Truly, Wildly, Deeply

by Jenny McLachlan

  The train to London arrives with a screech of brakes and a blast of cold air, and as I push myself into the carriage, I see the train on the opposite platform roll out of the station. I’m actually doing this, I think, and immediately my stomach squeezes and my heart speeds up.

  I transfer to my reserved seat, get out my croissant and start peeling warm, greasy strips off it. My nausea is caused by my hunger, I tell myself, not by worry. But even if I am worried, that’s fine, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell Jackson that nausea is the sensation that accompanies all the best, coolest things in life?

  Jackson … I’d love to have Jackson with me right now.

  The whistle blows, the train starts to move forward and my heart beats even faster. I stare out of the window as we glide past the platform. We pass a woman reading a book, a pigeon attacking a crisp packet, a man checking his watch, then we’re going through a tunnel and we’re out in the countryside.

  A bag lands on the seat next to me with a thud.

  Looking up, I see Fab. He’s bent over and gasping for breath.

  My heart leaps. ‘You came!’

  His cheeks are red and he’s still wearing the shorts and hoodie he had on at his house, but he’s put on a pair of trainers and thrown his leather jacket on. Without speaking or even looking at me, he pushes his bag to one side, sits down, gets out a bottle of water and gulps it down. He screws the lid on tight then turns to face me.

  ‘I had to run to the station and it took me seventeen minutes. Three miles in seventeen minutes, Annie! This …’ he pauses here to indicate his cheeks and dishevelled hair, ‘is all your fault!’

  He looks angry, so I make my face suitably serious even though I want to grin with happiness.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, and he nods and drinks more water. ‘Would you like some cheese croissant?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, thank you. I don’t feel too great. I had to run very fast.’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m glad you decided to come. I promise we’re going to have a good time.’

  He holds up a finger in front of my face. He hasn’t done this to me in ages and just the sight of that pompous finger makes the smile rise up inside me again. The finger wags from side to side. ‘I didn’t decide to come, Annie. You blackmailed me. There is a difference.’

  ‘Well, thank you anyway. You won’t regret it.’

  ‘I already do,’ he says, leaning forward and resting his face in his hands. ‘My mother is angry with me, and when Emil and Julia discover I have gone off, they will feel let down.’

  ‘Maybe they’ll feel happy for you,’ I risk saying, ‘because you’re doing an exciting thing with a friend?’

  He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. ‘Maybe,’ he concedes, ‘if they know I’m with you.’ Then he pulls out his phone and starts tapping away.

  This is not exactly how I pictured the train journey. I thought we’d be chatting, united in shared anticipation of the rest of the day, and possibly playing Bananagrams, but instead Fab’s acting like I’ve kidnapped him and he has the distinct air of a victim. I tell myself that the important thing is that he’s sitting next to me. Once he’s calmed down, he’ll start to enjoy himself, and enjoy being with me.

  Tap, tap, tap, he goes on his phone, pausing only to glower out of the window.

  I’ll definitely save Bananagrams until later.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  All the way to London, Fab sits hunched over his phone, his leather jacket squeaking, sending an apparently endless series of texts while I read my book. It’s only as we’re pulling into Victoria station that I risk speaking to him again.

  ‘I’m guessing you were really looking forward to making that cheesecake,’ I say.

  ‘I was. The cheesecake was going to be passion-fruit flavour. Yesterday, I cycled eight miles to Aldi to buy the ten passion fruit I needed.’

  ‘Were they cheap?’

  He nods and smiles begrudgingly. ‘Yes, three for sixty-nine pence.’

  It’s not much of a conversation, but it’s a start, and I just got the first smile I’ve had from him in days.

  Victoria station perks Fab up, and when we’re through the ticket barrier, he looks around, taking in the chaos. His eyes light up when a woman dressed as a giant piece of sushi offers us a free sashimi roll.

  ‘OK,’ he says, after he’s persuaded her to give him three. ‘I have eaten. I feel much better. So what happens next?’

