Colour Blind Page 6

  The doctor bestowed a look on Kathie that should have shrivelled her, but with relief filling her she faced him boldly. ‘What’s got into ye, Doctor, may I ask ye? What’s got into ye?’

  Doctor Davidson took a deep breath and almost choked. ‘As long as something hasn’t got into your daughter you’ll be safe, Mrs McQueen…this time! But I’ll see to it that your friend has killed her last child around these parts.’

  He was forced to stop and cough into his handkerchief, and Kathie, regaining her confidence and belligerence, broke in, ‘What do you know about it all?…You with your belly well fed. Nellie Milligan has saved many a poor soul from destruction around these doors. You and the priest between you are the ruination…the priests keep on tellin’ yer, ye must do yer duty as a wife, and ye do it, from sixteen to sixty; and yer belly’s full of bairns every year. And who’s to feed and clothe them, and pay the doctor?…Aye, pay the doctor, eh? Nellie Milligan has been a godsend, I tell ye, to many a poor soul. Ye like bringing bairns into the world, because, given half the chance, ye cut them up so as ye can see their insides and try to find out where ye went wrong with the last one ye knocked off…Oh, I know all yer tricks.’

  Dr Davidson stood surveying Kathie for a moment after she had finished. Then, between short coughs, he said, ‘Well, if you’ve had your say, Mrs McQueen, I’ll go upstairs; but for your information I’ll tell you that your daughter wants this baby, black or white. Perhaps you didn’t know that?’

  He left Kathie, her mouth half open and her hands on her hips, staring after him.

  So the girl had suspected her mother was up to something, and rightly, too, Dr Davidson thought as he mounted the stairs. Sending that strange, urgent little note to him, which told him nothing in the actual lines, but volumes between.

  As he entered the bedroom, Bridget, in her nightdress, rose from the side of the bed, one arm hugging her waist. She showed evident relief at the sight of him, and said, ‘I’ve got the pains, Doctor.’

  ‘And what do you expect to have, eh?’ He laughed as he placed his bag on the washstand.

  ‘What’s that dreadful smell, Doctor?’

  ‘Oh, that…Your mother’s been doing some fancy cooking and tipped a steak into the fire.’

  ‘A steak?…But why should she?’

  ‘Come; get into bed.’

  As she slowly got back into bed he picked up a bottle from the washstand and looked at it curiously. It was a bottle of disinfectant, and next to it were two neatly folded hand towels, while on a chair nearby stood a number of sheets and clothes; and before the fire in the small grate was a towel rail with baby clothes arranged upon it. She certainly had everything ready. And disinfectant, too. He was surprised and pleased. The nearest they ever got to antiseptic in the fifteen streets was carbolic soap; and even the old hands rarely had everything ready and neat like this. Marrying that Negro had seemingly done her little harm. But hadn’t he heard something about her taking to drink? Must have been idle rumour, for the house didn’t look that of a drunk.

  ‘You’ve got everything ready, I see,’ he said, smiling down on her. ‘And a very nice little place you’ve got here, too…haven’t seen better.’ He knew she was pleased, and he continued to talk to her as he examined her. ‘You’ve sent for Nurse Snell?’

  ‘No, Doctor.’

  ‘Oh, but you should have done. And, you know, you should have come and seen me before…Who’s going to look after you?’

  ‘My mother.’ Her tone did not reveal her fears, but she made no protest when he said, ‘I think we’d better have the nurse, just for the first few days, eh?’ He patted her shoulder, saying, ‘It won’t be long…it nearly got here before me. How long have you had the pains?’

  ‘Since early this morning.’

  ‘Oh, you’re going to be lucky, it’s coming quick…When is your husband due back?’

  ‘Tonight or tomorrow.’

  ‘Good…good. Here, pull on that…’ He tied a piece of sheeting to the bed rail and left her gripping it while he went downstairs again, where, without any preamble, he said to Kathie, ‘You know where Nurse Snell lives? Go and tell her I would like her to come along here at once. If she isn’t in, leave word to that effect. And don’t give the wrong message.’

