Julia

by Peter Straub

  “But you do want him for yourself, don’t you? And Mark.”

  “Julia, this does us no good. That is terribly unfair. Please listen, Julia. Kate has no reason to hate you, nothing you did was meant to injure her. You were brave.”

  “Magnus killed Kate. Magnus hates me for leaving him, and now Kate hates me. Mrs. Fludd saw them.”

  “Julia, why don’t you come over here so we can talk about that day? Please come over. That’s at the bottom of everything…”

  “What do you mean by that? What are you trying to get me to say?”

  “Nothing, Julia, nothing. I just thought that talking about it would do you good—if not to Magnus then at least to me—but if you’re not ready yet, that’s fine. I still think you should come over and stay with me for a few days so…”

  Julia had a sudden, clear vision of a man in a white jacket jabbing a hypodermic into her arm.

  “Good-bye, Lily. Sorry.”

  She hung up, trembling so severely the receiver rattled oui of the cradle and fell to the floor. She had to get out of the house.

  Julia ran upstairs to her bedroom and threw off the filthy robe; in her bathroom, she hurriedly showered, avoiding looking at herself as much as she could avoid it, afraid that a glance into the mirrors would show a slight figure just flickering from her sight. The telephone began to ring as she was toweling herself, and Julia let the bell shrill, counting the number of rings. After twenty, it stopped. She continued dressing, deliberately not thinking of what Lily had said to her. She thought, instead, with longing of more books—of buying books—of slipping into a narrative of other people’s lives. That was release.

  It led her, as she went rapidly along Kensington High Street twenty minutes later, her damp hair adhering to her neck, to sudden, vivid memories of her girlhood: of summers at their home in New Hampshire, where it had been as warm as this every day. Her great-grandfather had bought the estate after he had retired from the board of his railroad company, having made several hundred million dollars in the boom; the soil itself, the texture of the air had seemed different there, wholly, innocently absorbed into her family’s life. For an instant, Julia ached to be back in America. She stood on Kensington High Street, between a package store and W. H. Smith’s, the sound of car horns dividing the air, and was transfixed by the particular memory of a New Hampshire valley. And beyond the valley, the endless innocent unrolling of the continent: but it was not like that any more, she knew. It was her own past for which she had ached. Yet there lay in her an undigested yearning for the visionary and fruitful continent; her childhood, it seemed to her, had been spent there. She turned into W. H. Smith’s and bought a fat paperback of Gravity’s Rainbow.

  Toting the book, Julia passed through the crowds on the High Street. It really was as hot as New Hampshire in August. She debated walking up Kensington Church Street to Notting Hill Gate, to see if Mark were home. She remembered his address, and thought she knew where the flat was; it was on one of the long curved streets, Pembridge something, intercepting Notting Hill Gate, one of the streets lined with large houses now broken up into bed-sitting-rooms and two-room flats. Mark’s was a “garden flat”: it was in the basement. She imagined a flight of steep steps down from the pavement into a dank lightless room—the vision was enough to turn her back to Holland Park, where she could lie in the sun. She did not feel ready, yet, to visit Mark’s flat. Tb go there unbidden would entail a chain of consequences of which she was a little apprehensive.

  As she walked along past the row of shops, Julia scanned the crowds for a glimpse of Magnus. He could easily be facing a window, unseen, tailing after her; certainly she had to assume that Magnus had taken to such tactics. Or, even more unsettling, perhaps he was now forcing his way into her house. But she could not rush back to inspect the house, she would never catch him there, she was sure of that. Still, Julia could not rid herself of the image of Magnus hovering behind her. In front of the long piazza of the Commonwealth Institute, she whirled around quickly, and caught a priest in the stomach with her elbow. While they each apologized, they recognized one another as Americans; the priest, a neat dark man with a witty face, looked at her oddly as they swapped pleasantries. She could only surmise that he was responding to something in her own manner or regard. What was wrong with her, that even a pleasant stranger found her peculiar? Julia brought one hand up to wipe her forehead and saw the hand tremble. Her forehead dripped sweat. “It’s nothing,” she said to the priest. “Just anxiety. I’m a normal person. I don’t usually punch men in the stomach.”

