by Peter Straub
“Well, do me a favor and fuck yourself,” Annis cheerfully said, and ran off through the rain.
Swift, David N 337 Upper Street N1. Julia stirred restlessly on the passenger side of the Rover’s front seat, trying to find a comfortable position while still looking directly at the inconspicuous door immediately beside The Beautiful and Damned. She had already tried to fill in the time by trying to remember how many other pubs in London were named after novels, but could only recall The Cruel Sea in Hampstead, which Lily had entered once and decreed “puerile, like its namesake.” Julia had come to Swift’s address at eight, driven aimlessly around Islington before returning at nine, had again found him not at home and driven on impulse over to Gayton Road, where all the lights burned and open drapes revealed empty rooms, and then returned to’ wait for Swift’s return. Now it was just past eleven, and her back was beginning to hurt. From time to time she thumped her feet on the floor of the car to keep her legs from falling asleep. When a man in a shabby overcoat and tweed cap loitered before the door beside the pub, Julia switched on the windshield wipers and leaned forward, tense. The man turned his back to the street. Not daring to breathe, Julia waited for him to open the door. But the man merely hunched his back against the rain and stood spread-legged beside the door. Finally Julia understood what he was doing, and she looked away in exasperation.
More people slouched past the pub, and Julia idly watched them until they had gone into the Wimpy bar down the block. At eleven fifteen the pub disgorged a group of young men who hung, half in and half out of the rain, beneath the small canopy, wrangling and stuffing their hands into the pockets of their jackets. They obscured Swift’s door, and Julia groaned, silently praying for them to break up and go home. More young men left the pub. They formed a desultory, nearly unmoving mass all along the side of the building. If Swift were to come home now, she could easily miss Mm. “Please,” Julia whispered. David Swift was her last chance.
As she watched, one of the men began to shout. A friend gripped his arm, but the man violently pushed him away, sending him sprawling off the street. In a second, half of the crowd had vanished; a third man circled the first, who still shouted, and then they were brawling. Julia watched them slipping on the wet pavement, clutching at each other’s wrists and shoulders before separating to begin punching again. The street had become wholly quiet around them, except for the rain’s spatter. One of the men—Julia was not sure which—gave a solid, thunking blow to the face of the other, who went down in the heap of his clothes. His attacker kicked him savagely once, then again. Julia, terrified, put her hand to her mouth. The attacker picked the man up from the pavement and began to strike him again and again in the face. He’s a Magnus, Julia thought, and in desperation stabbed at the switch for her headlights. The attacker turned his head into the glare of the lights—Julia saw a bearded chin and a prominent nose—and then pushed the bleeding face away. He turned and ran slap-slapping along Upper Street. His victim lay alone on the pavement, his clothing soaking in the rain. All the others had scattered. As Julia watched, the man’s body trembled, and then inched across the pavement like the hulk of a wounded boar. The man rolled against the side of the pub and sat up. His face was a gash of red.
Julia pushed down the lever in the door and leaned out. She had to call for an ambulance—she looked frantically about for a phone booth, but rain, flying directly into her face, blurred her vision. She wiped her eyes and saw, far up the block, a red booth outside a darkened cinema. She crossed the empty road and began to run toward the booth. A burly coatless man cradling a dark clanking bag passed her, but she scarcely noticed, the man until she was within the kiosk. Then, looking through the streaked glass, she saw the man set down his bag before Swift’s entrance and dig out a key from his pocket. She hung in the booth for a moment, deliberating, and then slammed down the receiver just as the man disappeared from the street.
She pounded down Upper Street to the pub. The beaten man now crouched over the pavement, his elbows planted in his own blood. He was moaning incoherently, perhaps drunkenly. She pressed Swift’s bell rapidly several times, then held it down. The man against the pub rolled over on his side and clamped his hands to his face.
Heavy footsteps thumped down a staircase. When the door jerked open, Julia saw a man’s bulky frame in the shadow of the tiny hallway. Far above, a single light burned, illuminating the top of the dingy staircase. “Mr. Swift?” she asked.
