The Heights: A dark story of obsession and revenge

Shirley’s whole body tensed. That voice. It sounded familiar. It dragged her to a time and place a long time ago. 1963. A young girl had taken one stolen moment of excitement in a drab and boring existence. A lad with a teddy-boy quiff when everyone else was growing a mop top had shown her more about life than a single girl ought to know. Then run off and left her no choice but to marry a local lad before she started to show. Shirley screwed her eyes even tighter closed as she remembered her mother’s voice and her father’s fist. Her mother had said Shirley was lucky the Earnshaws hadn’t got wind of her associating with that wrong-un. Lucky Ray Earnshaw didn’t discover the truth until well after the wedding, when it was too late for him to do anything about it. Lucky that Ray valued his reputation enough to say nothing. And lucky he loved the daughter who was his enough to stay.

The voice, that voice that couldn’t possibly be him, was reaching the end of the prayer. ‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

All around her the women muttered their amens. Shirley didn’t join in. She had to open her eyes, though. She had to break the little bubble that she’d created when she screwed them closed. It wouldn’t be him. It hadn’t been him when she thought she’d caught a glimpse of him that time they’d gone to Southport when Cathy was a baby. It hadn’t been him when she’d thought she’d seen him in the crowd on Match of the Day. She opened her eyes.

It wasn’t him.

Shirley sat through the whole talk with her handbag perched on her knee, twisting the strap round and round her fingers, trying to listen to what Reverend Price was saying. He was on about sending help to some place she’d never heard of in Africa. A corrupt government was leaving people to starve, the Reverend was saying, when Gloria suddenly shot to her feet.

‘What about our government leaving us to starve>’ Gloria declared. ‘Her. That Margaret Bloody Thatcher. She’ll have the pits closed and us all on the poor house the way she’s going.’

She was surrounded by murmurs of assent. Shirley didn’t bother listening to the churchman’s answer. She was with Gloria. Night after night she’d sit there while Ray went on and on about the state of things. About the unions and the strikes to come. About the need for brotherhood among the workers. Comrades, he called them. Like some bloody commie. And when he wasn’t on about that at home, he was off at some union meeting, leaving her to cope with three kids – one of which wasn’t even hers.

This wasn’t the life she had dreamt about as a girl. She’d been the pretty one. The one they said was going to make a fine match. To live the sort of life others only dreamt about, with a nice home and pretty clothes. And look at her now…

It was suddenly all too much. Shirley got to her feet and walked out of the hall, oblivious to the hubbub behind her. Those woman had been gossiping about her one way or another for most of her life. What did one more day matter?

Shirley didn’t use the shortcut across the stream. She was wearing her Sunday shoes so she walked all the way to the bridge, then turned back along the road to the Heights. She walked past the row of identical terraced houses. There were other women behind those doors, but none of them was her friend. They were, for the most part, tied down with hard work, a baby each year and trying to make ends meet on a miner’s pay.

And the hardest part to accept was that she wasn’t that much different to them.

She turned into Moor Lane and looked up at the house at the end of the terrace. Her steps faltered. There was nothing there calling her home.

She should have loved her firstborn son. Mick was the one thing linking her to those moments of stolen pleasure. But, truth be told, she didn’t love him. In a way, she hated him. If he hadn’t been growing inside her, she never would have married Ray Earnshaw. She certainly didn’t love Ray. Or the daughter she’d given birth to back in the days when she had accepted Ray pawing at her on a Friday night after he’d been down the pub with his mates. And as for that bastard boy – she could barely stand the sight of him.

It occurred to Shirley that maybe she didn’t really know what love was. But one thing she did know was that she had no love for this town, or that house, or any of the people who lived in it.

It made her wonder why she was wasting her life here. She paused. She told herself she could go down to St Mary’s and sit for a while, let the coolness and the quiet of the church calm her. But it wouldn’t work. Eighteen years since she’d had the baby that had tied her to this place and this husband for so long. Five years since Ray had brought that bastard home. She’d put up with more than anyone could expect. She wasn’t going to sit and think and pray and hope to feel better. She wasn’t going to clean and cook and do everything for everyone else.

Something inside her had been pulled taut for too long. And now it had snapped. The girl she’d been all those years ago was awakening inside her and screaming that it wasn’t too late. What Shirley Earnshaw was going to do, was walk back into that cold little house, put her things in a suitcase, get the post-office book Ray knew nothing about from her knicker drawer, and walk away.

Mick pushed his giro cheque over the counter. This was the life – getting paid for doing nothing. It wasn’t much money, but it was more than he’d had before. And it beat working. He was free to do as he pleased. He stuffed the book and money into his pocket and sauntered out into the street. Davo and Spud were leaning on the railings outside the post office. The trio fell into step.

Spud dropped his fag butt to the ground. ‘We getting some beers now then?’

