Colour Blind Read online

  COLOUR BLIND

  Catherine Cookson

  Table of Contents

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  Colour Blind

  PART ONE

  Chapter One: Me Daughter Bridget

  Chapter Two: A Seafaring Gentleman

  Chapter Three: Matt

  Chapter Four: The Birth

  PART TWO

  Chapter Five: A Much-Respected Man

  Chapter Six: Rose Angela

  PART THREE

  Chapter Seven: The Workless

  Chapter Eight: The Job

  Chapter Nine: Awakening

  Chapter Ten: The Return

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Eleven: The Books

  Chapter Twelve: The End of the Waiting

  Chapter Thirteen: The Feet of the Beloved

  Chapter Fourteen: Colour

  Chapter Fifteen: Payment

  The Catherine Cookson Story

  In brief:

  Her books have sold over 130 million copies in 26 languages throughout the world and still counting…

  Catherine Cookson was born Katherine Ann McMullen on June 27th, 1906 in the bleak industrial heartland of Tyne Dock, South Shields (then part of County Durham) and later moved to East Jarrow, which is now in Tyne and Wear.

  She was the illegitimate daughter of Kate Fawcett, an alcoholic, whom she thought was her sister. She was raised by her grandparents, Rose and John McMullen. The poverty, exploitation, and bigotry she experienced in her early years aroused deep emotions that stayed with her throughout her life and which became part of her stories. Catherine left school at 13, and after a period of domestic service, she took a job in a laundry at Harton Workhouse in South Shields. In 1929, she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings Workhouse, working all hours and saving every penny to buy a large Victorian house. She took in gentleman and lady lodgers to supplement her income and took up fencing as one of her hobbies. One of her lodgers was Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and in June 1940, they married. They were devoted to each other throughout their lives together. But the early years of her marriage were beset by the tragic miscarriage of four pregnancies and her subsequent mental breakdown. This took her over a decade to recover from, which she did, often by standing in front of a mirror and giving herself a damn good swearing at!

  Catherine took up writing as a form of therapy to deal with her depression and joined the Hastings Writers’ Group. Her first novel, Kate Hannigan, was published in 1950. In 1976, she returned to Northumberland with Tom and went on to write 104 books in all. She became one of the most successful novelists of all time and was one of the first authors to have three or four titles in the Bestseller Lists at the same time.

  She read widely: from Chaucer to the literature of the 1920s; to Plato’s Apologia on the trial and death of Socrates (she said that here was someone who stuck to his principles even unto death); to history of the nineteenth century and the Romantic poets; to Lord Chesterfield’s Letters To His Son and the books and booklets that abounded in her part of the country dealing with coal, iron, lead, glass, farming and the railways. She disliked it when her books were labeled as ‘romantic.’ To her, they were ‘readable social history of the North East interwoven into the lives of the people.’ For the millions of her readers, she brought ‘an understanding of themselves’ or perhaps of their dear ones. Her stories do not bring in a realism in which the worst is taken for granted, but a realism in which love, caring, and compassion appear, and most certainly, hope. ‘This type of realism does exist,’ Tom Cookson said of her writing. There is nothing sentimental about her writing; she is unrelenting in the strong images she invokes and the characters she portrays. They were born of her formative years and her personal struggles. Many of her novels have been transferred to stage, film, and radio with her television adaptations on ITV, lasting over a decade and achieving ratings of over 10 million viewers.

  Besides writing, she was an innovative painter, and she believed that her father’s genes fostered the strength to work hard, but also, in rare moments of freedom, to strive to better herself. Catherine was famed for her care of money but had given much to charities, hospitals, and medical research in areas close to her heart and to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, who set up a lectureship in hematology. The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust continues to donate generously to charitable causes. The University later conferred her the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts. She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as Catherine Cookson Country. The Variety Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the Year, and she was voted Personality of the North East. Other honours followed: an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1986, and she was created Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford in 1997.

  Throughout her life, but especially in the later years, she was plagued by a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which caused bleeding from the nose, fingers, and stomach, and resulted in anemia. As her health declined, she and her husband moved for a final time to Jesmond in Newcastle upon Tyne to be nearer medical facilities. For the last few years of her life, she was bedridden and Tom hardly ever left her bedside, looking after her needs, cooking for her, and taking her on her emergency trips, often in the middle of the night into Newcastle. Their lives were still made up of the seven-day week and twelve or more hours each day, going over the fan mail, attending to charities, and going over the latest dictated book, with Tom meticulously making corrections line by line, for Catherine’s eyesight had long faded in her 80s.

  This most remarkable woman passed away on June 11th, 1998 at the age of 91. Tom, six years her junior, had earlier suffered a heart attack but survived long enough to be with her at her end. He passed away on 28th June, just 17 days after his beloved Catherine.

