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

‘Stop it,’ she said to herself. ‘This is The Ashes. It’s your home. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.’

Monday began like any other, with the usual struggles to get everyone up and out on time: Katie being slow and sleepy and losing her socks; Jamie fretting over a missing toy car instead of focussing on eating his breakfast; Tara impossibly grumpy and best avoided. Jamie was the last to leave, collected at the door by Andrew Webster and his mother. Wendy and Andrew’s mother had arrived at an arrangement some weeks previously, whereby they took it in turns to walk the boys to school and collect them at the end of the day, and it happened to be Mrs Webster’s turn.

Left to her own devices, Wendy cleaned the kitchen floor to within an inch of its life and was about to turn her attention to the stone flags in the hall when she glimpsed the sad-eyed Morisot through the open dining room door. She had never liked it but hadn’t wanted to upset Bruce by removing it from the position he had chosen. It didn’t look right there – in fact, it was downright depressing – and since he wasn’t around to see that it had gone … She marched decidedly into the room, reached up, took a good hold on either side of the frame and carefully lifted the picture down. She carried it across to the window and, not without difficulty, held it up at different angles, but it failed to transform itself into the image that had so captivated her when she had first set eyes on it in the shop window. She could not imagine how it would fit in with the sort of modern property that Bruce now appeared to be set on acquiring. Her picture, her grandfather clock … the new dining suite? Probably all sorts of lovely things would be thrown onto the bonfire for which his career had laid the foundations. She supposed she shouldn’t mind. They were only things. Family was what mattered … but oh, it felt so wrong, so very, very wrong to be leaving this house.

She stood, hesitating, before the window, picture in her hands, not seeing the daffodils bending on their stems in the breeze which was raking across the garden. She decided to put the picture in the study. Bruce would notice it was gone when he came home at the weekend, but she could make up an excuse, or even replace it temporarily. She carried it into the study, where it would be out of the way. No one ever used the room for anything. It was, as Bruce had said, just wasted space, its doors mostly kept closed. It provided a natural shortcut from the rear passage to the front hall, but Wendy had never noticed anyone using it as such, and she herself invariably walked the long way round, passing the entrance to the cellar and turning the corner by the kitchen door. Ever since Bruce’s explosion over Joan and her half-remembered ghost story, it had never seemed politic to query why everyone else avoided the study, but as time passed, she had been forced to admit to herself that the room had a slightly unpleasant atmosphere. Perhaps because it was not quite large enough or light enough to make a good study. Perhaps because the dark green and white wallpaper made it feel a bit claustrophobic.

She managed to manoeuvre the door open while continuing to grip the picture in both hands, entered the room and bent to prop her burden against the end of the bookshelf. As she did so, the previously indefinable sensation of something unpleasant in the room finally crystallized. It was a feeling she had experienced once before, many years previously, when she had been at a dance with some girlfriends while Robert was away at university. One of her friend’s brothers had persuaded her to dance with him, and afterwards, when she slipped out to the ladies, he’d been waiting for her in the passage. He’d said something to arrest her progress, then made a grab, pressing his body aggressively against hers, his beery breath contaminating her mouth as he’d managed to land one kiss before she pulled away. The feel of his hands on her back, hot and clammy through the thin cotton of her summer frock, had nauseated her. She shuddered at the recollection. It must have been more than twenty years ago, but it came back to her now, as clearly as if it had happened only moments before. She drew back from the room, shutting the door. Her heart was racing. Ridiculous, of course. The blood must have rushed to her head when she bent to put the picture down – and the picture itself must have been heavier than she’d thought, to make her feel all giddy like that. She abandoned her plans with the mop and bucket in favour of a cup of coffee in the kitchen. All was well in there – everything was safe and normal. A listener’s dedication was being read out on Radio Two. She put on the kettle and made herself a coffee. She would have a chocolate digestive with it, if the kids had left her any. She smiled as she noticed the way the fridge hummed to itself when Johnny Cash began to sing about ‘A Thing Called Love’. No wonder she was a bit on edge, she thought, with all this change in the air. Bruce must have been quite nervous, starting his new post. Not that he ever showed anything like that.

There was plenty to keep Wendy busy through the day. The ironing pile alone was enormous. Three shirts per day, courtesy of Bruce’s job, the younger children’s school uniforms and, judging by the amount of items belonging to Tara, her eldest must be changing her clothes at least three times a day!