Читать книгу The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge - Juliet Bell, Juliet Bell - Страница 15

Chapter Seven

March, 1984

Ray Earnshaw walked the long way home, along the pit road onto the estate, rather than cutting by the blue hills and onto the back lane. He needed the thinking time. He’d told himself it weren’t going to happen here. He’d known the younger lads were getting angry, and he’d heard about what was going on at other pits around and about and down by Nottingham, bits on the news about the union, but that was there. They were firebrands over there. Not like Ray.

Ray had never voted to strike in his life. Just last year, he’d voted against it in the national ballot, and he hadn’t voted to strike this time either. None of them had. Then Maggie had started to talk about pit closures and the walkouts had started. And now Scargill had called everyone out. There was some as said that wasn’t right. That there should have been a vote. Ray agreed, but it were too late now. He’d never crossed a picket line in his life and that wasn’t about to change. Nobody was going to call Ray Earnshaw a scab. He had a reputation round here. The lads knew him. He fancied they respected him. That counted for something, so it was one out, all out. Didn’t matter what you thought yourself. That was how it had always been. That was how it would always be.

He walked up to his front door and reached for his keys. The first thing that hit him as he opened the door was the sound of shouting from the kitchen. For a heartbeat he thought Shirley might be back. That was the fantasy he had every night as he put the key in the lock. Shirley back and everything as it should be, but the female voice he could hear was his daughter, not his wife.

He opened the front door and the words became clearer.

‘Leave him alone, Mick. You’re a bully.’

‘That gyppo bastard doesn’t get to give me cheek.’ Mick’s voice was slightly slurred, leaving Ray to wonder if his son was drunk. ‘If he doesn’t stop staring at me, I’ll punch his lights out. And as for you, going off with him up in the blue hills. People will think you’re a slut.’

He heard a low growl. Heathcliff, jumping to Cathy’s defence, no doubt, which seemed like his normal way to get himself in trouble.

‘That’s enough,’ Ray shouted as he walked through to the kitchen. ‘Shut up the lot of you.’

The kids did as they were told, probably shocked by the uncharacteristic roughness in his voice. Ray went to the fridge and reached for a can of beer. God knew he needed it.

‘Dad,’ Cathy ventured in the voice she used when she was trying to get him on her side in an argument. ‘Mick said…’

‘I don’t care what Mick said. Pay attention. All of you. Things are about to change here. We’re on strike. The miners. All of us.’

Silence fell in the kitchen. Ray checked the clock on the wall and reached for the radio. The smooth voice of the BBC announcer filled the room.

‘…Britain’s miners have stopped work in what looks like becoming a long battle against job losses. More than half the country’s 187,000 mineworkers are now on strike. Miners in Yorkshire and…’

‘You’re on strike, Dad?’

‘Shut up, Mick. Listen…’

‘…National Union of Mineworkers president Arthur Scargill is calling on members across the country to join the action.’

Ray took another swig from his beer. Now the strike was on, no one was going to hear him say a word against Scargill. That was what the union was all about.

‘…Violence flared on the picket line at Bilston Glen colliery in Scotland, when miners from the recently closed Polmaise pit tried to stop others going into work…’

Scabs. There’d been talk of trucking in lads from the other pits to join the picket. There’d be nobody working at Gimmerton. He’d see to that.

The kitchen became very still, the only sound the voice from the radio. Words seemed to hang in the air, painting a bleak image of a long and bitter time to come.

‘It won’t last long, Dad, will it?’ Cathy asked. ‘I mean… without jobs people won’t have any money…’

‘They’ll cave in,’ Mick said brashly. ‘She can’t close the pits. The whole bloody country’d come to a standstill.’

Ray wasn’t so sure. There had been rumours of coal stockpiles.

‘It might last a few weeks,’ he said. ‘So we all have to pitch in and make ends meet. No more beer and fags, Mick – all your dole money goes to the house.’

‘I want to join the picket,’ Mick said.

‘You’re not a miner.’

‘No, but I want to join the picket. That guy on the radio said even women were expected to join this. I won’t be left out of the fight. You’re gonna need all the help you can get.’

Ray didn’t like it, but Mick was right. He looked at the boy he had raised as his son, and for the first time thought that maybe there was something of him in Mick after all. If he was willing to stick up for his mates.

‘All right. But be careful. They’re going to bus police in here as well as lads for the picket. I don’t want you getting involved in anything violent, you understand.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

And as for the two of you…’ Ray turned towards Cathy and Heathcliff, who, as always, were standing so close together they might have been Siamese twins. ‘You two keep going to school. Cathy, you look after the house the way you have been since your mum left. And I don’t want social services on my case because you’ve been bunking off. Understand?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ Cathy said meekly. Heathcliff as usual said nothing. But Ray knew he would follow where Cathy led.

Ray relented and reached out to pull his daughter close for a hug. ‘Ah, you’re a good girl, Cathy. Hopefully this strike will be over in a couple of weeks and we can all get back to normal.’

‘Look, Heathcliff. A kestrel.’

‘Where?’

‘It went… No. There. Above those rocks.’ Cathy pointed. ‘See it?’

‘Yeah.’

Cathy leaned forward from her place on the high, rocky outcrop, as if she was about to launch herself into the air. ‘I wish I could fly, Heathcliff. Just like that falcon.’

‘And if you could fly?’

‘I’d fly away from this place and never come back.’

Cathy felt his body shift, as he moved away from her. She dragged her eyes away from the bird to look at the youth sitting next to her. His face was a black mask.

‘You’d leave me behind. Stuck here.’ His voice had turned all pouty.

She knew that black look. And she knew how to fix it. ‘No, of course not. You’re my brother. If I was a falcon you’d be a falcon too and we could fly away together.’

‘I’m not your brother.’

