The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel

by Schaffner Anna

  ‘But you must have talked to her, must have some impression of her character, some memories…’ I tried again. ‘In such a small, intimate shop you would get to know a co-worker quite well, wouldn’t you?’

  The woman folded her arms over her chest and stared at me.

  I wasn’t getting anywhere with her. I needed to change tactics. ‘Could you at least tell me a bit more about your shop, then? It looks… special. What’s your philosophy? Where do you buy your stock? Who are your typical customers?’

  ‘On the web.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘That information is on the web.’

  God, I wasn’t on form that day, George. In the past, I would have known how to crack this woman’s armour, how to chase that contemptuous frown from her forehead and get her to share her most secret thoughts with me. In just a few minutes, I would have managed to find out what she cared about most in this world and what her darkest fears were. I’d succeeded with much worse cases. But on that day I just lost it. Completely. Suddenly, all my frustration at the futility of my task and the difficulties I had encountered during this accursed project turned into anger. And it was all directed at the poor, pale creature in front of me. I’m not proud of it, George. It wasn’t my finest hour. I should send her a letter someday to apologize.

  In spite of my hazy state of mind, I was still able to notice her reaction to the word ‘relationship’ and her strangely insistent assertion that she and Julia had been no more than co-workers. Clearly there was a story there. It was obvious that the woman had been hurt by Julia, just like everybody else. She had probably thought of Julia as a friend. Yes, I became convinced that the woman in front of me was the rude, pale friend Timothy and Rose had mentioned, and with whom Julia had cohabited before the attack. They might even have been lovers. It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Julia had turned to another woman for comfort. It would fit perfectly. Upon her return from South America, disgusted not just by the injustices of the global economic system but also by men in general and with her ex-boyfriend in particular, still reeling from the terrifying rape she had witnessed, alone and alienated from her former friends and family, Julia must have been looking for companionship, some human warmth. And she found it where she least expected it – in this most joyless of sanctuaries, in the shopkeeper’s bony white embrace.

  ‘You were lovers, weren’t you?’ I blurted out. ‘And she broke your heart. Just like everybody else’s. You’re not alone – Julia has a habit of using and then dropping people. What did she do to you? You can tell me; I’ve heard it all before.’

  But the woman just continued to stare at me, cadaverously expressionless. Her dog, in contrast, had perked up, sensing the tension between us, and it had started to growl. The woman took hold of its collar.

  ‘I bet she stumbled in here one day,’ I continued, ‘beautiful and auratic and highly intelligent and articulate and all that, everything you ever dreamed of being, and you were completely smitten. Thunderstruck. You just melted away, and gave her everything she wanted. Didn’t you? A job, your heart, your finest crooked carrots, even a place to stay… Yes, I bet she moved straight in with you – she didn’t have anywhere to go after her parents cut off her allowance, did you know that? She must have been so desperate that even staying with someone as lacklustre and lifeless as you would have seemed acceptable. She had sunk that low, and you jumped at the chance.

  ‘Julia has the gift of making people feel very special when she wants something from them, you know? And you, you gave her everything, expecting gratitude, friendship, love in return, but she just took and took and never gave you anything. I bet you let her stay in your apartment, in your bed, even, hoping that once she’d recovered from all her traumatic experiences abroad, she’d appreciate what a good, decent person you are, and respond accordingly.

  ‘But it didn’t work out that way, did it? Instead, Julia just used your flat and your money, and soon stopped bothering to hide the fact that she found you really irritating. And boring. She began to stay out late. Sometimes, she stayed away for days. She didn’t even bother to call you to let you know; she didn’t talk to you much anymore.

  ‘And you suffered. You were in love with her, weren’t you? You tried desperately to please her, but no matter what you did, it didn’t work. And when you heard the news, you went straight home and burned all her notebooks and letters, so that when the police searched your flat, all they found were some old clothes and a few books. Isn’t that exactly what you did?’

  The dog had started to bark ever more loudly during my crude monologue, and was straining hard against its collar, ready to attack.

  ‘Are you done with your crazy rant?’ the woman eventually asked in her flat, lifeless voice. ‘Then get the fuck out of here before I let the dog loose on you.’