“That’s me,” the man said. Julia caught a pungent whiff of whiskey. “What is it?”
His upper-middle-class accent both surprised and comforted her. It was the accent of Magnus and his friends—the accent Mark had consciously discarded.
“I have to talk to you. And there’s been a fight. This man’s been hurt. We must telephone for an ambulance.”
“I don’t clean up after drunks,” Swift said. He thrust his head out the door, revealing in the reddish light from the pub a broad, pinkish face and close, rather curly black hair. His jacket looked oily and frayed. “Let him rot. You said you wanted to talk to me?” He looked at her appraisingly, and Julia nodded. “I’m willing. Common into the fleapit.”
As Julia stepped into the hallway, again catching the clear, biting odor of whiskey, she promised herself to telephone for an ambulance no matter what Swift said He was already moving a bit unsteadily up the stairs. “Come on and talk, if that’s what you want,” he called down.
At the top of the stairs he was holding open the door to a shabby sitting room. Blotchy yellow wallpaper, a stained green carpet as threadbare as Mark’s, battered furniture she recognized as coming from a discount warehouse—it was like the furniture in her Camden Town flat, years before. Swift was standing at a low table, pulling bottles out of the paper bag. Grunting, he broke the seal of one of them. “Drink?”
“May I?”
“I asked you.”
“Then yes, please.”
Swift removed two glasses from a wall shelf and poured several inches of whiskey into each. He gave Julia her glass, and she saw above the line of the whiskey fingerprints, water spots, smears, She set it down on the table.
“Can I telephone first? That man downstairs…”
“No,” Swift said. In the electric light, his pink face was scrubbed with hot reddish spots, as if scoured. “Fuck him. What did you want? Who are you, anyhow? A solicitor?”
Julia moved to one of the unsafe-looking chairs and sat. She wiped some of the rain off her face. “My name is Julia Lofting, Mr. Swift.”
“You must be a solicitor.”
“No, I’m not, I promise you. I’m interested in—involved in something you can help me with, if you would.”
“Don’t tell me it’s a business deal.” Swift snorted. He was still standing, holding his glass in one hand and the bottle in the other. “I’m afraid Swift and Company is no longer. Three generations of sharp practice end in the wreck you see before you. Do you want some sort of towel?” He gulped down whiskey as she shook her head. “Well, don’t just sit there looking all confused and sexy and helpless.”
“It’s about your childhood,” Julia quickly said. “I have to know about something that happened then. I promise you that I won’t divulge anything you say to me to anyone else—that I’m interested for purely personal reasons.” I won’t tell this man I think I’m haunted, she vowed, he’d throw me out. She had to avoid the mistakes she had made with Winter. “I’m not a writer or anything like that,” she said. “Or the police.”
He rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling. “I’d better sit down.” He moved heavily to the couch and fell into it facing her, still holding the glass and bottle. “My childhood. I suppose I had one. Now what the devil do you want to know about my childhood?”
Julia knitted her hands together, stared at the filthy carpet, and then looked directly at Swift. He had a froggish, unlined, well-brought-up face. She could easily see him in an expensive suit, ordering secretaries about. That she disliked him on sight
somehow made it easier to talk to him.
“I live at Twenty-five Ilchester Place,” she said. “Olivia Rudge’s old house. I want to find out all about her.”
Swift was momentarily shaken. His head bobbed toward his drink; but he made no move to throw her out. “God,” he said. “That wicked little bitch. She’s been dead over twenty years.” He gazed at the liquid in his glass, clearly not intending to offer more information.
“This afternoon I spoke to Paul Winter.”
Swift brightened. “That poof. I bet he wouldn’t say anything.”
“You’re the only one left,” Julia said. “The Aycroft boy killed himself and Minnie Leibrook died in an accident. One of you disappeared in America. Another girl is in a convent. And Paul Winter made me leave his house.”