‘No. You’re better than a brother.’

That seemed to help. He turned back to look for the bird, giving Cathy a good look at the bruise on the side of his face. It was much darker than it had been when she first saw it last night. She reached out her hand and touched Heathcliff’s cheek ever so softly. He didn’t flinch away.

‘Why didn’t you tell Dad that Mick did this?’ she asked.

‘What good would that do? He’d only give me another hiding for ratting on him.’

That was true. And their father wouldn’t help. He didn’t care about anything except the strike. And now Mick was on the picket with the rest of the old men, their dad was more inclined to take his word over Cathy’s.

‘Look at that!’ Heathcliff drew her attention back to the bird. ‘He’s spotted something. A rabbit maybe.’

The kestrel was hovering not far away from them. Cathy could see that the bird had its eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly it dropped like a stone, its wings folded tight against its body until the last moment, before it crashed to earth. A moment later the bird rose from the long grass, and she could see it held something in its talons.

‘That’s what I’d do if I could,’ Heathcliff said, so quietly she could hardly hear him. ‘I’d teach Mick. I’d teach all of them.’

Cathy could hear the anger and pain in him as he spoke. She felt it too, whenever Mick hit Heathcliff. Or when one of the kids at school picked a fight with him. She reached out to take his hand.

‘Come on. I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’ he asked, but he got to his feet to follow her.

‘Let’s go down to the Grange and pick some apples.’

They set off across the hills. Cathy kept hold of Heathcliff’s hand. She liked holding his hand. Some of the girls at school held hands with boys, but this was different. The other girls thought it was fun and they giggled about it a lot. Holding hands with Heathcliff wasn’t fun. Or something to giggle about. It was just… just what they did. Had always done. Would always do.

They reached the edge of the blue hills and, still holding hands, ran down the last slope towards the road. As they did, a car came into view.

‘Shit,’ Heathcliff said as he pulled her to a stop. But it was too late. The driver of the car had already seen them. It pulled over to the hard shoulder and a woman got out.

‘Catherine Earnshaw. Heathcliff. Come here.’

Cathy reluctantly let go of Heathcliff’s hand. It was that woman. The social worker with the stringy hair.

‘Why aren’t you two at school?’ the woman demanded in her high, raspy voice.

‘We weren’t doing nothing,’ Heathcliff said sullenly, kicking the toe of his shoe into the road.

‘Really?’ The social worker sighed and turned to Cathy. ‘What about you, madam? Have you got an excuse?’

Cathy tried to straighten her skirt and blouse. They were covered with mud and grass stains. Her shoes were wet. It suddenly occurred to her that she was cold. She was never cold when she was up on the hills with Heathcliff. But when she came down – that’s when the coldness set in. She shrugged.

‘I ought to take you both to the headmaster’s office right now.’

Cathy’s heart sank. A visit to the headmaster would mean getting her dad involved, and then there’d be shouting and Mick looking all pleased with himself because her and Heathcliff were getting a bollocking. She forced a meek smile onto her face. ‘Been to doctor’s. Dad’s on the picket so he said we should go together. Doesn’t like us wandering round on our own.’

The woman glanced up in the direction of the blue hills. ‘You’ve come from the doctor?’

‘Yeah.’

The woman checked the watch on her wrist and sighed. ‘I want both of you back in school. Right away. And I’ll check, so no skiving off again.’

Cathy nodded quickly. She arranged her face into the same look she gave her dad when she was trying to get money off him for sweets. Not that there was money for sweets since the strike started.

‘All right then. Now go. Both of you.’ The woman jumped back into her car and drove away.

‘I’m not going to school,’ Heathcliff announced.

‘Course we’re not. Come on.’ She took his hand and a few seconds later they had crossed the road and were running through the heather.

They stopped running when they reached a tall hedge.

‘This way. There’s a gap.’ Cathy pulled Heathcliff after her. She stopped and peered through the hedge before finally letting go of Heathcliff’s hand to push her way through the hole. He followed.

They were standing in an orchard. The apple trees were old and twisted and wild. Others, it seemed, knew about the hole in the hedge, because much of the fruit had already been pulled from the trees. The lowers branches were all bare, but there were still some apples quite high up.

‘There,’ said Cathy. ‘Up there. They look good.’

Heathcliff reached up to grab a branch and swung himself up. He wrapped his legs around the lowest branch and heaved himself into a sitting position. He held out his hand. Cathy reached up to take it and he pulled her up beside him. He reached above his head to grab some of the ripe, round fruit.

‘Check for grubs,’ Cathy instructed him.

‘It’s fine.’

She took an apple and polished it on the cleanest part of her blouse before sinking her teeth into the firm red skin. The apple was delicious. Juice ran down her chin, and she wiped it away with her hand. Beside her, Heathcliff bit into his apple and smiled at her.

These were the best moments. Just her and Heathcliff and no one else. She wished it was always like this.

‘Let’s go look at the house,’ Heathcliff said, tossing his apple core down to the ground.

‘Okay.’

They made their way to the far side of the orchard. There was another hedge, but like the first, this was neglected and had a hole that clearly served as a passage for people other than themselves. They ducked through into the garden.

Cathy looked up at the house. To her it seemed huge. The paint was fading and it had a deserted air, but it was so much bigger and better than any house she had ever seen before.

‘Dad says there’ll be new people coming to live here one day,’ she told Heathcliff. ‘Imagine living in a big house like this. Wouldn’t that be great? It would be like being the Queen or something.’

‘When I’m rich, I’ll buy this house for you,’ Heathcliff said. ‘And we can live in it together. Away from everyone else. No one will hurt us then.’

She turned to look at him. It was starting to get dark and the bruise on his cheek was hidden from her. Was he handsome? She wasn’t sure. She wondered, for the first time, if he thought she was pretty.