  Catherine Cookson’s Books

  NOVELS

  Colour Blind

  Maggie Rowan

  Rooney

  The Menagerie

  Fanny McBride

  Fenwick Houses

  The Garment

  The Blind Miller

  The Wingless Bird

  Hannah Massey

  The Long Corridor

  The Unbaited Trap

  Slinky Jane

  Katie Mulholland

  The Round Tower

  The Nice Bloke

  The Glass Virgin

  The Invitation

  The Dwelling Place

  Feathers in the Fire

  Pure as the Lily

  The Invisible Cord

  The Gambling Man

  The Tide of Life

  The Girl

  The Cinder Path

  The Man Who Cried

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  A Dinner of Herbs

  The Moth

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Cultured Handmaiden

  The Black Candle

  The Gillyvors

  My Beloved Son

  The Rag Nymph

  The House of Women

  The Maltese Angel

  The Golden Straw

  The Year of the Virgins

  The Tinker’s Girl

  Justice is a Woman

  A Ruthless Need

  The Bonny Dawn

  The Branded Man

  The Lady on my Left

  The Obsession

  The Upstart

  The Blind Years

  Riley

  The Solace of Sin

  The Desert Crop

  The Thursday Friend

  A House Divided

  Rosie of the River

  The Silent Lady

  FEATURIN
G KATE HANNIGAN

  Kate Hannigan (her first published novel)

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl (her hundredth published novel)

  THE MARY ANN NOVELS

  A Grand Man

  The Lord and Mary Ann

  The Devil and Mary Ann

  Love and Mary Ann

  Life and Mary Ann

  Marriage and Mary Ann

  Mary Ann’s Angels

  Mary Ann and Bill

  FEATURING BILL BAILEY

  Bill Bailey

  Bill Bailey’s Lot

  Bill Bailey’s Daughter

  The Bondage of Love

  THE TILLY TROTTER TRILOGY

  Tilly Trotter

  Tilly Trotter Wed

  Tilly Trotter Widowed

  THE MALLEN TRILOGY

  The Mallen Streak

  The Mallen Girl

  The Mallen Litter

  FEATURING HAMILTON

  Hamilton

  Goodbye Hamilton

  Harold

  AS CATHERINE MARCHANT

  Heritage of Folly

  The Fen Tiger

  House of Men

  The Iron Façade

  Miss Martha Mary Crawford

  The Slow Awakening

  CHILDREN’S

  Matty Doolin

  Joe and the Gladiator

  The Nipper

  Rory’s Fortune

  Our John Willie

  Mrs. Flannagan’s Trumpet

  Go Tell It To Mrs Golightly

  Lanky Jones

  Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY

  Our Kate

  Let Me Make Myself Plain

  Plainer Still

  Colour Blind

  Even in the worst days of the slump, the McQueens kept their chins up. One by one their neighbours had departed for the workhouse, their last stick of furniture carried off by the bailiffs. Even though there was not much on the table, the McQueen house constantly echoed with laughter.

  The McQueens were as blunt as they were big-hearted until Bridget McQueen came home one day with her new husband. She had married a negro sailor and bore him a daughter, Rose-Angela. This child grows into a beautiful young girl, but can never escape the feeling of suspicion and hatred that are the heritage of her mixed blood. Her father, a man of fine character who desires only to live decently and at peace with his fellow men, is driven away from his wife and child by the insane jealousy of Bridget’s brother Matt.

  Rose-Angela has to face the world with little more than her own courage and the kindly words of an old priest who reminds her that, after all, God is colour blind. This is the powerfully moving story of how she triumphs over prejudice and cruelty; of the love that comes to her; and of her strange reunion with her father.

  Copyright © The Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust 1953

  The right of Catherine Cookson to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This book is sold subject to the condition it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form.

  ISBN 978-1-78036-012-6

  Sketch by Harriet Anstruther

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described, all situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Published by Peach Publishing

  PART ONE

  Chapter One: Me Daughter Bridget

  ‘Glory be to God and his holy Mother. Well, well I never! And it to happen on me birthday an’ all!…Did y’ever now.’ Kathie McQueen threw her great head back and opened wide her full-lipped mouth and let the resounding waves of her laughter free. Her huge breasts and hanging stomach wobbled with it, and her feet, encased in the remnants of a pair of slippers, slapped at the bare floorboards alternately.

  The boy, standing at the side of her chair, holding a letter in his hand, smiled up at her. He did not laugh with her, although his heart was racing and leaping inside his narrow chest. Having lived with the McQueens for four years he was used to their laughter, and perhaps it was the extravagance of it that subdued the laughter in himself, for his face rarely stretched beyond a smile. The McQueens frequently chipped him about this, saying, ‘Go on, Tony, stretch your gob. Go on, give your face a day off, lad. Go on, forget about your leg; the inch you’ve lost on that you’ve got in your napper.’ They meant it kindly. All the McQueens were kind to him, even Matt. But no matter how kind they were, or what they did for him, he could never laugh with them. For there was something he didn’t understand about their laughter; at times it even brought a fear to him.

  Into the sound of the laughter came a dull thumping on the back door, and the boy, raising his voice, shouted, ‘There’s someone at the door.’

  ‘What?’ Kathie brought her streaming eyes down to his. ‘Someone at the door? Away then and open it.’ And in the next breath she called, ‘Come in, there.’