  She turned up into Holland Park. The paths were crowded, and every five feet of ground supported a new body. A pack of children ran squealing on the long sward, breaking apart into pin-wheeling clusters and then, clamoring, reforming. Boys in jeans, girls in long filmy dresses, girls in jeans, Germans strapped into cameras and expensive clothes. She skirted a party of twenty Japanese, singing to one another. A young couple directly before her exchanged a long kiss while the boy rubbed and kneaded the girl’s buttocks,” uncaring of the crowds. Julia felt a hot, direct physical pang until she saw the American priest, walking quickly up ahead without looking back. She deliberately thrust down the memory of her last night’s dream and its aftermath. Without purpose, she began to drift after the American priest. The book felt very heavy in her hand.

  The priest turned off the main path to enter the smaller walk which, Julia recalled, passed the area where peacocks and other birds strutted beneath dark trees. Julia followed, watching the black suit as if it held a meaning. The priest paused to look at the peacocks for a second and then continued walking toward the woods which circled the top half of the park. He strode along briskly, and soon was disappearing around a corner into the sparse woods. Three women pushing baby carriages, accompanied by a single man carrying an open wine bottle, crossed before Julia, and the priest was gone from sight. Then she saw Magnus.

  He was sitting on a bench, not looking at her. He looked very tired. Julia froze; she took two cautious steps backward, and then turned around, the vision of Magnus in a light-gray suit, bending forward, his face rumpled, burning into her: if he turned his head, he would see her. At first she took light quick steps, gliding up the path; when she passed around the bend, she moved more slowly until she dared to look over her shoulder. He had not followed her. Julia looked across the park—an exit lay ahead to her right, just before Plane Tree House. She would circle the park to get home. Julia trotted down the path, ignoring the stares of men she met, setting her face.

  There was no longer any question of staying in the park to read her book: she had to get home and lock the door. But just before she reached the final stage of the path to the side gate, she saw the tiny black girl who had been in the park that first day. The girl was staring up at her just as she had that day.

  “Hello, Mona,” Julia said. “Do you remember me?”

  “Poo,” said Mona, smiling open-mouthed at Julia. Her eyes shone.

  “That’s not a nice word.”

  “Poo. Shit.” Mona giggled and turned away. “Fuck you.”

  Julia stared at the tiny girl.

  “Fuck you. Shit. Fuck.”

  “What…” Julia turned and found herself looking into the face of the little blond girl. She was touching a bicycle which was leaning against the fence bordering the park, and she was looking straight into Julia’s face. No other children were near; the closest people were a man and a woman twenty yards away, asleep on the grass with their faces to the sun. About Julia and the blond girl a charged timeless vacuum seemed to exist. The child wore curiously old-fashioned denim trousers, with a high elastic waist and floppy legs. The resemblance to-Kate made Julia’s heart pulse with fear. They stood looking at each other, not speaking; Julia had nearly the sense that the girl had been waiting for her in this secluded place.

  Then the girl smiled, and her resemblance to Kate vanished. One of her front teeth had been broken in half, chipped away in a rising arc which l
eft her smile uncentered and asymmetrical.

  “Who are you?” Julia said.

  The girl’s smile tightened in a curiously adult, challenging way. Her joined hands moved, or something in them moved. When Julia looked at her hands, she saw that the girl was not actually touching the bicycle, but holding her hands near the rear wheel. It took her a moment to see what the girl held captured between her cupped palms. Only when the small brown creature quivered did Julia see that it was a bird.

  “Is that bird injured?” Julia asked.

  The child made no response, but continued to stare at Julia, smiling her adult, unbalanced smile. The whole being of the child seemed hurtled together, compacted.