  ‘Nurse Snell, is it?’ cried Kathie. ‘Look ye here, Doctor, if I want a nurse I’ll get Dorrie Clarke. In any case, I can do as good as either of them; and I don’t charge seven and six or fifteen bob! I can see to me own daughter.’

  ‘Yes, you very nearly did see to her! Now get yourself away this minute; if you’re not gone on that errand before I reach the top of the stairs, I’ll inform your daughter what the smell is she’s so anxious about, and what her mother and Mrs Milligan were up to…Now what do you say?’

  ‘Blast ye for an interfering swine! That’s what I say.’ Kathie snatched her shawl off the door. ‘Don’t think you’ll frighten me…you!…nor a battalion like you. You and Father O’Malley would make a fine pair.’

  God forbid, thought Dr Davidson, as the door banged behind Kathie.

  When he again entered the bedroom it was to find Bridget crying. ‘Oh, come now. Come now,’ he laughed, ‘you’ll forget all about the pains once the little nipper’s here.’

  Bridget shook her head. She could not tell him it wasn’t the pain that was making her cry, but the dread of its result. For days now the child had lain comparatively quiet within her, and she had soothed herself by thinking that if it was black it would be full of vigour and life, and be making itself felt. Then despair would seize her, and she would imagine the baby’s stillness was because it was black and content and good-tempered like James. But whatever she imagined its quiet movements to mean, she did not imagine the baby to be dying. Not for a moment did she want the movements to stop altogether and signify her release…no, she wanted this child, as something that James might have for his own. But oh, Jesus, Jesus, she didn’t want it to be black!

  Soon the pains, gathering on themselves, formed a mountain that she must climb, and in the climbing there was no place for worry about colour. She was aware, as time went on, that the nurse was with the doctor, and when the child left her body all anxiety and worry flowed out with it. It was over. Whatever colour it was could not be altered; she should have realised that from the very beginning. She had been silly to worry.

  When she heard the doctor chuckling, a deep rounded chuckle, she thought, he’s laughing because it’s quaint; all black babies are quaint.

  The baby was twenty-four hours old when James got in. He came in like a wind, a hot driving wind. Kathie cast startled eyes on him when he flung open the kitchen door, then turned her back to him; but Cavan rose from his seat by the fire and there was understanding and sympathy in his look. James, his eyes holding a depth of emotion and anxiety, uttered one deep-belled word, ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s what you was wantin’.’

  Before Cavan finished speaking, James pulled open the stair door. He took the stairs in three leaps, but pulled up for an instant on the landing. It might be what he wanted, but was it what Rose wanted?

  Bridget’s eyes were closed when he neared the bed; he did not know whether she was asleep or not. Although his attention was riveted on the blanket-wrapped bundle lying on the far side of her, he stopped before going round the bed, and stooping, gently laid his face against hers. Because she made no movement whatever, he knew she was awake, but he said nothing, and going round to the other side he reverently picked up the bundle.

  Through half-closed, sleepy lids, two brown eyes looked up at him, so like his own that a leaping, choking happiness that was almost an agony tore through him; but it was nothing to the ecstasy when the wonder was borne in on him that his child was white, with skin the colour of thick cream, and hair that was straight; it was as black as his own, but it was straight. The lids widened and the child gazed at him in fixed concentration, as if, he thought, she knew him. And when her hand wavered from the folds of the blanket and plucked a
t his finger his joy mounted, passing out of him and flying in thanksgiving to the God he was aware of, and to others dimly sensed. He raised his eyes to the ceiling and struggled to find words adequate to this feeling, but only one word came to his mind. He had first heard it outside the bars around the Liverpool docks, when, rain or shine, abused and laughed at, the Salvation Army had beaten its drums and tinkled its triangles in praise of God. He threw back his head and his voice resounded through the house, startling all but the child as he cried, ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!’

  PART TWO

  Chapter Five: A Much-Respected Man

  The foghorn, blasting from a tug, seemed to carry its force through the grey drifts of mist right into the forecastle without losing any of its strength. James, pulling the cord of his white sailor bag tight, unconsciously screwed up his face in protest. There were few things he hated about the sea, but he hated the sound of the foghorn; its melancholy note seemed to search out an answering chord within himself.

