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

‘Your daughter is overheated through too much sun and all you can think about is some stupid ghost story?’

‘No, it isn’t. You’re being very unfair. It was only that, as children, Joan and her cousins all thought the house had a ghost and—’

‘Look, Wendy, I don’t care what that stupid old woman told you. I don’t want to hear about it. Let me tell you, if you start harping on about this kind of nonsense again, the house goes straight on the market, do you hear me?’

‘I’m surprised half of Green Lane can’t hear you. There’s no need to talk to me as if I was a child.’

‘Then stop acting like one. Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t start crying.’

‘You know I can’t stand it when you shout at me.’

‘I’m not shouting. Here.’ He threw a box of tissues across the bed.

She caught it and drew out a tissue, which she used to dab her eyes and blow her nose.

‘I’m going to open our window wider,’ she said. ‘It’s still awfully stuffy.’

He grunted an assent as he climbed into bed, waiting until she had finished with the window and climbed in beside him before switching off the bedside light.

Bruce’s breathing soon assumed a steady rhythm, but it took Wendy a long time to get back to sleep. Even when she laid on top of the bedclothes, she felt stifled, as if the heat covered her like a dense, dark blanket, and when she awoke the next day it was with a sense of unease. The all-important happiness of the household had been disturbed, she thought, and the problems which had led to this state of affairs remained unresolved.

Bruce – never much of a conversationalist in the mornings – made no reference to Katie’s nightmares or the fracas of the previous evening with Tara. Katie appeared to have forgotten all about her bad dream and Wendy decided not to mention it. Tara rose long after Bruce had left for work, rebuffed all of Wendy’s overtures and absented herself for the day, saying that she was going to her friend Helen’s house. Later, she phoned to say that Helen had invited her to stay for tea. As it was Bruce’s night for playing squash, only Wendy and the two younger children were eating home-made quiche with salad and new potatoes at the kitchen table when Jamie enquired, out of the blue, ‘Why were you shouting out last night, Katie?’

‘I had a bad dream.’ Katie concentrated on securing another piece of cucumber on her fork. ‘Daddy said it was just a bad dream.’

‘What was it about?’

‘Now, Jamie,’ Wendy intervened. ‘It doesn’t matter what it was about.’

‘It’s the dream about the nasty man,’ Katie said. ‘I’ve had it before. But when I wake up, the man isn’t there.’

‘Which is what always happens with dreams,’ Wendy said. ‘Because dreams aren’t real.’

‘I’ve only dreamed it since we moved to this house.’ For the first time, Katie looked up from her plate and met her mother’s eye. ‘I never used to dream it in my old bedroom, in our old house.’

‘Well, I expect that’s just a coincidence, pet.’

‘It’s probably because people make too many noises in this house,’ Jamie asserted. ‘I wish people would stop going up into the attic after my bedtime. Their feet make too much noise, walking about up there. Maybe you should put carpet in the attic. That way I wouldn’t keep hearing people when they walk about.’

Wendy hesitated. A part of her was curious, especially after Joan’s tale about Dora and her ghost. Then she remembered Bruce’s views on the subject. It would be a mistake to take too much interest in these supposed footsteps in the attic, particularly when Jamie appeared unconcerned about any aspect of them apart from their potential for noise. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Some carpet would be a good idea. When we get round to it.’

When the younger children had gone to bed, Wendy lounged on the sofa, still failing to engage with the paperback which had looked so promising when she’d bought it in WHSmith. The usual comfortable, familiar stillness had fallen over the house. Muffled birdsong, occasional traffic; Elaine Duncan must have heard this same soundtrack on innumerable nights down the years, she thought. In her mind Wendy replayed all the stories Joan Webb had told her. There had been no opportunity to tell anyone about any of it yet. Bruce had indicated that he didn’t want to know. Tara would certainly be interested, but she must be warned not to breathe a word in front of Katie, who was such a sensitive child and probably close to the age when poor little Dora Duncan had imagined that she’d seen a ghost.

What on earth could have happened to Dora Duncan? Fifteen, Joan had said. Fifteen was older then, almost an adult. Before the war there had been lots of people who left school and started work at fourteen. Perhaps Dora had run away? Poor Elaine Duncan, losing her children, one after another. So much sadness … but even so, she had refused to leave The Ashes – the house she had loved, the house she had wanted enough to fall out with her in-laws.

Bruce and Tara arrived home almost simultaneously, Tara entering through the front door just as Bruce’s car nosed between the gateposts. Wendy offered coffee, which was accepted by both of them. They appeared to have arrived at some kind of unspoken agreement to remain civil, neither of them making any reference to the argument of the night before. At least they weren’t yelling at one another, Wendy thought, but she longed for them to drop the polite facades and return to their usual teasing, Bruce feigning ignorance over Tara’s music, while Tara stood behind his chair, rumpling his blond hair and pretending to find bald spots.

When she carried the tray bearing three mugs into the sitting room, Wendy found Tara explaining that her friend Helen’s father had been tracing his