Wuthering Heights

the
fire. He had been walking in the fields with a junior zimmer. He was waiting
for Joseph to come back from Somalia so he could give him more porridge to take
back.
    ‘ “Now, who is that?” asked
Heathcliff of Cathy, prodding the boy with an electric cattle probe.
    ‘ “Your son,” said Cathy,
doing a little pirouette. ‘ “Yes, he is your cousin,” said Heathcliff doing a
clog dance.
    ‘ “Oh, Linton, my cousin,”
she said, embracing him with a kiss ten minutes long.
    ‘ “That’s enough of that,”
I said, wrenching them apart with a noise like a sink pump.
    ‘ “Linton is much better
these days,” said Heathcliff. “There are periods when he can stand unaided.
There are times when he’s not fit to be seen and we cover him with a blanket
and lock him in the meat-safe.”
    ‘ “Oh, Linton,” Cathy said,
clapping her hands and doing a pirouette. “You must come and visit us at the
Grange and see our meat-safe.”
    ‘ “Oh,” he groaned. “It’s
too far for me to walk two miles to see a meat-safe, it would kill me.”
    ‘ “Only walk one and crawl
the rest, you can spread it over a month,” she said, doing a pirouette.
    ‘Heathcliff interrupted,
“You must know that in the past your father and I quarrelled.”
    ‘ “Why, oh why?” asked
Cathy.
    ‘ “He thought me too poor
to marry his sister.”
    ‘ “And, were you poor?”
    ‘ “Yes, but I overcame it.”
    ‘ “How?”
    ‘ “We starved.”
    ‘ “Of course!” said Cathy,
suddenly realizing. “You are my uncle, mon oncle !’ She rushed forward to
embrace him, at the last moment he stepped aside and she crashed into a wall.
“Why did you do that?” she said.
    ‘ “Because,” he said, “I am
an untouchable.”
    ‘ “How did your wife
embrace you?” said Cathy, puzzled.
    ‘ “She wore surgical
gloves,” said the Untouchable.
    ‘ “Linton,” he shouted.
“Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a
weasel’s nest?”
    ‘ “Oh, how lovely,” said
Cathy.
    ‘Heathcliff rose, called
out of the window for Hareton who was in the fields wanking. When he arrived
Heathcliff bid him show Miss Cathy round the stables. “Behave like a
gentleman,” said Heathcliff. “Don’t use bad words like fuck. Keep your hands
out of your pockets! Don’t stare, and when the young lady is looking at
you, hide your face.”
    ‘Off went Cathy, skipping
alongside the oaf. As instructed, he hid his face and walked in a pool, to
please Cathy he did it again. She clapped her hands with delight and tripped
merrily along seeking objects of amusement like a rabbit and a weasel’s nest.
    ‘Hareton took her to see
the prize bull. “Hur hur hur,” he said. “Will you look at the balls on him.”
    ‘Cathy went pale, hid her
eyes and backed away saying, “No no no no, how terrible for the poor thing.”
‘Before we departed Wuthering Heights Heathcliff gave us a cup of curried tea
and a poppadom. He waved us goodbye with a Bombay Duck. On the way home, we
stopped twice, once to see a rabbit and secondly a weasel’s nest. In the
distance we could see Joseph on his way back from Somalia. “Why didn’t you tell
me about my cousin Linton and Uncle Heathcliff?” asked Cathy.
    ‘ “It was your father’s
express wish not to.”
    ‘ “Express? I wonder why it
didn’t reach me quicker.” ‘We arrived back at the Grange to find Master Edgar
Linton flat on his back with a bargain at eighteen shillings a bottle. We stood
over him.
    ‘ “How did you hic get up
there, you’ll fall off,” he said.
    ‘We left him saying, “Get
these penguins out of this room!”
    ‘In the morning Master
Edgar appeared unsteadily at the top of the stairs. By falling he soon appeared
unsteadily at the foot of the stairs. “What happened?” he said.
    ‘ “You did,” said Cathy.
    ‘While the doctor was
stitching his head, and setting his leg, Cathy in high spirits skipped around
and sometimes over her father’s body.
    ‘ “Ah, Cathy,” said Master
Edgar. “Every day you get more and more like your mother.”
    ‘ “I hope not,” said
high-spirited Cathy. “She’s dead,”
    ‘ “Yes, she’s dead,” said
Master Edgar, bursting into tears; great sobs racked his body. They racked his
arms, racked his neck, knees and nose but in between sobs he managed to fit in
half a bottle of Tailor’s Tawny Port 1804 — it was way past its best, so was
he. As we mopped up around him, Cathy merrily asked her