In less than two miles we came to the next town.
We dropped down onto a firm road with ditches either side for the rain to run off. I remembered you telling me, Cathy, about a blind man who had made hundreds of miles of roads like this. You told me how he had dug out the soft soil, laid bunches of ling and heather on the bed of the earth, covered these with stones, and dressed them with a layer of gravel, so that the rain would drain away, with ditches either side. I wondered if this road was the work of the same blind man. A man who had been born without his primary sense, who had, despite this disadvantage, achieved greatness. It was a turnpike road and we had to pay a toll. I begrudged this but handed over the money.
‘It’s turnpikes like this made it hard for my dad, you know,’ Emily said. ‘He hated them. It’s getting harder and harder for the honest highwayman to earn a crust. With folk squealing, and now bloody turnpikes with their hedges and fences, that’s what he used to say.’
The town contained a tannery and a blacksmith’s, as well as a number of shops. We went from one to another. I bought some wheat bread and some cheese and butter, using up a portion of the money I’d saved from the sale of the beer. I reflected that the remainder wouldn’t last me long, even less with this limpet clinging to me. I’d have to lose Emily if I wanted to eke out what little money I had. Pretty soon I would have to find a new way of earning some bunce. I took the food outside and we found a bench close to a green where some goats grazed. We sat and ate our grub. I watched the girl shovel in the bread and cheese, so that her mouth was overfull and crumbs tumbled out onto Hindley’s shirt. She had the manners of a pig. It was nice for once not to be the slovenly one.
‘You can finish that, then you’ll have to be on your way,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I told you last night. You can’t come with me. You’ll be safe here. The men won’t find you.’
‘But I haven’t got any money.’
I took out some pennies from my pocket and handed them over.
‘Here. Have these.’
‘That won’t last me five minutes.’
‘You’re not my responsibility.’
‘Don’t be a cock.’
‘You are the responsibility of this parish now.’
‘They’ll put me in the workhouse. Or worse, prison.’
‘You’ll get by. You’ve got your wits about you.’
‘But the beadle will come like last time.’
‘What do you mean, last time?’
She wiped some cheese away from around her mouth.
‘I was arrested for vagrancy. I was thrown into prison. I can’t tell you what a miserable time it was, William Lee. Vagrants and disorderly women of the very lowest and most wretched class of human being, almost naked, with only a few filthy rags that were alive with vermin. I’m lucky to be here at all. Many only got out of that place in a coffin.’
‘Look, it’s not my problem. I said I’d bring you to a place of safety and that I’ve done.’
I stood up, brushed the crumbs off my coat and turned to walk away.
‘Stop. Don’t go yet. I can help you.’
I turned back. ‘What do you mean, you can help me? How can you help me?’
‘I’ve told you, dead people speak through me.’
‘Even if that were true, what use would that be to me? I’ve enough trouble to settle with those still living, never mind trouble with the dead.’
‘How long do you think you can last with a few pennies in your pocket?’
‘That’s no concern of yours.’
‘You won’t last more than a week or two with what you’ve got, I’m telling you.’
‘I’ll manage.’
‘People pay me to talk to their dead.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The lately bereaved. I can get money off them.’
‘Show me.’
‘I will, but not here. I need peace and quiet. It’s not easy to do.’
I had no need for the girl and indeed it would be better for the both of us to go our separate ways. If we were being followed, by staying together we were loading the dice in their favour. And yet I saw that she was vulnerable on her own. Still, she had been so before I came along, and would be thereafter. In any case, I had enough on my plate. But it would amuse me to see this feat.
‘You can come with me until we get somewhere quiet. Then you can show me your trick.’
‘It isn’t a trick.’
‘Whatever it is, let me see it for myself.’
‘Then you’ll consider my offer? It’s something we can both make money from.’
‘I’m making no promises.’
We turned away from the town and took to the road once more. We crossed over field and meadow until we were sheltered by a coppice.
‘It’s quiet here,’ I said. ‘Show me.’
‘It doesn’t always work,’ she said.
I stood and waited. At first the girl looked flustered.
‘Give me a moment,’ she said.
I stood and waited some more.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘that’s your moment. It’s been nice knowing you, Emily.’
I turned to walk away.
‘Hang on. I can feel something.’
I turned back.
