his doubts about this saying; he thought it would be better if God could see colour, for then he would see the black man as the white sees him, and seeing him so, and being God, he would certainly have given the black man some power wherewith he could command of the white and of all races their respect; for surely it was an indignity for a man to desire the flesh of his flesh to be a different colour from that of his own. God should not allow a man or a woman to be born to despise the seed of their body like that; he should not ask such a price for a life.
He raised his tired lids and looked at Rose Angela. She was bending over the painter as he sat in the old armchair by the fire. The strained look was gone from her face, but the sadness still remained. He watched the painter’s hand go up to her cheek. Then he saw him rise and come towards him. He looked up at this man into whose keeping Rose Angela was going, and he knew a measure of contentment…if anyone could, he would make the payment easier.
He put out his hand, and the painter grasped it, and they gazed deep at each other—the need for words was past.
As the sound of a car came to them from the street below, Rose Angela bent over him, and softly and tenderly and with love she kissed him. Then with the painter she left the room, smiling at him before closing the door. And, his heart pounding again, he lay watching the door, waiting for it to open into his past.
The End
Colour Blind Page 26