by Juliet Bell
Edward hesitated. His parents had been high days and holidays church attendees. He’d not set foot inside a church since the day of Cathy’s funeral. He hadn’t even had Kate christened. He couldn’t bring himself to get down on his knees to a God who would take his wife from him. He’d taught Kate to believe in science and art and books and in things that people made and built. He’d never introduced her to anything beyond this world. There wasn’t anything else.
‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been busy.’
‘I see. And young Cathy…’
‘Kate.’
‘…is well?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
The priest’s eyes narrowed. ‘Good that she’s not taking after her mother.’
Edward felt his muscles tense involuntarily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. We don’t need another wild thing running around town.’
Edward opened his mouth and closed it again.
The priest nodded curtly and turned back towards the church, disappearing a second later through the heavy wooden door.
Edward stood, frozen to the spot. A wild thing? Was that what he’d raised? Not his Kate. His Kate was intelligent. She was well brought up. He’d protected her. He’d done everything he could. Kate was the one who was going to be different. She was going to fill her brain with knowledge and have the life he’d never had, that Isabelle had never had, that Cathy had never had. He’d kept her safe. He’d kept her away from the Heights. And from Heathcliff. Kate was his.
He forced his legs into action, carrying himself away from this place and away from the hateful words. But he didn’t go home. Instead he continued straight back into town and then turned away from the newer part of Gimmerton and started the slow walk up the hill. He never came this way. There was no reason to. There was nothing for him up here. He hadn’t set foot in the Heights since the night before the wedding when he’d come to see Cathy’s brother. But something pulled him up the hill, past the boarded-up houses and deserted lanes. He lowered his head and kept walking past the house she grew up in and made his way on to the back lane, and then on, out into the fields beyond. He wasn’t wearing the right shoes or the right sort of coat. He had nothing in his pockets but his house keys. He’d set out to post a letter and then go straight home, but he just kept walking.
The afternoon drifted into evening and the light started to dim. Sooner or later he’d have to head home. Kate would get back from wherever she went these days and she’d worry if he wasn’t there. He wandered back towards the blue hills. There was a figure standing alone on top of the mound. Edward stopped. He hadn’t come here to see Heathcliff, but there Heathcliff was, intruding on him again. Edward stood stock-still, trying to remain unseen behind a scrubby bush. Heathcliff was leaning backwards, raising his eyes and hands to the heavens. Edward listened as the other man called out her name. Cathy. Edward’s Cathy. Edward’s wife. And then Heathcliff dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around his body as if embracing some unseen spirit to his chest.
Edward edged closer, listening all the time. Heathcliff’s murmurs were indistinct but he could make out fragments here and there. ‘You came… you’re here… you came.’
Edward turned away. He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t just stand and watch her humiliate him in death as she’d done in life. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She was his wife. She should come to him. She should haunt his home. Silently he walked to the bottom of the field and climbed the fence onto the lane. He’d go back to the Grange. He’d make Kate her dinner. He’d try to get her to concentrate on studying. He had to keep going. For Kate. She was all he had left.
Chapter Forty-Three
December, 2007
As soon as he crested the top of the hill, Harry saw Kate running towards him. It was a wet day but her arms were bare to the elements. The rain had already soaked through her T-shirt, and her jeans. Her hair was plastered against her skin. She ran without looking up. Without even looking where she was going. She darted across the road, and from where he was standing, Harry heard the screech of brakes as a car swerved to miss her.
She didn’t hesitate; she just kept running.
Harry continued down the hill towards her. He was going that way anyway. He might as well find out what was going on.
There were three lads leaning on the end of the terrace halfway up the hill, passing a roll-up back and forth. One of them stepped forward as Kate approached. ‘All right, love. Where you heading?’
Kate dropped her head and kept going
The other two lads stepped alongside their mate. Kate was just a couple of feet away from them. For the first time she slowed. They were blocking the pavement in front of her. She hesitated. Harry increased his speed.
Kate turned around and walked a few paces back down the path. Behind her, the lads were laughing. Then she turned and started to run again. Straight at the lads who blocked her path, mouth wide open, a shriek, like a war cry from deep inside her guts, pouring out into the world.
Harry skidded to a halt in shock.
Kate barged her way past the lads, as they stumbled back away from the screaming banshee.
‘What the fuck?’ Kate had almost reached him. Harry reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. Kate slammed to a halt against his body. She glanced behind her. The lads were still here, hanging back now, trying to look cool.
‘She your girlfriend, Earnshaw?’ one of them yelled.
Harry stepped forward, pushing Kate behind him. ‘Piss off,’ he yelled.
‘Rather you than me, mate. She’s a fucking mental.’
Harry stepped forward again.
The lads hesitated. Harry gave them a minute to think about their situation. There was only one of him, but he was bigger than they were. The three lads shrugged like it was nothing to them and strolled away.
He turned to look at Kate. Her breath was coming hard and fast. Her eyes, though, were what worried him most. She looked like some wild animal, running from… something.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I ran…’
Harry shrugged. ‘I can see that.’
