by Peter Straub
Julia woke with a start several hours later: she had been dreaming, and the dream eluded her from the second of her waking. She could hear noises from below; at the same moment she was aware of the noises, she became conscious of the heat in her bedroom. The window remained open, but the bedroom had not cooled since Julia had left for the restaurant. Her entire body was perspiring; this connected in some way to her dream, which had been frightful. She went taut with attention, listening, but heard nothing more. But there had been noises. She had not imagined them—rustling, soft, hushed noises, as of some person moving about in the dark. Her first thought was Kate’s up, but this was only a half-conscious formulation on the surface of her mind when she thrust it away, aware that Kate had been in her dream, somehow threatened. Spurred by the image of Kate in peril, Julia sat up in bed, listening. She could hear no further noises. She rose from her bed and moved to the doorway. Standing halfway out into the hall, she loudly said, “I’m going to telephone the police. Did you hear me, Magnus? I’m telephoning the police.”
Not knowing if she were to be attacked in the next instant, she hung in her doorway, listening with her entire soul. Sweat ran in a distinct line down her back to her buttocks. The hall seemed a shade cooler than her bedroom, less concentrated and dense. Julia remained poised in the doorway a long moment, hearing nothing, her mind empty of all but physical sensations. She began to count silently to one hundred, forcing herself to pause between numbers; when she reached one hundred, she went on to two hundred. Still she heard nothing. She must have been mistaken; yet she was too frightened to go downstairs to check. In the end, she went back inside the bedroom and locked the door. Then she thrust up the window and let the cooler night air pour over her. In her garden, in the visible areas of the park, all was still Eventually she returned to her bed and lay down on the damp mattress.
The next morning, while Julia was writing a provisional shopping list on the back of her checkbook, the only paper she could find in her bag apart from a few wrinkled tissues, the telephone shrilled in the living room. Her first thought was that Markham and Reeves were ringing with some question about the house; but realizing that Markham and Reeves were likely to ignore her until she annoyed them with yet another request, Julia thought that Lily must be telephoning her. She put down her checkbook and went from the kitchen into the living room. Light streamed slantwise through the big south windows and the front of the house. The terrors of the previous night had seemed unreal and slightly hysterical to her, waking uncovered in the sunny house and moving through it during the morning, deciding what she needed to buy—food, dishes, glasses, pots and pans, sheets, towels, blankets, eating utensils. For the time being, bottled water. Books and whiskey.
“Hello?” she said, looking at the windows across the street. A man down the block washed his car, sluicing water across its top. Who were these people, who were her neighbors?
In the next instant all the optimism was battered out of her by the sound of Magnus’ voice. “Julia, I expect you know who this is. I want you to leave that building and come back to Gayton Road. That’s where we live. I’ve been on to the estate agents, and I made it clear to them that no contract you could sign would be considered binding, so we might just emerge from this ludicrous deal of yours with only a small loss. At the moment, Julia, I consider you ‘ incompetent to handle your own affairs, and certainly incompetent to make decisions about our future. In the meantime I want you here where you belong. You must leave that house. It is unthinkable—”
She hung up.
When the telephone rang again, she plucked the receiver from the hook and held it away from her ear. Magnus’ voice went harshly on, but she could distinguish only isolated words. Irresponsible…featherbrained…Kate…marriage …
“I don’t consider myself married to you any longer,” she said into the receiver. “You frighten me. You’re a bully. I can’t think of you without seeing Kate. So I can’t look at you, live with you, be married to you. Please leave me alone, please. Stay * away, Magnus.”
“Like hell I will,” she heard him say. “You’re disturbed—when you face up to certain things—”
She shouted, “If I catch you hanging around my house, in the garden or anywhere else, I call the police.” Then she snapped the receiver down.
She stood over the telephone, waiting for him to ring again, threatening, bullying, lying to her. When a minute passed without his making a third call, she thought: he ripped the phone out of the wall.
Yet, a few seconds later, he did ring again.