  ‘We cross London. We’ve got just under an hour until our train goes from King’s Cross.’

  ‘So let’s go.’

  ‘There’s one little problem,’ I say, pointing at my wheelchair. ‘Victoria Tube station doesn’t have a lift.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘They’re building the lift shafts as we speak. So we have a choice: we can either get the bus, or I can walk through the Underground while you carry my wheelchair.’

  Fab considers the two options. ‘If we only have an hour, then I think we should take the Tube, but it will be a lot of walking for you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

  Because of all the folding and unfolding of the wheelchair and one broken-down escalator, we get to King’s Cross with only a few minutes to spare. Moments after we’ve boarded the train, it starts to move.

  When we find our seats, I haven’t quite got the energy to get out of my wheelchair. ‘I think I’ll hang out here for a minute,’ I say.

  ‘And I will find the buffet,’ says Fab. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Just a sandwich.’ I take a ten-pound note out of my wallet.

  He shakes his head. ‘I can buy this.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t want you to. I’ve planned this whole day out. It’s supposed to be a treat for you.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, he takes the money, then walks down the carriage, swaying with the movement of the train.

  For the next few minutes, I sit in my wheelchair and look out of the window, enjoying seeing things I’ve never seen before in my life. They’re not very exciting things – back gardens, graffiti-covered car parks, some wasteland piled high with tyres – but it’s all new to me and I don’t want to miss a thing.

  When Fab gets back, he’s carrying a bulging paper bag. ‘There was a meal deal,’ he says. Then, looking pleased with himself, he arranges crisps, sandwiches and juice on the little table. After he’s sat down, he pulls a Twix out of his pocket. ‘And this is for you.’

  I don’t think the shiny golden wrapper has ever looked more beautiful.

  I can’t quite bring myself to look at him. ‘They’re my favourite,’ I say.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Annie, it’s just a Twix,’ he says with a shrug, but then he smiles, and it’s one of his huge smiles, and I think, maybe, just maybe, this is going to work.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  The journey might not be exactly like I imagined it – it takes longer for one thing, and there are no games of Bananagrams – but by the time we’re on the bus to Haworth, we’re more like ourselves again, laughing and teasing each other.

  ‘That’s definitely a moor,’ I say, tapping the window of the bus.

  ‘No.’ Fab shakes his head. ‘Moors are big and flat. That is a big field.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know. You’ve never seen a moor in your life.’

  ‘Neither have you,’ he says, then we spend the rest of the journey with our eyes glued to the window, because whether it’s a moor or a field, we know we’re getting close now. Really close.

  We’re dropped off in a car park on the edge of Haworth and immediately I’m struck by how cold it is. The temperature seems to have dropped a few degrees even since we left Leeds. Fab zips up his leather jacket and blows on his fingers.

  ‘Ready to admit you’re regretting the shorts?’ I say, pulling my coat around me. It may be fluffy, but the wind is whipping through it.

  ‘No, because I am not regretting the shorts. I am like
Heathcliff: too tough to feel the cold.’ Then, to prove his point, he slaps his thighs enthusiastically, making a passing tourist jump. ‘I am sorry!’ Fab says, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, making her jump even more.

  I look around the car park. ‘Well, we’re here,’ I say.

  ‘We are?’

  ‘Yes, look.’ I point at a house that’s just peeking through the trees. ‘That’s it. That’s Emily Brontë’s home.’

  ‘It is? Really?’

  I laugh. ‘Yes, really.’

  A smile breaks out on his face. ‘We’re actually here.’

  ‘Can you believe it?’

  He laughs and shakes his head. ‘Not really. This morning I was about to make a cheesecake and now I’m looking at Emily Brontë’s house.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s find that dog collar.’

  * * *

  We buy our tickets and the lady tells us we’re lucky, it’s quiet today, then I leave my wheelchair with her and we walk through a stone hallway and into the dining room. It’s small, with patterned wallpaper, and scattered across a table are pens and ink, paper and manuscripts. We stand behind the security rope.

  ‘It feels like they have just left the room,’ says Fab.

