The Skeleton Tree

reached the gate herself, three lots of viewers had entered ahead of her. She arrived simultaneously with a couple who’d approached from the opposite direction. The woman was slim and pretty, huddled in a coat with a fake fur collar. Her companion was an older man in a heavy, dark overcoat. He held the gate open for both women, but once they were on the drive Wendy paused politely, allowing them to go ahead of her; she wanted to savour the moment.
Now that she was finally standing on the drive, she could see things she had never noticed before. There was a holly bush planted next to the path which ran between the drive and the front door. No need to buy holly at the greengrocers each Christmas, she thought, and there were some laurels – badly in need of attention – at the further side of the garden. More Christmas evergreens.
The front door was wide open, allowing all-comers to walk straight into the narrow, panelled hall, which was dark after the brightness of the winter afternoon. The man who’d entered ahead of her flicked a light switch up and down a couple of times, but the electricity had evidently been disconnected. Wendy was forced to pause and allow her eyes to adjust, while she tasted the stale air and listened to the sounds of other people’s footsteps and voices as they echoed against the uncarpeted floors and bounced off the high ceilings. Along with these tastes and sounds came the unmistakable smells of damp and neglect, but finally, most strongly of all, came the strange and overwhelming sensation that the house wanted her.
‘It wants to be loved.’
Oh, for goodness’ sake, had she spoken out loud? Fortunately, everyone else had already moved on from the hall and her own entrance seemed to mark a lull in arrivals.
Three or four steps took her to the point where the panelling ended and the hall broadened out to double its initial width, with doors opening to the right and left, a staircase ascending immediately ahead of her, and to the right of the staircase a passage continued towards the rear of the house. As she hesitated, deciding where to begin, she noticed that the open door to her right had a paler patch of wallpaper alongside it, suggesting the ghost of a low, narrow doorway, suitable for a slender child. It was the outline of a clock. Wendy pictured it standing there, marking the minutes, hours, days, years. She smiled, satisfied by her powers of observation. It was like finding a clue.
She chose the doorway on her left, noticing as she entered the room and walked across the bare floorboards that her feet seemed to be making less noise than anyone else’s, as if hers was not such a great intrusion. The room was empty. The wallpaper had faded to an indistinct pattern of yellows and browns and someone had pulled off a strip, revealing that the back of the paper was grey with mould. The plaster behind it had crumbled to expose the brickwork. Aged wiring hung from a central point in the ceiling, where a light fitting should have been, and the fireplace was filled with crumpled newspapers and lumps of dirt. In spite of this, she could see that the room had once been beautiful. It felt light and spacious, and around the perimeter of the ceiling there was a plaster border of intertwined leaves and flowers. Her reverie was interrupted by a trio of viewers who entered the room, talking loudly.
‘It’s difficult to say,’ said one of the women.
They walked past Wendy as if she was not there. It’s as if I’m part of it, she thought. As if I belong here and they don’t.
She left the newcomers without acknowledgement and crossed the hall to look inside the other front room. This was a slightly larger room than the first and in a marginally better state. It was still possible to discern a pattern of roses on the wallpaper. Wendy remembered that this was the room from which she had sometimes seen a light shining: the room which had still been in use, when the rest of the house had perhaps been all but abandoned. There was nothing left to provide clues of its former occupant now, except that a fire was laid in the grate. A little layer of coal, a few pieces of kindling, neatly placed, only waiting for a match. Someone had laid the fire, expecting to light it, but fate had intervened. It was like the previous owner leaving a small gift for the new occupants. Welcome to your new home …
It was very easy to mentally kindle that fire, furnish the room with comfy chairs and a fireside rug, see the younger kids lying around in their pyjamas, staying up to watch Saturday night telly, their older sister, Tara, affecting teenage sophistication but enjoying The Generation Game as much as anyone, and herself with Bruce’s arm draped around her shoulders as they sat, side by side, on the sofa. Just visualising it all took the winter chill from the room.
Returning to the hall, she noticed that the passage leading to the back of the house had a slate floor. It was illuminated by a window at its furthest end, but the daylight was being obstructed by a plump woman who was standing in front of the window, addressing an unseen third party. ‘You’re surely not going down there, are you, Jack?’
Jack was evidently standing out of sight, where the passage made a right angle turn to run along the back of the house. ‘I certainly am.’
‘There’ll be nothing to see down there.’ Even as she protested, the woman sounded resigned. Wendy didn’t catch the unseen Jack’s reply.
‘Honest to God.’ The woman turned her attention to Wendy. ‘Men. They’re nowt but little kids, the lot of them.’ She adopted an expression of shared conspiracy. ‘Fancy going down the cellar!’
Wendy smiled, uncertain how to respond.
‘It’s in