‘All the way from…’ Her voice tailed off. She lifted a hand half-heartedly in the direction of the town and the Grange estate beyond.
‘From your house?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
Kate didn’t answer. For a few seconds he thought she was going to cry. Or faint. Or something. This wasn’t Harry’s thing. He didn’t know what to do with a crying girl.
‘If you’re here for Luke, he’s not here.’
‘I’m not.’ Her breath started to slow.
She was looking around now as if she wasn’t quite certain where she was.
‘Good, cos he’s at the hospital.’
Kate frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Had a big asthma attack. There’s always summat with him. He’s gonna be fine.’
‘Is Heathcliff here?’
‘Still in bed. Just tell me what you want.’
She didn’t speak. Harry waited.
‘My dad died.’
There. She’d said it. It was real now. She couldn’t run away any more.
It was the phone that had sent her running up to the Heights. Up until then, she’d been calm. Peaceful almost. She hadn’t rung for help because it was obvious there was no point. She’d simply sat down next to him in the quiet, letting the minutes stretch out for as long as she could before she needed to decide what to do next.
And then the phone had rung. And she couldn’t answer it, because then she’d have to tell them, wouldn’t she? And she couldn’t do that yet. She couldn’t say the words out loud. And so she had run out of the house, down the driveway, along the street. She hadn’t stopped for her coat or her phone or her keys. She had run to the only place she could possibly go, the only place she knew anyone, the only place she had any family at all now.
‘Shit. When did he die?
’
Kate wasn’t sure. ‘Last night, I think. Or this morning, early.’
‘So…’ Harry looked right at her. ‘So he was, like, ill? In hospital or whatever?’
She shook her head. She was starting to shake. Her knees felt weak. She thought she was going to fall down, but Harry put his arm around her and dragged her back to sit on a fence.
‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know. He was just… gone.’
‘What do you mean?’
Kate could see him so clearly inside her head. In the big, wing-backed chair in the living room where he often sat. ‘I got up this morning and he was in the living room.’
‘Right.’
‘And when I went in there, he didn’t move. Or speak, or… He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were open, you know. I thought when people died, their eyes closed. But they don’t.’
Harry patted her arm awkwardly. ‘And so you phoned someone? Like a doctor or summat?’
Kate shook her head.
‘Fucking hell.’
She looked at Harry blankly. ‘I don’t have my phone.’
He pulled her to her feet and put his arm around her shoulders to steer her towards the house. She let herself be led. It helped to have someone else do the thinking. She could just go along with him.
‘Who’s there?’ The voice boomed down the hallway from the top of the stairs as soon as they went inside.
‘It’s Kate.’
‘Tell her Luke ain’t here.’
‘I told her.’
‘Then what’s she round here for?’
Harry stared at Kate and glanced up the stairs. His expression gave nothing away. It wasn’t angry or sad or sympathetic. ‘She says her dad died.’
Her dad died. She’d said it herself and she hadn’t fallen apart. The words hadn’t cracked the world in two like she thought they might. Hearing Harry say it was different. That would be how Dad was talked about now. He died. Not that he was a designer, or that he was a bit up himself, or that he home-schooled her. That’s not what she’d hear people whisper any more. He was dead. And that was all he was. Gone. Snuffed out absolutely and finally.
Next to her Harry yelled again. ‘Did you hear me? She says Mr Linton died.’
‘I heard you.’
And then silence.
Harry got hold of her arm and dragged her back to the front door.
‘What are you doing?’
‘You need to go. You need to tell the police.’
‘But…’ Kate couldn’t go. She needed them to help her. She couldn’t deal with what needed to come next. She couldn’t think through what the steps were. She needed someone to be there. That’s why she’d come here. Family were supposed to help out when someone died.
Footsteps on the stairs interrupted them both. ‘What you doing, boy?’
‘Kate needs to go.’
Heathcliff shook his head. ‘Kate needs to be with her family.’
‘She’s got to sort stuff out.’ Harry dropped her arm and leaned back against the wall. ‘She’s just left him in the house.’
For a fraction of a second Kate thought she saw a hint of a smile across Heathcliff’s rough face. ‘What do you mean?’
The tears were welling up now behind Kate’s eyes. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
‘So you came here?’ Heathcliff stepped towards her, lifting a hand to brush against her curls.
Kate nodded.
‘Well, you did the right thing.’ The older man turned to Harry. ‘Is there petrol in your van?’
Harry nodded. ‘Need it for tomorrow, though. Been promised a delivery shift.’
Heathcliff’s hand cracked against Harry’s shoulder. ‘Come on.’
Kate let her legs carry her to Harry’s van. She let the van carry them back across town. She let her lips open and tell Heathcliff that the door wasn’t locked. She let her feet follow him as far as the living-room door, and then she stopped, and sat, instead, on the bottom of the stairs leading up to the bedroom her father would never sleep in again.
Harry followed Heathcliff into the living room. The curtains were half-drawn. Had Kate started opening them this morning before she realised? Or had they never been properly closed? Her father was sitting perfectly still in his chair. Without thinking, Harry’s hand formed a cross in front of his chest. He wasn’t sure why. It was something he remembered his dad doing when they’d told him Aunt Cathy had died. He probably wasn’t even doing it right.
