The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel

by Schaffner Anna

  We exchanged a few pleasantries and Timothy offered drinks. Rose asked for gin. Timothy poured himself a glass of sherry. I opted for water. When we were all seated I pulled out my digital recorder. This changed the atmosphere; I could feel the two of them stiffening. I talked a little about the book project, how I was planning to put things together, and offered them the right to review and edit their interview transcript until they were fully happy with the result. Rose finished her drink while I was talking and got up to pour herself another one. She got up numerous times to refill her glass during our two-hour interview.

  Two days after our meeting on 7 September, I received a handwritten note from them, in which the couple apologized for their behaviour during our session. Things did get a little out of hand, but I don’t blame them for it. I think none of us can even begin to imagine the psychological impact of knowing that one’s own child has committed an atrocity. How that must feel; where one would go from there; the energy it must take to continue to perform the simplest of routines and not to fall to pieces. But unlike their son, Rose and Timothy refused to change, delete or censor anything. Instead, they told me to do with the interview what I deemed best for the project, and I include our conversation unaltered, occasionally complemented by my observations at the time. The direct exchanges between Timothy and Rose show most poignantly the corrosive effect the tragic events have had on their relationship.

  IX

  ‘Thank you again for agreeing to speak to me about your daughter,’ I began. ‘I know how painful this must be for you. I wonder whether you could start by telling me what your feelings are about the bombing?’

  Rose stared into her glass. When Timothy, who had waited for his wife to reply first, realized that she didn’t have any intention of speaking, he responded: ‘Obviously, we’re enormously shocked and saddened by Julia’s actions. Our hearts go out to her victims. Rose and I have founded a charity to support the families of the bereaved and the wounded. We’re trying to raise funds to help pay for their healthcare and psychological support. We just have to do something, no matter how small. It isn’t much, it’s just money, I know that, and it won’t have the power to heal any of the victims’ families’ wounds, but we can’t just sit back and do nothing – isn’t that right, Rose? Darling?’

  Rose didn’t speak. Her eyes remained lowered and her body oddly stiff.

  ‘Rose spends one day a week fundraising at the moment,’ Timothy continued. ‘She’s reduced her hours at the hospital to make time for that. We sent cards to all of the victims’ families. After all, it was our child who caused them all that pain. We feel responsible. I mean, how couldn’t we? We can’t just go on with our lives now as though nothing has happened. There must be some way to help and to make amends. Even if it’s just by providing financial support. What else can we do?’

  They both remained silent after this. Their sadness was almost palpable – it surrounded us like heavy fog.

  ‘Can you tell me why you think Julia did what she did?’ I asked them next.

  Again it was Timothy who spoke. This time, he didn’t meet my eyes but instead stared at the discoloured spot on the wall. ‘I honestly don’t know, Clare. I just can’t understand at all what could have led her to commit this atrocious act. I simply can’t comprehend it. It still won’t sink in. I know that the attack really happened and that twenty-four people died as a result, but some part of me just can’t accept it yet. I keep thinking that there must be a mistake, that Julia didn’t do it, that there’s some complicated mix-up that will be resolved soon... ’

  He paused and then continued. ‘Killing people is not something I can reconcile with the Julia I know and have always loved and admired and cared for so very much. Not at all. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit. Even as a young child Julia already had a finely developed social conscience, an astute sense of justice and a highly sophisticated conception of what does and doesn’t constitute ethically acceptable behaviour. Julia was so talented. So beautiful. So special. So very different from Jonathan and Amy. She and I always talked so much, about all kinds of things, even in the past few years, when things had become more difficult between us. You know, I always felt that I was learning things from her, not the other way round. She had such a unique, perceptive vision of things. Rose, darling, don’t you agree?’

  Rose continued to ignore Timothy’s attempts to draw her into the conversation. For most of the interview, she sat still and upright at the edge of her chair, and only ever moved to raise her glass to her lips and to refill it.

  ‘Julia was always such a good person – the way she cared for Amy, the way she always fought for the causes of those less fortunate than us, the way she championed the plight of the disadvantaged... ’ Timothy continued. ‘You know, we’re talking about someone who cared for her little sister like a mother. She took Amy everywhere she went; the two were completely inseparable. Julia was so mature and selfless about everything concerning Amy. It made me so proud to have raised someone like that. We’re also talking about a person who spent most of her teenage years doing voluntary work in a rough and run-down homeless shelter. We’re talking about a person who went to India for an entire year, once again to help the poor. I just can’t understand what could have changed her so completely. It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Can you think of any specific events or experiences that might have led her to change?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, possibly, I don’t know... Obviously we’ve thought about this question, over and over and over again, haven’t we, Rose? Darling? Perhaps all the responsibility she took for Amy at such a young age was simply too much. Perhaps we should have intervened, insisted that she act more selfishly at that age, enjoy her carefree years more fully. I don’t know. We were always very close, Julia and I, but she did seem different, more distant, when she decided to drop out of Edinburgh and during and after her travels. I felt that I’d lost touch with her and that she didn’t really share things with me anymore. Not the way she used to, in any case. It was a real shock for us that Julia should have decided against an academic career. You know, she was predestined for it. But she gave it all up, more or less overnight… I never quite understood why. She didn’t bother explaining.

