Julia

by Peter Straub

  Winter, Capt. Paul S. 2B Stadium St. SW10. Both of the men had been in the directory. Stadium Street occupied the seedy lower end of Chelsea, near the four wharves and World’s End: Julia drove the Rover down the crowded carnival of King’s Road from Sloan Square, and after inching through the packs of young people parading in costume from one boutique to another, crossed Beaufort Street and found herself in a different world. The brilliant, nervous crowds had vanished, the restaurants and boutiques replaced by factory walls and the peeling facades of bed-sitters. Here, the few clothing stores hung their wares from their awnings; bent old women with shopping carts trudged along the pavements, mumbling to themselves. When she turned the corner of Cremorne Road she fleetingly saw through the side window a grossly fat man in a ripped topcoat bunched at the waist by string struggling to force a terrified spaniel into a paper bag. He was gripping the dog by the throat, working the bag around the dog’s frantically kicking legs …murderess in letters of crusty soap appeared in Julia’s mind.

  The bright red side panel of a bread van blocked her windscreen, and she wrenched the wheel to avoid a collision. The letters MOTHER’S PRIDE wheeled off; the Rover fishtailed to the right, ticking a parked car, and then swung back in its lane. Car horns and shouts erupted about her. She sped away.

  On desolate Stadium Street she left her car and immediately caught the smell of the Thames. Its sunless, oily odor seemed to settle on her fingers and hair. She felt as though she were inhaling damp cobwebs impregnated with the smell of fish. Julia peered at the door nearest her, and made out through encrustrations of paint Number 15. She moved slowly down the block, hearing blinds rattle as she passed the row of mean, dwarfed houses. The rusted frame of a bicycle lay beside the curb like the corpse of a monstrous insect. 10,8,6. Number 5 had been painted in swarmy patches of red and blue and yellow across which had been written in large black letters REVOLUTION IS THE RIGHT OF ALL and HENDRIX; the front door was fixed by a big gray padlock. Julia crossed the street and pushed open the small stiff gate to Number 2. At the end of the line of cracked paving stones, the front door was festooned with a rank of bells beside nameplates. She went up the walk and read the names scrawled on the plates— Voynow, a blank, Mertz & Polo, Gandee, Moore, Gilette, Johnson. No Winter was listed, and she felt unable to ring any of the unidentified bells. Her confidence sinking, Julia stepped back and saw on the pitted concrete facing a glossy black letter B above an arrow. In relief, she looked upward and truly noticed for the first time that the weather had changed. The sky held a shifting mass of clouds, obscuring the sun and piling toward a top layer of hard, thin gray.

  B was a narrow door set into the rear of the house. Through it seeped a trace of some tinny music. When Julia knocked the door almost immediately opened upon a thin figure dressed in black turtle-neck and black trousers. The music, swelling past him, resolved into Ravi Shankar. Julia first took in the man’s prominent, bitter cheekbones and then that he wore an obvious wig several shades lighter than his hair.

  “Captain Winter?” she asked, unsure.

  “It’s been ages since anyone called me that, dear,” the man said. “I suppose you’re Roger’s outraged sister. Well, you’d better come in.”

  Julia stepped across the threshold into a heavy musk of incense. “I’d better explain,” she said. “I’m not who you think I am. My name is Julia Lofting, Captain Winter—”

  The man groaned. “Please don’t. Call me anything, but don’t call me Captain.”

  “Mr. Winter.”

  “Paul.”

  “Paul. Thank you.” Looking at Winter’s alert, essentially dishonest face, Julia was surprised to see that the man was roughly her own age. She realized that he must have been about thirty when he had been forced to leave his regiment; though, looking at his crowded, exotic little room crammed with paisley cushions and African wall hangings interspersed with reproductions of paintings and bright Druze rugs, she could not see Paul Winter as a member of any sort of army. But she permitted herself the disloyal thought that Winter had solved the problem of how to live in a single room better than had Mark. Except, she saw, that this was the kind of room which implied that it was forever night beyond its door: it was a room which denied daylight.