Harry pulled the other curtain open. Apart from a hint of blue-ish grey on his hands you could almost kid yourself he was just resting. He’d seen a dead body before, of course, but that hadn’t been anything like this. His own father’s death had been red and loud and violent. This was quiet. People like Edward Linton got better lives and better deaths. That was just how things were.
Heathcliff was pacing up and down the room, a grin spreading slowly across his lips. He stopped in front of the body in the chair and leaned forward. Harry hung back next to the window, so he had to strain to hear what Heathcliff hissed into the ear of the dead man. It sounded like ‘I win’.
‘Should we, like, phone someone?’ Harry asked, because it was clear Kate wasn’t up to doing anything useful.
‘What?’
‘Well, he can’t stay there, can he?’
‘Why not?’
Harry didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t stay there because you couldn’t just leave dead bodies sitting in chairs. It wasn’t how things worked. Harry shrugged. ‘I suppose he’s not really here any more, is he?’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nowt.’ Harry’s legs carried him sideways away from Heathcliff’s advance. That was a mistake. Trying to get away only made him angrier. It was better sometimes to take the first blow and hope that was all that came.
‘What did you say?’ This time the words were spat into Harry’s face.
‘I just meant he ain’t really here any more. It’s just a body, isn’t it?’ Heathcliff pushed him back against the wall. ‘His, like, spirit or whatever’s gone already.’
Harry tensed himself, waiting for the punch to come, but Heathcliff stepped back. ‘His spirit?’
‘Or whatever. I dunno.’
Heathcliff dropped to his knees. Harry edged towards the door but didn’t step through. The big man was rocking back and forth, sobs shaking his whole body, muttering under his breath. ‘It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.’
Harry stepped forward. ‘We should maybe go.’
Heathcliff didn’t move. ‘Should be me with her. Not him. He shouldn’t get to go to her.’
The door behind Harry clicked open. Kate inched into the room, not raising her eyes towards the chair in the far corner. She was gripping the telephone tightly. ‘I found a funeral director in the phone book. They’re going to come and get him.’ She glanced at Harry. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Suppose so.’ He stepped towards Heathcliff. ‘The undertaker’s on his way.’ He gestured towards the body. ‘To get… y’know.’
Heathcliff didn’t budge from the floor. ‘It should have been me.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
In an instant the crumpled old man unfolded and shoved his face right into Harry’s. ‘I know what I mean.’ He turned and looked one more time at Edward Linton, lifeless in the corner. ‘Let him rot.’
Chapter Forty-Four
December, 2007
They buried her father next to her mother during that useless bit of time between Christmas and New Year. Heathcliff refused to come but Harry and Luke stood dumbly next to the plot while Kate tossed dirt onto the coffin and a few men she barely recognised shook her hand and said they were sorry for her loss.
The funeral director had suggested a car for her to the church and home again but Heathcliff had said she didn’t need it. Harry’s van would be fine to get them there. He’d muttered something about slinging Edward in the back as well. The whole thing
took less than forty minutes from leaving the house at the top of the Heights to getting back in the van. It didn’t seem like enough.
Kate looked at the houses on the estate as they made their way back. There were lights on in two, maybe three, in the first street, the same again in the second. There had been two houses with people still living there on the top street, but the other house was empty now, a pointless For Sale board stuck outside it. Nobody was going to buy a house up here. Kate shivered. She’d be able to go home soon at least. She was seventeen. You could live on your own at seventeen.
The funeral director had given her a list of people who had to know about her dad, and it had included the solicitor he dealt with. So she’d phoned, hovering in the kitchen ready to hang up if anyone came in. The solicitor had said everything was straightforward. Mr Linton’s will had been very recently reviewed, apparently. Everything went to Kate apart from a few bits and bobs for her Aunt Isabelle.
Harry pulled the van up to the curb outside number 37, and Kate followed her cousins inside. Harry disappeared upstairs. There was no sign of Heathcliff. She sat next to Luke on the sofa.
‘What was it like?’ Luke leaned towards her.
‘What was what like?’
‘His body. Was it gross?’
Kate shook her head. She was trying not to think about him like that. The funeral director had patted her hand and said to remember him as he was when he was alive.
‘It’s not fair that you all got to see him. It’d be cool to see a dead body.’
Kate blinked hard. Would she have thought that before it happened? She could almost imagine if it was someone else, hanging on every word of the story when it was retold and retold during free periods at school. She shook her head. She wanted to change the subject. ‘So I’ll be going back home soon.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Back to my house.’
Luke laughed. ‘On your own?’
‘Why not?’ Kate’s voice was defiant but inside she wobbled. It was quite a big house, but she wasn’t too worried about that. They had a lady who came in once a week to do laundry and cleaning. She’d gone shopping with her father often enough. Lately, she’d made more of the decisions about what to eat than he had. It was the other stuff that worried her, the bills she saw on the side table, and the serious-looking brown envelopes she’d never thought to ask about.