The Skeleton Tree

by Diane Janes

  ‘No, but you would have done. Admit it, you would have let him go ahead if I hadn’t been here.’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect I would have said “no” if I’d only had the opportunity, before you started laying down the law and acting the heavy-handed husband.’

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t have said “no”. You’d have jumped at the chance of showing the house off to a bunch of strangers, because you always do. Because it’s your house. Wendy’s blasted dream house. It would never occur to you to consider anyone else, not when it comes to this house. It wouldn’t matter if the kids were going to be scared to death, because nothing can get in the way of Wendy and her ego trip about her great big house.’

  ‘That’s absolutely not true, Bruce. Why are you saying these horrible things?’

  He turned away, as if he was considering some invisible item on the kitchen table.

  ‘Bruce? You know these things you’re saying aren’t true.’

  ‘Of course they are. Ever since we came here … in fact, before we came here. Ever since you got hold of that money and became obsessed with this place, you’ve thought of nothing but this precious bloody house.’

  ‘I don’t know why you keep saying it’s my house. It belongs to all of us. It’s our home. We’ve always shared everything.’

  ‘It’s never been mine. Your aunt left you the money. Your house, your choice, not mine.’

  ‘Oh, I see it all now!’ Angry tears glittered in her eyes. ‘It’s all right for you to be the big man, earning the money and buying everything, but when I contribute something, you can’t cope with it. It upsets your image of yourself as the provider and you don’t like it.’

  ‘Spare me the Women’s Lib crap, Wendy. It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ Her anger was getting the better of her good sense. ‘You need me to be dependent on you. You thought my coming into money threatened our traditional roles. Is that why you never want to have sex with me anymore?’

  ‘Don’t be so pathetic. You know, you’ve always had this remarkable facility for obscuring the true nature of any argument with the most ridiculous fantasies.’ He had stopped shouting now, delivering this latest pronouncement in a lofty tone which enraged her.

  ‘You’re the pathetic one,’ she shouted back. ‘You’ve let this stupid resentment about money take you over. It’s even made you impotent.’

  He made a swift move towards her, and for a split second Wendy thought he was going to strike her, but then he turned and walked out of the room. She heard his footsteps going along the passage and the sound of the sitting room door closing behind him, while she remained rooted to the spot. Bruce had never been violent towards her before, but she knew how close he had just come. She realized she was shaking. It had never occurred to her to feel afraid of her husband, and the discovery that he could be frightening was like a previously unnoticed crack in the mirror, or smudge on a painting.

  It was my own fault, she thought. I pushed him too far. I trespassed way beyond the boundaries that people who love one another are allowed to go. It was all my fault.

  She took a few deep breaths then followed him into the sitting room. She found him sitting in one of the chairs, leafing through a book of wildlife photographs which Katie had brought home from the library in connection with a school project.

  ‘Bruce,’ she began. ‘Bruce, I’m really, really sorry.’ She knelt before him on the carpet, hoping that he would put down the book and take her into his arms.

  ‘Forget it.’ He wasn’t even looking at her.

  ‘Please, Bruce. I was wrong to say that. Living apart has put a strain on our relationship, but we can work this out.’

  ‘Just skip it, will you?’

  ‘If there are things you would like me to do … I know we’ve never been very adventurous, but if you wanted … I could buy some of those silky French knickers, stockings, suspenders …’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Bruce, we can’t just skip it, we have to talk.’

  He said nothing. Having reached the end of the book, he began to flick through the pages in reverse, from the back to the beginning.

  ‘It’s childish to pretend that you can’t hear me.’

  ‘I am not pretending that I can’t hear you. I am not responding to you. I don’t want to talk about the house, money, bed, you, me, or anything else.’

  Her tears came again, in greater quantity and accompanied by a series of choking sobs.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wendy, don’t turn the tears on.’

  She began to sob in earnest at that. ‘You’ve never said that to me before. It’s hateful of you to say that. You’re only saying it because you know that’s something Robert used to say to me all the time.’

  ‘Poor sod,’ Bruce said, rising from his chair and crossing to the door. ‘He must have had a lot to put up with.’

  A few minutes later she heard the car heading down the drive. Bruce never went anywhere without saying where he was going; it was the abrupt departure of a sulking teenager, she thought. It had been wrong of her to goad him, but he too had said cruel things.

  She had to gloss over his absence from the tea table for the children’s benefit, not wanting to alarm them with the unexpected information that Daddy had gone out and she did not know where he was. He had probably gone to the pub, she reasoned. (It was Saturday evening in Bishop Barnard. There weren’t all that many options.) Perhaps he would have a few pints, get up some Dutch courage and be ready to ravish her when he got home. The idea of making things up in bed was an appealing one, and she decided to help things along by having a scented bath, putting on a night dress which she knew Bruce had always liked, then awaiting his return in their double bed.

