Wuthering Heights

all four attacked my body from head to
foot, dragging me around the room. As though inspired I called out ‘Help’. I
was saved by the cook.
    She soothed the dogs with
an RSPCA rolling-pin. Heathcliff came up, ‘What the devil is that bundle of
rags doing in the comer?’
    ‘What the devil indeed!’ I
said. ‘That’s me!’
    ‘Those dogs do right to be
vigilant. Take a glass of wine?’
    ‘Where to?’ I said.
    ‘What would you like?’
    ‘A blood transfusion.’
    He raised his glass. ‘Your
health, sir.’
    ‘At the moment I haven’t
got any,’ I said.
    ‘Come, come,’ he said.
‘Take a little wine, guests are exceedingly rare in this house. The dogs eat
’em, you see. You’re one of the lucky ones.’
    Being a lucky one, I stood
up and using safety-pins pulled my clothes together, keeping my eyes on the
dogs. I bade him goodnight and walked backwards out of the room, first
mistakenly backing into a meat-safe, where a ham fell on me rendering me
unconscious.
    When I regained
consciousness, my host had kindly laid me in the snow at the front door. I
found him fascinating, I was encouraged to volunteer another visit on the
morrow. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he was heard to say.

Chapter
II
    - ----------
     
     
     
    EXT DAY I was in two minds, whether to stay
by my fire or go to Wuthering Heights so I tossed up for it: I came down
heavily on my back. I told my housekeeper, a matronly lady taken as
a fixture along with the house (she was screwed to the floor), that I was going
out. Stepping into the study I saw a servant girl on her knees, polishing the
floor. The temptation was great, but, by dousing my parts in cold water, the
temptation passed. I put on my hat, and after a ten-mile walk arrived at
Heathcliff’s, two miles away. Heavy snow was falling. Unable to remove the
chain on the gate, I jumped over, landing face down on the other side: by
stuffing snow down my back, I stopped the nose bleed. I knocked and knocked the
front door till my knuckles were raw, and the dogs howled: because of their
threat, I was wearing eight pairs of trousers, riding-boots and a cricketer’s
box.
    ‘Wretched inmates!’ I
ejaculated mentally. ‘I will get in!’ I ejaculated loudly. I grasped the
latch and shook it vehemently: vehemently it came off. A young man appeared and
beckoned me to follow him.
    ‘This way, you silly sod,’
he ejaculated. We went through a coal-shed, a pigeon-cote where I was covered
in it. We arrived in a warm cheerful apartment, there was a huge fire
compounded of coal, peat and wood. I threw on a spare piece of paper to add to
the blaze. I observed the lady of the house was there. I bowed low, thinking
she would bid me to take a seat, she didn’t so I bowed lower, as low as my
cricketer’s box allowed before penetrating my scrotum. Looking at me she
gracefully spat on the fire.
    ‘Sit down,’ said the young
man gruffly, then he spat on the fire almost putting it out. As I sat, the
mother dog growled at me.
    ‘A beautiful animal,’ I
said. I was ready to wink at her in case she attacked me. ‘Rough weather,’ I
said to the lady.
    ‘Rough,’ she said. ‘It’s
fucking terrible.’
    Seeing some cats on a
cushion I said, ‘Are your favourite cats among these?’
    ‘Are you daft?’ she said,
then I realized they were not cats but dead rabbits. There it was, I couldn’t
tell a dead rabbit from a cat.
    I hemmed and drew closer to
the hearth. As I did the mother dog snarled at me, and I had to start winking
and pulling faces as fast as I could.
    As the lady stood near the
fire for another gob at it, I could see how young and beautiful she was. For
some reason I said, ‘Will you marry me?’ and she said, ‘No, I’m already
married.’
    ‘Would you like to try it
for a second time with me, just from the waist down?’
    This time she spat in my
eye. Somehow it killed my romantic illusion.
    Meanwhile, the young man
had slung on to his person a shabby upper garment, he then erected himself
before the blaze. Obviously it was erecting time at Wuthering Heights! He
looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, as though for all the world there
was some mortal unavenged feud between us. I asked him, ‘Is there some
unavenged feud between us?’ The entrance of Heathcliff stopped me just as I was
about to sing Psalm 39. ‘You see, sir, I have come according to my promise of
yesterday!’ I exclaimed.
    ‘Oh, Christ,’ muttered
Heathcliff.
    Cheerfully I said, ‘I fear
I shall be