Colour Blind Page 7

  When he left the door, Rose’s laugh followed him; it seemed to add weight to his legs, slowing his steps as he went round the bottom corner and up the back lane. Gently he tried the latch of the back door and found it locked, so, placing his hands on the top of the wall, he drew himself up and over, and, softly withdrawing the bolt, lifted his bag into the yard; then he re-bolted the door again.

  Now, inside the yard and only a few feet from Rose and whoever was with her, the reasoning stillness was deserting him, and his muscles were knotting themselves. For a moment he hated Rose for being the cause of this undignified creeping up his own backyard.

  When he reached the kitchen window her voice came to him, thick and fuddled, ‘We’ll have a tune—Sister Susie—eh?’

  James bent down and put his head level with the bottom of the blind. He could see nothing, but the slow wail of a man’s voice came to him:

  ‘Pad-dy wrote a letter

  To his Irish Molly-oh,

  Saying if you don’t receive

  Please write and let me know.’

  Into the wailing broke a voice which brought James upright; it was saying, ‘That’s Tipperary, you fool! It’s on the other side. Wind the damn thing up, and empty that glass.’

  Before the last word died away James had thrust open the door and was in the kitchen. Bridget, her mouth open and moving in a vain effort to voice her surprise, was leaning back against the dresser, and the glass half full of whisky she held in her hand was spilling in a steady trickle to the floor. Matt, who had been in the act of pouring some beer from a tin can, placed the can on the table with an abruptness that caused the froth to shoot up in a spray and cover his waistcoat.

  In one sweeping glance James took in every detail of the kitchen: the untidy hearth with the ashes filling the pan, the dirty dishes on the table, Rose Angela’s clothes lying in a heap by the side of the fireplace, and the order of drinking. There was one beer glass and one whisky glass, and Matt had the beer glass. A hot fury swept through James, opening his pores and bringing the sweat in large greasy beads on to his face. Here was the answer to all his bewilderment…Matt! Matt, who had always hated him for marrying his sister. Here was the explanation for the mirthless sneer in Matt’s eyes.

  Matt and he met seldom, but when they did the sneer was there, not only in his eyes but in the curl of his lip. Never had James encountered Matt in the house before, all their previous meetings having taken place in the McQueens’ kitchen; but here was a man, James saw, who was very much at home, so much so that he himself was the intruder.

  Matt, kicking his chair to one side, backed towards the little dresser, and his eyes, black with hate, never left James’ face. James, throwing up his head, sniffed loudly in an unconscious primitive gesture, then, tearing off his coat, he cried, ‘You not try get away; we settle this in yard. You pay for this, you dirty louse!’

  ‘Jimmy, no!…look, I’ll tell you.’ Bridget thrust out a wavering arm to him, but it was knocked to one side as Matt’s hand flung back to grab at a knife lying on the dresser top.

  ‘Who’s trying to get away?’ As Matt brought the knife forward Bridget screamed, and James, with a lightning stroke, swung up the flat iron that was standing on the pan hob and whirled it across the narrow space, just missing Matt’s hand but striking the blade of the knife and sending it spinning into the air. Bridget screamed again; and she clasped her hands over her face as the knife scattered dishes to the floor. With a shove of his hand James thrust the table aside, and Matt and he were facing each other.

  Matt’s mouth was square, and his venom was ground from beneath his clenched teeth. ‘You black swab! Why couldn’t you stick to your own breed? You took her when she was drunk; well, you can have her now. She’s so whisky-mad that you nor nobody else can stop her. So come on!’

  James’ fist almost covered Matt’s face as it struck him, sending him crashing back against the dresser. His strength could have finished off any ordinary man with a single blow, but Matt was no ordinary man. He was possessed of a hate for the black man that gave him the tearing power of a lion. With a shake of his head he recovered from the blow and bore right into James, bringing both his fists and feet into play.

