Colour Blind Page 2

  And now Bridget was coming back, and she was married. This fact did not touch Tony’s own feeling for her, but into his mind there crept a fear—a fear of Matt’s reactions when this knowledge should be made known to him—and he thought, I won’t look at his face when he reads the letter.

  Cavan McQueen was the first to come in, his laugh in the backyard heralding his approach. The booming of his voice and the depth of his laughter were in striking contrast to the short, slight body. And his shortness was emphasised as he stood by his wife. He threw his bait tin with a clatter on to the table before bringing his hand with a resounding whack across Kathie’s buttocks.

  ‘We’re set, lass. The war’s only been on three days and the sods are begging us to do overtime.’

  He was lifting his hand again to repeat the slap when she yelled, ‘Stop it, ye little rat, ye!’ Then her voice dropped to a thick caressing tone. ‘Cavan lad…guess what. Ye’ll never guess in a month of Sundays…read that.’ She pulled the letter out from her blouse, then stood with her arms folded on the shelf of her stomach watching him. She saw the smile follow after the laughter, to leave his face wearing the blank, stiff look she hated.

  When he made no comment she cried angrily, ‘Ain’t yer pleased? What would ye be wanting? The child’s coming home an’ she’s married. Ye’re wearing a look as if ye’d heard she’d been dropped with a bairn and no-one to father it. She’s married, man, an’ all respectable—they call her Mrs Paterson. And what’s more, she got him herself. She hadn’t to drag him to the altar rails like Eva had that miserable swine up there.’ She flicked her eyes towards the ceiling.

  Cavan rubbed his greasy hand over his moustache and said dully, ‘Aye, there’s that in it,’ and handed the letter back to Kathie. Then, turning slowly, he went to the corner of the room, took off his coat, and proceeded to wash himself in a tin bath of hot water which was standing on a low shelf attached to the wall. He dried himself on a piece of sacking that had been hemmed into a square, and which still bore the sugar manufacturer’s name across it. He took no heed of the upbraidings of Kathie as she pounced round the kitchen; he could stop her effectively whenever he wished, and she knew just how far she could go. His mind was trying to grasp the fact that his lass…his own lass…was married, and him not knowing. Of his four children, his heart laid claim only to one. In varying degrees he liked Eva, Matt and Terence, but Bridget he knew he loved.

  He scrubbed himself more vigorously with the sacking to cover up the thought. Bridget had the knack of making people love her. All men seemed to love Bridget, even those that shouldn’t…His thoughts swung to his son…That had been the trouble: Matt hadn’t let Bridget live any life but that which he chose. If it hadn’t been for Matt, Bridget would never have left home, to go all that way to London to work; and then to Liverpool.

  Cavan stopped rubbing himself and stared down into the bath of dirty water. He was trying to see through his thoughts, but they were as opaque as the water. Yet this much he could see: if Bridget had not got married away, she would never have got married at home…not as long as Matt was alive.

  Kathie’s voice, raised in laughing greeting to their younger son, brought Cavan’s mind from Matt, and he turned from the contemplation of the water and threw his greeting to the lad who was a replica of himself. ‘How’s it gone?’

  ‘Oh, champion.’

  ‘Was it hard?’

  ‘Aye, a bit. But I’ll get used to it. The stink of the chemicals made me sick at first, and you get covered all over with white dust. Most of them have overalls…can I have a pair of overalls, Ma?’

  ‘Ye can have owt ye like, lad, if ye bring the money in.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be doing that. A pound a week, and me only sixteen!’

  ‘Aye,’ his father put in, with unusual seriousness, ‘you’ll be a millionaire shortly. But look out, and don’t let on to anyone, for when the Government get wind you’re having three meals a day they’ll find some bloody way of bringing them down to one, or nowt.’

  Terence took no notice of this, but said, ‘Da, you said if we all got set on you were going to try for a house in the middle or top end.’

  ‘Aye, I did.’

  ‘Well you’d better look slippy then, for they’re being snapped up; the men coming to work in the Barium are looking round. They want to live as near as they can.’

