Read Online Julia by Peter Straub - Free Book Online

poltergeist.”
    “Oh, I hope so,” Julia said. “That’s nice. You just smile when I say something drippy and girlish like that. Magnus would look disgusted.”
    “Magnus has Standards.”
    “And a powerful soul.”
    “Hah! Do you forgive her for letting me know your secret?”
    “For telling you, but not for telling Magnus. He gave me a wretched night.”
    “Let me go shopping with you, and I’ll help you put Magnus right out of your mind.”
    “You’re a dear. I’ll need lots of help carrying heavy things.”
    “Consider my back yours.” These words, coming from Mark, had an almost explicit sexual overtone; Julia took his arm as answer. No one as irresponsible as Mark could ever be threatening.
    “If you help me, maybe I’ll return the favor by helping you clear up that legendary mess of yours in Notting Hill.”
    “Agreed,” Mark said.

THREE
    Even later, Julia could look back on that afternoon of shopping with nostalgic, regretful pleasure. It had been as though she really were free of all ties, unattached, spendthrift and carefree—the girl she might have become ten years ago if she had not been mesmerized by Magnus Lofting. She and Mark had taken the Rover first to Oxford Street, where Julia bought towels and sheets and some kitchen things she needed, and then to Harrods. Mark had insisted on buying her an odd little green bracelet, not expensive by Harrods’ standards. Finally they had gone to Fortnum and Mason’s, where Julia spent a ridiculously happy, ridiculously costly hour buying exotic groceries. Julia several times caught other shoppers looking at her queerly and realized she was making a lot of noise but for once did not feel embarrassed or rebuked; Mark, for his part, seemed delighted by her effusiveness. His enjoyment of her high spirits fed them: Julia felt nearly intoxicated with pleasure, uncomplicated and cloudless. She and Mark had tea at Fortnum’s; then they abandoned the laden Rover in a parking garage and went to a pub; in the evening he took her to a small restaurant in Notting Hill. Magnus had never entered a pub in all his adult life—Magnus would have fled The Ark (providing that he could have been coaxed into any restaurant in Notting Hill) at first sight of the menu which was chalked on boards hung on the walls. After dinner, nowin a second pub, Mark rather shyly invited Julia to his flat: “Room, actually. You’ve never been there.”
    “Some other time, dear Mark. I have all those things to put away. And I’ve had too much liquor to trust myself in your room.”
    That night her dreams were lurid. She was walking slowly, ploddingly, through Holland Park—a Holland Park full of statues and bronze monuments. She was alone; Magnus had vanished somewhere, and Julia knew that he was seeing another woman. Kate gamboled up ahead, her head bobbing, her white dress winking in the gray-green light. Julia tried to walk faster, in order to protect Kate, but each step took enormous effort, as though she was walking through a bog. Then, looking ahead, she saw that Kate had a companion, the blond girl she had seen on her first day in the park. The two girls danced ahead of her, unheeding. Their identical heads, each white gold, flew through the dense air. Far ahead of Julia, on a long hill, they sat down. Julia tried to run, but her legs were as if paralyzed. The second girl was speaking rapidly to Kate, uttering some vile business—Kate sat enthralled. When Julia came nearer, the girls turned their faces toward her, their identical eyes glowing. “Go away, Mother,” Kate said.
    Then she was carrying Kate’s body through a city. The blond girl, as before, danced ahead of her, leading. Julia followed after, crossing busy streets in bright sunshine, until they had left the crowded downtown part of the city and were in a sinister, dilapidated area: grimy, sunless courts and filthy brick buildings with boarded windows. A hunchbacked man scuttled past, grinning at her. The blond