Ill Will

by Michael Stewart

  By the time I got into town, the market was already open. Merchants stood by their stalls. Some of them shouted their wares. Others made a show of their articles. There were ’pothecaries selling cure-alls, potions for this, creams for that. There were herb sellers. Grocers standing by stalls piled high with fruits and vegetables. Some sold meats: hunks of hams, racks of rumps. Others sold cheeses: wheels and wedges, finished with mustard seeds and toasted hops. Baskets, breeches, a brace of grouse. Hats, shawls, second-hand wigs, a heap of dead rabbits. Cordials and syrups, jams and sauces. Woollens from the hill weavers. Pewter dishes, earthen plates, porridge pots and thibles. I could smell lavender, thyme and burdock, and other sharp smells I couldn’t discern. The stallholders shouted over each other, so that you couldn’t make out what they were saying, just the bark and screech of their voices. Did I want this? Did I want that? A quart for a quarter. Four for a penny. Half for ha’penny. I didn’t want much. A lump of cheese or a slice of beef would do me. I wandered around, waiting for my opportunity, but there were too many eyes about.

  I bade my time before I found a way to swipe an apple. I tucked it under my coat and walked off, waiting until I was around the corner before I took a bite of the sweet flesh. The apple was wrinkled by winter but to me it tasted delicious. As I took bite after bite of the fruit, I wondered if my revenge would taste as sweet as that ripe pulp. I watched children laiking. They ran after a ball around the town square, playing catch, then piggy-in-the-middle. A small child squealed as the older taunted him. I remembered playing piggy-in-the-middle with you and Hindley. He’d always throw the ball too high for me to catch, even if I jumped. But you would throw it low on purpose and pretend it was a bad throw. From those outward actions, our inner feelings grew.

  I thought back to the day his slut gave birth to a son. She was ill, crying out in pain, and it was such joy to watch Hindley suffer. That week, as she lay dying, the cunt was in agony. How I laughed behind Hindley’s back. Thank you, God, I said under my breath, or thank you, devil. I’d prayed to both, not knowing which would hear me first. All my prayers were answered. I knew what Hindley loved the most and it was his slut. I knew what would hurt the cunt the most – the slow, painful death of his slut.

  The doctor’s medicine was useless. My spell was stronger. I learned from your witchery and from your arcane power. My anti-medicine had worked. I watched her cough and splutter. I watched her chuck up blood. I watched the life drain from her face. I watched the wretched slut die in front of the cunt. I went to the funeral so I could observe his agony some more. How I’d wanted to laugh when they’d lowered the coffin into the ground and tears had rolled down his cheeks. Each tear was a sugared treat. And afterwards in the church hall, he was inconsolable. The curate had patted him on the back, said he was sorry for his loss, and offered him some brandy. But Hindley was unreachable in his grief. Only I knew how to reach him. Later that night I’d put my ear to his chamber door and listened to him sob as though it were sweet music.

  Hareton was the bairn. The fruit of Hindley and the slut’s union. You were fifteen, all curves and skin. I taunted Hindley so that he beat me. Called his bairn a witless moon-calf. And I laughed when he fired and lost his temper. So that his beating brought no satisfaction. Fuck the lot of them: Isabella, Edgar, Hareton, Hindley. I’ll make them pay. I’ll make them all suffer. I’ll make a purse from their skin. They called me vulgar, called me brute. But they had no inkling of the depths of my brutality. I spoke through gritted teeth: mock me now, but one day I will sup from your silver cup. And it won’t be ale I’ll sup, but a broth of your tears and blood.

  I stopped a way from the market and watched women haggle with the stallholders. I gnawed the apple to its core, crunched the pips between my teeth, and slung it over a hedge. Truth was, I didn’t have any idea what to do next. I had no friends, no food, no money, no home. All I could trade was my labour. I didn’t want to work here in Hebden, too close to you and them. Even if I didn’t see you, or Joseph or anyone else, word would get back. I needed to go further, to a new parish. A place called Manchester, halfway between home and Liverpool, where Mr Earnshaw had brought me from. We’d discussed it together after Sunday service one time. There was lots of work by. Big mills being built and new machines invented. We’d talked about how we could run away, find work and make a fresh start, free from Hindley’s tyranny.