  The gramophone and the little table on which it stood were whipped into the hearth, sending the pan off the hob in their flight. The soup spluttered into the fire and a shower of ash and steam filled the kitchen, and Bridget’s screaming mingled with the hissing. She wrenched open the kitchen door and yelled, ‘Help!…My God! Help, somebody…help!’ She turned, still screaming, and saw Matt and James locked together as if in a passionate embrace: then she saw James free himself with a heave from Matt’s entwined arms, and with one hand thrust him away and with the other deliver a blow under the chin that lifted him from the floor and sent him crashing on to the fender.

  Bridget’s world became very still; in the kitchen, in the yard, and all beyond there was no movement; the only sound was James’ heavy breathing. She stared from the doorway in petrified horror at the still, limp figure of Matt, with the long gash in his cheek and the blood gushing from his temple. She lifted her eyes to James. His face seemed no longer black, but grey, and he was standing motionless, staring down at Matt. She moved slowly towards him and stood by his side. ‘My God! What’ve you done?…Oh, Holy Mary!’

  He said nothing; and she stooped and touched Matt’s wrist, and, with her hand still holding her brother’s, turned her face up to her husband and whispered a terrified whisper.

  She dropped Matt’s hand; and as she stood looking at James with a startled look as if she had never seen him before, the stair door opened and a voice whimpered, ‘Ma.’ She did not look at her child, but spoke her thoughts as they came to her. ‘They’ll hang him…it was my fault, but they’ll hang him…Oh my God, what have I done?’

  James did not move or answer her, but he screwed his head slowly round and looked at his daughter. She was crying and biting her knuckles, and, as a tiny smile for him broke through her tears, a fear never before experienced swept over him…If Matt was dead, then he, too, would soon be dead, and never again would he see his Rose Angela, nor she him.

  As a curl of fog came into the kitchen, seeming to bear on its grey tendrils the enquiring cries from the back lane, James shook himself, first his head and then his shoulders…they’d hang him for sure…no black man could hope to get off after killing a white; he’d seen the result of that more than once. It would be no use telling them he hadn’t meant to kill Matt, that he didn’t kill him, it was the corner of the steel fender that had done it…it would be no use talking at all; there was one justice for the white and one for the black. He was no fool, he told himself; all his steady living would be forgotten in the face of the crime he would have to answer for. But he didn’t want to die. He lifted his head, listening now to the yelling from the back lane:

  ‘Are you all right, Bridget? What’s up? Open the door there. Come on there, open up!’

  If they once got hold of him there’d be no escape, he’d die all right. But he wasn’t going to die, he’d get away. If he could reach the ship he’d be all right—yes, that was the way out. He must get to the ship and see the chief. He wouldn’t be the first the chief had got across the water. The chief held his own ideas on justice. The thumping on the back door told him that the time he had to accomplish this was very limited. He grabbed up his coat from the floor, but stopped in the act of thrusting his arms into it; if he went now there would be no return, he would never see his Rose Angela again. He looked from her to Rose, and at this moment there was in him no feeling but bitterness for his wife. She had brought him to this, to running away, to hiding for the rest of his life, and to separating him from his daughter. Even if he lived he might never see his child again. Suddenly he knew that this would be unbearable. He could suffer anything but to be separated forever from his child. Where he went, the child must go, for she was all his; Rose did not need her as he did. Intuitively he knew that Rose resented the kn
owledge that their child held more of him than her, despite its looks to the contrary.

  Bridget, shocked into soberness, watched her husband stoop towards Rose Angela. She knew that his intention was to escape, and she thought he was about to embrace the child. Even when he swung her up and into the shelter of his coat she did not for one moment imagine he would attempt to take her with him. Only when, clutching Rose Angela to him, he ran through the front room did it dawn on her, and then she screamed louder than she had done before, ‘No, James!…Jimmy! Jimmy! No! Don’t…leave her be.’

  When she reached the front door there was no sign of James and she stood on the road with the fog swirling round her, crying like a child herself. ‘Jimmy, come back…bring her back…bring her back.’

