The Truth About Julia

A Chillingly Timely Thriller

Anna Schaffner

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781760290122
• eBook ISBN: 9781925267532
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

How many versions of the truth can there be? In June 2014, Julia White - a beautiful and intelligent young woman - blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing twenty-four people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions. Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?

III

I was the kind of younger sister who always tags along. I followed my sister everywhere, a bit like a slightly annoying puppy, you know? And Julia was the kind of older sister who didn’t mind, who was just nice and generous about it. Or at least she never let me feel it if I did get on her nerves. Until she came back from her gap year, that is – after that, everything changed. Or maybe I just didn’t get the message before then. I don’t know. I must have misunderstood something along the way. I often do that, misread people. I’m really not very good at picking up on the finer nuances of interpersonal exchanges. Everybody else in my family seems to be able to do that just fine. They’re all confident and functional and socially at ease, and all that.

Julia has always been fiercely protective of me, from the very start, really. There are more pictures of her holding me when I was a baby than there are of my mother. Actually, thinking about it, there are barely any photographs in our family album in which we aren’t together: usually I’m holding her hand and we’re dressed in matching outfits. Or at least that was the idea – I was a bit of a copy-cat. I always wanted to wear exactly what Julia was wearing. But my outfits kind of ended up being not just pale but comic and weird-looking imitations of hers – I just didn’t have Julia’s sense of style, and of course I didn’t have the aura and personality that one needs to get away with more risky choices, either. Even on those days when Julia was super-nice to me and chose every single item of my outfit, and put together a really beautiful combination that would have looked amazing on anyone, it didn’t work. The other day, I flipped through one of our old photo albums again, and almost every picture of me made me cringe.

When Julia went through a brief Goth phase – I think she was about fourteen or fifteen – I also insisted on wearing only black and on painting my eyes dark with kohl, trying never to smile and all that. But while Julia looked like a beautiful Victorian vampire in her velvet capes and long lace dresses, I just looked like a soot-covered chimney sweep. When Julia and her friends hung out in someone’s house to smoke and read world-weary poetry and listen to The Cure, and when they went to gigs, I trailed along. I don’t know how the others saw me – they probably thought of me as a peculiar little mascot or something like that. I’m pretty sure I did real damage to the group’s otherwise impeccable cool-factor.

I really don’t know whether Julia thought of me that way, back then. I hope not. She never said so. But who knows? Maybe she was just being nice, and it cost her a superhuman effort not to lose her temper around me. Or maybe she just felt sorry for me. I don’t know how she did it, putting up with me like that, day after day, for years on end. How annoying must it be when someone copies everything pretty you do, and makes it all look totally ridiculous in the process, like a caricature or something? Not that I would know, of course – nobody would ever want to copy my style.

Back then, Julia was always lovely and supportive and nice to me – really, I can’t remember a single occasion when I didn’t feel safe and protected in her company. She was simply amazing. She was the only person I ever felt at ease with, like I could just be myself and it was OK, you know? She still is, although she doesn’t speak to me anymore, of course.

In any case, none of her friends ever dared to question why I was always with her – she could be pretty scary and forbidding when she felt that people were criticizing her decisions. When I was with Julia nobody ever had the nerve to treat me with anything but respect. And being with her meant that I could be in a group of people who would normally not even have looked at me – her friends were always by far the coolest types around. But without Julia by my side, I was nothing – the weird, sickly freak-sister, whom no one would ever speak to.

I’ve always been frail – I have asthma and was born with a little hole in my heart, and other things I won’t bore you with. I needed a lot of medical attention when I was little. For some reason, it was always Julia and not my mother – although, ironically, she’s actually a surgeon – who made sure I took my medication and who came with me to every one of the hundreds of medical appointments I had to endure. Julia always insisted on sleeping in a bed next to me when I had to stay in hospital overnight. She really was that kind of person, you know? Just nice and caring. She was always there for me. I don’t know exactly why Julia took on that mother role – perhaps she really did love me as much as she always told me she did, back then. But sometimes, in my darker moments, I wonder whether I was just her guinea-pig, her first ‘case’ – a downtrodden creature in need of a strong helper. This obviously came to be her thing, later on. All of a sudden, she cared for all the other wretched of this earth, the far-away ones, and dropped me like a hot potato. But who knows what her real motives were. That kind of stuff is impossible to tell, isn’t it?

