The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge. Juliet Bell

      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.

Chapter Eight

      July, 1984

      The thumping beat of the music coming from the radio was jarred by another thumping – this time on the front door downstairs. Cathy slowly rolled off the bed. Leaving Heathcliff still sprawled there listening to the music, she darted into her father’s empty bedroom and looked out the window. Below, a woman was banging firmly on the front door. Cathy darted back behind the curtains.

      ‘It’s that social worker,’ she told Heathcliff as she returned to the room she now thought of as theirs.

      ‘Probably on about us skiving off school.’

      ‘Why does she have to pick on us? Everyone skives off school. You say it’s cos of the strike and no one cares.’ Cathy walked to the window and stared out into the distance.

      ‘Yeah. But half of them are down on the picket or helping at the church or summat.’

      ‘It’s nearly holidays anyway.’ She and Heathcliff never went down the picket lines. Their Dad didn’t want them there. He wanted Cathy to stay home and cook and wash and clean the house. Other than that, he didn’t seem to care much where they went or what they did. All he cared about was the stupid strike.

      ‘Let’s go,’ Cathy said, swinging her legs over the windowsill.

      A few minutes later they were up in the blue hills, heading for their favourite spot. A stunted tree had managed to grow near the top of one of the older slag heaps. It clung precariously to the unstable earth. From its base, Cathy and Heathcliff had a good view of the pithead, the locked gates, and the two sides facing off for battle.

      ‘That’s a lot of police,’ Heathcliff said. ‘They’re up to something.’

      He pulled two Mars bars from his rucksack and they started to eat. There wasn’t any money for sweets, Dad said, but they could run faster than Mr Hamid, who had the shop at the bottom of the estate.

      Below them, the police were forming two solid walls of blue, pushing the miners back to clear the roadway. Of course, Ray Earnshaw was down there. He always was. The strike was everything to her dad. On the pickets all day and sometimes at night, and then meeting at their house or down the Institute every evening. On the picket. Planning the picket. Talking about it all for hours and hours. Last night they’d all been crammed into the living room. Cathy hadn’t listened for long, but she’d heard them talk about buses. Buses of scabs. Buses of pickets from round the county. Buses of pigs from London.

      In the months since the strike started, there’d been fighting at the other pits. They’d seen it on the telly, and listened to the talk. Now it might actually kick off here and Cathy was determined to get a good view.

      ‘There’s Mick.’

      Cathy saw her brother approaching the picket, with his mates around him. They were greeted and absorbed into the growing ranks of miners like they belonged. Which they didn’t. Mick was workshy. That’s what her dad said. At least, that’s what he’d said before the strike.

      As it had so many other days, the crowd at the pit gates formed into lines. The miners on either side of the road, pinned in place by a wall of blue uniforms. And in the centre, the thin, grey stretch of roadway, a no-man’s land to the locked pithead gates.

      The chanting started. From their hiding place, Cathy and Heathcliff could hear the raised voices.

      ‘Miners united will never be defeated…’

      Maybe. But the strike had been going for ages now and Cathy was sick of it. Sick of having no new things. Sick of her dad spending all his time with his union mates. He didn’t even go on at her about school any more. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d properly looked at her. Or spoken to her other than to ask when she was going to have dinner on the table.

      ‘Look..’ Heathcliff sounded eager. Excited even.

      A line of vans and buses was making its way along the road from town. In the front were two white police vans. Behind them was a bus, its windows blacked out to hide the occupants. And behind the bus, two more police vans.

      ‘Let’s go down there.’ Heathcliff scrambled to his feet.

      Without a word, Cathy followed him.

      They stopped at the side of the road, where a caravan sat on the grass. It was covered with posters and graffiti and served the miners as headquarters for the pickets. It also served Cathy and Heathcliff as a hiding place.

      ‘Scabs! Scabs!’

      The chant was louder now. Harder. Aggressive and angry. The miners were pushing forward against the police lines.

      The first police van was almost at the gates when the miners surged forward as one. They made it to the bus and were pounding its sides with their fists.

      The doors of the first two police vans swung open and officers poured out. They were in full riot gear, helmeted and armed with truncheons. The miners began to fall back at the sight.

      ‘They’re going to lose,’ Heathcliff said. ‘Come on.’

      He grabbed a large rock lying near his feet and darted forward. Cathy tried to grab his arms and hold him back, but he was gone. She followed him into the melee.

      ‘Fucking scabs!’

      The voices around Ray were getting angrier by the moment. The jostling gave way to serious shoving as the men tried to force themselves between the bus and the gates to the pit.

      He looked up at the sides of the bus. Through the blacked-out windows, he could see faint shapes within. Who were these men, he wondered, who would betray their brothers, who were not prepared to fight for the cause? Were they frightened, those men inside the bus, as they listened to the fury all around them? They should be, because Ray was beginning to be a little afraid himself.

      A swinging truncheon clipped his shoulder.