  I went back to the marketplace. More people were milling about now and it was easier this time to steal another apple and a chunk of bread. I stole a wheel of cheese and a meat pie, put them in my pockets. I climbed to the hill above the town. The sun was still in the east and I needed to walk west as that was the direction of Manchester. I just needed to keep the sun behind me until noon, then keep the sun in front of me till dusk. I could see Lumbutts Farm in the distance. I made my way across moor, through Bird Bank Wood and Old Royd. And eventually into the village of Todmorden. The road followed the river, where the houses were built into the steep clough, which climbed high on both sides. The effect of this was to make the way ahead darker than the way back. Parts of the clough were quarried and there were heaps of stones waiting to be faced at the mouths of the delves. I needed money and lodgings. I was far enough away now from Wuthering Heights. Although I’d walked here by myself before, when you were laid up at the Lintons’, I knew that it was far enough away from Wuthering Heights that I’d not be spotted here. Joseph said the men who lived hereabouts had hairs on their foreheads and the women had webbed feet, but I suspected that was just idle laiking. I could ask for work. Summer. Plenty of farm labour. It was midday when I arrived in the village. I sat down by the green. I ate the pie. First the crust, then the filling. I wandered around until I found a tavern on the corner of a cobbled street. There was a sign outside that I could not read, but the painting on the sign was of a jolly fellow in a bright smock, and the place looked friendly enough. After some deliberation, I plucked up the guts to go inside.

  It was dark and smelled of stale beer, colder inside than out. There was a fireplace but no fire, it being the wrong time of year for flames. I marked the stone floor and the low wood beams, the wooden benches and seats. A few farmers were standing around a horn and rope, playing ring-the-bull. A group of labourers were leaning on the bar. I asked them to excuse me as I made my way to the barrels. They were in no rush to move but shuffled out of the way nevertheless.

  ‘What can I get you?’ said the landlord. A large, ruddy-faced man with ginger whiskers. He was standing by a massive barrel of ale, laid on its side, with a tap at one end. I had no money.

  ‘I’m looking for work.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I want a job.’

  ‘Round here?’

  ‘Or hereabouts. I’m a hard worker. I don’t shirk. I can do any amount of farm work: digging and stone-breaking, wall-building, graving, tending foul. Whatever there is I can turn my hand to it. Do you have work yourself? Cellar work, maybe? I can lift barrels all day.’

  ‘No. No work here, pal.’

  ‘Would you mind if I asked your customers?’

  ‘What do you think this is? Either buy some ale or fuck off.’

  I looked around the room. At the hostile faces, white faces. White faces looking me up and down. I didn’t fit, wasn’t welcome. I looked at the labourers and saw the muck on their knuckles like ash keys. I looked at the farmers and saw the mud on their boots. Yes, there was work hereabouts, but not for me, Cathy. Turn around. Get out.

  I wandered around the village. Not much to see. There were signs of life all right. But no life for me. I made my way to the river. If I followed its flow, it would take me in the right direction. There was a faint path by its banks, more of a rabbit run, or a badger track. I carried on walking, at the edge of what I knew. I’d never been further than this point. Not since I was a small boy, in any case, when I was taken from one place to another, then to somewhere else to be abandoned at the dockside. My memory of my early life was like a landscape shrou
ded in a thick mist. I remembered streets near water. I remembered rowing boats and ships with massive sails. I remembered a warm room full of strong smells and harsh sounds, a strange man with a knife, beckoning me. He was smiling at me but something about him was unsettling. He smelled of grease and sweat and his teeth were black. There were many shiny surfaces but everything else was a blur. I didn’t even have a clear memory of Mr Earnshaw. The first thing I remember clearly is you, Cathy. I remember our first meeting, and our friendship growing stronger each day. Until it grew beyond friendship into something else. I remember the first time we fucked, and after, lay in each other’s arms, looking up at the sky, watching the clouds form into faces. Counting crows. Joseph was out, loading lime past Penistone Crags. Hindley was on business. When we got back home, I marked the occasion in the almanac on the wall. A cross for every night you spent at the Lintons’. A dot for those times spent with me on the moor. I showed you the almanac. You said that you found me dull company. You said I knew nothing and said nothing. You said I stank of the stable. Then Edgar turned up, dressed in a fancy waistcoat and a high-topped beaver hat. I left you to your pretty boy.