Our parents weren’t at all ‘bad’ parents – I’m sure that’s what everyone thinks. They were supportive in many ways, and massively proud of Julia, of course. The worst I can say about them really is that they weren’t at home much, because they both had pretty demanding jobs. Everyone but me in my family is some kind of high flyer. I think my mother was incredibly grateful that Julia looked out for me – it took a big weight off her shoulders. My parents always thought the world of Julia – my dad even more so than my mother; he totally idolized her. She was the bright star in our family, the angel, the super-clever one. They trusted her completely, and so did I, of course. They never questioned a single one of Julia’s choices. In their view, she simply couldn’t put a foot wrong. I think Jonathan found that a little difficult at times, like he was second-rate or something, but the truth is, we both were second-rate compared to her.

When I finished primary school Julia fought like a lion to get me into her own school, a fee-paying one. I think originally my parents didn’t believe I was worth it – they’d already paid through the nose for Jonathan’s and Julia’s private education, and probably felt that I wasn’t academically minded enough, or something like that, to justify another massive financial investment of that kind. Obviously they didn’t really put it that way – they claimed that Julia’s school was much further away than the local comprehensive, and that the daily commute would exhaust me. They said they’d prefer me not to be subjected to a too-demanding physical and intellectual regime like the one Julia’s school was famous for, since I didn’t have the strength to cope well with stress. And they argued that I’d be able to explore my ‘creative inclinations’ better in the local school, which had a fantastic drama and art society. And so on – I’m sure you can imagine it.

It’s true that I didn’t exactly shine in primary school, but that was also because of my shyness. I was so timid and frightened as a child that I rarely spoke a word without Julia by my side. On my first day at school, for example, I desperately needed to go to the loo, but was too scared to ask for permission. After a few hours, I just couldn’t hold it in any longer and simultaneously started to cry and to pee in my seat, right in front of everyone. Of course the other kids never let me forget that scene – I was ‘Amy-the-Pant-Pisser’ for four years.

Anyway. I can remember really clearly the evening when Julia convinced my parents to change their mind about my schooling. I was eleven years old – I had started school a year later than normal because of my health – and Julia had just turned sixteen. Jonathan had recently left home for university, which was kind of a relief, to be honest. Julia and I found his pedantic and self-important attitude and his constant outbursts of jealousy a bit annoying. I think ultimately he was resentful about the fact that Julia was better than him at everything, and also that she and I got on so well. After supper that day Julia told me to go to my room because she had to talk to our parents about something important. Obviously, I was incredibly curious about her secret business, and hid behind the half-closed dining-room door. I couldn’t see the three of them, but I could hear everything they said. It was the first time I heard Julia use her rhetorical skills for a specific aim. I can tell you one thing – not many people are able to stand up to her when she’s set on achieving something. Actually, I’ve never met anyone who could. She’s an incredibly persuasive speaker – she can argue the case for almost anything, and she does it with wit and charm besides, if she feels like it. She can also get a little intense when things don’t go her way, but that didn’t happen very often.

She started by asking my parents on what grounds they could justify two of their children being worthy of an expensive education, and the third not. Then she proceeded to make a powerful argument for my as yet underdeveloped but clearly highly promising academic aptitude. She painted a gruesome picture of the rough and dangerous social environment that awaited me at the comprehensive, and of the cruel bullying that vulnerable girls like me tend to suffer in such places. She said she needed to be near me to look after me at all times, and especially at school – did my parents even have the slightest inkling what a jungle it was out there? What monstrosities schoolchildren were capable of inflicting upon their weaker peers? She illustrated this point with a few well-chosen examples that included locked cupboards and toilet bowls and that made my mother gasp. She said that of all three of us it was me they should have sent to private school, as it was clearly I who was the most fragile and in need of extra care and attention, much more so than she and Jonathan ever had been. She said she really couldn’t follow my parents’ logic. At all.