  ‘I know.’ And even though we are the only ones in the room, for some reason we’re lowering our voices, like we’re in a church.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wuthering Heights? This is where it came alive.’

  For a moment, I don’t do or say anything. I just stand on the edge of the room – so neat, so plain – and I try to imagine something extraordinary coming to life here. A clock ticks and a floorboard creaks. I wonder if Emily heard those sounds as she sat at the table, a pen in her hand.

  ‘I think I can feel it,’ I say. ‘Just a whisper of it.’

  ‘Me too,’ Fab says, and his hand rests on my shoulder for the first time since the wedding.

  The house is full of these whispers, ghosts of Emily and Wuthering Heights. I feel glimmers of them when I peer into her small, white bedroom, and again when I’m staring at her cracked christening mug. I even feel a little shiver down my spine when we find the shiny copper collar that belonged to Keeper, Emily’s dog. We’ve been joking about this collar, but now we’re here, and it’s in front of us and it’s so solid and real, it seems incredible that Emily Brontë’s hands clipped it around Keeper’s neck.

  We’re both quiet as we walk around the house, reading every single label and staring at each object, but it’s not like before. It’s not a cold, frosty silence. It’s comfortable and it’s something we’re sharing.

  When we’ve looked in all the rooms and wandered around the gift shop, we go outside and discover that sunshine has finally broken through the clouds. We stand next to each other, and look up to the moors.

  ‘Told you they were moors,’ I say.

  ‘You were right,’ Fab says with a nod.

  I hoped coming here would bring us back to life, and it has – almost. Our arms are just touching, and our eyes meet and we smile at each other, but I want more than this.

  ‘You know we can walk to Top Withens,’ I say.

  ‘It’s too far,’ says Fab, without taking his eyes off the hills.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s two and a half miles … ish, and we can get a taxi for the first bit, then there’s this road – not big enough for a car, but fine for a wheelchair. It’s only at the end that I’d need to walk. I can do it easily.’ Well, maybe not easily, I think.

  ‘But what will you do with your wheelchair?’

  ‘Hide it,’ I say with a shrug.

  ‘And you think we have enough time?’ He looks doubtful, and this only makes me more determined to go.

  ‘We don’t have to get the bus for a couple of hours. It’ll be fine.’ I can tell Fab is tempted, so I give him a nudge. ‘Isn’t it what you’ve always wanted to do? Walk where Heathcliff and Cathy walked? Fab, we can see where they lived!’

  He looks at me and smiles. ‘We’ll turn back if it gets too late.’

  FORTY-NINE

  It’s easy enough to get Haworth’s one and only taxi driver, Bob, to pick us up at the parsonage and take us as far as he can go along the track.

  ‘You’re not really dressed for a hike,’ he says, as he unloads my wheelchair from the boot.

  I’m not sure if he’s talking about Fab’s shorts or my fluffy coat.

  ‘The weather’s lovely,’ I say, my face raised to the sun. ‘We’ll be fine.’

  ‘The weather can turn round here,’ Bob says darkly, and I share a smile with Fab because the comment is very Wuthering Heights-ish.

  After agreeing to pick us up when we ring, Bob reverses down the track, and Fab and I set off.

  I’m fit. I go to the gym. I lift weights, but still my arms begin to ache after the first mile. What I hadn’t realised when I studied Google Maps so obsessively was that the track sloped ever so gently upwards and right now my triceps are burning. Still, my arms may be aching, but I feel strong inside.

  The sun is shining down on us and we are just where I hoped we’d be.

  I stop to shake out my arms.

  ‘Do you want me to push?’ Fab asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I’m good.’

  After a while, the smooth road turns into a gritty track and my wheelchair grinds to a halt. ‘This is as far as she goes,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘We need a hiding place.’

  We look around, peering over the dry-stone wall. When I imagined doing this, I thought there’d be some convenient bushes that I could slide the wheelchair under, but it turns out moors are flat and empty, and totally devoid of any wheelchair-sized hiding places.