  ‘You’re not losing much time, Jimmy?’ An old fireman, lying in his bunk, rolled on to his side and stared at the great black head level with his own.

  ‘Not much time to lose.’

  ‘Lucky for you we came to the Tyne to load this trip.’

  ‘Yes, lucky for me.’ James thumped his kitbag on the floor to give him a better hold of the top, pulled his cap firmly down on his head, turned up the collar of his blue reefer jacket, then, thrusting the bag up the companionway, climbed on to the deck with the voice of the old man shouting after him, ‘Don’t forget me, Jimmy, when your wife’s givin’ out that new bread, mind.’

  The deck was abustle, the hatches were off, and the men, working by the light of naked gas jets run by piping from the jetty to the holds, were grabbing at the tubs from the swinging cranes and tipping the coal into the hatches as if the devil was after them.

  The voice of the chief engineer spoke from out of the mist, ‘Just off, Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes, Chief.’

  ‘Dirty night.’

  ‘Yes, ’tis, Chief.’ Jimmy turned towards the wavering outline of the engineer. ‘If old man changes his mind, you let me know, Chief?’

  ‘I will, Jimmy; but you know as well as me that it’s no good. I told you what he said; and we are off as soon as she’s loaded; he’s been at the gaffer to stir those dock tykes up.’

  ‘She out of breath with running, she catch her barnacles on the bottom one of these days. Goodnight, Chief.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jimmy. Make good use of your time, and remember me to the nipper.’

  Jimmy’s smile wasn’t evident to the engineer, but he could feel it in the voice as it came to him. ‘I will. Sure I will, Chief. She always talks of the engineer-man; she never forgotten you bought her that doll, Chief…and that near two years ago. Yes, I tell her ’bout you.’

  The massive bulk of Jimmy was lost in the fog before he reached the gangway, but the chief continued to gaze in the direction he had taken. He felt uneasy in his mind about the man; he had done so for a long time now. At one time, Jimmy used to talk to him, especially about his white wife. At first, this association with a white woman had sickened him, but then he had asked himself why should it; Jimmy was a better man than some of the whites on the ship. Of course he was an exception, for most niggers made him sorry the old overseer’s whip was out of fashion; but Jimmy was a good type, and there was no need to feel sorry for his wife. In any case, Jimmy was likely a damn sight too good for the type of woman who would marry a black man; any pity that was to be thrown about should go to him. Something had been wrong this long while, and it had to do with the wife, for he rarely spoke of her now; all his talk was about his child, his Rose Angela…highfalutin name, that. She was an unusually bonny child. A pity, though, there was evidence of the tar brush in her. The Chief stood for a moment longer looking in the direction James had taken; then, shaking his head, he turned towards his cabin to take comfort in his bottle. What could you expect, anyway? The sins of the fathers left their mark…or was it the mother in this case?…

  As James passed the dock policeman’s little stone office by the side of the main gates the policeman on duty peered at him. ‘Oh, hullo there, Jimmy. Why couldn’t you bring better weather with you? In for long?’

  ‘All the weather they would give me, boss,’ James laughed. ‘No, it tip, fill and run trip…same as ever.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jimmy.’

  ‘Goodnight, boss.’ He squeezed sideways through the small door in the gate and sprang across the road to the Jarrow tram and threw his bag on to the platform just as the tram moved off. He pushed the bag under the stairs and stood on the platform until the conductor said, ‘Inside; there’s a seat there.’

  James took the seat—the corner one next to the door.

  He gave a greeting to an old woman sitting opposite, who smiled at him, saying, ‘You got back again then, Jimmy?’ And he was about to answer her when the evident recoil of a young woman at his side froze his reply. He became still inside as he realised she was withdrawing her skirt from contact with him by tucking it under her hip. Slowly he turned and looked at her, but her eyes were staring straight ahead.