  ‘Oh, there’ll always be plenty of houses if ye’ve got the money to pay the rent. But we’ll stick where we are till we see how long this war’s goin’ to last. It might only hang on a few weeks, and then where’ll we be if we move, eh? Best forget moving for the time.’

  But as Cavan sat down to his tea he was thinking as much about the possibility of moving as he was about Bridget’s coming. They were both entwined in his mind; for hadn’t he always promised Bridget that one day they’d move back into the middle of the fifteen streets…or, with a bit of luck, perhaps the top end. It was a great pity they couldn’t have moved before she came back, but he had learned too much from life to take a step like that without being sure the present flood of work would last. Here they had a roof over their heads. And it wasn’t a workhouse roof, although he knew that the latter contingency had only been avoided by his wife’s laughing tenacity and Matt’s pilfering, and the pulling in of his own belt to let what food there was go to the others. But God was good, and had showered his special Providence over them, when all around, weeping women and grim-faced men had watched their last sticks of furniture being carried out by the bums before wending their heartbreaking way down the Jarrow Road to East Jarrow, through Tyne Dock and down Stanhope Road, to where Talbert Road showed the grim gates at the far end, which, once entered, a family was no longer a family but merely segregated individuals, with numbers on each of their garments. When this happened the McQueens had stood close together, defying Life’s blows with their laughter. Bridget and the boy Tony hadn’t laughed much, but the others made up for them.

  It was said that only the scum of the earth lived in the fifteen streets, but Cavan would have considered himself one of the fortunate of the earth if he could have moved into the middle section, where the houses possessed four box-like rooms, and you went upstairs to bed; and where you were the proud possessor of your own backyard, and what was more—a netty. There you hadn’t to stand waiting for your turn until your bladder nearly burst, or see the bairns doing the wet dance while they waited, for he would allow none of them to foul the yard.

  Here, in these two rooms that dared to flaunt the name of a downstairs house, the lavatory had to be shared with the family upstairs, although since Eva had come to live above them the situation had eased considerably. Before the previous tenant had taken the long trek to the iron gates there had been nineteen of them sharing the yard and its amenities.

  When Cavan heard his quarter referred to as the ‘stink-pot’ or the ‘buggy-boxes’ his laughter would disappear, and he would yell at the offender, asking how he could expect anything else. During one of his angry spells he started a campaign against the bugs and enlisted a number of the neighbours. Paper was stripped off the walls, which were soaked with carbolic. This was quite effective if both upstairs and downstairs co-operated. But poverty dulls incentive, and the war against bugs needs to be wholesale, so many were soon back where they started. But not 42 Powell Street; for Cavan became almost a maniac with the carbolic, the smell of which permeated their clothes and food.

  Cavan’s thinking had reached a point where he was asking himself if it was the living conditions as much as Matt that drove Bridget away from home when Matt came in.

  Matt seemed to spring into the kitchen—there was a spring in his every step. If he laughed when he walked, the combination became a beguilement, bringing the children after him and the eyes of the girls on him. His body, like his father’s, was thin; but he had height with it, and a steely sinuation that spoke of arrogant maleness. His face was narrow and overhung by a thick mop of sandy hair, growing low on his brow. It was his
eyes that were the most noticeable feature of his face; they were like large jet beads, and not even his laughter could lift the brooding veil from them.

  Kathie’s greeting to him was shriller than ever, and her laughter caused Tony to fix his eyes on his tin plate; it was the kind of laughter that frightened him, for somehow he didn’t think it was meant to be laughter at all.

  ‘I’ll give yer a month of Sundays, Matt,’ Kathie was yelling, ‘to guess what’s happened. Go on: Jesus in Heaven, ye’ll never guess it.’

  Matt look questioningly at his father; and Cavan returned his look, but said nothing.

  ‘What is it?’ Matt turned to his mother.

  Still laughing, she said, ‘Get the grease washed off yer, and come an’ have yer tea—I’ve a steak as thick as a cuddy’s lug for yer. Oh, ye’ll never guess.’ And her laughter and chattering filled the time until he came to the table.