  “You can’t be Roger’s sister,” he said behind her.

  “She’d never take such a time appreciating my little

  collection of things. You like my chambers, don’t

  you?”

  “Yes, I do,” she answered simply.

  “When I close my door,” he said, “I close out the world and exist here in a world I’ve created. It’s my oasis, my haven. In fact, I rarely leave it. It contains all my needs—beauty, peace, art, refined sensation. And it does have a Chelsea address, which is important, don’t you think? I wouldn’t live anywhere else, and I’ve lived all around the world. The army, you know.” He was preening himself before her, and Julia caught an odd mixture of failure and arrogance in the man; he saw himself as an Oscar Wilde, but the absurd vanity of the toupee made him pathetic. In a minute, she sensed, he’d begin inventing weak epigrams. “But of course you know,” he said. “My distinguished military history,” and his cheekbones seemed to sharpen into points. “All in the past. Would you care for a cigarette? They’re Turkish.”

  “No thank you,” Julia said. “I’m sorry to bother you like this, Capt—Paul, but for personal reasons I am interested in something in your past.”

  “Oh, God,” he groaned theatrically. “The past doesn’t exist.” He considered that a moment, and revised it. “No intelligent man believes in the past.” Finally he satisfied himself. “Those who believe in the past are condemned to live in it.”

  Julia seemed to catch a justified suspicion in the man’s glance. “Well, the past has everything to do with my present,” she said. “It’s very difficult to explain.” For a second, she saw before her the box of ripped dolls and the accusing words soaped across the mirror, and her blood swung heavily downward.

  “Say, you look about to faint,” Winter said, alarmed, and pushed a chair toward her. When she sat, he moved to one of the cushions and perched on it. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “I’m being haunted,” she blurted out.

  “My dear,” he cooed. “Turn yourself into a tourist attraction and charge admission.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Am I to understand that this delicious condition has something to do with me?”

  Julia nodded. “Yes…”

  “How fascinating. Ask away. I have no secrets any more, my dear. I simply am, and people must accept me or reject me, for it’s not worth the trouble to conceal one’s inner nature. One’s truth always wins out in the end. I only joined the army because my father wouldn’t hear of anything else, you know, and I found it simply rife with hypocrisy. That was why they got rid of me, I must tell you, because I could no longer tolerate their petty restrictions and poses. I had to be myself. It made it pretty awkward for them, I can tell you, my being a general’s son. Like Rimbaud, was it? The French poet. I say, you’re not taking some sort of survey, are you? I couldn’t bear that. Or doing research for a book?”

  “No, this is personal,” repeated Julia. “I’ve become involved with something you can help me with, if you would be so kind.”

  “I’ve always been so interested in the spiritual side of things—I’m Virgo with Aries rising.”

  “I want to ask you about some people you might remember.”

  “Fascinating.” He scrunched down further into the cushions. “Ask away. I’m so glad you’re not Roger’s sister.”

  “I don’t know how to begin. Do you remember, um, Francesca Temple? Or Freddy Reilly?”

  He blinked. “Good heavens, you are going back, I used to play with them.”

  “You do remember.”

  It was too intense for him, and he backed away from a definite statement. “Barely. Just faintly …one catches the outlines, as it were. One isn’t oneself in chil
dhood. Childhood is a lie adults tell themselves. The man fathers his own childhood, if you see what I mean. Now let me see. Francesca Temple. A very modest little girl, with the loveliest brown curls. Yes, I can”—he pivoted a hand in the air—”catch her now. She was a follower. She was a soldier, if you will. Do anything you told her to. Freddy Reilly was a bit butch, if you understand me. A great one for games. Don’t tell me you’re being haunted by Freddy Reilly!” He silently clapped his hands together and revealed an even row of small, slightly discolored teeth.

  She took up all her courage. “Can you tell me anything about any of the others? For instance, do you remember Olivia Rudge?”

