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

which was no longer home to pallets of bricks, roof tiles and other sundry materials which had arrived amid the sound of reversing wagons, then gradually been swallowed up by the house, inside which, though the litter of building work was still scattered about, rooms were beginning to emerge as all but finished. Some were already wearing the various wallpapers she had picked out. The newly installed bathroom suite was surrounded by shiny tiles. It was all coming together and it was all going to be perfect.

Two days later Wendy was putting her gardening tools away when a deep voice behind her said, ‘Before you go, I thought you’d like to see this.’

For a big man, Peter moved remarkably quietly. She had jumped violently on hearing his voice and couldn’t disguise her alarm on discovering that he had followed her into the outbuilding and was only a couple of feet away.

‘Sorry, Mrs Thornton. I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you’d’a heard us coming like.’

‘No … I didn’t hear you, you made me jump.’ Wendy found herself wondering where Kenny and John were.

‘It’s just that I found this. I thought you might like to see it.’

She looked down and saw that he was holding out a framed photograph. ‘Let’s go outside, into the light,’ she suggested, and was relieved when Peter readily complied. Though for heaven’s sake, she told herself, what on earth did she imagine he was going to do with two other men within earshot on the premises? She should not have listened to that crazy Parsons woman from across the road.

When they were both standing in the yard, he handed her the object of supposed interest. It was the size of a postcard, a photograph of a young man, mounted in a cheap wooden frame. Peter had evidently rubbed some of the dust from the glass in order to see what the frame contained, and she used a forefinger to complete the job. It was a black and white photograph: a youth of indeterminate age, leaning on a garden wall, the shot showing him from the waist upwards. He was wearing an open-neck shirt, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and he had fair, curly hair. Though he was smiling, his eyes were screwed up against the sun. Little could be seen in the background, except the lupins and gladioli growing in the garden behind him. For a moment Wendy wondered if the photograph could have been taken at The Ashes, but she decided it had not, for there was no matching garden wall anywhere. It was impossible to date the picture. Men’s fashions changed so little. That shirt and haircut could have belonged to almost any point in pretty much any time before the 1960s.

‘Where did you find it?’ she asked.

‘I was working up in the attic and I noticed there was a loose floorboard. It sprung up a bit when I stood on the end of it. I was going to nail it back down, thinking it was a trip hazard, like. Only then I saw that there wasn’t no nails in the other end neither. It was just a little section of board, see, what could be lifted out completely. The picture was hidden in the gap between the boards and the bedroom ceiling.’

‘I wonder who put it there.’ Wendy held the photograph out for him to take it back, but he shook his head.

‘It’s yours by rights,’ he said. ‘Found in your house.’

‘I suppose it is. Thank you.’

‘S’aright. I suppose someone had their reasons. For hiding it, I mean.’ Peter turned back and entered the house, leaving her holding his treasure trove. As he disappeared up the hall, she heard him start to hum. She recognized the tune as ‘In the Jailhouse Now’ – it was one of his favourites. A sudden shiver ran through her – a phenomenon her mother had always referred to as a goose walking over your grave. It was a funny expression, which made no sense at all, now she stopped to think about it.

She followed him into the house and put the photograph down on the windowsill while she went to wash her hands at the sink. When she was drying her hands, John appeared in the doorway. In spite of the plaster dust in his hair, he could almost have doubled for the Sundance Kid, she thought.

‘All done for the day?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Knocking-off time, is it?’

‘I have to get back in time for Jamie and get started on tea.’

‘Wednesday,’ John said. ‘Steak and kidney pie at my digs.’

‘You know what you’re getting in advance?’

‘It doesn’t change, week by week. Roast on Sundays, bacon, egg and chips on Mondays, chops on Tuesdays, steak and kidney on Wednesdays. Friday is best – fish and chip night.’

Wendy advanced towards the door, conscious that time was passing. ‘That must get a bit boring,’ she said.

‘Don’t get me wrong, she’s all right, Mrs MacIntyre, but she doesn’t have much imagination. I get myself a Chinese sometimes, to ring the changes.’

‘Goodness.’ Wendy glanced at her watch. ‘I need to be off.’

‘See you.’ He stood aside to let her pass.

It only occurred to her as she was walking up the road that she had forgotten to pick up the photograph. She didn’t mention Peter’s discovery that evening, as she thought everyone would be more interested when she actually had the object to show them, but when she went into the kitchen at The Ashes next morning, the photograph had gone. She considered asking if anyone had moved it, but if they all denied it, that could become awkward. It might be interpreted as an accusation. What if Peter had decided to take it as a keepsake of the job? She had initially tried to give it back to him, so he might have assumed that she had left it lying about because she didn’t really want it. It would very likely get him into trouble if she started asking