She closed her eyes and began to breathe rhythmically and slowly. In. Out. Her breathing became deeper, stronger. I drew closer. Her arms lay flaccid by her side, but then I noticed the fingers trembling involuntarily. She leaned forward and started to mutter. I couldn’t make out what she was saying. At first I felt the urge to laugh but I suppressed it. The muttering moved closer to a groan and the urge to laugh came to me again. She started to shake. She raised her head. Her feet were twitching and the ends of her fingers were quivering, as though they were dancing over the keys of a piano. She stopped breathing. I counted. One, two, three . . . I got to ten and she still hadn’t taken a breath.
‘Emily, stop messing about. You’re going to cause yourself damage.’
Still nothing. This is stupid, I thought. She’s fooling no one with this game. Maybe it worked on children her own age, but I wasn’t falling for it. I’d had enough of her folly and I went to shake her, but as I did, she took in a slow raspy breath that seemed to be drawn from the bowels of the earth. She opened her eyes. The same pale grey-green irises, but somehow changed. As though the candle inside had been snuffed out. She stared at me unseeing. She glared through me into another world. Her eyelids flickered erratically. She began to talk but with another’s voice. It was the voice of an old woman and it sounded broken and frail. I felt a shiver travel down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
‘William Lee.’
The accent was foreign and not one I recognised. I didn’t respond.
‘William Lee, William Lee, William Lee.’
Still I didn’t say anything.
‘You are not William Lee.’
I felt a jolt this time, like a cold metal pike poking through my spine. I shuddered. Despite myself, I was drawn closer.
‘How . . . how do you know?’
‘Because I know who you are.’
‘Who are you?’
‘The one who knows who you are.’
‘Who?’ I said, more urgently.
‘Can you not guess?’
‘Is that you? Can it really be you?’
‘Yes, it is me, son.’
I felt my heart tingle with recognition.
‘Mother? Where are you?’
‘I am passed. I have crossed over.’
‘Are you in heaven?’
‘You have nothing to be afraid of.’
‘What’s my real name? Where am I from?’
‘Your real name is not your real name. You are from far away.’
‘But where? I’m going to Manchester, Mother, to make something of myself.’
‘You came to Liverpool with me when you were very young.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘We were on a boat.’
‘Were we?’
‘Only I died before we got to the docks. I’m sorry, son. I wish I could be there with you. I want you to know that I’m watching over you. Always. I didn’t mean to leave you on your own in this world.’
‘I know, Mother. I understand.’
I felt hot tears spill from my eyes and run down my face.
‘Go back to Liverpool and look for where you came from. That’s where you’ll find who you really are.’
With that Emily closed her eyes again and collapsed on the floor. I wiped my own eyes with the sleeve of my coat. I went over to where she had fallen. I picked her up and shook her.
‘Wake up.’
I shook her again. At first, nothing. Then she opened her eyes.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Did someone speak to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who?’
‘Someone who said she was my mother.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
I was shaking badly. I put the girl down on the ground and sat beside her. I closed my eyes and tried to gather my thoughts, but it was my emotions that were welling up inside me. I felt like a just-found orphan again. I was back by the fire, with Hindley glaring at me, and Mr Earnshaw telling him to stop scowling. ‘Where’s your manners, son? This boy is less fortunate than you. He has no mammy or daddy. He has no home. I want you to treat him as you would your brother, do you hear me? You’ll see, you’ll be best friends before you know it.’ But the boy stood in the shadows and glared. I was dumb with fear.
I opened my eyes again. There was a crow in an ash tree close by, cleaning its beak on a branch. Then it unfurled its slick wings and took flight. I watched it soar over the moors.
I regained my composure.
‘Well, what?’
‘Do I pass?’
Had I been taken in? I wondered. Had my dead mother really spoken through the mouth of this girl? Certainly I knew that the dead could pierce the skin separating their world from ours. You had told me yourself of the ghosts that lingered in ancient places and the spirits who wandered the earth in search of solace, but had this girl the power to summon them, or was it a trick? When she spoke it was with another’s voice. How could a girl speak with the voice of another? It had to be real.
‘How do you do it?’ I said at last.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it a trick?’
‘What kind of crooked character would use someone’s grief for their own amusement? What do you take me for, William Lee? I promise you it’s not a trick. All I know is that I have been blessed with a power. A power that can comfort and console both the living and the dead.’
What had the voice told me? Not who I was, but how I could find who I was. But I knew that already. Was it possible through practice or through a peculiar talent to fake spiritual possession? It had felt real at the time, sure enough, and the emotions the visitation had engendered in my soul – there was nothing fake about them. Real or not, I supposed it didn’t matter; all that mattered was how well it could convince. It had convinced me. It would convince others.
‘I don’t know, Emily.’
‘I can make us a lot of money.’