  It was long after eleven when she heard the car returning. She had left the hall light on for him and she pictured him, letting himself in, coming upstairs … sure enough she heard him reach the half landing and enter the bathroom. There was a pause followed by the indistinct sound of the toilet flushing, water moving through the pipes, and at length she heard the bathroom door opening and his footsteps on the short flight of steps which brought him to the upper landing. She waited for the bedroom door to open, a welcoming smile fixed on her face, but the door did not open. The main landing light clicked out, leaving just the glow of the nightlight showing under the bedroom door, and as the seconds became minutes she realized that he had gone to sleep in the spare bedroom. For a moment she thought that perhaps he was too upset and ashamed to come to her. She was on the point of going across the landing to join him. She would slide into bed beside him, they would kiss … but then she considered the possibility that the retreat to the guest room was intended not to punish himself, but instead to punish her. She contemplated the hideousness of attempting to entice him into love-making, only to be coldly rejected. She had assumed it was his fault. He might say that it was hers – that she failed to stimulate desire in him, because she had grown too old and unattractive. She stayed where she was, trying not to cry.

  When he drove south the following day, nothing had been resolved.

  In the beginning, you think everyone will guess what you have done. You imagine that the guilty knowledge will shine out from your face, but it doesn’t happen like that. Lives are full of secrets, invisible burdens weighing each one of us down, some heavier than others.

  ELEVEN

  May 1981

  When Bruce and the children had driven away for the Easter weekend the previous month, Wendy told herself it would be a wonderful opportunity for some peace and quiet, but Katie and Jamie had scarcely been gone a few hours before she began to miss them. She had equally anticipated spending some quality time with Tara, but when not dutifully engaged in her revision – even insisting that Wendy plate up her meals so that she could eat them up in her den – Tara would slip out to spend a couple of hours with her friends. One way or another, it was a huge relief when Bruce’s car finally pulled
back on to the drive and the house was filled with childish noise and untidiness again.

  After the Easter break, life fell into a regular pattern. Bruce came home at the weekends, and though he did not resort to the spare bedroom again, nor did he make any physical overtures in her direction. Fearful of outright rejection, Wendy accepted the invisible wall between them, and they lay chastely in their shared bed like siblings forced to share in an overcrowded house. All couples go through difficult patches, she reasoned. It would be different when they were not living under this strain of constant departures, engaging in stilted telephone conversations with the spectre of his mother listening in the background. At weekends they never seemed to be alone together. Bruce insisted on letting the children stay up much later than usual, because he said he didn’t get enough time with them anymore, and Wendy felt she could not argue with this, though she feared for the reinstatement of proper bedtime routines when the move to Leicestershire was finally made.

  That particular horizon seemed no nearer. Certainly they were no closer to selling The Ashes. Viewings had effectively dried up. The agent said it was all the uncertainty over interest rates. However, when Wendy attempted to raise the possibility of a part-exchange deal on a new-build, Bruce seemed far less keen on the idea than he had been before. ‘You lose quite a bit doing it that way,’ he said. ‘And anyway, I thought you didn’t like any of the new-builds. We should leave things for the time being and see if a buyer for The Ashes comes along.’

  His reaction made her wonder if he was being contrary on purpose. Hadn’t he been positively urging that they take this route only a matter of weeks before? She said nothing. She didn’t want to quarrel with him, because rocking the boat with Bruce would only upset things even further.

  In the middle of May the agent rang to say that there were some people who wanted to see over the house – a Mr and Mrs Taylor. They were moving up from the London area and had already sold their property. Wendy said she was happy to show them around herself and an appointment was arranged for the same afternoon. She spent the next couple of hours getting the house to look its best, plumping cushions, tidying Katie’s bedroom, wiping down every surface in the kitchen in case of imaginary smears.

  She watched the couple arrive from the window in the kitchen which looked up the drive. They paused partway along, looking up at the front façade while he said something to her and she nodded approvingly. That was good, Wendy thought. A positive first impression. The Ashes was living up to the photograph on the particulars. Just one couple who really liked the house – that was all they needed. And she wanted them to like it, of course she did. There was no future in carrying on the way they were.

  She conducted them round the ground floor, not saying too much. ‘Never try to oversell the house to anyone,’ the agent had warned her. ‘Buyers are very wary of people who keep pointing things out. It makes them feel you might be trying to distract them from things you don’t want them to see. Just smile, answer any questions they have and let the house sell itself.’

  ‘The agent told us you haven’t lived here very long?’ Mrs Taylor sought confirmation as they crossed the hall from sitting room to dining room.

  ‘That’s right. We’ve owned the house for over a year, but we only moved in last July, when all the work was finished. We intended to stay long term, but my husband’s job has taken him unexpectedly south, so we have to sell.’

  Mrs Taylor laughed. ‘That’s a bit like us. We’d no sooner finished doing up our place and Dennis’s job meant a move to the barren north. Not that our house was anything like this. You can get so much more for your money up here, can’t you?’

  The Taylors nodded approvingly over the dining room and Mrs Taylor exclaimed in pleasure when they reached the kitchen.

  They’re the ones, Wendy thought. At last, we’ve found our buyers. As she conducted them through the study, the utility room and out into the little courtyard, she imagined phoning Bruce that night to tell him they’d got a buyer. He would be so pleased.