  Once clear of the streets and running along the main road, James’ mind began to work, planning out a way to evade the pursuers he knew would soon be following him. In between his planning he soothed the child, saying, ‘You no cry, you with your da; you all right.’ He would make straight for the ship, for they wouldn’t expect him to be mad enough to go back to her. But he couldn’t get to her through the dock gates, so he would have to enter the docks by way of the river. This would be no easy task in the fog, but if there was a sculler lying at the slipway, he’d chance it. If there wasn’t, he’d climb the sawmill wall and thread his way to the jetty where his ship lay. Of the two ways, he preferred taking the sculler and running the risk of being rammed, for if he went by the wall he might be spotted by someone inside the docks.

  Rose Angela was crying again, her cries jerking out of her with his running, and as he spoke to her a voice shouted through the fog, ‘Why, Jimmy, is that you? Is that you, Jimmy? What’s up?’

  Although he recognised the voice, he did not stop, not even when he heard the uneven hop of Tony’s run following him. But coming to the slipway, he paused and listened. There was no sound other than his own harsh breathing and the quiet whimpering of the child, so he judged that Tony had gone back to the fifteen streets; and as he ran down the narrow path leading to the water he felt a regret that he had not given Tony some last word, for he knew that the lad’s liking for him was sincere.

  There was no sculler tied to the wall at either side of the narrow slipway. He splashed frantically through the rim of the tide, feeling for one, but his hand encountered only the iron ring in the wall, and he cursed. There was nothing for it now but to climb the sawmill wall. Running up the path to the road again, he went more carefully, keeping to the grass verge to deaden his steps. Rose Angela was quiet now, as if asleep, and as he left the lane and came into the main road again the pale blur of the gas lamp showed him the slight figure of Tony. He knew it was him before he heard the voice asking again, ‘Is that you, Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes, it’s me!’

  ‘What on earth’s up?’

  Between deep gulps of air James answered, ‘I row with Matt. He dead. I got to get away, Tony.’

  ‘Matt dead? My God!’

  ‘I no mean to do it, Tony.’

  ‘But, Jimmy, why’ve you got the bairn with you?’

  ‘I take her with me…she mine.’

  ‘You can’t do that, man.’

  ‘Yes, she go with me…she all mine.’

  ‘But, Jimmy, what about Bridget?’

  ‘Sh!’

  They both stood silent, listening. The sound of pounding feet and shouting came through the fog, and James started to run again, with Tony hopping unevenly by his side.

  ‘I get over sawmill wall to my ship.’

  ‘You’re mad, man, you’ll never be able to get over that wall with the bairn. They’ll be on you before you can do it.’

  ‘You hand her to me…yes, you do that.’

  ‘Listen, man, can’t you hear them?’

  James could hear them, and the voices were almost paralysing his legs. His body was wet with sweat, yet he was cold with the fear that penetrated to the core of him. He had seen black men collared before by angry whites.

  ‘Jimmy, for God’s sake don’t get caught! If you keep running, they’ll get you—if not here, at the docks. Look, I can’t keep up…Jimmy, look, it’s your last chance.’ Tony grabbed at his arm. ‘Drop down here beside the slack bank and let them get by, then you can make your way to the sawmill wall keeping under cover of the bank.’

  Whether it was Tony’s reasoning or his own fear that made him follow the boy’s advice James didn’t know, but he dropped down the bank and lay on his side, pressed close to the wet seaweed-tangled grass, with Tony lying alongside him and the child lying as still as death between them. James pressed Rose Angela’s face close to his own, but she made no sound, seeming to know that his life depended on her silence.

  The men were passing them now, calling to each other as they ran:

  ‘The dock pollis will nab him.’

  ‘The trains and roads’ll be watched.’

  ‘They’ll get him. The bairn will be the finish of him, anyway, the black swine!’

  The black swine…James stared into the chilling darkness. It didn’t take long for a black man to jump from a damn good sort to a black swine…you were given no benefit of the doubt if you were a black man.

