Wuthering Heights

window to
stop her starving.
    ‘ “Were you with Heathcliff
last night?” asked Hindley.
    ‘ “No, I was with a tree,”
sobbed Cathy. “If you turn Heathcliff out of the doors,” she sobbed, “I’ll turn
out with him.” She sobbed into the fire putting it out.
    ‘ “She’s ill,” said Hindley
taking her wrist; then taking her ankle he dragged her sobbing upstairs and put
her in bed. Hindley lavished on her a torrent of abuse, then taking pity he
sang a chorus of Au Id Lang Syne in Swedish. I thought she was going
mad. I begged Joseph to run for Dr Kenneth.
    ‘ “If Aw wor yah maister
Awd just slam t’boards porridge I’their farses” he said.
    ‘ “All right,” I said. “No,
get the bloody doctor.”
    ‘Dr Kenneth came. “This
girl should be in bed,” he said.
    ‘ “She is in bed,” I said.
    ‘ “I’m glad you agree with
my diagnosis,” he said. “This girl is very ill, she has a fever.” He bled her,
and told me to let her live on whey and water-gruel and keep the windows locked
in case of starvation, and that would be five pounds. In her delirium Cathy
called out, “Ohh, ohh, Heathcliff twelve inches, oh oh, Linton only six.” She
was a difficult patient. Old Mrs Linton visited her, she insisted that we
weren’t treating her properly. She insisted on taking Cathy to Thrushcross
Grange, for this deliverance we were grateful, but alas! Mrs Linton was to
repent her kindness, she and her husband caught the fever and died within a few
days of each other. Having killed them, Miss Cathy returned to us, saucier,
passionate and haughtier than ever.
    ‘Heathcliff had never been
heard of since the night of the thunderstorm, when he fled leaving behind a
packet of curry and a tube of pile ointment. “How he must have suffered without
them,” said Miss Cathy. From now on she treated me at a distance, sometimes
over a mile. Joseph would speak his mind, sometimes he would speak his leg.
Every day Cathy would search the moor for her beloved Heathcliff with the wind
and the rain in her hair. She took with her his pile ointment in case they met.
    ‘By now she knew Earnshaw
was a transvestite. She had to hide all her clothes from him. “I don’t want his
wedding tackle going in my knickers,” she said with a naughty smile.
    ‘ “Oh, you needn’t have
worried, Miss Cathy, he’s had the operation, he is now Gladys Earnshaw. He’s
very popular, he’s always being invited to balls though he himself hasn’t got
any,” I said.’

Chapter
X
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    DGAR
LINTON was
the happiest nerd alive when he led Cathy to the altar at Gimmerton Chapel. While
standing there they decided to get married. They honeymooned in a bedroom. You
could hear the screams a mile away. Miss Cathy wanted me to leave Wuthering
Heights and join her here. By now Hareton was five years old and a life member
of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was teaching him the alphabet and he had mastered
the letter A. It was lovely to hear him say, “Der Der A !” I told her we
didn’t want to part, but Catherine’s tears were more powerful than ours, she
cried at the rate of two gallons an hour, in the end we had to swim for it. I
told her I would never leave Wuthering Heights, never, never. Then Cathy
looking beautiful gave me a very precious gift that made me change my mind. It
was called money. I said goodbye to Hareton. “Der Der A,” he said. The new
mistress of Wuthering Heights was lovely Gladys Earnshaw and his lover
Able-Seaman “Shagger” Macgee with a wooden leg which he used for terrible
perversions on OAPs.
    ‘So life started for me at
Thrushcross. I observed that Mr Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling Cathy
s sense of humour like pretending to have fits. If he was displeased with the
servants, he would show it with a frown. “Look out!” we’d say, “he’s going to
frown!” and hide ourselves.
    ‘Catherine went on being
beautiful but she had seasons of gloom and silence. She also had fits of rage,
fits of crying, fits of laughter, but at all times the wild wind and rain blew
through her hair on the wild moor. They called the doctor again. He got into
her bed and examined her.
    ‘ “What is the verdict, Doctor?”
    ‘The doctor shook his head.
“Your wife is barmy. That’ll be fifty pounds.”
    ‘ “Fifty pounds!” said
Linton. “You must think I’m barmy as well.”
    ‘ “Then that will be
another fifty pounds,” said the doctor.
    ‘It seemed that when Cathy
and Edgar were