  At that moment, another woman entered the shop, and when she saw me she said: ‘Oh, you’re busy, honey. I’ll come back later.’

  But the shopkeeper, whose lashless gaze remained directed at me, said: ‘No, stay. The lady was just leaving.’

  And leave I did.

  XVII

  The date of the trial is fast approaching, and I have to see you before then; I have to speak to you and hear your thoughts, on everything, before I can face my judge and jury. I still feel so confused and bewildered; and night after night I’m visited by the apparition of that still, white face with the wide-open grey eyes. I think about the little girl all the time, George. She must be about the same age as your daughter.

  After my doomed trip to Camden I once again withdrew to my apartment, like a wounded animal. On my way back from the humiliating encounter, I stopped at my local supermarket. I’d lost my appetite back in Marseille, and couldn’t muster the energy to think about food, although I was vaguely aware that my fridge and cupboards were empty. But all I managed to purchase was some whisky and crackers, as well as cat food for Aisha.

  In the middle of life’s path, I found myself in the dark wood of my psyche, alone and fearful. I’d always managed to find fulfilment in my work, but now I felt adrift, deprived of the stable intellectual ground that I had always taken for granted, my moral certainties sorely shaken by the events of the past few weeks. I always used to know exactly what I thought and felt, who the bad and the good characters were, whom to trust and whose accounts to take with a pinch of salt. I used to have firm views and clear opinions. But I just didn’t know what to think anymore. And I still don’t.

  Worse, the corrosion of my certainties spread like cancer. What had begun as a specific and localized crisis of faith in my work proved virulently infectious. Above all else, I felt terribly lonely – where was the partner to whom I could turn, and who would embrace me and stroke my hair and take my hand and listen to my sorrows? Where were you, George? You’re the one who should have been with me all along, and I don’t mean as an angry contractor, nor simply as a slightly concerned friend. It was you I needed – your mind, your body, your love. What had I done, throwing it all away so carelessly? And where was the daughter I never had, with whom I could have talked all of this through, who would be as worried about me as Laura was for Amanda when she went through her two divorces?

  All I had was a crippling mountain of debt, a cat, a sister harbouring old resentments and a lovely but always busy niece. And my work, what good had it done? The biggest criminal I’d ever exposed was about to receive the highest honour in his field – like the rest of my life, my work had been in vain, a fiasco; I could just as well have saved the paper. I had to face the truth and stop pretending. Given my state of mind, I wouldn’t be able to write this book, not in two and a half weeks, not even with a massive extension of my deadline, not ever. And what was left, now that I could no longer write? Dead paper. The taste of failure in my mouth. Ashes.

  I stayed at home for five long days, unable to sleep, wrestling with dark thoughts. I stopped working on my notes. I no longer knew what to think and what to believe. I simply couldn’t tell wh
ether Julia was right or wrong, a victim or a corrupter, psychologically disturbed or politically confused, a product of our sickeningly materialist age or a brave soul staging a valid protest against its perverse values. I couldn’t decide whether she was an ice-cold monster, a psychopath, or whether she had legitimate reasons for her actions. Most of the time, I sat in a darkened room in my big armchair, wearing my pyjamas and primrose-coloured dressing gown, drinking too much, trying but failing to get things clear in my head. I’d put my phone on silent; its ring-tune hurt my head.

  I thought about calling my sister a few times, to talk things through with her. But I just knew what her spiel would be – psychoanalysts are so predictable. I could hear her explaining the effects on a young woman’s psyche of finding out she was adopted and had been lied to for all those years by those whose responsibility it was to provide her with love and support. I could also hear her reflecting more generally on cold mothers with high expectations and weak, adoring fathers who love their daughters far too much. Like a vulture that has spotted carrion, Amanda would focus on Julia’s alleged emotional and sexual coldness, which she would interpret as a perverse amplification of her mother’s own detachment and affective dysfunctionality. Then she would spin theories about early infant-mother bonding problems, and argue that Julia’s murderous revenge fantasies about her ‘bad’ mothers (the real one who abandoned her, and Rose) had not been contained, which is why they resurfaced in a murderous act many years later. But this blaming-the-mother culture has always made me deeply uneasy, George. It’s a dangerous path to tread.