  In one quick sure movement the girl thrust the bird into the wheel of the bicycle, jamming it securely between the spokes and the metal rods which held the mudguards to the wheel. The scene printed itself with utter clarity on Julia’s mind: as in the second before some foreknown disaster, time seemed as fixed as the girl’s smile. Julia stared at the bird, the instant before the girl jerked the bicycle forward—it was held between the two metal rods, not in the wheel as she had first supposed. Its body projected through the spokes.

  “Don’t …no …” she stammered.

  The girl jerked the bicycle and the bird instantly became a pulp of bloody feathers. Its head fell softly to the ground.

  Julia snapped her head up to look at the girl, who was now mounting her bicycle. She did not immediately ride away but straddled the bike, intently staring at Julia.

  Julia opened her mouth to speak, but caught sight of the bird’s head lying with open eyes beside the rear wheel, and felt her stomach irresistibly begin to draw itself upward. She turned away and vomited into the dust.

  When she had finished, the girl was no longer beside her. The bicycle was rolling away through the gate, the girl pedaling slowly ^and unconcernedly; soon she had slipped into crowds and traffic.

  Julia took a step and found that her knees shook: she forced herself to run. Heedless of Magnus, she raced directly toward her home, her mouth open, her body jouncing, her breath straining at her ribs. She flew across the green, narrowly missing the curious who parted to let her pass, and into the path which curved around past the children’s play area. By then her mouth had turned to cotton and her side felt pierced by swords.

  She came racing around the corner of Ilchester Place and stumbled to a walk. Her breath dragging in her, face pumping with blood, she went up the three steps to her walk. The house seemed impassive, unwelcoming; she wanted no more than to fall into her bed and close out the whole world in sleep. The book in her hand seemed to have tripled in weight.

  When Julia reached her front door she felt in her pocket and touched a used paper tissue, an earring with the pin broken, a loose mint, two small coins. The key, she remembered, lay at the bottom of her bag, on a counter in the kitchen. Her knees seemed to disappear altogether. Her body pitched into the springy grass. Before her eyes went shut, she saw the creamy startled face of Hazel Mullineaux staring at her through a side window of Number 23.

  The old woman sat up in her narrow bed; a long, white page of moonlight lay folded at the juncture of wall and floor. Pulling her gently from sleep, a low voice had uttered her name repeatedly, lightly, as if teasing her. It came again, this time from a greater distance, somewhere else in the house. The woman did not want to follow the voice; she clung to the sheets, resisting. But she knew that she could not resist long? The voice was cool water, long blue slices of water she needed. The weak muscles in her arms began to tremble. And she knew who it was. Her tongue dryly scraped her teeth. Her name issued teasingly from the hallway. At last her body ceased to strain. Without her guidance, the woman’s arms parted the upper sheet from her body and folded it back. Her legs swung over the edge of the bed.

  She rose on unsteady legs which knew where to take her. The voice seemed the only thing in her mind. Her feet found her low shoes and slipped within them. She moved out of the hallway and saw the open door. Just outside, luminous in yellow light, stood her visitor, calling.

  The woman moved down the hall. Knowledge lay ahead, knowledge and peace. Her hand moved to grasp the heavy tweed coat as she passed the coat hooks. Silly hand; silly coat; not needed. It was only to cover her nightdress. She pulled it across the bulge of her belly and fastened the single button.

  Teasing, gentle, the visitor waited. Seductive— extraordinarily seductive. The woman padded toward the door, then passed through it into a wide familiar space.

  The visitor moved quickly, walking backward, beckoning. White light on hair, on the beckoning backs of hands. All about the visitor was indistinct and hazy. Other voices filtered to her, but she did not turn her head.

  The teasing voice was the last thing she heard.

  Part Two

  The Search: Heather

  5

  “I almost understood everything,” Julia said. “I was lying in bed, reading that book you gave me, and when I came to the bit about Heather and Olivia Rudge, I knew that I was getting close to understanding what’s been happening to me—because I haven’t just been making it up, Lily. It was all mixed up with Kate and a little girl I saw before! fainted—I was so close, I had this amazing rush of energy and I almost called you, I had so many ideas. There’s something about the house that Mrs. Fludd saw, and it’s important because of what Magnus did to Kate. Somehow, the energy in this house is focused on me because of that. Mrs. Fludd knew she was in danger, and she said I was too. Doesn’t that convince you I’m not just making it all up?”