Davo laughed. ‘He’ll have to hand it all over to his dad, won’t he?’

Mick shook his head. ‘No way. I do what I like with what’s mine.’

That was a lie, but he wasn’t letting on. His dad had this idea that now Mick had left school he ought to be paying rent, but that was crap. He couldn’t pay rent because he hadn’t got a job. His dad had plenty to say about that too, but would he help him get one? Not bloody likely. His dad was a supervisor down the pit now. He was a big man. He could’ve got Mick a job if he’d wanted. But no. He said it was up to Mick to make his own way. What was he supposed to do? There weren’t any jobs going outside the pit. At least not for the likes of Mick.

He led the way to the Spar across the road, and picked up a pack of cans. A few years ago, they might have gone to the youth club. But that was closed now. And besides, they weren’t kids any more. They could go to the pub. Spud was still a couple of months short of his eighteenth, but nobody would say anything. Not at the Red Lion. Trouble was, the Lion would be full of his dad’s mates. They’d all be talking about Maggie Thatcher and Arthur Scargill, and the mine and the union and the government. That was all anyone ever talked about. The pit was all that mattered. Some had already closed, and there was talk that they were going to close even more. But the Gimmerton Colliery would never close. It was too big and making too much money.

Mick and his mates made themselves at home on the steps around the statue in the middle of the village and opened the cans.

‘Saw your sister yesterday,’ Spud said. ‘She was up the blue hills with that gyppo kid. What’s his name?’

‘Heathcliff.’ Mick spat out the word as if it was leaving a foul taste on his mouth.

‘Yeah. Him. What sort of a name is that anyway? It doesn’t sound gyppo.’

‘Don’t know. Don’t care,’ Mick said, lighting another fag from the butt end of the first.

Two girls emerged from the Spar. They looked up the hill towards the statue. Mick watched as they exchanged whispers. The blonde one cast a glance his way

‘She’s a bit of all right,’ said Spud, jabbing an elbow in his ribs. ‘You might be in with a chance.’

‘Nah. She’s just a kid.’

‘I dunno,’ laughed Davo. ‘Hey, do you think that gyppo kid and your sister are…’

Mick swung his arm and slapped him up the back of the head.

‘Shut your mouth. That gyppo will never lay a finger on my sister.’

‘Yeah. Sure,’ Davo said quickly. ‘Just saying, they spend a lot of time alone out in them blue hills. Well, we all been up there with girls, haven’t we? You know what goes on.’

Mick crushed his empty can against the statue. Spud kicked his across the square. ‘I’ve gotta get back.’

Mick frowned. Spud never had anywhere to be. ‘Where you going?’

His mate shrugged. ‘Tracy’s mam said I could do a few hours for her on service washes.’

‘Fucking laundry?’

‘Tracy says we have to start saving for baby coming.’

‘Well, bugger off then.’ Mick’s expression closed as his mate strolled away. Spud was trapped. He wasn’t old enough to order a pint in the pub, but he’d got Tracy up the duff and now he had to marry her. He’d have a kid to support. They had no money and were living with her parents. No way Mick was going to end up like that.

Davo chucked his own can against the statue and stood up.

‘You off too?’

‘Well, there’s nowt doing here, is there?’ The clock on the building opposite hit twelve o’clock. ‘Mam’ll have lunch on.’

That was a thought. Mick’s mum would be at one of her church groups, but when she got back she’d do sandwiches with the leftovers from the roast. Mick shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I’ve got stuff to do too.’

Davo nodded. ‘See you then.’

Mick made his way through town and onto the Heights. It was pretty quiet this time of day. Two of his mates from school had already moved to Manchester to work. One had gone all the way down to London. Some were already working at the pit. A couple of others had gone to college. He saw them every afternoon trudging up from the bus stop at the bottom of the estate at the end of the day. If he ever got away from Gimmerton, he’d never come back. He wasn’t going to end up like his dad, working in the same place every day for forty years, just to pay the mortgage on a terraced house in the Heights. Mick opened the front door and shouted for his mother. There was no answer. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and shouted again. ‘Mum. I want a sandwich.’

No answer. She mustn’t be back yet. He’d have to make his own sandwich. Then he might go up the blue hills. Cathy was a pain but she was his sister. He weren’t going to have people saying his sister was at it with some pikey bastard.

Chapter Five (#ulink_ecc5032e-eee8-5e51-a2c2-54e9cf085622)

April, 1983

Cathy watched the other kids shuffle forward in front of her. She could feel the itching starting at the back of her neck. Her head always itched in the queue. She couldn’t help but imagine the nits crawling through her curls, drinking her blood and laying their eggs in her hair. She thought about it. Had it been itching before she got in the queue? Had it been itching at playtime? Or last night in bed?