  Julia, Amanda would say, developed typical narcissistic defence mechanisms at a very young age. In my mind I could also hear Amanda explaining in great detail the repercussions for Julia’s vulnerable psyche of the traumatic moment when she witnessed her father kissing her music teacher – a double rival. She would then move on to what always constitutes the climax of any of her analyses, and it was this, the anticipation of yet another dull discourse on Oedipal triangles, that nipped in the bud my desire to call her. I’d heard that particular narrative too many times, and although I appreciate many of the often brilliant and much more nuanced insights that psychoanalysis can offer, the Oedipus complex has always struck me as a highly overrated cliché. I just couldn’t face it.

  On the afternoon of 22 October, numb and intoxicated, and for the first time since my return from Marseille, I managed to find the courage to open my email, and listlessly skim-read the 211 email headers that aggressively announced their unread status in bold, reproachful letters. A relatively recent one, flagged as urgent, caught my attention – ‘VICTIM WANTS TO MEET YOU – RESPOND!’ it read. It turned out to be from you (as were at least fifty other emails).

  ‘Christ, Clare, WHERE ARE YOU? Can you please ANSWER MY EMAILS AND MY CALLS?’ it read. ‘Grace Taylor, one of the victims who survived the coffee-shop bombing, heard about the book project and contacted me. She wants to meet you. Please call her as a MATTER OF URGENCY.’

  So call her I did. Grace Taylor’s voice sounded like the deep murmur of a mountain stream lapping gently against moss-covered rocks. When I introduced myself she simply said, ‘Yes, Clare, hello. I’ve been expecting your call. When would be a good time for you to come and see me?’

  We agreed to meet the following day, at eleven o’clock in the morning. This would leave me enough time to make myself presentable, and to cover up some of the traces the previous weeks had left in my face. When I put my trousers on I realized I must have lost weight – I needed a belt to keep them in place. My blazer, too, felt baggier than it used to. I hadn’t eaten anything much apart from crackers; everything else I’d consumed was of a liquid nature.

  Grace lived in the ground-floor flat of a small white house with a cherry-coloured door in a chestnut-lined side-street in Notting Hill, just far enough from the endless stream of treasure-hunting tourists that congests Portobello market. She opened the door only seconds after I’d rung the bell.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Clare,’ she said and took my hand. She held it between hers for a long time, and I felt quite overwhelmed by the unexpected intimacy of this act. Grace smelled of lavender, and was perhaps in her sixties or seventies, or even eighties – it was very difficult to tell, since her face was round and kind, and very smooth, as though she hadn’t known much sorrow in her life. Her pale-blue eyes, however, never properly focused on mine – whenever I sought to hold them they flickered across my face and then glided downwards, like tears.

  She led me to the living room. The first thing I noticed was that it was populated with hundreds of photographs – they were everywhere, on the walls, on the mantelpiece, on the chests of drawers, on the old grand piano – this was clearly a woman who resided right at the heart of a remarkably wide-ranging network of relationships. When she sat down in a purple armchair, she appeared to me as someone cherished by this multitude of phantoms, as though she was their queen and they her loving subjects. Here was a woman with more than just a cat to accompany her into old age, someone who had chosen people rather than words.

  On the coffee table between us stood an old-fashioned porcelain teapot on a candle-lit stove. Two teacups on saucers and a jug of milk and a sugar bowl were also in reach, as well as a plate with a selection of shortbread fingers. The biscuits looked self-made and smelled of honey and burned butter.

  A young woman popped her head in and called, ‘Is everything OK, Grandma?’

  Grace smiled and waved in her direction. ‘Yes, darling, we’re fine. I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry. You can go now if you want.’

  ‘Would you mind pouring us a cup of tea?’ Grace asked when the woman had disappeared. ‘And please, do have some biscuits.’

