He grumbled but opened the door anyway. We stepped in amongst a swirl of snowflakes and tramped our feet upon the mat as the door was latched behind us.
'What did he say?' I asked as Joseph carried on muttering to himself under his breath.
'I have absolutely no idea,' replied Miss Havisham, shaking the snow from her faded bridal veil. 'In fact, nobody does. Come, you are to meet the others. For the rage counselling session, we insist that every major character within Heights attends.'
There was no introductory lobby or passage to the room. The front door opened into a large family sitting room where six people were clustered around the hearth. One of the men rose politely and inclined his head in greeting. This, I learned later, was Edgar Linton, husband of Catherine Earnshaw, who sat next to him on the wooden settle and glowered meditatively into the fire. Next to them was a dissolute-looking man who appeared to be asleep, or drunk, or quite possibly both. It was clear that they were waiting for us, and equally clear from the lack of enthusiasm that counselling wasn't high on their list of priorities – or interests.
'Good evening, everyone,' said Miss Havisham, 'and I'd like to thank you all for attending this Jurisfiction Rage Counselling session.'
She sounded almost friendly; it was quite out of character and I wondered how long she could keep it up.
'This is Miss Next, who will be observing this evening's session,' she went on. 'Now, I want us all to join hands and create a circle of trust to welcome her to the group. Where's Heathcliff?'
'I have no idea where that scoundrel might be!' declaimed Linton angrily. 'Face down in a bog for all I care – the devil may take him and not before time!'
'Oh!' cried Catherine, withdrawing her hand from Edgar's. 'Why do you hate him so? He, who loved me more than you ever could—!'
'Now, now,' interrupted Havisham in a soothing tone. 'Remember what we said last week about name-calling? Edgar, I think you should apologise to Catherine for calling Heathcliff a scoundrel, and Catherine, you did promise last week not to mention how much you were in love with Heathcliff in front of your husband.'
They grumbled their apologies.
'Heathcliff is due here any moment,' said another servant, who I assumed was Nelly Dean. 'His agent said he had to do some publicity. Can we not start without him?'
Miss Havisham looked at her watch.
'We could get past the introductions, I suppose,' she replied, obviously keen to finish this up and go home. 'Perhaps we could introduce ourselves to Miss Next and sum up our feelings at the same time. Edgar, would you mind?'
'Me? Oh, very well. My name is Edgar Linton, true owner of Thrushcross Grange, and I hate and despise Heathcliff because no matter what I do, my wife Catherine is still in love with him.'
'My name is Hindley Earnshaw,' slurred the drunk, 'old Mr Earnshaw's eldest son. I hate and despise Heathcliff because my father preferred Heathcliff to me, and later, because that scoundrel cheated me out of my birthright.'
'That was very good, Hindley,' said Miss Havisham, 'not one single swear word. I think we're making good progress. Who's next?'
'I am Hareton Earnshaw,' said a sullen-looking youth who stared at the table as he spoke and clearly resented these gatherings more than most, 'son of Hindley and Frances. I hate and despise Heathcliff because he treats me as little more than a dog – and it's not as though I did anything against him, neither; he punishes me because my father treated him like a servant.'
'I am Isabella,' announced a good-looking woman, 'sister of Edgar. I hate and despise Heathcliff because he lied to me, abused me, beat me and tried to kill me. Then, after I was dead, he stole our son and used him to gain control of the Linton inheritance.'
'Lot of rage in that one,' whispered Miss Havisham. 'Do you see a pattern beginning to emerge?'
'That they don't much care for Heathcliff?' I whispered back.
'Does it show that badly?' she replied, a little crestfallen that her counselling didn't seem to be working as well as she'd hoped.
'I am Catherine Linton,' said a confident and headstrong young girl of perhaps no more than sixteen, 'daughter of Edgar and Catherine. I hate and despise Heathcliff because he kept me prisoner for five days away from my dying father to force me to marry Linton – solely to gain the title of Thrushcross Grange, the true Linton residence.'