  As I followed the beck west, I dreamed as dark as the brackish waters. I wanted to kill them all, but like a cat with a bird, leave them half-killed, so I could come back later, again and again, to torment them. You as well, Cathy. You were not exempt from my plans. The sun was directly above me now and I could feel its heat. I took off my coat and bent down low so that I could cup some water from the beck. I saw my black reflection staring back. I took a drink. It cooled me. I sat by the bank and brooded. I watched water boatmen and pond skaters dance across the surface of the beck where it gathered and pooled. I watched beetles dive for food and gudgeon gulp. Blue titmouse and great titmouse flittered in the branches above. I watched a shrike impale a shrew on the lance of a thorn. I didn’t know how long it would take me to get to Manchester. Another day or two, perhaps. Surely there would be work there for a blackamoor. I’d heard we were more common in those parts. I stripped off and dived into the beck, washing all the filth from my body. The water was cool at first but as I swam, it soon warmed around me. My flesh tingled and my skin tightened. I splashed water on my face and rubbed at the mud in my hair. I lay back, let the water take my weight, and looked up at the sky. I floated like that, staring up at the white whirl of clouds, with no thought in my head. The clouds drifted, gulls flew by. I closed my eyes and tried to keep my mind as clear as the sky, pushing out all thoughts.

  Across the blank blue of my mind I heard a voice: There’s money to be made in Manchester town. And I remembered Mr Earnshaw say that a man from humble stock could make a pretty penny in the mills and down the mines. And I heard your voice, Cathy. That it would degrade you to marry a man as low as me. Oh, I’d get money all right. I’d show you. I’d shame you. Words that burned. Words as sharp as swords. Words you could only say behind my back. I’d shove those ugly words down your lovely throat.

  I swam to the bank and climbed out. I sat by the edge of the water and watched toad-polls flit by the duckweed and butterflies flap by Rock Rose. A butterfly and a frog. They both had two lives. Why couldn’t I have two lives? Like that toad-poll at the edge of the beck, already sprouting legs, about to break through the film of one world into another, I was on the cusp of the life that had been and the life that could be. I could rise from the depths. I could crawl into the light.

  I lay naked as a newborn and listened to rooks croak and whaaps shriek. I let the sun and the breeze dry my skin, then I got dressed. I stuck my hands deep in my pockets, retrieved the rest of the pilfered vittles, just crusts and crumbs, and scoffed the lot. I lay back on the cool grass to rest for a minute or two. I watched twite and snipe, grouse and goose. I didn’t want to think about you or them but it seemed that my mind was set on its course. I couldn’t stop it thinking about them and you. What they had done. What they had not done. What you had done. What you had not done. It would degrade you. I would degrade you.

  I watched the peewit flap their ragged wings and listened to their constant complaining, tumbling so low as to almost bash their heads on the bare earth. Perhaps they had young nearby and were warning me away.

  Out here, surrounded by heather and gorse, with the blue sky above me, I felt free. I closed my eyes and felt the sun’s rays on my face. The sun felt like you. Like your heat next to my skin. Like your breath on my neck.

  When I woke the sun was further on. I felt dozy. Must keep going. I got up and shook the grass from my clothes. I plucked cleavers from my breeches. I stretched my limbs and joined the path by the river once more. I walked through fields of sheep, fields of wheat, fields of beef. Fields of milk, mutton and mare. Over meadow, mire and moor. I climbed over dry-stone walls. And clambered through forest. Eventually I approached another village. I arrived at a packhorse track and walked along it. I passed cottages and barns. Mistals and middens. There was a sign on the road but I couldn’t read it. Although I knew the alphabet, you never completed your tutelage. There was always something in the way with language. We had a more direct connection, Cathy. A pure link. That’s what you said, and I believed you.