“Julia, Magnus. Don’t ring off. I was so angry I couldn’t telephone back immediately. Julia, I want you here. I want you with me. I fear for you. You’re in danger down there, alone.”
Julia felt herself stiffen. “Why am I in danger, Magnus?”
“Because you’re alone. Because you need help.”
“On the contrary, Magnus,” she said. “I feel safe for the first time in two months. Lily promised me she wouldn’t call you, and now that she has, the only danger I can imagine is from you. Maybe I’ll move again. I know you were here last night. You were watching me. When we have something to talk about, I’ll invite you to my house. Until then, stay away. Or you will be in embarrassing trouble.”
She could visualize her response to this: his hands tightening into fists, his face reddening, his mouth compressing.
“Damn you,” he said. Tb Julia, it was as though the weight of their ten years together was behind his curse. She made no reply; a second later, Magnus hung up. Now she felt as though in battle with Magnus—perhaps the chiefest effect of eleven years of marriage was that threats and curses were no longer suppressed by politeness. They knew each other too well for politeness.
Twenty minutes later when for the first time she heard the sound of her doorbell, Julia started violently, spilling the contents of her bag. It was just long enough since her telephone call for Magnus to have driven down from Hampstead, intent on forcing her back to the house—or back to the hospital. There was no question that Magnus was capable of clapping her back in a hospital bed, muddled by drugs: in the meantime he could find some legal maneuver that would make her his prisoner. This was a new thought, and Julia, stuffing things back into her bag, resolved that she would fight him physically, violently, rather than submit to being dragged away.
She crept behind a large brown chair and peered around the drapes to the front steps. She could see only a squat, foreshortened shadow. Then the person took a backward step and came into view. It was Mark Berkeley. Julia jumped up from behind the chair and hurried to the door. She threw it open just as Mark, still walking backward and looking up at the house, had reached the steps to the pavement.
“Mark, you darling,” she said. “What a wonderful surprise. I thought you were Magnus. Please come in.
Mark stood in the sunlight grinning at her. He really was incredibly handsome. His denim shirt and trousers were so faded they might have been the same ones he had been wearing when she first met him.
“Do you mind my knowing your secret?” he said. “Lily rang me yesterday evening. She’s full of admiration for you, and I must say I am too. What a beautiful house. It’s perfect.”
“Lily has a terribly big mouth, but in your case, I don’t mind.” Julia held the door as Mark came into the hall beside her. For a moment she had a strong impression that he was about to embrace her, and she moved fractionally away from him. Mark put one warm hand on her back.
“She called Magnus too? So he knows where you are?” Julia nodded.
“He rang me up two nights ago, in an utter rage. He accused me of hiding you from him.”
“Damn him.” Julia was shocked, and then considered that such a suspicion was characteristic of Magnus. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mark. I don’t want you to be bothered by him. Well, come on in and sit down. Can I get you anything? Actually, I can’t. I don’t have a thing in the house and I was just about to go shopping. Oh, I’m so happy to see you, you’re j
ust like fresh air.”
“Why do you keep this house at nursery temperature? It’s warmer in here than outside.” Mark flopped onto the couch. “Julia, you know you needn’t be apologetic about Magnus with me—I’ve known him even longer than you have. In fact, I was never quite sure why you stayed with him all those years. I suppose I can say that now.”
“You can say anything you like,” said Julia, though she did not actually wish it, and disliked his remark. Almost against her will, she added, “We did have Kate,” and then thought that her marriage really was over if she could make such a statement. Seeing handsome, banished Mark at rest in her home, his scuffed boots crossed on her carpet, Julia felt alarmingly free of Magnus. She said, “I can’t bear to think of him right now, Mark. I’m still frightened of him. But I’m getting stronger. You do think I did the right thing?”
“Julia released from bondage,” Mark said, laughing. “Of course you did the right thing. I’m just worried that he won’t let you be. Do you think he won’t bother you?”