'I am Linton,' announced a very sickly looking child, coughing into a pocket handkerchief, 'son of Heathcliff and Isabella. I hate and despise Heathcliff because he took away the only possible happiness I might have known, and let me die a captive, a pawn in his struggle for ultimate revenge.'
'Hear, hear,' murmured Catherine Linton.
'I am Catherine Earnshaw,' said the last woman, who looked around at the small group disdainfully, 'and I love Heathcliff more than life itself!'
The group groaned audibly, several members shook their heads sadly and the younger Catherine did the 'fingers down throat' gesture.
'None of you know him the way I do, and if you had treated him with kindness instead of hatred none of this would have happened!'
'Deceitful harlot!' yelled Hindley, leaping to his feet. 'If you hadn't decided to marry Edgar for power and position, Heathcliff might have been half reasonable – no, you brought all this on yourself, you selfish little minx!'
There was applause at this, despite Havisham's attempts to keep order.
'He is a real man,' continued Catherine, amid a barracking from the group, 'a Byronic hero who transcends moral and social law; my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks. Group, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being!'
Isabella thumped the table and waved her finger angrily at Catherine.
'A real man would love and cherish the one he married,' she shouted, 'not throw a carving knife at her and use and abuse all those around him in a never-ending quest for ultimate revenge for some perceived slight of twenty years ago! So what if Hindley treated him badly? A good Christian man would forgive him and learn to live in peace!'
'Ah!' said the young Catherine, also jumping up and yelling to be heard above the uproar of accusations and pent-up frustrations. 'There we have the nub of the problem. Heathcliff is as far from Christian as one can be; a devil in human form who seeks to ruin all those about him!'
'I agree with Catherine,' said Linton weakly. 'The man is wicked and rotten to the core!'
'Come outside and say that!' yelled the elder Catherine, brandishing a fist.
'You would have him catch a chill and die, I suppose?' replied the younger Catherine defiantly, glaring at the mother who had died giving birth to her. 'It was your haughty spoilt airs that got us into this whole stupid mess in the first place! If you loved him as much as you claim, why didn't you just marry him and have done with it?'
'CAN WE HAVE SOME ORDER PLEASE!' yelled Miss Havisham so loudly that the whole group jumped. They looked a bit sheepish and sat down, grumbling slightly.
'Thank you. Now, all this yelling is not going to help, and if we are to do anything about the rage inside Wuthering Heights we are going to have to act like civilised human beings and discuss our feelings sensibly.'
'Hear, hear,' said a voice from the shadows. The group fell silent and turned in the direction of the newcomer, who stepped into the light accompanied by two minders and someone who looked like his agent. The newcomer was dark, swarthy and extremely handsome. Up until meeting him I had never comprehended why the characters in Wuthering Heights behaved in the sometimes irrational ways that they did; but after witnessing the glowering good looks, the piercing dark eyes, I understood. Heathcliff had an almost electrifying charisma; he could have charmed a cobra into a knot.
'Heathcliff!' cried Catherine, leaping into his arms and hugging him tightly. 'Oh, Heathcliff, my darling, how much I've missed you!'
'Bah!' cried Edgar, swishing his cane through the air in anger. 'Put down my wife immediately or I swear to God I
shall—'
'Shall what?' enquired Heathcliff. 'You gutless popinjay! My dog has more valour in its pizzle than you possess in your entire body! And Linton, you weakling, what did you say about me being "wicked and rotten"?'
'Nothing,' said Linton quietly.
'Mr Heathcliff,' said Miss Havisham sternly, 'it doesn't pay to be late for these sessions, nor to aggravate your co-characters.'
'The devil take your sessions, Miss Havisham,' he said angrily. 'Who is the star of this novel? Who do the readers expect to see when they pick up this book? Me. Who has won the "Most Troubled Romantic Lead" at the BookWorld Awards seventy-seven times in a row? Me. All me. Without me, Heights is a tediously overlong provincial potboiler of insignificant interest. I am the star of this book and I'll do as I please, my lady, and you can take that to the Bellman, the Council, or all the way to the Great Panjandrum for all I care!'