  ‘When she came back from her travels I still saw her fairly regularly. I really tried not to lose touch completely. I felt she was slipping away from me. We’d meet in town after work at least once or twice a month, and we’d have dinner, just the two of us. But our discussions had become more abstract, more political, less personal, somehow. She didn’t really tell me much about her private life. In the last two years or so, we always ended up debating ideas. Or rather, she did. I mainly listened.’

  Timothy paused, stared at the wall, and then continued. ‘I believe she encountered some bad people on those travels. Or even before then, in Edinburgh. Radicals, disaffected types. She did seem so different after her return... Yes, I suppose we can say that with some certainty. We didn’t care much for the friends she made when she got back to London, did we, Rose? Darling?’

  His tone had become pleading, but Rose continued to sit silent and motionless on the edge of her chair.

  ‘They seemed so coarse, so unkempt in a pathetic teenage-rebellion kind of way, and, if you don’t mind me saying so, so stupid. I just couldn’t understand how someone with Julia’s intellectual abilities could tolerate, let alone seriously believe in all the utterly unoriginal and simplistic anti-globalization guff they were spouting. You know, she was a much more refined and complex thinker than the people she socialized with. That she, with all her talents, with all her idealism, had chosen to work in a run-down vegetable shop populated by resentful, dirty types with dreadlocks and piercings and no sense of humour whatsoever... ’

  Here I interrupted Timothy. ‘What vegetable shop?’ I didn’t know anything about a vegetable shop.

  ‘Well, when Julia came back from South America she lived on her own for a while, i
n a small flat in Camden that we paid for. But then, about a year or so later, we cut her allowance. We didn’t do that lightly, I can assure you. But you know, she simply wasn’t doing anything. She just seemed to be frittering away her time and talents, and went to all these demonstrations and occupations and gatherings... She wasn’t working and she wasn’t studying. It went on for far too long. We felt that funding this phase any longer than we already had was counterproductive. We felt it would just allow her to continue to drift. So we cut her allowance. She obviously didn’t like that. But then she started to work in a dismal little organic vegetable shop. And she moved in with one of her colleagues – I can’t remember her name, a pale, morose girl.’

  I asked him for the address of the vegetable shop, which he still knew by heart.

  ‘Mind you, they won’t be very welcoming there,’ he warned me. ‘They don’t have much time for people like you and me. They think we’re the enemy. When we found out that Julia had a job, we went to see her at the shop a few times. Obviously we wanted to support her in any way we could. Although we didn’t like the kind of job she’d chosen, at least she had chosen to do something… We even made an effort to buy our vegetables there for a while, although it was at the other end of town. But we were so clearly unwelcome in that place that we soon stopped trying.’

  And then Timothy, whose voice had been sad but calm until that point, became agitated.

  ‘Do you want to know, Clare, what I really think? I think someone must have corrupted Julia, someone must have incited her, someone must have turned her into this… monstrous thing she’s become. She must have met some terrible characters on her travels and then fallen in with the wrong crowd when she came back. I’m convinced someone made her do it. She wouldn’t ever kill anyone. Not Julia. There must have been others, radicals, terrorists, fanatics, lunatics… She can’t have planned and executed that pointless carnage all on her own. It’s impossible. My beloved child building a bomb and setting it off in the full knowledge that it would kill all those innocent people? People who were doing nothing other than drinking coffee? No, it’s simply not possible.’

  Timothy had risen from his seat and begun to pace up and down.

  ‘How anyone could have convinced her to do that I don’t know. I just don’t know. We’ve both done our very best to teach our children the difference between right and wrong. We thought Julia, of all of them, had the strongest defences, the strongest ethical convictions and values. I can’t even begin to imagine how someone could have turned her into a killer. She can’t have been well. Perhaps she had some mental problems we didn’t know about. God, I so wish she’d let us see her. It’s hell not to be able to see her, not to be able to help her! It’s hell, Clare! She needs help. She needs our help badly.’

  And when he addressed Rose once again, there was a desperate fierceness in his plea. ‘Rose, say something. Please. I can’t do this on my own. Can you just say something? Please, darling!’

  But Rose just sat there, her gaze sliding across the room unable to fix on anything, as though all surfaces had become slippery. Timothy took Rose’s lifeless hand and pressed it. He looked utterly despondent for a moment. Then he got up and filled her empty glass. Having sat down again, he turned back to me.

  ‘Rose isn’t well. She isn’t coping with the situation. Forgive her,’ he said.

  Shaken out of her stupor by the remark, Rose burst out: ‘Of course I’m not well. Of course I’m not coping. How could I? How could anyone? We’ve raised a mass murderer. Julia killed twenty-four people! Obviously, we must have done something wrong.’

  Then she started sobbing. It was a dry, hard and fast kind of sobbing, unaccompanied by tears. It lasted for about a minute. I didn’t know where to look. It was painful to witness. When she spoke again she addressed Timothy.