  He gaped at her, then toyed with the fringe of the cushion. “Can’t remember her very well, I’m afraid. Rather a strange little girl, I seem to recall.” He suddenly stood up and straightened the crease of his trousers. “Would you like a cup of anything? Tea? I make an excellent cuppa—half China, half India. Exquisite.”

  “No, please,” said Julia. “What can you tell me about her? Olivia?”

  “I think,” he said, “I think you’re beginning to be just the tiniest bit boring.” He radiated an emotion It took Julia a second to recognize as fear. “Childhood is our least interesting period, I’ve always thought. I don’t think I wish to answer any more questions about mine.”

  “I have to plead with you,” said Julia. “You won’t be in any trouble—there are just some things I have to know.”

  He ostentatiously examined his watch. “I don’t think I have time for any more of this fascinating reminiscence. That woman was supposed to be here at two, and I can’t tell you what a bother she’ll be—now there’s trouble for you.”

  “Mr. Winter—Paul—how did Geoffrey Braden die?”

  He went nearly white with shock. Or was it shame? “I’ll have to retract my invitation to tea, darling. I must ask you to kindly push off before my visitor arrives. Can’t say I really heard your last question. Did you have a jacket?” He was prodding her shoulder with the tips of his fingers. “Really, dear. It’s a waste of time asking me about ancient history. That was always my worst subject.” Julia reluctantly stood.

  “Could you just describe Olivia …” she began.

  “I know I’m an old fool for being in such a flap,’^ he said, urging her toward the door, “but that is one subject on which I do not propose to expound. The book is closed, my dear.”

  She was standing outside the narrow door, looking at his painfully contracting face beneath the cheap blond wig. The Indian music built to a frantic climax behind him.

  “She wants me,” she said. “Olivia.”

  “I believe it,” he said. “Don’t come back, please. Leave me alone, whoever you are.”

  “Julia Lofting,” she said, but the door was closed.

  The two of them sat on the terrace at the beginning of the evening, watching the rain pelt down onto the park, bending the leaves and tormenting the small bushes outside the walls. When a gust scattered drops onto the floor of the terrace, she delicately hitched her chair back out of the rain’s territory; he ignored the spattering of drops and allowed it to dampen his shoes. They were, Lily noticed, already caked with mud and webbed with cracks. Magnus’ whole being seemed in disrepair, and she experienced a moment of sheer distaste for Julia, who had done this to him, and for her brother, who had allowed it to be done.

  “So it was that house,” she said. “This is a fine time to discover it.” “I didn’t think it was any of your business.” “Magnus,” she said in exasperation, “how do you expect me to help if you conceal things from me? Concealment amounts to a lie. Is there anything else you’ve been hiding from me which might affect Julia?”

  “An impossible question,” he grunted. He stared dully at the rain. “I like this weather. It’s more English than all that sunshine.”

  “Oh, you’re simply maddening. Don’t you realize that she has been looking into that wretched old case? I don’t think she even bothers to eat anymore. She’s convinced it’s got something to do with Kate. In fact, she told me she was being haunted. Haunted! In her condition, every detail becomes exaggerated and blown up and inflated—Magnus, you must tell me if there is anything 6lse she is likely to discover.” “I don’t know. What has she discovered?” “I’m not sure she would tell me.” “She’d tell that bloody psychotic Mark.” Lily tactfully ignored this remark while silently agreeing with it. “If you want your wife back, and I can only assume that is the motive behind your extraordinary performance this past week, you must tell me whatever you know so that I can use it for your benefit.”

  “You mean that you want to use Julia for your benefit.”

  “I will ignore that remark.” She glanced at him before saying, “If you don’t move out of the wet you’ll catch pneumonia.”

  Sighing, Magnus shoved himself backward in his

  chair. 0-

  “Is there any way you can be connected to that house? That would push her right over the edge, you know. Well. At least then we could put her in hospital, where she belongs.”

  “Is that what you want?” Magnus stared at his sister in genuine surprise. “She’s coming home with me, not back into hospital. But no, I don’t think there’s anything. All of that was so long ago.”

