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

Wendy hesitated, ever more aware of the eavesdropper. He didn’t know them, but that didn’t matter. ‘Oh Bruce, don’t be so obtuse. You know very well what I’m getting at. Suppose Tara isn’t going to stay with Robert at all?’

‘Well, if she isn’t, there’s damn all we can do about it. You can’t run after the train, and if you think I’m driving all the way down there, you can think again.’

‘So you’re taking the line that as she’s not really your daughter, it’s not your responsibility, is that it?’

‘Not at all. But you need to recognize that kids grow up fast these days. Tara’s seventeen. Some people would say it’s none of our business who she chooses to spend her weekends with. She’s not a child any longer and everyone kicks over the traces sooner or later.’

‘Bibbings.’ The woman who served behind the counter called out the name, and as the fat man stood up she began to reel off the contents of two bulging carrier bags, starting with prawn crackers and spare ribs.

‘You’re condoning it!’ Wendy was astounded.

‘I’m not condoning anything. I’m suggesting that Tara has reached a point in her life where some things are none of our business. I don’t suppose you liked your mother prying into your teenage sex life.’

‘I didn’t have a sex life, not until I was married.’ Thank goodness the fat man had left and the woman had disappeared into the rear of the premises again.

‘Well, not everyone is as … restrained as you were.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Face facts. A lot of people sleep together before they’re married. You may not have done …’

‘I didn’t.’

‘But a lot of people did.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You never asked me.’

‘I just thought … How old were you? The first time?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Thornton?’ The query was unnecessary, since they were the only customers waiting. ‘One sweet and sour chicken, one beef curry, one prawn chow mein, one chicken in oyster sauce, two egg fried rice, one boiled rice, two banana fritters.’

‘I hope you’re not going to have some sort of mid-life crisis about my ex-girlfriends,’ Bruce said as he held the shop door open for her. ‘It was a long time ago and they were all before I met you.’

‘Well, of course not,’ she said, mentally noting his use of the plural. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit.’ It did matter, she thought. It mattered that she had never known. Everything she thought she knew, everything she had always taken for granted, had somehow begun to unravel.

Tara telephoned much later that evening. Bruce happened to be passing through the hall at the time, so it was he who picked up the call. ‘Hello … Tara? … Good, fine. Did you want to speak to Mam? … No? OK … Yes, yes, have a nice time … See you on Sunday.’ He turned to Wendy, who had appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘It was Tara to say she’s arrived safely. The train was on time and Robert was there to meet her at the station.’

‘Did she say anything about John?’

‘No.’ Bruce sounded irritable. ‘What would there be to say?’

Bruce and the children collected Tara from the station on Sunday evening while Wendy stayed at home to cook, steeling herself to be politely interested in hearing about the trip.

There was no need for her to ask any questions, because Tara scarcely drew breath over dinner, so eager was she to share the fun she had had with ‘Bob’ – as her father had suggested she call him – his wife and other offspring. The whole family had gone on a shopping expedition into the city centre, during which they had lunched in an Italian restaurant and ‘Bob’ had bought a necklace for Tara and encouraged her to pick out a dress and some perfume at his expense.

Wendy attempted to catch Bruce’s eye over the table, as Tara detailed these blatant attempts to buy her affection, but Bruce was concentrating on his roast lamb and appeared entirely unperturbed.

While Wendy cleared the plates in readiness to serve the apple crumble, Tara dashed off to fetch a Polaroid photograph from her bag and Wendy forced herself to appear pleased by the smiling image of her eldest daughter standing with Bob’s hand resting proprietorially on her shoulder, with his two boys, Alexander and Richard, grinning in front of them, the perfect little family group.

‘Bob always kept his distance because he didn’t want to complicate things for me.’ Tara smiled across the table at them, making it sound, Wendy thought, as if this was some kind of incredibly generous act of sacrifice on Robert’s part. ‘But of course things will be different, now that we’re back in touch. They want me to go and stay again soon.’

Looking at the middle-aged man in the photograph, Wendy found it difficult to believe that she had ever been married to him. She noticed that he had put on some weight since their Coventry days and developed crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. She realized that Bruce was watching her as she studied the photograph. She quickly passed it back to Tara.

‘They’ve suggested I might like to go away with them on holiday,’ Tara was saying. ‘They’ve got a timeshare in Portugal. It’s no wonder they’re all so brown. Look, here’s another one with me and the boys and Mel.’

‘Mel?’

‘It’s short for Melissa.’

Wendy regarded the slim, undeniably attractive Melissa and wondered how it was that the man she had once been married to had transformed from Robert into Bob. It made her feel foolish, the way she had always referred to him as Robert. It was as if they had never been on sufficiently intimate terms for her to know what his real name was. She handed the photograph across the table to Bruce. ‘And how was the journey down, with John?’

‘It was great to catch up with him. He’s been accepted at the Polytechnic, in Birmingham. He’s going to live back at his parents’