The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

said Tara, when they all reached solid ground and Wendy played her torch around the room. ‘Look at that for a wine rack.’

The structure in question, made in dark wood and covered in cobwebs, occupied the whole of one wall from floor to ceiling. Their wine rack at home was a self-assembled rectangle with room for a dozen bottles.

‘Hullo.’ Wendy’s torch beam had reached the wall to the left of the stairs. ‘There’s a gap here. It must lead into a second room.’

‘I expect the cellar runs the full width of the house,’ said Bruce.

The other half of the cellar was divided into three parts. One had a broad stone shelf built into it, one had rusty hooks dangling from the ceiling, and the third was empty.

‘Cold slab,’ Bruce said, indicating the stone shelf. ‘As good as a fridge for keeping your dairy produce cool. I expect the hooks would have been to hang meat.’

‘Uhh,’ Tara shuddered. ‘It’s dead creepy. Think of coming in here and seeing half a dead pig or something.’

‘They didn’t have Asda to pre-pack everything then, you know.’

‘Daddy, Mam, where are you?’ Katie’s voice sounded faintly from the cellar door.

‘It’s all right, pet. We’re coming back now.’

When they reached the first floor, Jamie was impressed by the size of the bedrooms, and Wendy encouraged him to see beyond the peeling paper and bare boards, to a time when a railway track might command space in one of them. On their arrival in what had once been the servants’ quarters, Wendy found another unexpected convert in the shape of her eldest daughter. Character won out over space as far as Tara was concerned. ‘I could have these two rooms as a sort of bedsit. My bed in there …’ She indicated the furthest room. ‘And my other stuff could be out here with beanbags for my friends to sit on. It wouldn’t matter how loud we had the stacking system, because we’d be miles away from the rest of the house. You’d need to put some radiators in here, though.’

‘You haven’t got a stacking system,’ Katie said.

‘No, but I will have. It’s going to be my special present, remember?’

As they were on the point of returning to the ground floor, Wendy remembered that they hadn’t been up into the attic.

‘Is there any point?’ asked Bruce. ‘There won’t be anything to see up there.’

‘Well, we want to see all over …’ Wendy said.

‘And there might be lots of things to see,’ suggested Tara. ‘Whoever cleared out the house might have forgotten about the attic. There might be all sorts of stuff up there.’

All five of them trooped back up to the main landing, then followed Wendy as she led the way through the attic door and up a short, steep flight of stairs. Whereas the cellar had been larger than she had anticipated, the attic was much smaller, a single space constrained by the slope of the roof. The house clearers had been more efficient than Tara had anticipated, however, leaving only spiders and dust. There was nothing to see.

‘Do you suppose this was used for servants as well?’

‘I doubt it. There aren’t any windows and there wouldn’t have been any electricity when it was first built. It was probably just used as storage.’

When they went outside, there was collective disappointment at the discovery that it was impossible to penetrate any distance into the back garden.

‘Dear God,’ said Bruce. ‘You’d have to start with a flamethrower.’

‘Look on it as an exciting project,’ Wendy said.

‘I have exciting projects at work, thanks. When I come home I want to relax and enjoy life. You can’t even see what you’re taking on. Look how far it must go back. Even after it’s been sorted out, it would be a full-time job keeping it up.’

‘We could turf most of it,’ Wendy said. ‘I can easily keep the grass cut.’ She turned to see that Katie had drifted back into the courtyard, where she was looking up at the arched window which lit the stairs.

‘Do you like the house, Katie?’

Katie turned to face her mother, apparently caught between the desire to please and telling a fib. ‘We-ell,’ she began. ‘It’s not a very nice house …’

‘It’s not very nice now,’ Wendy plunged in. ‘But once it’s been cleaned up and decorated nicely …’ She turned to Bruce, hoping for support.

‘It’s no use even thinking about it until you’ve had proper advice from a builder.’

‘But do you like it?’

‘Wendy, it’s no good anyone liking or not liking anything unless you can afford to make it habitable. Assuming you can make it habitable.’

‘But if we really could?’

‘If. If. It’s all ifs. If you really want to, then I suggest you get in touch with a builder – a reputable one who knows his way around old buildings. You need proper advice to find out what needs doing and how much it would all cost.’

‘The estate agents can probably recommend someone.’

‘I daresay. In the meantime, don’t go getting your hopes up.’

‘A builder,’ Wendy said brightly. ‘Job for first thing on Monday.’ She folded her arm through Bruce’s. ‘Would you like to walk round again?’

‘No. That young chap is waiting to lock up, and anyway, it’s no use getting the kids all excited if in the end it turns out not to be doable. Jamie, stop clambering about in that shed – you’ll break your neck in there.’

Wendy smiled. That was it, of course. Dear, steady, sensible Bruce, treading cautiously, not wanting to get the children’s hopes up. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the house, just that he was taking things step by step, avoiding the risk of a possible disappointment.

Disposing of a body isn’t easy. Burial is the traditional way, and there’s a lot to be said for sticking with tradition. Do things the traditional way and you can’t go far wrong. Except that you can – easily – go wrong.

THREE

March–May 1980

The estate agents recommended Mr Joseph Broughton of Broughton and Sons, Master Builders,