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

for the party and then let herself back in using the Yale key. She had definitely shut the front door behind her. Breaking in necessitated some noise, surely? Had she really been that deeply asleep? And there was nothing to interest a burglar – or for that matter, Peter Grayling – in Katie’s room. No money, no jewellery, no electrical gadgets, not even a transistor radio – just a little girl’s clothes and toys.

As she sat on the bed, toes flexing against the bedroom carpet, Joan’s words about Peggy Disberry returned to her. There was Joan herself, so attached to the house and recently cremated. Maybe … maybe it wasn’t a real, here and now, kind of visitor? Maybe if she got up from the bed, crossed the landing and opened Katie’s door to have a look, she would find that there was no one there at all.

Wendy stood up and silently moved towards her own bedroom door, which stood slightly ajar, the way she had left it. Or was it? Hadn’t she been able to see more of the landing before she went to sleep? Hadn’t the door been standing further open? Suppose a burglar had come up the stairs, checked on her while she slept and adjusted the door to prevent an easy view from the bed as he made his way up and down the stairs? No, that was ridiculous too. No thief would have risked her waking up, just for the sake of garnering a few second-hand toys. She swung her bedroom door open to reveal the deserted upper landing. There was no sound from Katie’s room, but then the door was solid and well fitted. She crept across two yards of carpet and placed her hand on the door handle. Still no sound.

In a single movement, she twisted the knob and flung the door open, half hoping, half expecting the room to be empty.

It wasn’t.

His name came out in a cry of surprise: ‘Bruce!’

He paused momentarily in the act of reaching down a last handful of books from Katie’s top shelf.

‘What are you doing?’ It was a stupid question, she knew that. A fraction of a second had been enough for her to see what he was doing. There was a cardboard box on the bed, into which he was stowing the books from Katie’s shelves. There was a second cardboard carton on the floor, which appeared to be full of jigsaws, with Katie’s old teddy bear, Huey, sitting on top. Katie never slept anywhere without Huey.

‘I’m packing up Katie’s things.’ He placed the last handful of books into the box on the bed and set about closing it, overlapping the four flaps one over another.

‘I can see that. Why are you doing it?’ She was still gripping the doorknob. She felt sick and lightheaded. This is how it must be, she thought, when women walk in on their husbands doing something indecent – shagging the babysitter, perhaps.

Bruce took a deep breath. ‘I’m taking all the children’s things, Wendy. They won’t be living here anymore.’ He had closed the box on the bed and now set about doing the same for the one on the floor. He had to lie Huey flat to do so. Then he lifted one box on to the other and advanced towards the door.

She automatically stood back to let him pass, staring stupidly. As he reached the head of the stairs she regained the powers of speech and movement, pursuing him as a gibberish of questions tumbled out. Where was he taking the children’s things? What on earth was he talking about? What was he thinking?

He half turned his head as he reached the lower landing. ‘I’ll talk to you when I’ve finished loading the car.’

It was the calmness, the sheer ordinariness of his tone that frightened her most. He had gone mad. Bruce had gone completely mad. She raced back into Katie’s room, all but falling over a cushion which had somehow become dislodged from the little wicker chair which stood beside the toy cupboard. The bookshelves, the top of the wardrobe and the dressing table were all bare. She began to career wildly from cupboards to drawers, flinging them open to reveal bare interiors. Katie’s possessions had been stripped from the room. Emitting high-pitched whimpers of distress, she hurtled into Jamie’s room, trembling at the same scene of desolation. Even his Superman duvet cover was gone. Tidy to the last, Bruce had left the duvet folded neatly across the bottom of the bed. Sobs forced themselves up her throat. Back on the landing, her knees buckled and she had to grab the balustrade for support, before making it down to the hall, where she met Bruce heading for the open front door, carrying Jamie’s personal mug which he had just collected from the kitchen. Evidently nothing was to be forgotten.

‘Explain,’ she demanded.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ He gestured towards the sitting room and she obeyed, sinking into her usual chair, keeping her eyes fixed on him, much as one would a dangerous escaped lunatic with whom one has been unexpectedly placed in close proximity.

He remained standing. ‘Our marriage is over. I’m sure you realized that some time ago.’ She attempted to speak, but he continued in the same dispassionate tone. ‘I know you are very good at pretending, but you know perfectly well … I live in Leicestershire now and the children are coming down there to live with me.’

‘They’re at the party,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you—’

‘They’re not at the party. Frances has already collected them. They’ll be well down the A19 by now.’

‘What? What are you talking about? Frances who?’

‘You know very well who Frances is. Frances is the woman I should have married. It’s fate really. I bumped into her by sheer chance on my very first night home and she told me that she’d separated from her husband. I think we both realized straight away that we’d made a terrible mistake, marrying other