  It was a small village with two taverns, a butcher’s, a baker’s and a chapel. All clustered around a green where a tethered goat grazed. I went into the first pub and asked for work. I went into the second pub and asked for work, and in every shop. Everywhere I enquired the answer was the same: no work for the likes of you. My limbs ached. My eyes felt as though they were full of sand. I sat on a bench in the graveyard. I was tired and it would be dusk soon. No roof to offer me shelter. I sat and watched two old women tend to a grave. They pulled out weeds and arranged some flowers. They scraped away the lichen from the engraving so that the chiselled letters were fresh once more. They nattered and gabbed. So-and-so has his eye on so-and-so. Will he do right by her or will he use her as his plaything? Looks Spanish. When’s summer going to start proper? Who was that strange fella in church last Sunday? Not seen him before. Not from these parts. Old Mr Hargreaves is dead. Finest weaver in the county. Found him in his own bed. Half-undressed. On and on they nattered, about this and that. By these women was an open grave.

  The women noticed that I was watching them. They looked at me suspiciously. They pointed and whispered. But I didn’t care. Let them talk. Let them think and say what they liked. They meant nothing to me. There was no one alive who meant anything to me now. Not even you, Cathy. I was nothing, and no one. I focused instead on the black rectangle to the side of the women. Its blackness falling down into the ground. Where did it go, this blackness? To hell? Perhaps I should climb into this hole. I thought back to Joseph’s fire-and-brimstone catechisms. Was hell really all as bad as he would have it? With sinners in perpetual torment? You showed me a picture in a book, Cathy. A man with horns and a pitchfork and a big grin on his pointy face. He looked more comical than evil. Evil hides behind the door. It lurks in the shadows. As I thought about hell and evil, I saw people congregate. There were men and women gathering around the black rectangle. There were four men carrying a coffin on their shoulders. They were dressed in black and the men and women surrounding the hole were dressed in black. A veiled woman was crying. I could see her face shake beneath the veil and tears fall onto her dress. It was good to watch her cry and watch the rest of them grieve. Let her weep in her widow’s weeds. It was music and food to me.

  I thought about her wedding to this corpse who had once been a man. Perhaps in this very church. Everyone done up again, only this time in white and brightly coloured garments, the lavish pretence, the gilded facade. Pretending to marry for love, when really it was for wealth and status. Love didn’t need a marriage chain or a poncey parade. Love baulks at ceremony and licence. They talk about tying the knot but love unties binds. It lets the bird out of the cage. The bird that is freed flies highest. The cage is best remembered enveloped in flames.

  You told me you would never get married. That we would always be
together. You promised. How easily your words betray you. Marriage is for dull people, we both agreed. And people are dull, except for when they grieve. I watched the priest and the party of mourners, watched the mound of earth at the back writhing with worms, starlings stabbing at the flesh. I watched the men drop the coffin, using ropes to lower it slowly into blackness. More people weeping. Some of them beyond tears. I supped on their misery. Every death is a good death. All flesh is dead meat. I had cried when Mr Earnshaw passed away, but now I wished I hadn’t. I was glad I’d listened to his last breath. Seen him choke. Will he go to hell or to the other place? I hoped he would burn and his blood would boil in the red flames of the inferno. I cursed cures and blessed agues. At last the wooden box was lowered into the ground completely and the ropes thrown in after it. Swallowed up by blackness. How long would the fine oak casket last until the wood splintered and decayed, and all the slimy things ate beneath the grave?

  When all of the party had gone back the way they came, with heads bowed and handkerchiefs on display, I stood up and approached the open grave. I stood over the black hole and peered in. The coffin was surrounded by clay, with black soil on top of the box, which the pastor had chucked in. I imagined, in the place of the coffin, you and I, Cathy, lying next to each other. With six feet of earth above our heads. For all eternity. That way you would keep your promise.

  I left the churchyard and wandered around the village and the looming moorland until it was fully dark. I was looking for shelter. I came across a farm surrounded by outbuildings. I found an unlocked barn, lifted the latch and swung open the door. Inside there were pigs, nudging and jostling each other. They smelled of their own shit. In the corner, by the swine, was some loose straw. It wasn’t exactly a four-poster bed but I could make my rest out of that, I thought.