  ‘Maybe we should turn back,’ says Fab. ‘This is fantastic, Annie, but we don’t need to go to Top Withens. Look.’ He throws his arms out wide. ‘We’re on the moors. We made it!’

  I shake my head. ‘We do need to go further. Just a bit. We’re so close.’

  In the end, we leave the wheelchair behind a wall with a note stuck to it that says, Owner has popped out for a walk. Back soon. Don’t take!!

  ‘What sort of scumbag would steal a wheelchair?’ I say, as we start walking up the track. ‘I mean, there’s hardly anyone out here, so what are the chances of a wheelchair thief turning up?’

  ‘Zero,’ admits Fab.

  Then he offers me his arm and I take it. Still the sun shines on us and I feel this wave of confidence, telling me I was so right to do this. Me and Fab, we’re nearly there. I can tell.

  We pass the Brontë waterfall, which right now is more of a Brontë puddle, and then start to climb. Far away, we see that clouds are gathering. Fab’s eyes flick anxiously from the clouds to me.

  ‘Look,’ I say, pointing towards a black silhouette on a distant hill. ‘There it is: Top Withens!’

  ‘Wuthering Heights,’ says Fab.

  ‘It could be …’

  We stand and stare at the lonely ruin clinging to the side of the hill. Between us and the house is a patchwork of fields – green, bright orange, dark purple. The path we need to take twists through these fields, up higher and higher. We start to walk, and all around us, rust-coloured ferns and grasses sway in the wind.

  ‘It’s like we’re in the middle of the sea,’ I say.

  Fab nods, his eyes taking everything in.

  I think both of us know that it’s getting late, too late, and that it’s taking me longer to walk than I thought it would, but now we can see Top Withens, I don’t think anything could stop us from getting there. The last stretch is the hardest, and the muscles in my legs hurt so much that I have to concentrate on one step at a time and keep my eyes fixed on our goal.

  And then we are there, standing in the crumbling shadow of Wuthering Heights.

  I put my hands on the cold, damp wall and Fab instinctively does the same. Then, laughing, I turn and sink to the ground, my back against the wall, my face raised to the last, weak
rays of sunshine. I shut my eyes.

  ‘It’s too small to be Wuthering Heights,’ I say.

  ‘And there isn’t a walled courtyard,’ calls out Fab, who has disappeared inside the ruin.

  But I don’t care that this building is nothing like Wuthering Heights, because I am seeing what Emily Brontë saw, and I’m feeling the freedom she felt, and I know why she loved it here.

  Fab comes and sits next to me and we eat the Emily chocolate that we bought in the gift shop.

  ‘How strange to have a bar of chocolate named after you.’

  ‘It is good chocolate,’ says Fab.

  We know we can’t stay long. The light is fading, the clouds are getting darker and I’ve already had to recalculate our train times. If we can get back to Haworth in an hour and a half, then we’ll get home just before midnight. I don’t tell Fab this.

  He’s running around taking photos on his phone, exclaiming about the ‘stunning sky’ and ‘immense clouds’. They really are immense. Actually, they’re worryingly immense.

  ‘Come on,’ I shout. ‘We need to go.’

  To begin with, it’s easier retracing our steps. It’s downhill, plus the chocolate has given me energy, but then it begins to rain and the icy drops that hit us are hard and fat.

  ‘Ow,’ I say. ‘That’s painful rain.’

  Fab winces. ‘It is like needles!’

  For the next couple of minutes, we laugh as the rain comes down, claiming we’re like Lockwood getting caught in the snow.

  ‘Maybe we should turn back,’ I say, ‘and shelter at Wuthering Heights.’

  ‘There will be log fires, candles.’

  ‘Porridge,’ I add. ‘They always have a lot of porridge.’

  ‘I hate porridge, but right now I’d eat ten bowls of it.’

  Then the rain gets harder, and soon my fake fur coat is a sad, sodden thing and Fab is shivering. The rain trickles down the back of my neck, into my ears; it even runs down the small of my back and into my pants.