  Before the boy had limped halfway to the door, it was opened, and a small girl with a coat over her head came into the kitchen.

  ‘Me ma says can yer lend her yer gully, Mrs McQueen?’ The black coat, forming a hood about her face, emphasised the pinched cheeks and hungry eyes, and the voice, too, sounded thin and hungry as it issued from the shadows of the coat. ‘She won’t keep it a minute. We’ve got some bread and me ma’s got a ticket to get some groceries. But we’ve got the bread now…and…’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Yer ma got a ticket? God be praised! But I thought ye got yer gully out last week,’ said Kathie, reaching across the table and picking up a long bread knife.

  ‘It had to go back with the fire-irons so as to get the bread.’ The child’s voice seemed to come from more remote depths of the coat.

  ‘Ah well, times like these won’t last much longer.’ Kathie handed the child the bread knife. ‘Yer Da’s bound to get set on now…cough, spit an’ all. They’ll be taking the blind and the deaf soon, they’ll take owt during a war, God bless the Kaiser!’

  Kathie’s head was again thrown back, and the boy and girl stood regarding her solemnly, fascinated by the great pink and grey cavity of her mouth.

  Her laughter seemed to remind her of the previous bout, and its cause, and she stopped suddenly, saying, ‘It’s good news we’ve got the day…what d’ye think? Me daughter Bridget’s on her way home…Tell yer ma, Molly.’

  ‘Brid coming home? Oh, I will, Mrs McQueen.’

  ‘An’ tell her she’s married, at that…Me daughter Bridget’s married, tell her, to a seafaring gentleman. Now what d’ye think of that? Go on now, tell her. And let me have that gully back!’ she shouted to the departing child; ‘they’ll all be in in a minute, and I want it for the tea…Eeh, Tony lad’—she turned once more to the boy—‘read it again. No…give it me here.’

  She took the letter from his hand and held it at arm’s length, and, pulling her chin into the rolls of fat on her neck, she said slowly, ‘“Dear Ma, I’ll be home on Friday night. You will be surprised to know I am married. He goes to sea. My name is Mrs Paterson. Ma, there’s something I should tell you, but I can’t write it down. I’ll have to come home. Love, Brid.”’

  The boy looked at her in admiration. He knew she couldn’t read a word…she couldn’t even write her own name. But her grotesque, fat body seemed to be the storage house for everything she heard; she had only to hear a thing once to remember it forever.

  ‘I know what she’s afraid to tell me, Tony lad.’ She leant towards him and whispered with a natural frankness, ‘It’s a baby she’s goin’ to have, ye know.’ She joined her arms together and rocked them as if a child lay on them. ‘Ye know, like my Eva upstairs. Now there’s no disgrace in having a child if ye’re married and the priest’s blessing on ye, is there, Tony? Now is there? But me Bridget was always the shy one.’

  The boy regarded her in sil
ence. Women with protruding stomachs were a common sight to him; he had only to walk down the back lane any time of the day to see one. In the summer he looked down on great cones of flesh hanging out from open blouses as the women sat on their front doorsteps suckling their babies. Eva upstairs had always appeared ugly to him, with her young fat and her red hair, but when her stomach had bulged she had been repulsive. And when her babies were born—for they were twins—they, too, were repulsive; and had grown more so, with their skinny bodies and rickety legs.

  Yet here was Mrs McQueen classing Bridget, his beautiful Bridget, with Eva. If Bridget had a baby, it would be beautiful, like her, and its hair would be fair, and the grey of its eyes would dance at you. But it wouldn’t laugh all the time, for Bridget was the only one of the six McQueens who didn’t laugh all the time.

  Tony blinked his eyes in startled surprise as Kathie McQueen’s hand brought him a playful slap across the face. ‘It’s a solemn puss ye have on ye. But ye like me Bridget, don’t ye?’

  He nodded but made no answer. Liking was a poor word for the feeling he had for Bridget. She was the star that had filled his dark sky since the day his mother died and an aunt, his only living relative, had refused his claim on her. It was the McQueens who came forward, and without any preamble took him into their already full house. But only the fifteen-year-old Bridget brought him comfort. When they sat round the fire at night, huddled close to its often small embers, but always shouting and laughing, it was she who would sit next to him, with her arm about him. And when the lads called after him ‘Hoppy on the Don!’ it was she who would walk by his side, and at times fill him with curious pain when she affected to limp slightly, saying she had a pain in her hip. She championed him until he reached twelve, when he suddenly started to grow. But from then Matt had taken notice of Bridget’s attentions to him. If she brought him some little titbit from her daily place, Matt would say, ‘Stop making a blommin’ fool of him. Why don’t you give him a dummy?’ At times there would be fierce rows, and he felt he was the cause. And the rows always took place in the wash-house, where Matt would push Bridget, and their voices, low and thick with rage, would filter into the house. One thing Tony noticed was that Matt didn’t corner his sister when their father was about. And it was after one of these rows, which seemed to mount with the years, that Bridget suddenly went away. And for weeks afterwards Matt hadn’t laughed.