  ‘You see? You can’t go on the road, Jimmy. There’ll likely be more coming as it gets round the streets. You’ll have to keep under cover of the bank and get into the sawmill yard from the gut side; and you’ll have to plodge into the mud and water for a way.’

  James made no answer. He knew that Tony was right, and that that was the only means of escape now. But he could only get that way on his own; it would be impossible to take the child. He pressed her closer to him, and Tony, guessing his thoughts, whispered urgently, ‘Jimmy, man, you can’t take her. And anyway, you could never keep her on the ship, can’t you see? Get away while the going’s good. Go on, man, for God’s sake don’t let them catch you! Matt’s not worth swinging for…he’s bad, right through. I’ve been wanting to tell you for some time what he was doin’, but I couldn’t.’

  After a space, during which only the lapping of the water could be heard, James’ strangled whisper came through the grass to Tony. ‘No comin’ back, Tony—if I go without her, she forget me.’

  ‘No she won’t, Jimmy…I won’t let her. I promise you, man. I’ll tell her what a fine fellow you are. I promise on my oath, Jimmy. And when she’s older perhaps there’ll be some way of her comin’ to you…I won’t let her forget you, Jimmy, I won’t, only for God’s sake get away.’

  As fresh footsteps passed above them Tony felt the quivering of James’ body. He put his arms about the child and drew her from James’ clinging hands. ‘She’ll be all right, Jimmy, as God’s my honour. I’ll see to her.’

  ‘I come back, Tony…sometime I come back.’

  ‘All right, Jimmy, only go on now…hurry, man.’

  As James’ hand moved over his child’s head Tony knew he was crying, and as he felt the Negro’s hand pressing for a moment on his cap he turned his face into the grass to stifle his own emotion.

  It was Rose Angela’s whimpering, ‘Da! I want me da,’ that brought Tony up the bank and on to the road. Not wishing to encounter anyone from the fifteen streets, he walked on the pathless side of the road, and in this way he brought Rose Angela home without being stopped.

  There was a crowd around Bridget’s door, silent, weird, misshapen bulks, all so intent on watching the stretcher being carried from the house to the vehicle standing in the road that they took no notice of Tony and the child. The sight of the workhouse ambulance puzzled him…why were they taking Matt away? Would they bring the ambulance just to take him to his mother’s to be laid out? He felt not the slightest touch of sorrow for Matt being dead. In fact, as he made his way to the back door, he knew a great surge of relief that Matt would no longer be Bridget’s evil genie.

  When he entered the yard Kathie’s shouting came to him. ‘He’ll swing, what’s left of him when Sam Luck and the lads get hold of him; they’ll leave the
print of their hobnails on his face, God speed them, the murderin’ swine!’

  Tony pushed the open door wide and entered the kitchen. It was crowded with the McQueens, and Eva was crying noisily. Only Bridget was seated, and Tony noticed that the last vestige of the girl was gone. Drunk or sober, he would never see the girl Bridget again. She was a woman with the stamp of sorrow on her. She became blotted from his gaze as the family surged round him. ‘In the name of God where’d ye find her? Have they got the swine?’

  ‘Have they got him?’

  In Mr McQueen’s moderate tone Tony seemed to detect an odd anxiety, and as he pushed his way through them all to Bridget he answered, ‘No, he was well on the road to Newcastle the last I saw of him.’

  ‘Have you told the pollis?’ screamed Kathie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then somebody off and tell them. The Newcastle road, go and tell them!’ Kathie threw her order from one to the other, but no-one obeyed her…they were looking at Tony as he faced Bridget, who was standing now, leaning heavily on the table with one hand. The child was still clinging to him, and he said to Bridget, ‘I promised Jimmy I’d look after her.’

  ‘You what? Christ! Listen to him!’ cried Kathie.

  ‘Shut up yer mouth!’ said Cavan.

  Tony stared steadily at Bridget. He, too, in the past hour, seemed to have left his youth behind and become a man, so much so that he voiced his first and only criticism of Bridget. ‘You can’t blame Jimmy for this…you asked for it.’