  “What about the daughter? Did you know her well?”

  “Never met the little lady.”

  “You’re sure.”

  Magnus winced. “Of course I’m sure. Now stop grilling me. Have you anything left to drink?”

  “It was drink almost put you in jail, remember. That and your temper. But help yourself, if you want something.”

  He said, “I don’t want it, I need it,” and went across the terrace and into the kitchen. A few moments later he returned with a tumbler half filled with amber liquid.

  Lily waited until he was settled again in his chair before saying, “Well, what did you do this last time? Leave notes about?”

  “I threw some of the chairs around. That’s all. She’ll know it was me.” He drank with visible satisfaction.

  “And I suppose you think that will help. Magnus, there are two things that I regret. One is allowing her to keep her fantasy about Kate’s death. She needs to be shocked out of it. I’d tell her now if she were here. The other thing is introducing her to poor Mrs. Fludd. Those two together got her started on this ghost business.”

  “Mrs. Fludd? Oh. Your guru.”

  “Before her death she stirred Julia up with all sorts of dark hints. Rosa had the gift, but she could never resist playing to her audience. And she died at the most unfortunate time.”

  Magnus was clearly not interested in the fate of Mrs. Fludd. “I think Julia needs a psychotherapist,” he said. “Maybe I do too. I don’t know what’s been happening to me lately. I have funny blackouts. I see things. One day I saw Kate.”

  “Poor baby,” said Lily. “So you agree with me that we must get her back into hospital?”

  “Maybe I do,” Magnus mused. He looked at Lily for a moment with perfect complicity.

  “Tell me something,” Lily said, now that was settled. “What did you feel when you went back inside that house again? Did you feel no shame?”

  “No,” he said. “It was simpler. I felt fear. I was scared out of my wits. It made me want to murder someone.”

  “You should have married someone your own age,” said Lily.

  “Someone like you, you mean.”

  “We do have a marriage of a kind,” said Lily. “We understand each other.”

  The Search: Heather 185

  Mark Berkeley stood beneath the awning of the package store, watching the rain spill down the gutters and gradually form a black slick pool which would cover all that part of the street. He still had in his pocket about seventy pounds, after cashing Julia’s check and buying some tins of food, a pair of boots and a snakeskin belt—and just now, the two bottles of whiskey. He could remember deciding to put Samuels off until next term, for the sake of the boots
; he could remember shopping and dialing Julia’s number several times that afternoon; but he could not remember leaving his room in the rain to walk to the package store. He stared down at the blocked drain by the side of the curb—the street-lamp revealed on the surface of the water the shifting, mesmeric pattern of an oil slick—and tried to reconstruct the walk from his building. His shoulders and hair were soaked with rain. Maybe, he thought, these lapses were somehow derived from his exercises, lately far more successful than ever before. He was more than slightly fearful of where these long, otherworldly sessions might take him; but weren’t they proof of what the old woman had said about his “receptivity”? This, he was certain, lay behind his headaches—proof of a power he hadn’t known he possessed. He was Mark, he was special, he was the child of luck.

  A tall girl whose name he could not remember stepped out of the rain and stood beside him. She shook her hair and smiled, and he knew the shape and taste of her mouth.

  “Going to a party?” she asked. “Good night for it.”

  “What?”

  “A party. The bottles, Mark. Are you going to a party?”

  He looked at the bottles in the white bag. “I couldn’t tell you what I was going to,” he said. “I sort of don’t remember.”

  She looked at him bristlingly. “I suppose you’re on something.”

  “No. No. I’ve been meditating. I’m doing it a couple of hours a day.”

  “Well, it’s too late to meditate now,” she said firmly. What was her name? “Do you want to come back to my place? We could have our own party.”

  Then he remembered: Annis. Annis was one of last summer’s girls. Looking at her wide, greedy black eyes and hair in which drops of rain sparkled, he felt a spasm of sexual interest, but then Julia’s face superimposed on hers. His mind seemed to waver. “Annis, I can’t tonight,” he said. “There’s someone I have to see.”