My Heathcliff

Charlene tells me it’s normal to think I see him. Sometimes it’s just the way someone walks. Their grey hoody. Or their haircut. For about 30 seconds, my world stops, my heart pounds. Then they turn around. I realise it’s not him, and my surroundings come back into focus. It couldn’t be him anyway, I tell myself.

I know it couldn’t be him.

Because he’s dead.

*

Falling in love with Michael was like living my own romcom. We’d caught eyes over a bookshelf in the library. His hazel brown eyes sparkled; his smile twisted my stomach in sharp knots of pleasure. Without a word he passed me a copy of Wuthering Heights. There was a note inside with his number. A beautiful book for a beautiful lady. If you like it, call me. I devoured it in days and called him as soon as I finished the last page.

Our first few dates passed in the same haze of heightened romance. Sometimes I had to look at him hard just to remember he wasn’t some kind of extension of myself, we were so in sync. It was clear I’d found my soulmate. My friends agreed.

“I hope I find someone who looks at me the way Michael looks at you,” Lydia sighed.

I grinned stupidly.

Still, Lydia thought it was pretty stupid of us to move in together so quickly. It had barely been a month, but his tenancy was ending.

“If we split the rent, we can save,” he said. “Eventually we can buy our own place.”

It made sense.

Michael showed me a flat in a tall block on the other side of town where it was cheaper. The flat was small, damp; the area run down.

“Let’s see a few more,” I said. “It’s a bit far from our friends, isn’t it?”

“If they’re good friends they’ll make the effort. If not, we’ll always have each other. We don’t need anyone else.” He smiled, reassuring.

“OK, but can we at least look somewhere else? Just to be sure.”

“This is all we can afford… You know that.” He looked so disappointed. “And, er, I’ve already paid the deposit. I wanted to surprise you.”

I couldn’t bear to see him upset. I squeezed his hand, smiled as brightly as I could. He meant well, after all. Actually, if you think about it, it was really sweet.

“Oh! Well… We’ll make it our little home. Anywhere is home with you. Thank you, Michael.” I kissed him.

*

We didn’t notice the damp smell after a while, but mostly because it was masked by the smoke from Michael’s cigarettes. And even though our friends came to see us at first, the visits got further apart until they stopped altogether. Even Lydia stopped coming.

“Why can’t you come to visit me?” she moaned.

“You know we’re saving. We can’t afford the bus.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re my best friend. It’s him, isn’t it? He’s stopping you.”

“Lydia, please. You said yourself he’s my Heathcliff!”

But it didn’t matter about Lydia, about the damp. Michael and I were passionately in love. “Who cares that the heating doesn’t work?” we laughed. “We can keep each other warm.”

Our arguments were pretty heated, too. There were more and more of them. He wanted me all to himself, couldn’t stand that I had any kind of life outside of him. In the end, I couldn’t even text Lydia without him accusing me of loving her more than him.

I tried to do what he wanted just to avoid the questions and confrontations. I let him read my messages. We didn’t hide anything from each other, as he pointed out. But it was never enough.

And yet, no matter how bad it got, the thought of leaving him opened up a horrible chasm inside me. I loved him so much. I didn’t know how to be without him.

Then my period was late. He noticed before I even had the chance to do a pregnancy test. I thought he’d be furious. It wasn’t our plan to have a baby before we’d bought our own flat, and he didn’t like it when things didn’t go to his plan.

But he was ecstatic.

“Our own family!” he beamed. “Just you, me and our little baby. Now a part of me will always be combined with a part of you. Forever.”

Michael fussed over me like he hadn’t since we first met. He stopped smoking, bought clothes, teddies. It didn’t seem to matter that we were supposed to be saving for a flat of our own anymore. I fell in love all over again. Maybe this was what we’d been missing, I thought.

He was out of the house more and more. Taking on extra shifts, he said, so I wouldn’t have to work. Maybe we’d even get married.

I could be a “proper mum”, he said.

I should “be grateful”, he said.

But instead I realised how small my world already was. A baby would just be another lock on the door, keeping me home. It made me sick deep in my stomach. The sickness lasted for days. One morning, it turned into a sharp cramp. I went to the toilet and saw blood. Lots of blood.

Michael was at work. I texted him on the way to the hospital.

When the doctor confirmed I’d miscarried, I felt relieved. Lighter. Free. Like clouds I didn’t even know were there had parted.

I ignored the missed calls and got the bus home.

At the flat, I found Michael sitting on the sofa in the dark. Silent. The bright red eye of a cigarette end stared at me. I went to hug him, but he didn't move.

“I… I don’t understand,” he stuttered. “How could you lose our baby?”