  The old woman again spoke, her voice, loud and strident, filling the tram. ‘Ye’ve just missed the Victory teas, Jimmy…they’ve had ’em in nearly all the fifteen streets. Eeh! they’ve had some do’s…tables the length of the street, and the stuff to eat you wouldn’t believe. And sports for the bairns; an’ dancin’.’ She rattled on, but James was not listening to her; he was conscious only of the inch of brown wooden lathe that separated his clothes from the girl’s. It was many years since an incident like this had happened to him. He liked to think that the war had wiped all this feeling away, in England anyway, and he wanted to turn to the girl and say, ‘I’m a steady, sober man, miss. I’ve worked to be respected, and I am respected. The people hereabouts know me and like me…you should have heard how dock pollis spoke to me, same as white man. And on my ship they call me Lucky Jim. I have a wife and a child, and money in bank. I do nothing bad…I keep my dignity…I’m much-respected man.’

  But he said nothing to the girl, he just sat staring, like her, ahead, reassuring himself that he was a…much-respected man, and a very lucky man. Any man who had a daughter like his Rose Angela was a lucky man, wasn’t he? And Rose, wasn’t he lucky to have Rose? He refused to answer himself this question, but instead asked, ‘How she be this time, I wonder? Will she be in temper or crying fit to burst?’

  The thought of his wife overshadowed for the time the hurt he was feeling, and as the tram jogged along he sat brooding, as always now when his thoughts touched on Bridget. What was wrong with his Rose? What had come over her? It started right back before the child was born. His homecomings then found her irritable, but he excused that because the child was heavy on her. But after it was born she became worse; and once, looking at her unusually puffed face, he said seriously, ‘Rose, you drinking!’ Her fury had silenced further accusation, and for a time he believed his guess was wrong, until his reason told him he had seen the results of drink on too many women not to know that she was drinking, and drinking heavily. But what he could not make out was why she never took it when he was home. The longest he had been home during the past four years was a fortnight, and he remembered it as a period of stress. He also remembered her passionate crying when he was leaving, her begging him not to go—to get a shore job. But he needed the sea, and, what was more, the war was on, and the sea needed him. But now the war was over, and, big as the wrench would be, he was going to look for a shore job. He had tried to tell the chief during this trip, yet somehow he had been unable to bring himself to it; but next trip would be his last, he had made up his mind. This docking for only twenty-four hours had decided him; he’d thought they’d be in for at least a week, as the old tub needed her bottom scraping.

  At the corner of the fifteen streets he rose from his seat, and he looked once more at the girl. And this time she returned
his look, and the hostility in her eyes hurt him. She would have a separate tramcar for coloured people, he thought, as they did in some countries. And he wondered, as he had often done before, why one adverse look could outweigh, even totally obliterate for a time, the acceptance of the majority.

  The old woman, lumbering off the tram, called, ‘You’ll be glad of something inside you a night like this, comin’ off the water an’ all…Bridget’ll have the old broth pan goin’, I bet.’

  ‘She don’t know me coming; but all the same she have broth pan going. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Jimmy.’

  He strode along the main road towards his own street, his mind heavy with the feeling of uncertainty now that he was nearing home. How would she look at him? If only that soft light of old would be in her eyes. She was sorry she had married him…he knew that…and yet she wanted him…he knew that too. Life could be heaven, and life could be hell; but it had been mostly hell lately. He shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other, stiffening his back in the process.

  He was nearing his door when the thick silence of the street was split by laughter, loud, high laughter that checked his step. It was Rose’s laugh, but he had only once before heard her laugh in such a way—that night in the back room of the bar in Liverpool. He did not knock on the door, but stood listening, and he knew she was drunk again and that she wasn’t alone. He became still; no anger filled him, only a questioning, and he began to reason with himself quietly: Now you find out…now you know what it all about…take things quietly…go round back; she not drinking alone. This thing happen before to other men…why you think it not happen to you? Into the stillness within him bored a pain, twisting the muscles of his chest. Not Rose…she not bad. He wiped the moisture from his face with his hand. You go find out. You don’t be fool. You soft you know in some way…you been clarts where Rose concerned, she got you on a string, she know it. No…you no knock—it was as if something stayed his hand—you go clear this thing up. Gone on long enough it has. You don’t know what matter with her half the time. You not coward ’bout other things, don’t be coward ’bout this.