“I don’t know,” Julia admitted. “I think he might have been sneaking around the house last night. It was just an impression, something I saw out in the garden, a figure. In fact, he as much as admitted it this morning on the telephone. He scared me out of my wits.” Mark was regarding her very seriously, which gave Julia’s narrative some impetus: she would have hated Mark’s easy dismissal of her fears.
“But that’s terrible,” he said. “That’s just what I was afraid of. You have to keep him away, to be frank, I wouldn’t trust anything he says. It would be just like Magnus to try to frighten you into returning to him.”
“Oh, let’s not talk about Magnus,” Julia pleaded. “I want to show you my house. Do you really like it? I bought it in such a rush that I’m not sure myself. I’ve never done anything like this by myself before.”
“It’s perfect for you,” he said. “But where did you get all this astounding furniture?”
“It belonged to the people who used to live here,” she said. “I like it. I don’t want to have to think about furniture.”
“Then you’re all right,” he said, smiling.
Julia led him through the house, taking him into each room in turn until they came finally to her bedroom.
“But it’s roasting in here,” Mark said. “Even with the windows open. You must have the heaters on. Where are they?”
“No, I switched them off yesterday,” Julia said, . going across the green carpet to the big gray block of the heater. She looked at the wall outlet and saw that the switch was in the down position. “That’s funny, I thought…” She paused. “Maybe I switched in on. No, I couldn’t have, because it was so hot when I moved in. I must have been mistaken in some way.” She bent down and flipped up the switch. “Up is off, isn’t it? On these switches.”
“Usually,” Mark said. He went across the room and lightly touched the top of the heater. “Well, that’s on, anyhow. It’s turned up all the way. Maybe you have a poltergeist.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Julia said. “That’s nice. You just smile when I say something drippy and girlish like that. Magnus would look disgusted.”
“Magnus has Standards.”
“And a powerful soul.”
“Hah! Do you forgive her for letting me know your secret?”
“For telling you, but not for telling Magnus. He gave me a wretched night.”
“Let me go shopping with you, and I’ll help you put Magnus right out of your mind.”
“You’re a dear. I’ll need lots of help carrying heavy things.”
“Consider my back yours.” These words, coming from Mark, had an almost explicit sexual overtone; Julia took his arm as answer. No one as irresponsible as Mark could ever be threatening.
“If you help me, maybe I’ll return the favor by helping you clear up that legendary mess of yours in Notting Hill.”
“Agreed,” Mark said.
3
Even later, Julia could look back on that afternoon of shopping with nostalgic, regretful pleasure. It had been as though she really were free of all ties, unattached, spendthrift and carefree—the girl she might have become ten years ago if she had not been mesmerized by Magnus Lofting. She and Mark had taken the Rover first to Oxford Street, where Julia bought towels and sheets and some kitchen things she needed, and then to Harrod’s. Mark had insisted on buying her an odd little green bracelet, not expensive by Harrod’s standards. Finally they had gone to Fortnum and Mason’s, where Julia spent a ridiculously happy, ridiculously costly hour buying exotic groceries. Julia several times caught other shoppers looking at her queerly and realized she was making a lot of noise but for once did not feel embarrassed or rebuked; Mark, for his part, seemed delighted by her effusiveness. His enjoyment of her high spirits fed them: Julia felt nearly intoxicated with pleasure, uncomplicated and cloudless. She and Mark had tea at Fortnum’s; then they abandoned the laden Rover in a parking garage and went to a pub; in the evening he took her to a small restaurant in Notting Hill. Magnus had never entered a pub in all his adult life—Magnus would have fled The Ark (providing that he could have been coaxed into any restaurant in Notting Hill) at first sight of the menu which was chalked on boards hung on the walls. After dinner, now in a second pub, Mark rather shyly invited Julia to his flat: “Room, actually. You’ve never been there.”
“Some other time, dear Mark. I have all, those things to put away. And I’ve had too much liquor to trust myself in your room.”
