Peter Straub - Julia

For Thomas and Alice Tessier

So a war begins. Into a peace-time life, comes an announcement, a threat. A bomb drops somewhere, potential traitors are whisked off quietly to prison. And for some time, days, months, a year perhaps, life has a peace-time quality. But when a war has been going on for a long time, life is all war, every event has the quality of war, nothing of peace remains. Events and the life in which they are embedded have the same quality. But since it is not possible that events are not part of the life they occur init is not possible that a bomb should explode into a texture of life foreign to itall that means is that one has not understood, one has not been watching. D ORIS L ESSING, The Four-Gated City

Part One

The Haunting: Julia

The little blond girl, about nine or tenKates ageand enough like Kate to make Julia feel dizzy, ran floating up from nowhere along Ilchester Place and, windmilling her arms at the street corner, flew into the path to Holland Park. Standing on the steps of the house with the man from Markham and Reeves, Julias first sensation was the sharp, familiar ache of loss, now so strong as to make her feel that she might shock the man from Markham and Reeves by being sick into the wilting tulips; but the real-estate agent, who had clearly decided that his customer was precipitous and eccentric to the point of lunacy, might have done no more than mutter something about the heat and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. That Julia had already twice lost the keys to Number 25, that she had written a deposit check for twenty thousand pounds on the first day she had seen the house (the first house he had shown her), that she was buying, as well, all the furniture from the previous owners, a retired carpet manufacturer and his wife already in Barbados, that she intended to live alone in an eight-bedroom housebut he had his own ideas on that pointhad prepared him for almost any conceivable vagary on her part. Conscious of her haste and her oddness, and a little fearful of the mans subtle contempt for her, Julia yet felt it possible that the estate agent attributed some of this behavior to her being merely another comically rich American; and so she felt, with a little flare of independence, only the smallest qualm about obeying her second response to the sight of the running blond girl, a feeling that she must follow her. The impulse was overwhelmingly strong. The man from Mark-ham and Reeves was holding her by the elbow, very delicately, and beginning to produce the third key from his waistcoat pockethe had tied a bright yellow ribbon through the hole at the top of the key.

Yellow for remembrance, Mrs. Lofting, he was saying, the edge of condescension clear in his voice. Confess I pinched the idea from a pop song. May you

Excuse me, Julia said, and went quickly down the steps to the pavement.

She did not want to run until she was out of the mans sight, and restrained herself until she too had rounded the corner to the park and was shielded by the wall. The girl looked remarkably like Kate. Of course she could not be Kate. Kate was dead. But people sometimes caught sight of friends in a crowd or riding past in a bus when those friends were in reality thousands of miles awaybut didnt that mean that the friends were in danger or about to die? Julia ran a few awkward steps into the childrens play area and, already panting, began to walk. Children were everywhere, in the sandboxes, racing around on the patchy grass, climbing the trees she could see from her bedroom window. The blond girl could be far into the park by now, Julia realized, either on the long sward of green to the right or on one of the paths up ahead, or over toward the Orangery. The child might not even have taken the path into the play area but run straight up the long lane to Holland House. Surely Holland House was that way? Up there past the peacocks? Julia did not feel sure enough of the parks geography to pursue her phantomwho in any case was just an ordinary little girl on her way to meet friends in Holland Park. Julia, who was still unthinkingly walking up the path past the sandboxes, stopped. Chasing after the child had been unreasonable, perhaps hysterical: typical of her. I really am losing my grip, she thought, and said Damn so loudly that a stout man with a brushy gingery mustache stared at her.

She turned about, embarrassed, and looked up across the back walls of gardens to the upper row of windows in her new house. The house was monstrously expensive: she could not allow Magnus to know that she had purchased it, that she had signed every paper put in front of her. For a moment the thought of Magnusthe idea of Magnus, enormous with ragedrove everything else from her head, and she felt a second of terror. She might have been unreasonable, even unbalancedhe would be quick to say itbut about Magnus, reason was not possible. The long, restrained lines of the house, which she had thought beautiful the moment she had seen it, helped her to quiet her feelings.

Holding one hand to her chest, Julia walked back down the path to the corner of Ilchester Place. She remembered the man from Markham and Reeves only when she saw him leaning against the front door, his expression one between confusion and boredom. He had written her off when, telephoning her bank from his office, he had learned how much money she kept in a checking account.

She expected the man to say something, but he appeared to be past courteous formulas. He merely straightened his shoulders and offered the key, holding it by the flagrant yellow ribbon. Now he did not look so much bored as weary. And in any case, what could Julia say? She could not explain her sudden action by telling him that she had wanted to look again at a girl who reminded her of her dead daughter: he did not know anything about Kate or about Julia. She did the best she could.

Im so sorry, she said, looking up into his gray, rather compressed-looking face. I wanted to check on something around the back before you left.

He looked at her oddly: to examine the back, of course, she would have gone through the house rather than around the corner.

Not a lot of children on this street, Mrs. Lofting, the man said. They play in the park of course but youll find that Ilchester Place is a quiet sort of neighborhood, as Ive told you. Was this, too, more tired sarcasm? But the man had noticed the girl, and was making an effort to be courteous. He had looked straight through her weak excuse,

Thank you, she said, taking the key and putting it in one of the short pockets of her dress. Youve been very patient with me.

Not at all. The man looked at his wristwatch, then for a moment at his car, and then at the Rover, where suitcases were piled up on the backseat, crowded in with some potted plants, two short stacks of books tied with string, and a box of floppy dolls she had, had since childhood. These were the only things she had taken besides her clothing, and they were all from the room she had been using since leaving the hospital. The books were an indulgence, but they were hers, not Magnus.

No, you neednt, please, Julia quickly said. I couldnt dream of asking you, after everything.

In that case, he said, palpably relieved, and began to go down the steps, I have some things to attend to at the office, so if youll excuse me, Ill be leaving you to your new house. He glanced up at the long, warm brick exterior. It is a beautiful house. You should be quite happy here. And of course you have our number, should anything arise. Am I correct in thinking that you do not know Kensington thoroughly?

She nodded.

Then you have before you all the pleasures of investigation. Where was it you were living before? Before today? Hampstead, wasnt it?

Yes.