The man facing her snorted. “I don’t suppose he liked the idea of having a woman in his room. I relish it, I can tell you. He was probably expecting one of his chums. That’s why they pitched him out of his regiment, you know. He fell in love with his driver, but the driver wouldn’t reciprocate. Paulie got a little too passionate, the driver kicked up a fuss, and they rubbed Paulie out as if he were a little foul spot on the rug. Bang. Finish.” He took another swallow and repeated, “Finish. General’s son in disgrace. As for Aycroft, he put paid to himself when he was found embezzling money from his firm. Excuse me, bank. His bank. Good-bye, Aycroft. And Minnie Liebrook…” He caught himself short. “What do you want to know about all this for, anyway? So you live in the old Rudge house. Congratulations. What’s that got to do with me?”
“It’s personal,” said Julia. “I just want to know about Olivia.”
“You’re fascinated.” He poured more whiskey into his glass. “You’ve been looking into her short and nasty life and now you’re keen on her. How do I know that you won’t use whatever I say against me?”
“I promise,” said Julia, and inspiration came to her. She dug in her bag and withdrew two ten-pound notes and put them on the table. Swift’s eyes gleamed at her. She put down another note. Her heart fluttered. “I want to buy information from you.”
He snaffled up the notes. “I guess you do. A woman like you doesn’t come up here every day and offer me money.” He leered at her. “I’ll talk to you if you come over here and sit beside me.”
Julia hesitated, and then went around the little table to the couch. Cautiously she sat beside him. “Now you have a drink,” he said. “You’re behind.” Julia sipped from the bleary glass. “More.” She did as he commanded.
The Search: Heather 193
“Tfcllme about Olivia,” she said. “Please.” She allowed his hand to rest negligently on her knee.
“You’d never forget her if you ever met her. She was really wicked. It was the most impressive thing about her. It was the reason all of us, the kids you know about, followed after her. We had a club. Do you want to know the rules?” He squeezed her knee, and Julia nodded. “Have another drink.” He poured more whiskey into her glass, and she sipped at it. “The first rule was you had to kill an animal. Aycroft killed his dog. He brought it to her and she ripped it open with her knife and made him drink some of its blood. Proper little ceremony. We all did it. I brought a neighbor’s cat. Same folderol. I was clever—just touched my tongue in the blood. Then we had to light fires. We had to burn a house or a shed, something in that line. We did that together. She watched us and told us what to do.”
“You did it?” Julia asked.
“We tried. She stole a can of petrol from somewhere and we soaked the porch of a wooden house behind the High Street. The bugger wouldn’t burn. Olivia was madder than a hen—she looked just like a witch. Maybe she was a witch. We all thought she was. Anyhow we burned most of the porch, but the firemen came before the rest of the building went. Then we had to do lots of thieving and give it all over to her. You see, we had to see her every day—we had to spend all day with her in the holidays. We all had a crush on her, I suppose, even the girls, and she had us scared out of our wits. We knew there wasn’t anything she was afraid to do. We learned all about sex from her, in her bent little games. If you didn’t do what she wanted, she’d tell your parents about everything else. She had ways. If you told anyone in authority, she’d kill you.”
“Yes,” said Julia.
“She would, too. She would have. She was evil. She made the Temple girl—who did everything Olivia wanted—lick her. You know what I mean, lick her?” He stroked Julia’s knee. “She could beat up any of us.”
“And she killed Geoffrey Braden,” Julia softly said.
The hand tightened and released on her knee. “A man was found guilty of that and executed.”
“A harmless vagrant,” said Julia. “He liked the children. He used to talk to them. You know he didn’t do it.”
Swift turned his pink face toward Julia and drained his glass. “You were a fool to give me that money,” he said. “You were a fool. Nobody’s thought about Geoffrey Braden in twenty-five years. Nobody’s going to do anything about it now.”
“That’s not why I have to know.”
“I don’t care,” he said, and her heart sank. Then he added, “I was going to tell you anyhow. You were stupid to give me that money. I was innocent. I didn’t do anything.”
