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

‘Oh, I see it all now!’ Angry tears glittered in her eyes. ‘It’s all right for you to be the big man, earning the money and buying everything, but when I contribute something, you can’t cope with it. It upsets your image of yourself as the provider and you don’t like it.’

‘Spare me the Women’s Lib crap, Wendy. It doesn’t suit you.’

‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’ Her anger was getting the better of her good sense. ‘You need me to be dependent on you. You thought my coming into money threatened our traditional roles. Is that why you never want to have sex with me anymore?’

‘Don’t be so pathetic. You know, you’ve always had this remarkable facility for obscuring the true nature of any argument with the most ridiculous fantasies.’ He had stopped shouting now, delivering this latest pronouncement in a lofty tone which enraged her.

‘You’re the pathetic one,’ she shouted back. ‘You’ve let this stupid resentment about money take you over. It’s even made you impotent.’

He made a swift move towards her, and for a split second Wendy thought he was going to strike her, but then he turned and walked out of the room. She heard his footsteps going along the passage and the sound of the sitting room door closing behind him, while she remained rooted to the spot. Bruce had never been violent towards her before, but she knew how close he had just come. She realized she was shaking. It had never occurred to her to feel afraid of her husband, and the discovery that he could be frightening was like a previously unnoticed crack in the mirror, or smudge on a painting.

It was my own fault, she thought. I pushed him too far. I trespassed way beyond the boundaries that people who love one another are allowed to go. It was all my fault.

She took a few deep breaths then followed him into the sitting room. She found him sitting in one of the chairs, leafing through a book of wildlife photographs which Katie had brought home from the library in connection with a school project.

‘Bruce,’ she began. ‘Bruce, I’m really, really sorry.’ She knelt before him on the carpet, hoping that he would put down the book and take her into his arms.

‘Forget it.’ He wasn’t even looking at her.

‘Please, Bruce. I was wrong to say that. Living apart has put a strain on our relationship, but we can work this out.’

‘Just skip it, will you?’

‘If there are things you would like me to do … I know we’ve never been very adventurous, but if you wanted … I could buy some of those silky French knickers, stockings, suspenders …’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Bruce, we can’t just skip it, we have to talk.’

He said nothing. Having reached the end of the book, he began to flick through the pages in reverse, from the back to the beginning.

‘It’s childish to pretend that you can’t hear me.’

‘I am not pretending that I can’t hear you. I am not responding to you. I don’t want to talk about the house, money, bed, you, me, or anything else.’

Her tears came again, in greater quantity and accompanied by a series of choking sobs.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Wendy, don’t turn the tears on.’

She began to sob in earnest at that. ‘You’ve never said that to me before. It’s hateful of you to say that. You’re only saying it because you know that’s something Robert used to say to me all the time.’

‘Poor sod,’ Bruce said, rising from his chair and crossing to the door. ‘He must have had a lot to put up with.’

A few minutes later she heard the car heading down the drive. Bruce never went anywhere without saying where he was going; it was the abrupt departure of a sulking teenager, she thought. It had been wrong of her to goad him, but he too had said cruel things.

She had to gloss over his absence from the tea table for the children’s benefit, not wanting to alarm them with the unexpected information that Daddy had gone out and she did not know where he was. He had probably gone to the pub, she reasoned. (It was Saturday evening in Bishop Barnard. There weren’t all that many options.) Perhaps he would have a few pints, get up some Dutch courage and be ready to ravish her when he got home. The idea of making things up in bed was an appealing one, and she decided to help things along by having a scented bath, putting on a night dress which she knew Bruce had always liked, then awaiting his return in their double bed.

It was long after eleven when she heard the car returning. She had left the hall light on for him and she pictured him, letting himself in, coming upstairs … sure enough she heard him reach the half landing and enter the bathroom. There was a pause followed by the indistinct sound of the toilet flushing, water moving through the pipes, and at length she heard the bathroom door opening and his footsteps on the short flight of steps which brought him to the upper landing. She waited for the bedroom door to open, a welcoming smile fixed on her face, but the door did not open. The main landing light clicked out, leaving just the glow of the nightlight showing under the bedroom door, and as the seconds became minutes she realized that he had gone to sleep in the spare bedroom. For a moment she thought that perhaps he was too upset and ashamed to come to her. She was on the point of going across the landing to join him. She would slide into bed beside him, they would kiss … but then she considered the possibility that the retreat to the guest room was intended not to punish himself, but instead to punish her. She contemplated the hideousness of attempting to entice him