That night her dreams were lurid. She was walking slowly, ploddingly, through Holland Park—a Holland Park full of statues and bronze monuments. She was alone; Magnus had vanished somewhere, and Julia knew that he was seeing another woman. Kate gamboled up ahead, her head bobbing, her white dress winking in the gray-green light. Julia tried to walk faster, in order to protect Kate, but each step took enormous effort, as though she was walking through a bog. Then, looking ahead, she saw that Kate had a companion, the blond girl she had seen on her first day in the park. The two girls danced ahead of her, unheeding. Their identical heads, each white gold, flew through the dense air. Far ahead of Julia, on a long hill, they sat down. Julia tried to run, but her legs were as if paralyzed. The second girl was speaking rapidly to Kate, uttering some vile business—Kate sat enthralled. When Julia came nearer, the girls turned their faces toward her, their identical eyes glowing. “Go away, Mother,” Kate said.
Then she was carrying Kate’s body through a city, The blond girl, as before, danced ahead of her, leading. Julia followed after, crossing busy streets in bright sunshine, until they had left the crowded downtown part of the city and were in a sinister, dilapidated area: grimy, sunless courts and filthy brick buildings with boarded windows. A hunchbacked man scuttled past, grinning at her. The blond girl entered one of the buildings through an open arch. Julia, frightened, forced herself to follow. She found herself somehow on a rooftop, stared, at by shabbily dressed, lounging men. Her arms were in great pain and Kate had got very heavy. The blond girl had vanished through another arch. Julia understood that she would have to stand on the rooftop, holding her daughter’s corpse and gazed at by the shabby men—she would have to stand there for hours. The entire scene had a despairing, criminal atmosphere of moral failure; Julia wanted to leave, but she could not.
She awakened in the hot room. The despairing flavor of the dream still clung to her. Julia missed Kate terribly: at the moment, as she stared up into blackness, her life seemed empty of anything but loss and uncertainty. With a tiny shock of disapproval, she realized that she wanted Mark’s company, not sexually, but for the fact of his sleeping near, his chest rising and falling. She turned over on her other side and buried her head deep into her pillow, which still smelted of the shop; the single blanket she had put on the bed had been kicked off during her sleep. She closed her eyes, trying to overcome the mood of the dream. Then she heard the noise which had awakened her the night before. It was a soft, rustling, rushing noise, coming from the hall or t
he stairway. Julia tightened, then relaxed. It must have been a breeze on the drapes in the hall.
A crash from downstairs made her sit bolt upright in bed—she immediately thought that Magnus had broken in” and was now storming about, breaking things. At first she felt her familiar fear of him, but as she listened, her fear hardened into anger: she would not have Magnus in this house. She lifted her wrist near to her face and squinted at her watch. It was past two in the morning. If Magnus were out at this hour, he was probably drunk. In the past years, he had begun to drink more heavily and often came home to Gayton Road smolderingly intoxicated, incensed by something that had happened in the night. She slid from bed, pulled a nightdress over her head, and then wrapped herself in her bathrobe. When she opened the door to the hall she listened intently, cautiously, but heard nothing.
Julia left her bedroom and crept into the hall, moving as quietly as possible. When she reached the head of the stairs, she heard the rustling noise again, and her heart nearly stopped. She flailed out with her right hand and banged the switch for the stairway light. No one was there. She could see the edge of the drapes over the downstairs hall window; they hung straight and still. The rustling noise had suggested rapid movement, a two-legged presence; yet it was a feminine noise, and it was impossible to imagine Magnus producing it. Julia went quietly and slowly down the stairs and paused in the hall. She heard nothing from any of the rooms. Still using the light emanating from the staircase, she pushed open the door to the living room. Moonlight lay over the couch and carpet, silvery and weightless. The yellow cover of Lily’s book shone from the floor. “Magnus,” she enunciated, taking a step into the room. “Magnus.” There was no answer. Julia became aware that her eyes hurt; her flanks, too, throbbed where she had abraded them the previous night. “Say something, Magnus,” she said. It would be very unlike Magnus to crouch silently in a dark room. Much more in his style would be to seize her, shouting.