  ‘Let him have his tea,’ said Cavan.

  Kathie stopped her laughing and said soberly, ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’

  ‘I’m not having any tea till I know what’s up.’ Matt stood by his plate looking at his mother.

  She looked at Cavan, and when he nodded his head she put her hand inside her blouse again and handed the letter to her son.

  Tony did as he had promised himself: he didn’t look at Matt while he read the letter. With great deliberation he wiped up the last of the gravy from his plate with a piece of bread, going round and round it until the tin shone with a silver gleam. Under his lowered lids he saw the letter flung on to the table. He saw Mr McQueen, too, wiping his plate clean with his bread.

  Then Mrs McQueen’s fist banging the table made him jump, and her voice nearly deafened him as she yelled, ‘That’s the last damn time the Cullens will get a loan of me gully. I’ve sworn it afore an’ I’ll swear it again! Here’s me having to tear me own bread while those hungry hounds are lording it with me gully.’

  Tony saw Matt’s legs moving with unusual slowness towards the door. When he heard it close he lifted his head and watched Matt disappear down the backyard and into the September dusk. Mr and Mrs McQueen with one accord left the table and went into the other room; and Tony was left with Terence, who, taking advantage of the situation, cut a piece off Matt’s congealing steak and motioned to Tony to do likewise. But Tony took no heed; he was tense with the feeling of nervous expectancy, longing for, yet dreading the time when Bridget would be in the kitchen again.

  As Matt walked out of the fifteen streets into the main road he turned the lapels of his coat across his chest to hide his dirty shirt, for he had come out without his muffler. The air was soft and close, but he shivered, and a girl crossing the road called to him, ‘Hallo there, Matt—you look as if ye’d seen the Kaiser. Have they called yer up?’

  The sound of his laugh was sufficient answer for her, and she went on her way, laughing too.

  Laughter was easy—when everything else failed you could always laugh. Then why hadn’t he stayed in the house and laughed this off? No, he’d had to make a bloody fool of himself and come out! It was the shock. Bridget married! Well, he knew she’d marry sometime, didn’t he? He knew that once she got away on her own some fellow would get her. He twisted the torn lining of his coat pocket round his fingers, tearing it still farther. He’d thought that in the months following her surprising departure he had worked the whole thing out; he’d imagined he had got her out of his system, for life, although emptier, became easier without her. The tearing, mad feeling of possessiveness faded, and he lost his hate of all mankind because she was not near to bestow her smile on it. He had been mad—he could see that now. But he could also see now that he would be mad again. What possessed him? Why was it he should feel like this about her? All his life he had suffered and enjoyed the torment of this feeling for her. He could remember himself as a tiny child holding her and knowing that she was his; still a baby himself, he had washed and dressed her; no-one was allowed to take her to school but himself; he had even stolen for her. He knew he would have let the others go hungry to death, and they would have done, or else to the workhouse, if Bridget’s grey eyes hadn’t told him that there was a gnawing in her stomach…And now she was married, and was coming home to flaunt her catch—the bitch! She was just doing it to torment him, By God, he’d kill her! No, no!…He wiped the moisture from his lips with the back of his hand. Whatever was the reason for her coming back, it wasn’t to torment him. He would give her her due; she would never do that intentionally. Then why was she coming?

  It was dark now, and he walked on through Tyne Dock, down Eldon Street and into Shields. If it had been light, he would have cut through the Deans into the park. He had been taking walks in the park often of late; to get away from the grime and muck of the fifteen streets, he had thought. Yet up to Bridget’s going away he had never noticed their grimness. Vaguely he knew that to make his life bearable he needed something. Her personality, in such contrast to his, and her strange beauty had supplied that something. Now he was searching blindly to replace it. The park, in the minutest way, brought Bridget back to him. Was it its colour and cleanness?—for Bridget had always been clean. Or was it just some quiet place where his thoughts could move around her without the perplexing agony of her presence? He didn’t know.