  ‘Just yesterday I dreamed that dream again. I’m in front of a tribunal, hundreds of men and women in white who are standing on a platform, and everyone is staring down at me, full of contempt. I feel like vermin. Then a small woman with round glasses reads out a list of my crimes and the verdict – I’ve breached the Hippocratic oath by raising a monster. My licence to practise medicine is revoked, and I’m chased away by angry shouting and hissing and seek shelter in the nearby woods.

  ‘I mean, the bitter irony of it all. I’ve dedicated my life to saving and protecting the lives of others, but have brought up someone who took twenty-four lives without even blinking an eye. I’ll never forgive her. Never! She destroyed us. Everything we’ve lived and worked for: our lives, our family – all is in tatters. All is lost. And you… Of course I’m not well!’

  Timothy looked pained. ‘Don’t say that, Rose, darling, don’t go there, please. We’ve been through this so many times... It’s not your fault. It’s not our fault. Don’t you remember what our counsellor said? We’ve loved and supported each one of our children to the very best of our abilities. That’s all parents can do, and we did our job as well as anyone else I know. In fact, I’d even say better. You’re a fantastic mother, you always have been. Our children lacked nothing. They’ve had the most loving and privileged upbringing anyone can dream of.’

  Rose laughed. ‘Violence doesn’t come from nowhere, Tim – you know that just as well as I do. People from happy homes don’t turn into killers. They just don’t. We must have done something wrong. All of us. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen to normal families. But what? What on earth can we have done to have caused this?’

  She got up and poured herself another drink. Nobody said anything for a while. Then I asked: ‘You must have thought a lot about this question. Do you think there might be something – anything at all, even if it is tiny and might seem unimportant – that could have adversely affected Julia’s development?’

  Timothy and Rose looked at each other. He very gently shook his head. Then he stared again at the discoloured patch on the wall, and responded: ‘Well, there’s one episode that I keep mulling over in my mind, over and over and over again, actually. I just can’t help it. It’s a bit like that dream you keep having, Rose. Forgive me for talking about this to a stranger, darling, but… I feel I need to share it. It was many, many years ago. Julia was six. She’d started school the previous year, and she was taking violin lessons at that time. Rose is very musical, aren’t you, darling? She has the most beautiful singing voice, ethereal, light and airy, and yet incredibly powerful… We used to sing a lot when we were younger. Anyway, Rose always believed that learning an instrument was important for the development of children. Jonathan learned the piano, but he was rather hopeless at it. He really doesn’t have one musical bone in his body. He gave up after just two years.

  ‘Julia, however, had her heart set on learning the violin – she’d seen a beautiful woman in a long, black dress perform Bach’s violin sonatas in our local church one evening when she was four or five, and this image had made a lasting impression on her. When we thought she was old enough, I made some inquiries, and a friend of ours recommended a Ukrainian concert violinist who was teaching other pupils at Julia’s age. She was called Alina Abramovich. She, too, was beautiful, a bit like the woman Julia had seen perform in church – I hope you won’t mind me saying that, Rose.

  ‘Alina came to our house every Tuesday evening before supper, and she and Julia practised together in our living room. Julia was a very gifted student and made rapid progress – I believe had she set her heart on it she could easily have become a professional musician. You know, she had such talent, such drive; she excelled at everything she did. I always tried to get back from work early on those days, so that I could stand in the door and listen to the two of them. It gave me such pleasure. Their duets made my heart sing. Alina did of course notice my enchantment, and we started to talk after her lessons, about Julia’s progress and music at first. We were both ardent admirers of Bach and of Beethoven’s late quartets. Then we started talking about other things. It soon became a habit that she and I would have a glass of wine aft
er the violin lessons. Rose was working very hard at that time, and often returned late from work, just in time for a late supper. A few times Alina stayed to eat with the entire family.

  ‘One evening – I still don’t know what possessed us – Alina and I drank more than usual. You were late that day, Rose, very late. Too late... If only you’d arrived earlier. Alina became drunk and sentimental, and she talked about the friends and family she had to leave behind in the Ukraine when she came to the UK to pursue her career. She remembered her parents and how frail they’d looked when she last saw them, and she suddenly started to cry. I took her hand, just to comfort her. But she misunderstood the gesture. She pressed my hand firmly and then she leaned forward to kiss me. She kissed me on the lips and put her hands around my head and interlocked her fingers so that I couldn’t withdraw as quickly as I’d have liked to. I was terribly surprised. Perhaps I hesitated just a moment too long before I gently began to loosen her hands and pulled away from her mouth.

  ‘“No, Alina, no,” I said. “Don’t, please.”

  ‘But at that moment, I noticed Julia. She was standing in the kitchen doorway and looking at us. I still remember everything so vividly… Julia was wearing a blue cotton dress with a small white collar, white tights and ballerina shoes, and her hair was braided in two pigtails. All colour had drained from her face, and before I could get up and catch hold of her and explain the situation she ran away and locked herself in the upstairs bathroom. I knocked on the bathroom door for at least forty minutes. I used all my skills to persuade her to open up and to let me explain, but she was as stubborn as a mule. I could hear her crying hysterically behind the door, and got increasingly worried. It was only when I started to try to force open the lock that she finally let me in.