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

‘He found the whole lot of them, still living in the same house in 1861,’ she was saying. ‘He’s a member of the local history society.’

‘He would be,’ said Bruce. ‘He’s into everything.’

It was no secret within the family that Bruce had no time for John Newbould, father of Tara’s friend Helen, ever since the two men had once served together on a committee which had been formed in response to proposals to resite a rubbish tip.

As she deposited the tray on the table and handed round the mugs, Wendy suddenly grasped the potential significance of what Tara had been saying.

‘Do you mean that you can look up addresses of old houses and see who was living in them?’

‘I think it’s only in certain years.’ Tara thought for a moment. ‘Census years, I think he said.’

‘There’s a census taken every ten years,’ said Bruce. ‘But I think it’s meant to be confidential. I don’t think it’s made available to the general public.’

‘I think Helen’s dad said you can see the ones that are over a hundred years old. I could ask him if you like, next time I’m round at their house.’

‘That would be brilliant,’ Wendy said. ‘We could look up The Ashes and see who lived here.’

‘I thought you were getting that information from the bank,’ said Bruce.

‘I’ve written to ask, but the deeds will only tell us who owned the house. According to what Tara’s just said, the census would tell us the names of everyone who lived here.’

‘What on earth do you want to know that for?’

‘Because it would be so interesting,’ Tara chimed in in support of her mother. ‘Think of all the people who must have lived here before us …’

‘No thanks,’ said Bruce. ‘The here and now is exciting enough for me. Anyway, Wendy, I thought you said that woman who came here yesterday told you everything about the house since the year dot.’

‘What woman?’ asked Tara.

‘Joan. You were out when she came. She turned up on the doorstep yesterday. It was a lovely surprise.’

‘Infernal cheek, more like,’ Bruce said. He picked up his coffee mug and headed off somewhere, but Tara listened eagerly while Wendy summarized what she had gleaned from Joan’s visit.

‘I wonder what happened to Dora Duncan,’ mused Tara. ‘I suppose she might still be alive somewhere.’

‘It’s possible, but not very likely. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to get a job, I don’t think, but as it was the wartime she would have needed ration cards, things like that.’

‘Could she have been killed by a bomb?’

‘I think people might have noticed if a bomb had dropped on the farm track that day.’

‘Mmm. But suppose she wasn’t on the farm track? Suppose she’d gone a bit further afield and been killed? Maybe they wouldn’t have been able to identify her.’

‘It’s an ingenious theory. There were a lot of bombing raids around here in the war,’ Wendy said thoughtfully. ‘Your Granny Burton used to talk about it. Teesside was the real target: the docks and all the heavy industry and ICI at Billingham, but some of the towns and villages were definitely hit. Thing is, though, I think that mostly went on at night, not on a summer day in broad daylight.’

‘But maybe it wasn’t anywhere near here. You can get a long way on a bike, especially if you have a whole day. I wonder if they knew where she was planning to go?’

‘Apparently no one did. Though I don’t think Joan knows that many details herself. She was only young, and don’t forget it was over thirty-five years ago.’

‘I bet there would be some stuff about it in old newspapers,’ said Tara. ‘They keep microfilm of newspapers going way back at the main library. Mrs Hillyer brought some printouts of stuff into school when we were doing our history project in third form. We could easily go and have a look.’

‘Turning detective?’ Wendy laughed.

‘Why not? I mean, poor old Dora’s almost one of the family, right?’

People don’t just vanish into thin air. Everyone knows that. But a thousand searchers won’t find them if they’re not looking in the right place.

SIX

September 1980

The letter from the bank arrived one Saturday morning while Bruce and Wendy were eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Tara had only just joined them, yawning and still in her dressing gown. Jamie and Katie had already finished eating and gone off to play. The letter opened with a preamble about consulting the title deeds and ended by billing for the time taken, but Wendy was only interested in the meat of the sandwich and skimmed over the rest. The little history began with the transfer of a parcel of land comprising five acres from Mr Joseph Heaviside Esquire to Mr James Coates in 1848, and ended with a conveyance to Mr Bruce Geoffrey Thornton and Mrs Wendy Ann Thornton in 1980.

‘James Coates must have built the house once he’d bought the land,’ Wendy said. ‘Because when it was transferred to his son, George Frederick Coates, in 1876, it’s described as the house known as The Ashes and all that piece and parcel of land adjoining Green Lane …’

‘What a funny way to describe it,’ said Tara. ‘Imagine all that soil spilling out of the string and paper …’

‘George Coates must have been dead by 1919 because it’s described as the estate of the late George Frederick Coates when it was acquired by the Duncans. Less land, too. Most of it must have been sold in the Coates’s time, because the plot the Duncans got was the same dimensions as it is now.’

‘So the Duncans lived here the longest,’ said Tara.

‘That depends what you mean,’ said Bruce. ‘The house was owned by the Coates family for over seventy years. Of course, they might not have lived here at all. They may have rented it out.’

‘There you are, Mam, you’ve got seventy years to beat.’ Tara helped herself to the last piece of toast from the toast