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

you,’ Wendy said. ‘It’s made them more real for me now. I do hope we can find out more about the Coates family too.’

‘Well, why don’t we make a start tonight? Let’s go and have a look at that war memorial. There’s a street light almost right above it, if I recall. And I’ve a torch in my car. Oh, hold on, though … I forgot … my car is in for its service.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Wendy said. ‘I’ll drive. There’s a torch in our car.’

‘Oh, but then you will have to double back to bring me home.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’ Wendy felt lightheaded, like a child setting off on an adventure. ‘Bruce is on babysitting duty and he’s not expecting me back at any particular time.’

‘Tally ho then!’

Joan’s enthusiasm was infectious. They laughed all the way to the northern edge of Bishop Barnard, where the parish church stood behind a lychgate across the road from what remained of the village green. Wendy parked her car in the layby reserved for ‘official church business only’ and they entered on foot via the gate. The war memorial was only a few feet inside the churchyard, an impressive stone cross set on a raised square plinth, which was, as Joan had correctly recalled, well within the orbit of the tall, modern street lamps. On one side an inscription stated that it was dedicated to the memory of the men of Bishop Barnard who had given their lives in the Great War of 1914–18. Below this, a further inscription exhorted everyone to remember also those who had died in the 1939–45 war, whose names were recorded within the church. The remaining three sides were filled with the names of the young men who would never return. Between Private James Campbell and Sergeant Charles Copeland was Albert George Coates. Joan jotted the name down in a notebook she had produced from her handbag.

‘He won’t be buried in here.’ Wendy glanced around.

‘No, but other members of the Coates family might be.’

‘Let’s have a look.’

Assisted to some extent by the street lamps on the Green, together with the lights set at intervals on the path which ran between the lychgate and the church, they began to traverse the rows of graves, navigating their way among headstones and monuments by the light of Wendy’s torch.

Wendy giggled. ‘If my kids could see me now … I feel like something out of the Secret Seven.’

‘Lucky it’s nowhere near Halloween,’ Joan said. ‘Or we’d probably be accused of witchcraft and arrested on suspicion of performing forbidden rituals within sacred grounds.’

‘We won’t be able to go much further in. It’s going to be too dark to see where we’re going, even with the torch, if we get much beyond the street lights. Mind you, if they’re here, they won’t be buried in the modern part of the churchyard … Oh! Hold on, Joan, look at this.’

As an example of Victorian ostentation, the monument could scarcely have been bettered. An almost life-size marble angel stood poised for flight on a knee-high marble block. This formed a centrepiece for an ankle-height marble kerbstone, mostly hidden in the grass, which Wendy had almost tripped over. By the light of the torch they could see that the angel and her support were covered in a greenish-grey layer of grime, and she had been crowned by multiple bird droppings, but the inscription on the angel’s plinth was still easily readable.

In Loving Memory of

Maria Coates

1828–1873

Well done thou good and faithful servant

Also of

James Coates

1819–1876

Thy will be done

Also their children who lie near this spot

Amy died 1857

James Henry died 1859

Philippa died 1860

Catherine died 1865

Sophia died 1867

Francis Michael died 1871

‘Six children, all dying before their parents,’ Wendy said.

‘The Victorian infant mortality rate was truly awful.’ Joan was writing busily, apparently unhampered by the lack of light.

They almost missed the inscription on one of the kerbstones: Sacred to the memory of Charlotte Coates born 14 April 1854 died 7 September 1915. Daughter of James and Maria Coates.

They agreed that it was too dark to search for any more long-dead members of the Coates family in the further reaches of the churchyard.

‘I’m sure Aunt Elaine and Uncle Herb are buried not far from here,’ said Joan, casting about to get her bearings. ‘I think it’s just along this path, beyond the big tree.’

The path made it easy to reach the place she had indicated. The Duncans’ monument was a plain rectangular headstone with a vase incorporated at its base. The vase was empty, its metal rose rusting. ‘I suppose I really ought to bring some flowers, one of these days,’ Joan said, in a tone that did not suggest to Wendy that she ever really meant to do so.

They returned to the car and Wendy drove back to Joan’s bungalow. The trees and hedges had long since melted into dark shadows against a backdrop of grey-black sky. Wendy declined Joan’s invitation to go in, saying that she had better get back. On the homeward run the car was quiet without the clamour of the radio or Joan’s conversation, but Wendy hardly noticed. Her head was full of golden sunsets and brave young soldiers marching into them, and she was still experiencing a faint sense of exhilaration from engaging in something a little bit adventurous and out of the ordinary. She knew the back lanes well and negotiated the twists and turns rather faster than usual. It was not as if there was any traffic about at that time of night. At the notorious right-angle bend halfway between Bishop Barnard and Cleveley, where she would normally have changed down to second, she found herself on the wrong side of the road and was forced to swerve and brake, narrowly avoiding an oncoming vehicle.

In the split second of the near collision, she observed that the car she had almost hit carried the livery of Cleveland Constabulary. The stab of panic she had experienced at the sight of the approaching car was replaced by the sickening