“You just watched,” Julia guessed. She could feel her pulse thrumming in her neck.
He grinned at her. “I watched.”
“So she did do it,” Julia whispered.
“Of course.” He looked at her with an expression like triumph. “She covered his head with a pillow. She tried it twice before, but an attendant heard his yelping and ran over. She hid the pillow just in time. Then one afternoon she did do it. Three of the bigger kids held him down and stuffed things in his mouth. Then she put the pillow on his head and sat on it. It was what she always wanted to do. To kill someone. You could see that. It was what she was all about. I’ll bet the little bitch had an orgasm.”
“What did she look like? Was she blond?”
“Sure. Blond. A color anyone else would have to get out of a bottle. It was the most beautiful hair I ever saw. And a sweet little face. Oh, she was charming. Sometimes I think about the way she’d look if she were still alive—Christ, that bitch would have changed the world.” His hand slid over her leg. “I like talking about this, you know. If I weren’t drunk, I’d probably chuck you out, but I like telling you about it. It was funny. She made us feel that we were all in a war. Soldiers.”
“Her tooth,” Julia said. “Didn’t she …?”
“How did you know about that? The first day she tried to do little Braden, he hit her mouth with the top of his head—broke one of her front teeth. He didn’t have a chance after that. She had to have him. But he never really did have a chance, the little bugger. Do you know what happened afterward? With Paulie? Your poof friend?”
He was gripping the underside of her thigh, and she put a hand on his wrist. It was feverishly hot. She shook her head.
“Paulie was bent even then. She liked that. She made him bite him after he was dead.”
“Bite him?”
“Bite him. Bite his cock. She made him bite his cock.”
He leaned over and snared her wrist. His mouth slurred on her cheek. “She said if he didn’t do it, she’d do it to him.”
Julia twisted away and stood up. She broke her hand away from his grip and tottered backward toward the door.
“You’re not leaving,” Swift growled. “You’re going to stay with me.” He struggled to stand.
“I have to talk to Olivia,” she said, facing him.
It stopped him long enough for her to seize the doorknob and pull it open.
“You’re crazy,” he shouted, half-crouching before the table. His trousers bulged at the fly.
When she fled down the stairs she heard him yelling above her. “Cock-teaser! Remember— nobody cares anymore, you bitch. You can’t do anything.”
She slammed the street door. The beaten man no longer lay
beside the pub, but still some blood remained, tinting the puddles of rain. Julia ran toward her car. She knew, she knew. It had been Olivia Rudge all along: Kate was safe. Once in the car she began to sob, whether from horror or relief she could not tell.
YOU KNOW. The words had been smeared in soap on the black mirror above the bathtub. From the atmosphere of tense quiet within the house—for the first time in two weeks, Julia had not heard the rustling noises from upstairs—she had expected some atrocity, and had been fearful of leaving the ground floor of her house. She had no idea of what Olivia intended to do with her now that she had discovered the truth. Julia mounted the stairs, looking for signs of triumph or outrage. In her throbbingly hot bedroom, all lay undisturbed from the morning: the burst dolls sprawled at the back of the closet, sprouting gray curls of wool, their power to frighten her gone. Every time she looked over her shoulder, she expected to see Olivia Rudge. That adult, challenging smile. Or she feared to see Magnus, controlled by her. But all she found were the two words of confirmation. You KNOW. She scraped them off with a table knife, and wiped the remaining flecks and smears with a towel until the black mirror held only a foot-long blur which translated her reflection into cloud. There would be more, much more. This lull, this truce, and the two words were more frightening than Olivia’s displays of power.
Julia gazed out of her bedroom window into night and rain. Out there, everything had disappeared into darkness. Reality lay within.
She snapped off the light, undressed in the dark and felt her way to the bed. Then she lay beneath the burning sheet and watched the darkness move. A black plane composed of millions of particles sifted down toward her, withdrew, and sifted down again. Perspiration trickled into the hair above her ears.