“The doctor said it’s more common than you think.” I sat next to him, took his hand. He’d been crying.

“You don’t even seem upset,” he sniffed.

“I am, I am. Just, part of me thinks maybe it wasn’t the right time.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you want a baby with me?”

“Of course I do. Just maybe in a few more years. When we’ve bought our own flat, like you always said.”

“Why wait? I thought you were happy about it. Or is it that you don’t want a baby with me?”

“Michael, please, you know I love you. I could never be with anyone else!”

“So, let’s try again.”

“Yes, OK, maybe in a few weeks.”

“No, I mean now.” He stroked my arm. Leant in for a kiss.

I backed away. “What? Michael, no!”

“You said you loved me.” He gripped me harder.

“I said–”

He pushed me down onto the sofa. What was happening? He moved off just a moment to unzip his jeans and I pushed him off me. Hard.

Too hard.

His head cracked against the coffee table. It was so loud. So sudden. The blood pooled so quickly. He wasn’t moving, but I didn’t move either. Long seconds passed and yet I didn’t call an ambulance.

It was only when I smelled burning that I realised I had to do something. Smoke was swirling slowly, calmly up from the carpet where his cigarette had fallen.

I stood up, walked down the seven flights of stairs and called the fire service from a pay phone. In that moment, I didn’t care if he died – but I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

*

I read that a man in his twenties had died in a tower block fire. It was all I needed to know. I stopped reading the articles and focused on my new life.

I got a place in a women’s shelter in another town. I couldn’t be near anyone who’d known Michael. I wouldn’t know how to answer their questions.

That’s where I met Charlene, my key worker.

Just now, when I saw someone wearing a grey hoodie like Michael’s across the street, I thought of her words. It’s normal to think we see hurtful partners, I repeat to myself. It’s our bodies’ way of trying to protect us.

I’m thinking the same thing when the man sitting behind me on the bus smells of his deodorant.

And again, when he gets off at the same stop as I do.

I know I need to turn to look at the man. To prove to myself that it isn’t him. It’s impossible. He’s dead.

I turn. There’s no one there.

*

“We’ve had a few calls for you,” Charlene tells me gently. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

I shake my head, horror pounding through my body.

“She says she’s called Lydia?”

Lydia. Hearing her name opens something in my chest. I let the feeling unfurl just a little, but it hurts.

“She left a number, if you want to call her.”

We plan to meet by the river where it’s quiet. Where we can talk. I’m going to tell her everything. I’m so excited to see her that I’m ten minutes early. I sit on a bench, listening to the flow of the water, feeling almost peaceful. I can even hear birds. Then I hear footsteps.

“Lydia?” I stand up, turn around.

It’s not Lydia.

Michael smiles, the same smile I once thought was so beautiful.

“I’ve been waiting,” he says. “For a moment we could speak. Alone.”

Same hazel eyes. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“I don’t understand. I thought you were–”

“Thought I was what?”

I swallow my words. He’s so close to me now and all I want to do is scream, but there’s no one around. Or run. Why don’t I run?

“Dead? Did you think I was dead?” Michael winces. Sucks on his cigarette. “I’m lucky to be alive, apparently. But the flat door was left open and someone found me.”

The smell of him, the cigarette smoke, his voice. It’s like the air’s being sucked out of me.

“I had quite a nasty bump on the head too. At first, I couldn’t think what had happened. Where were you? I kept thinking. But then I started to remember.” He flicks his cigarette onto the floor, stares at me hard. “You left me for dead.”

He pauses. The pleasure he takes in his power is so evident, I can’t believe it took me so long to see it. 

“Not everyone made it out of the fire. You know what that makes you? A murderer. But don’t worry, I won’t tell. I love you. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. Just come back to me, it’s where you belong.”

I can’t bear to listen to him any longer. I jump up. He grips my wrist, pulls me in closer. I think I see something glint at me in his hand.

“Please. I just want to protect you. Trust me,” he whispers.

Then, in a moment, he jerks back and I can pull away. He’s on the ground; a knife clatters out of his hand.

“Get off her!” Lydia shouts.

Michael scrambles for the knife, but Lydia gets there first. She points it at him, the whites of his eyes growing fractionally larger. “You won’t do it.” He spits venom through gritted teeth. Not quite as confident as he wants it to sound.

Lydia looks at me, her eyes asking me what to do. In that second, Michael jumps up, angles the knife back at Lydia’s neck. I don’t even think. I just lunge, pull him off her and push him back towards the river. He stumbles, doesn’t quite fall.

I grab the knife off Lydia. 

This time, I make sure he’s dead.