  ‘You know,’ Mrs Taylor said, when they were standing in Jamie’s bedroom. ‘We wouldn’t need all these bedrooms. You could knock two of these upstairs rooms into one and have that full-sized snooker table you’ve always wanted.’

  A cloud moved across the sun, altering the level of light in the room as effectively as a dimmer switch. For a second Wendy fancied she heard a footfall, almost directly above their heads, but any sound was drowned by Mrs Taylor exclaiming, ‘Goodness! Doesn’t the sunlight make a difference?’

  ‘It’s quite dull in here now,’ her husband said. ‘It’s these old-fashioned windows, I suppose. You’d get more light in if you changed them … though you’d soon start to rack up the costs.’

  Wendy tried to keep smiling. Why on earth would anyone want to vandalize her house? Though of course it would not be her house, if the Taylors bought it.

  ‘You’d need to change them all, so they matched,’ Mrs Taylor said. ‘And anyway, we agreed, no more major projects. I don’t want to live in any more building sites, thank you very much.’

  ‘Well, it was you who suggested knocking a wall down.’ He laughed, while Wendy’s hopes plummeted.

  ‘I wasn’t really serious. Come on, let’s see the rest of it.’ Mrs Taylor’s voice had transformed into that of a person who feels they must go through the motions. Someone resigned to the convention that it would be impolite to say outright to a homeowner that you have seen enough of their property to know that it is not what you are looking for.

  Wendy ushered them across the landing and into the master bedroom, sparing a swift glance up at the white, impassive ceiling as she did. Why now? It was only the second time she’d heard those sounds, and this was not a good moment for any mysterious creaking to manifest itself.

  Feeling that it was her turn to ring Bruce, Wendy tried the number at around eight that evening, but Digby answered and told her that Bruce was out. ‘I’m not sure whether he’s working late,’ he said vaguely. ‘I’ll get him to ring you when he comes in, shall I?’

  It was well after ten when Bruce rang back. ‘I popped out for a drink with some people after work,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? How are the kids?’

  ‘Everyone’s fine. Some people came to look at the house today.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Bruce sounded cautious. ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Nothing very much. I don’t think they’ll go for it. She suggested knocking through two of the bedrooms, of all things.’

  ‘I was thinking of fetching the children down here again for the spring bank holiday weekend,’ Bruce said. ‘Obviously you’ll want to stay up there with Tara.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Better if you do. Spring bank holiday is the sort of time when you might get a few more people wanting to see over the house.’

  ‘The estate agent has a set of keys,’ Wendy began, but Bruce wasn’t listening. He’d started telling her something about a chap at work who had offered to put him up for membership of a local squash club.

  Wendy wished that she had never made such an issue of not leaving Tara alone. For all she had seen of her eldest over Easter, Tara might as well have been there on her own, and there had been no sign of any boyfriend on the scene at all. Now it seemed to be taken for granted that Bruce and the children would spend another weekend at his parents’ house without her. It was like being separated or something. Rather than tackle the question on the phone, she decided to talk it over when Bruce came home for the weekend, but that intention was thwarted when he unexpectedly announced that he wouldn’t be able to make it due to a works meeting being scheduled on the Saturday.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, when he told her. ‘You’ve never had a meeting on a Saturday before.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t believe it? Are you saying that you think I’ve made it up?’

  ‘No, of course not. I didn’t say “I don’t believe it”, as in you’re not telling the truth. I was just …�
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  ‘Incredulous?’

  ‘Yes, incredulous. That’s the word.’

  ‘Well, things are different down here. It’s not like it was on Teesside. I’ve got a lot more responsibility now.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course, I can see that.’

  Wendy was a little hurt to witness the children’s enthusiasm as they clambered into Bruce’s car in readiness for another jaunt to Leicestershire without her. Of course, they did not view time spent with his parents in quite the same way as she did. To compensate for their absence, Wendy persuaded Tara to join her at the kitchen table for supper. ‘I’ve made a prawn curry,’ she said. ‘One of your favourites.’

  ‘I’ve decided to go and stay with Bob and Mel once my exams are finished,’ Tara announced, after downing her first mouthful. ‘It’ll give me a good chance to find my way around Birmingham – assuming I get the grades to go there. And then I’m going to go out to the villa with them in the summer holidays. I bet I come back with a lovely tan like Mel’s. And I’ll also be able to catch up with John.’

  ‘John?’ Wendy knew perfectly well who Tara was referring to, but it was the first thing she latched on to in a stream of unwelcome information.

  ‘You know very well who I mean. He’s living down there at his mum and dad’s, waiting to start at the Poly.’

  ‘Oh. That John. I didn’t think you’d been seeing him.’

  ‘I haven’t been seeing him. Didn’t you hear me? He’s been living in Birmingham, so how can I have been seeing him? I’ve been keeping in touch with him, though, and he can’t wait to see me again, if you know what I mean …’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tara. He’s so much older than you …’

  ‘Four years. Four years is nothing.’

  ‘It’s quite a lot at your age.’

  ‘Oh, Mother! Do stop being so fucking ridiculous!’

  ‘Tara!’

  ‘Well, just jack it in, will you? I’m an adult. I’m not some silly little fifteen-year-old virgin. I know what I’m doing.’