Free Wuthering Heights by Spike Milligan

rapid glance
through the half open door of the chamber and ascertaining that what I stated
was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence.’ 13

Chapter
XVI
     
     
     
    HAT WEEK, Cathy died, she was laid out in the
parlour. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow and bloody uncomfortable
it was. Cathy lay on her bier: no angel could appear more beautiful, more dead.
I went to tell Heathcliff. He was among the trees. He leaned against the old
chestnut tree. He had been standing a long time in that position, and was
heavily crippled by it.
    ‘ “She’s dead,” he said.
“Put your handkerchief away, don’t snivel before me,” he said.
    ‘ “I didn’t know it was
your turn,” I said. A foolish notion struck me that his heart was sad. His lips
moved as in prayer. Actually he was chewing betel-nut, his gaze bent on the
ground. He was looking for conkers.
    ‘ “Yes, she’s dead,” I
said.
    ‘ “How did she die?”
    ‘ “Lying down,” I said.
    ‘ “That’s a good position
for it,” he said. “Did she mention me?” he added.
    ‘ “How could she, she was
dead,” I said. “Her senses never returned — she recognized nobody, not even
Queen Victoria, even though we held photographs,” I said.
    ‘Suddenly in a rage he
said, “Damn you, Cathy Linton,” and stamped his foot on the root of a tree,
bruising his Achilles’ tendon. He leaped around holding the injured member. In
time to it I clapped hands and sang a hornpipe.
    ‘I told him, “Her last
words were ‘The sausages are burning.’ ”
    ‘Tears came to his eyes,
but they were for his Achilles’ tendon. There was a pause as he gobbed out his
betel-nut. “Cathy Linton, you said, ‘I killed you,’ then haunt me, preferably
on Saturdays between nine and twelve.” He dashed his head against the knotted trunk,
bruising his Achilles’ tendon. “Damn you, Cathy Linton,” he said, dashing his
head. “Damn you, Achilles’ tendon,” he said, feeling a lump on his Achilles’
tendon. He looked up and howled like a wolf. Hearing this, the house dog
galloped out and attacked him, only to have his arse kicked again.
    ‘After this I returned to
the home where Cathy lay in state. Her coffin was open — to let the wind and
the rain in — and strewn with flowers. Linton spent long nights sleeping by the
coffin. It made no difference, for in the morning she was still dead. Outside,
Heathcliff was making his curry and sleeping by the trees. I was conscious of
his desire to enter. So when Linton was sleeping off Dow’s Crusted Port 1840, I
left the window to Cathy’s coffin open. He apparently came in, retrieved the
tufts of his hair she had in her hands and left; so silently had he come, it
was only the smell of curry that told of his presence, that and ^15 missing
from the tea caddy.
    ‘Mr Earnshaw turned down
the invitation to the funeral, saying he hadn’t a suitable dress, and hadn’t
finished dancing with his sailor “Shagger” MacGee. The funeral passed off
peacefully.’

Chapter
XV
    -------------
     
     
     
    OW MY MASTER, Mr Linton, keeps to his
room. I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery,
and there I was sitting with a moaning doll of a child laid out on my knee,
with me powdering its “particulars”. The child was Cathy’s, born just before
she died. 14 She was
called Catherine.
    ‘Suddenly the door burst
open and some person entered, out of breath and laughing: “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
haha.”
    ‘ “How dare, how dare you,
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha in here? What would Mr Linton say?”
    ‘ “Excuse me,” said a familiar
voice. “Nothing,
Mr Linton is in bed, pissed, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha.” With that the speaker came
forward to the fire. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” it went. “I’ve run all the
way from Wuthering Heights ha ha ha ha haha.” The ha ha’ing intruder was
Isabella Heathcliff. She certainly was in no laughing predicament. She was
soaked to