‘I said I could make money. I didn’t say I could keep money. A girl like me, travelling on her own, I don’t stand a chance against the cutpurses and the freebooters. I need protection.’
I reflected on my lot. The pitman had his marrow, the smith his striker, sawyers worked in pairs, but I was on my own, Cathy. If what the girl had said was true, if my mother had spoken through her, then my mother was dead, and there was no one on earth waiting to take me in their arms. Perhaps me and this girl would provide some sort of company to each other. If she was as good as her word, then maybe it could work. She would need someone strong to protect her earnings. On her own, she and her money would be easily parted.
‘You can stay for as long as you pay your way. I’m willing to give it a go for now.’
‘I won’t let you down.’
‘If you do, you’re out.’
The girl shrugged. ‘So where are we heading?’
I thought for a moment. Manchester was no longer my desired destination. We could go there to rest, but we would move on to where Mr Earnshaw had found me in the street.
‘Liverpool.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ve got some unfinished business there.’
‘Where is it?’
‘We head west until we get to the coast.’
‘That’s where Liverpool is?’
‘Yes, I think so. It’s a big town with a port where ships come and go. Hundreds of boats sail there.’
At the same time as I was talking to Emily I was remembering. The boats, the bustle, the ocean. I recalled what Sticks had told me.
‘I was a navvy, laa. I built up the banks of the Irwell and helped construct the locks. After that I worked on the duke’s canal. Digging, puddling, the lot.’
‘What’s the Irwell?’ I’d asked him.
‘Don’t you know, laa? It’s a waterway. Goes all the way to the coast. It’s where all the goods from around the world come from.’
‘There’s a canal, Emily. From Manchester to Liverpool. It’s just been built. We can follow its length along the towpath. It shouldn’t be hard to find.’
‘Sounds like a plan. Shall we get something to eat?’
‘You’ve only just eaten.’
‘It gives you an appetite.’
‘What does?’
‘Conjuring dead people.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Well, take it from me. You stick by me and you’ll go a long way, William Lee, see if you don’t.’
I thought about the last man she had probably said that to and saw him hanging from his neck. We both stood up and made our way back to the road. It was a well-constructed turnpike, and, with the sun in front of us, I reckoned it must be heading into Manchester. I was sick of trudging through fields of mud and moors of peat bog. We weren’t far from the town, I figured, and far enough to be safe from the men who would have turned back some time past. I wondered how easy it would be for the farmer’s son to steer a horse with only one hand. It would be difficult work, I wagered. Good. He had either bled to death or was now so handicapped by his amputation that finding us was an impossible task. We could relax, I decided. As we walked I felt something touch my sleeve. I looked down and saw that is was Emily. I shrugged her off.
For the most part the road was good. There were rough-looking wagons drawn by sturdy horses. Draymen, delivering tun and butt, hogshead and barrel. There were farmers’ carts, piled high with hay, and finely carved coaches, ornately decorated. There were those who travelled on foot like us. Farm labourers who had finished their shifts, tinkers peddling their wares from one town to another. A coach pulled by four grand horses, coloured ribbons plaited through their manes, white, red, yellow, blue, riding past us. A coach driver sat high up front in uniform. Three men sat at the back in top hats, and at the front, three women in fine dresses carrying brightly coloured umbrellas above them.
‘We’ll be rich like them, one day,’ Emily said.
‘How do you work that one out then?’
‘With my brains and your brawn we’ll go a long way.’
‘Cheeky bleeder.’
‘I’m serious. We can make a lot of money, me and you.’
‘Can we now?’
‘We can buy a shop.’
‘What sort of shop?’
‘A cake shop.’
‘Don’t get ideas.’
‘We’ll start small, but we can get bigger as word spreads. We can employ bakers and cake-makers. People to serve behind the counter. We can oversee it all. Eat as many cakes as we like. Fancy cakes, with caraway seeds and oil of sweet almonds. Red cherries, loaf sugar, cinnamon and rose water. Icing and whipped cream. Custard and syrup. Pretty soon, we can open up another shop. Then another.’
I didn’t want to correct her by telling her she had no place in my future. I had no interest in cakes, or shops of any kind. But then, part of me thought, maybe she has. Maybe I can take her back with me to Wuthering Heights, as Mr Earnshaw had brought me, where she can live in comfort, in front of the fire. Maybe find something useful for her to do, like tend fowl, but nothing too burdensome. The more I walked the more I mulled it over. It would wind Hindley up and push Hareton out of the picture. This made me smile. As I thought it through, I could see it as a possibility. I felt Emily’s hand in mine. I didn’t shake it off.