  It was only then that I saw that Grace’s hands were resting on a stick. Again I noticed that her gaze was strangely directionless, constantly sinking to the ground, like a limpet with weak suction sliding down a pane of glass. And then it came to me – Grace was blind.

  I poured the tea and pushed the cup in her direction. The room was small but cosy – it was dominated by a grand piano with golden feet, flanked by numerous healthy-looking plants. There was a birdcage in the bay window that looked out onto the street, with two bright canaries in it. I realized then I knew nothing about Grace – I hadn’t even done the most basic background check. I stuttered something about my editor and managed to produce a few generalities about my project. Grace’s face was turned in my direction. Her gentle smile made me think of a benign full moon illuminating a clearing in a dark wood. At some point, she closed her eyes.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Now, tell me, dear. How’s your research been going so far?’

  ‘Not well,’ I blurted out. I suddenly felt the strong need to share my sorrows with her, unprofessional as this might have been in this particular situation. I just started talking then, incontinently, telling Grace about my doubts and my inability to construct a coherent narrative about Julia in which I could actually believe. Grace listened intently, nodding her head as though what I told her coincided with something she had already concluded herself.

  ‘I see. I understand your problem,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘But unfortunately, I won’t be able to help you solve it. I didn’t know Julia. I know nothing about her. Nothing apart from what’s been reported in the press. But I saw her. I looked her in the eye. Julia, you see, was the last thing I saw before she took away my sight for good. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. My last vision. But I’m afraid that’s all I can offer. It’s not really what you’ve been hoping for, dear, is it?’

  ‘You lost your sight as a result of the bombing?’ I asked. Grace nodded. Christ, I thought. How they must haunt her, her last visual impressions – Julia’s face, her gaze, her movements.

  ‘Could you describe the day of the attack, Grace? What were you doing in that part of London? How did you end up in the coffee shop at that particular time?’

  ‘With pleasure, dear. But first
, let me tell you a few things about me. I’m a music teacher. Piano, mainly. I taught at various primary schools and now I give private lessons. I’ve always loved being a teacher. I never had any delusions of grandeur, you see? It makes life so much easier. I never saw myself as a thwarted concert pianist, or what have you. I know my strengths and weaknesses. It’s a strength in itself, you see, to realize what you can and can’t achieve in life. And to make your peace with it. And I like to think I’m a rather good teacher, too. I love my students. Many of them have gone on to accomplish great things. But I try not to boast about them. Don’t let me get started on that, dear! I’ve other people I can bore with these tales.’

  ‘Are you married, Grace?’ I asked without thinking. A bad habit of mine. To associate boredom and marriage, and dusty old tales told too many times.

  Grace smiled. ‘I was, for thirty-nine most wonderful years. Then he died, my husband. John. Cancer, you see? I’ve children, though, four. And two grandchildren. And a third on the way. You just met one of them, Samantha. It was Sam I was about to meet on the day of the bombing. She was late, that day. Thank God. Had she been on time, who knows what might have happened. It’s quite likely she’d be dead. There were only five survivors, you see. Yes, thank God Sam was late that day. She said she ran into an old school friend.’ Grace chuckled. ‘That’s her story, anyway. Truth is, Sam’s always late. Couldn’t be on time if her life depended on it. No matter how hard she tries. Some people are like that.

  ‘I’d seen a student that morning. Bernard. Such a talented young boy. Only twelve, but so very gifted. He’ll go far, I’m sure of that. We spent the entire hour practising Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude. Do you know it?’ Grace hummed the first notes, and to my own surprise I did indeed recognize it. ‘We worked on Bernard’s delivery. Timing, you see, is the key. To everything. It’s the secret ingredient, the difference between mere sounds and music. Once my students manage to hit all the right keys, which is just a matter of practice, really, my job starts properly. Deceleration and acceleration, hesitation, tension, teasing, climax, release… but I’m digressing. I just remembered that lesson, because when I left to catch the bus to Covent Garden that day I was struck by the sound of the raindrops pelting the cloth of my umbrella. I kept thinking, what a genius. You see, Chopin had managed to capture their voice so brilliantly. Of course, he must have heard it often, the rain, especially here in England…