He pulled a signed glossy photo of himself from his breast pocket and passed it to me with a wink. The odd thing was, I actually recognised him. He had been acting with great success in Hollywood under the name of Buck Stallion, which probably explained where he got his money from; he could have bought Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights three times over on his salary.
'The Council of Genres has decreed that you will attend the sessions, Heathcliff,' said Havisham coldly. 'If this book is to survive we have to control the emotions within it; as it is the novel is three times more barbaric than when first penned – left to its own devices it won't be long before murder and mayhem start to take over completely. Remember what happened to that once gentle comedy of manners, Titus Andronicus? It's now the daftest, most cannibalistic bloodfest in the whole of Shakespeare. Heights will go the same way unless you can all somehow contain your anger and resentment!'
'I don't want to be made into a pie!' moaned Linton.
'Brave speech,' replied Heathcliff sardonically, 'very brave.' He leaned closer to Miss Havisham, who stood her ground defiantly. 'Let me "share" something with your little group. Wuthering Heights and all who live within her may go to the devil for all I care. It has served its purpose as I honed the delicate art of treachery and revenge – but I'm now bigger than this book and bigger than all of you. There are better novels waiting for me out there, that know how to properly service a character of my depth!'
There was a gasp from the assembled characters as this new intelligence sank in. Without Heathcliff there would be no book – and in consequence, none of them, either.
'You wouldn't make it into Spot's Birthday without the Council's permission,' growled Havisham. 'Try and leave Heights and we'll make you wish you'd never been written!'
Heathcliff laughed.
'Nonsense! The Council has urgent need of characters such as I; leaving me stuck in the classics where I am only ever read by bored English students is a waste of one of the finest romantic leads ever written. Mark my words, the Council will do whatever it takes to attract a greater readership – a transfer will not be opposed by them or anyone else, I can assure you of that!'
'What about us?' wailed Linton, coughing and on the verge of tears. 'We'll be reduced to text!'
'Best thing for all of you!' growled Heathcliff. 'And I'll be there at the shoreline, ready to rejoice at your last strangled cry as you dip beneath the waves!'
'And me?' asked Catherine.
'You will come with me.' Heathcliff smiled, softening. 'You and I will live again in a modern novel, without all these trappings of Victorian rectitude; I thought we could reside in a spy thriller somewhere, and have a boxer puppy with one ear that goes down—'
There was a loud detonation and the front door exploded inwards in a cloud of wood splinters and dust. Havisham instantly pushed Heathcliff to the ground and laid herself across him, yelling:
'Take cover!'
She fired her small derringer as a masked man jumped through the smoking doorway firing a machine gun. Havisham's bullet struck home and the figure crumpled in a heap. One of Heathcliff's two minders took rounds in the neck and chest from the first assailant but the second minder pulled out his own sub-machine gun and opened up as more assassins ran in. Linton fainted on the spot, quickly followed by Isabella and Edgar. At least it stopped them screaming. I drew my gun and fired along with the minder and Havisham as another masked figure came through the door; we got him but one of his bullets caught the second bodyguard in the head, and he dropped lifeless to the flags. I crawled across to Havisham and also laid myself across Heathcliff, who whimpered:
'Help me! Don't let them kill me! I don't want to die!'
'Shut up!' yelled Havisham, and Heathcliff was instantly quiet. I looked around. His agent was cowering under a briefcase and the rest of the cast were hiding beneath the oak table. There was a pause.
'What's going on?' I hissed.
'ProCath attack,' murmured Havisham, reloading her pistol in the sudden quiet. 'Support of the young Catherine and hatred of Heathcliff run deep in the BookWorld; usually it's only a lone gunman – I've never seen anything this well coordinated before. I'm going to jump out with Heathcliff; I'll be back for you straight away.'
She mumbled a few words but nothing happened. She tried them again out loud but still nothing.
'The devil take them!' she muttered, pulling her mobile footnoterphone from the folds of her wedding dress. 'They must be using a textual sieve.'
'What's a textual sieve?'
'I don't know – it's never fully explained.'
She looked at the mobile footnoterphone and shook it despairingly.
'Blast! No signal. Where's the nearest footnoterphone?'