  There was a long pause on the line while Lily balanced the effects of several statements. Finally she said, “Darling, Mrs. Fludd was killed in an accident. It was a hit and run, very near her house. Apparently she just wandered out into the traffic on the Mile End Road, and the car was gone before anybody knew what had happened. It’s always best to look for a reasonable, rational explanation before …before deciding on the other.”

  “I know. But some things don’t have rational explanations.”

  “Darling, there is nothing supernatural about a hit and run. As tragic as it is.”

  “Evil isn’t rational. Lily, I know that something hates me—something in this house. Mrs. Fludd felt it too—it’s what she kept saying to me. I was so close to understanding everything that night I read about the Rudges. I almost broke through—I had all of these thoughts and ideas—I could feel the past all around me. The past is in this house. Don’t you see that I’m connected to that story? Because of Kate? It’s the key to everything.”

  “Well, as to the key to everything,” Lily began, and then stopped. She had promised Magnus (they had worked it out together, with some strong advice from Julia’s doctor) that she would not lead Julia into that territory; if Julia were ever to admit the truth about Kate’s death, she would have to come to it herself. So she finished her sentence by saying, “I think it is in your state of mind.” Immediately she regretted her choice of words.

  “My state of mind? That’s nice of you, Lily. Thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. That’s the truth, my dear.”

  “I can’t believe that you of all people won’t even discuss the possibility that something out of the ordinary is happening. Lily, if Mrs. Fludd saw something or felt something, as she did, isn’t that just in your line? Isn’t that just the sort of thing you do accept?”

  “Only under the proper circumstances, Julia. You

  know I have a firm belief in the supernatural,

  but “

  “And how about Heather and Olivia Rudge? Lily, there are no accidents. There are no accidents. These things have been happening to me for a reason.

  Maybe it takes a coincidence to set it off, maybe there’s some kind of plan, I don’t know, but I’ve been doing a lot of looking into the Rudge case for the past few days, and I’m sure that’s the direction I have to go. I found out the name of the clinic where Heather Rudge has been kept the Bre
adlands Clinic, and I wrote to her, asking if I could see her.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “It was in an old copy of the Times. My neighbor, Perry Mullineaux, got me a reader’s ticket for the British Museum’s periodical collection, and I’ve spent the past three days going through old newspapers. Remember telling me that I needed some interest? Well, I’ve sure got it. I tell you, sometimes I almost see the two of them, I can feel them all around me in this house—I hear the music they listened to, sometimes I think they’ve just left a room the moment before I entered it—did you know about the heaters? I kept turning them off without ever turning them on, someone else was doing that, I thought Magnus, but eventually the only room where it happened was my bedroom and I taped the switch to the wall and the heater still wouldn’t go off. So I cut the wires, and the thing still stays hot. That’s just a small thing I know, but then there was that bloodstain on my blue seersucker that wouldn’t go away and kept getting bigger, there are the flashes of someone I keep seeing in the mirrors and the way the water has been getting so foul, it simply reeks, it’s like shit, like diarrhea but full of money, sometimes it smells like greasy old American pennies, I haven’t taken a real bath in a week. Then there are the noises and the whole general feel of the house— it wants me here, but it doesn’t like me. Lily, why did I buy this house? This house? Don’t you think I have a right to find out? That’s why Mrs. Fludd was killed, it’s horrible, it’s awful, that intelligent old woman was killed to keep me from knowing too soon. I’m going to see Heather Rudge, and I’m going to find everyone I can who knew Olivia—I keep seeing signs of evil in children, not just malevolence but real evil, Lily. Kate’s behind all this, she’s evil now she’s dead and I have to work at it, I have to see what I can do, it’s so unfair…”

  “Julia,” Lily said when Julia’s voice had broken down into a series of excited hiccoughs, “I want you to move over here with me. I don’t think you should be on your own.”