  She would likely be home now, and they’d all be about her, laughing at the tops of their voices, and she would be smiling at them, that lovely wide smile. He turned abruptly and walked towards Jarrow again. After she had quietened them all, as she had the power to do, she would look around her and say, ‘Where’s Matt?’ Yes, she would ask for him, for she knew as well as he did that some part of her belonged to him. And she could never rob him of it, husband or not.

  When he passed the dock arches and reached the quiet stretch of road joining Tyne Dock to East Jarrow he started to run swiftly and lightly, with the loping grace of some forest animal. He kept on running, past the slacks where the water flapped at the bank to the side of his feet, past the Barium chemical works, where Terence had started that day, past Bogie Hill, and on to the fifteen streets.

  He was panting when he reached the backyard, for it had been a long run, and as he paused behind the closed door of the yard, looking towards the gas-lit blind of the kitchen window, he was at once struck by the odd quiet that prevailed. He knew, as if he could see her, that Bridget had come. She was there, in the kitchen. Then why was there no laughing, no yelling? He looked to the upstairs window. It was alight, and he could see Eva moving back and forth with the unwieldy bulk of a child on her hip. Why wasn’t she downstairs with the rest?

  He turned the lapels of his coat back and straightened his shirt neck, and walked slowly up the yard. His hand hovered over the latch of the door; then he thrust it open, and with his usual spring entered the kitchen.

  They were all there except Eva: his mother and father, Terence and Tony, and Bridget. They all stared at him, and the almost audible pleading in Bridget’s eyes was also in those of the others. But he looked at none of them, not even at Bridget; for his eyes were riveted in stupefied amazement on the massive Negro standing behind Bridget’s chair with his hand possessively covering her shoulder.

  Chapter Two: A Seafaring Gentleman

  ‘Oh, it’s ye, Mrs Cullen—did ye want to borrow something?’

  Jane Cullen knew it was a danger signal when Kathie addressed her as Mrs. She stood within the door, hugging her shawl about her, and looked in envy at this neighbour whom no sorrow or tribulation could affect. She guessed Kathie was a bit upset about the black man, but nothing to speak of—if it had happened to one of her lassies she would have died with shame. She said gently, ‘I was wonderin’, Kathie, if ye’d lend me yer boots. I’ve got to go into Jarrow and it’s pourin’, and there’s not a sole on mine. If he gets the job of nightwatchman I’ll get meself a pair.’

  ‘Ye’ve been saying that for the last year, Mrs Cullen. If it isn’t me gully, it’s me boots!’

  Jane looked at Kathie for a moment,
then turned silently to the door.

  ‘Here, take them.’ The boots were thrust against Jane’s arm, and as she took them with a low murmur of thanks Kathie remarked grandiosely, ‘I’ll soon be able to pass them on to yer altogether, for me daughter Bridget is buying me a new pair. She’s able to buy anything she likes now she’s married such a well-set-up gentleman. Did yer hear that she’s setting up in the middle streets? Four rooms she’ll have at that. They’re down in Shields this very minute getting the furniture, and for the whole house, mind yer…there’ll be no beg and scrape for me daughter Bridget.’

  Jane nodded her head and smiled weakly. ‘I’m glad for her, Kathie.’

  For a second longer the two women stared at each other, then Jane sidled out, and Kathie, turning to the fire, stood grinding her strong teeth together until her jawbones ached. She’d let them see; no-one would pity her. She had laughed longer and louder these past few days than ever before, and she had made the others laugh too, saying, ‘If ye laugh, they won’t pity ye, and if they don’t pity ye they’ll envy ye.’ Cavan, Terence and even Tony had done as she bid. But not Matt…Matt seemed to have been transfixed into silence from the moment he saw the Negro. And Eva—that big daft slobbery bitch. Kathie turned up her eyes and their venom was enough to penetrate the ceiling. Playing the respectable married woman! And getting all virtuous like—the silly sod, when her belly was full of Harry McGuire before she’d dragged him to the altar rails!