'In the kitchen,' replied Nelly Dean, 'next to the bread basket.'
'We have to get word to the Bellman. Thursday, I want you to go to the kitchen—'
But she never got to finish her sentence as a barrage of machine-gun fire struck the house, decimating the windows and shutters; the curtains danced as they were shredded, the plaster erupting off the wall as the shots slammed into it. We kept our heads down as Catherine screamed, Linton woke up only to faint again, Hindley took a swig from a hip flask and Heathcliff convulsed with fear beneath us. After about ten minutes the firing stopped. Dust hung lazily in the air and we were covered with plaster, shards of glass and wood chips.
'Havisham!' said a voice on a bullhorn from outside. 'We wish you no harm! Just surrender Heathcliff and we'll leave you alone!'
'No!' cried the older Catherine, who had crawled across to us and was trying to clasp Heathcliff's head in her hands. 'Heathcliff, don't leave me!'
'I have no intention of doing any such thing,' he said in a muffled voice, nose pressed hard into the flags by myself and Havisham's combined weight. 'Havisham, I hope you remember your orders.'
'Send out Heathcliff and we will spare you and your apprentice!' yelled the bullhorn again. 'Stand in our way and you'll both be terminated!'
'Do they mean it?' I asked.
'Oh, yes,' replied Havisham grimly. 'A group of ProCaths attempted to hijack Madame Bovary last year to force the Council to relinquish Heathcliff.'
'What happened?'
'The ones who survived were reduced to text,' replied Havisham, 'but it hasn't stopped the ProCath movement. Do you think you can get to the footnoterphone?'
'Sure – I mean, yes, Miss Havisham.'
I crawled towards the kitchen.
'We'll give you two minutes,' said the voice on the bullhorn again. 'After that, we're coming in.'
'I have a better deal,' yelled Havisham.
There was pause.
'And that is?' spoke the bullhorn.
'Leave now and I will be merciful when I find you.'
'I think,' replied the voice on the bullhorn, 'that we'll stick to my plan. You have one minute forty-five seconds.'
I reached the doorway of the kitchen, which was as devastated as the living room. Flour and beans from broken storage jars were strewn across the floor and a flurry of snowflakes were blowing in through the
windows. I found the footnoterphone; it had been riddled with machine-gun fire. I cursed and crawled rapidly back towards the living room. I caught Havisham's eye and shook my head. She signalled for me to look out the back way and I did, going into the darkness of the pantry to peer out. I could see two of them, sitting in the snow, weapons ready. I dashed back to Havisham.
'How does it look?'
'Two at the back that I can see.'
'And at least three at the front,' she added. 'I'm open to suggestions.'
'How about giving them Heathcliff?' came a chorus of voices.
'Other than that?'
'I can try and get behind them,' I muttered, 'if you keep them pinned down—'
I was interrupted by an unearthly cry of terror from outside, followed by a sort of crunching noise, then another cry and sporadic machine-gun fire. There was a large thump and another shot, then a cry, then the ProCaths at the back started to open fire, too; but not at the house – at some unseen menace. Havisham and I exchanged looks and shrugged as a man came running into the house in panic; he was still holding his pistol, and because of that, his fate was sealed. Havisham fired two shots into him and he fell stone dead next to us, a look of abject terror on his face. There were a few more gunshots, another agonised cry, then silence. I shivered, and got up to peer cautiously from the door. There was nothing outside except the soft snow, disturbed occasionally by foot marks.
We found only one body, tossed on to the roof of the barn, but there was a great deal of blood, and what looked like the paw tracks of something very large and feline. I was staring at the dinner-plate-sized footprint slowly being obscured by the falling snow when Havisham laid her hand on my shoulder.
'Big Martin,' she said softly. 'He must have been following you.'
'Is he still?' I asked, understandably concerned.
'Who knows?' replied Miss Havisham. 'Big Martin is a law unto himself. Come back inside.'
We returned to where the cast were dusting themselves down. Joseph was muttering to himself and trying to block the windows up with blankets.
'Well,' said Miss Havisham, clapping her hands together, 'that was an exciting session, wasn't it?'