And then Julia made my parents feel even more ashamed of themselves than they no doubt already did: she must have stood up – I heard a chair moving. She lowered her voice rather than raising it, and spoke very quietly and intently – that’s a method I’ve seen her use on many later occasions, too. She probably also used her hands – Julia gestures a lot when she speaks, and the movements of her hands are fluid and calm, and very effective. They can hypnotize you if you’re not careful.

‘I need to protect Amy, especially at school, can’t you see that?’ she said. ‘And I won’t even mention the double standards behind your decision not to pay for a proper education for your youngest daughter, who is already so cruelly disadvantaged by nature. Amy will have to struggle with health problems for the rest of her life,’ Julia said, very quietly and clearly. ‘I’m sure you never hesitated for a second when deciding whether or not Jonathan was worth the investment. Did you? Jonathan isn’t one bit more intelligent than Amy. In fact, I’m pretty sure the opposite is the case. And neither is he more talented than her – he’s just louder and more confident. The key difference is quite simply that he is a man. Are you seriously telling me that you’re not prepared to pay the tuition fees for your youngest, sickest child simply because she’s a girl? Or,’ and here Julia paused as though she couldn’t quite bring herself to say what she felt she had to next, ‘are your motivations even more sinister? Is it precisely because Amy is sick that you think it’s pointless to invest your money in the education of this child? Is it because you think she will die sooner than us, and that paying for proper schooling would therefore not be worth it?’

My mother was so upset she couldn’t respond at all. I felt pretty bad about it, to be honest – although I appreciated Julia’s campaign, I thought she’d gone a bit too far. Dad tried to refute her points: ‘Of course not, of course not, sweetheart; how can you think that of us, Julia, darling!’ he kept saying, and he, too, sounded shocked and shaken by her accusations. But Julia said nothing more and simply left the room. Of course she found me eavesdropping behind the door, but rather than being angry with me she just took my hand and led me upstairs to her room. That night, she let me sleep in her bed – she used to do that on special occasions. Just before I fell asleep she whispered: ‘All will be OK tomorrow, my pet, you’ll see. Trust me.’

And she was right, of course. My parents never mentioned the comprehensive again. The very next day they enrolled me at Julia’s school. I couldn’t help but be impressed with her manoeuvre, but I found out later that two months before Julia’s intervention, my father had lost a big sum on the stock market. Jonathan told me. Apparently it was such a large amount that my parents were afraid of having to declare bankruptcy for a while. But somehow they managed to pay my fees in any case – how exactly they did it I don’t know. And a few years later, their finances had recovered, and all was well again on that front.

The only time I ever saw Julia use violence was at a party she took me to when I was twelve. By then she’d shed her black costumes and her flirtation with Weltschmerz. She’s always been pretty extreme in her tastes and interests – it’s all or nothing for her. Quite abruptly, she’d moved on from death to politics and economics, and had raided our mother’s wardrobe and all the charity shops in town in search of seventies clothes. Of course, as always, I followed suit. On the evening of the party, she was wearing flared brown corduroys, red leather cowboy boots and a flowery purple blouse. Her long brown hair, parted in the centre, glistened like wet chestnuts. Her hair has always been glossy and full – not like mine, which is catastrophically brittle. You wouldn’t think we had the same genes, would you? She’d also put on lots of Indian bracelets with little silver bells that chimed whenever she moved her hands.

Julia is the kind of person who inspires trends and attracts followers wherever she goes. Not just me, I mean: at least half of her year were trying to emulate her style. When we arrived at her friend’s house, The Doors were playing, and everyone was giggling and smoking bongs and sitting cross-legged on the carpet – you can imagine the scene. All of Julia’s friends were boys – girls didn’t really interest her. Of those male friends, almost all were in love with her, and I could totally see why – I mean, how couldn’t they be? My sister was so incredibly beautiful and smart and brave. Julia was used to being adored, but generally didn’t pay much attention to her admirers. But there was one boy in her group of friends who didn’t give the impression of being particularly enamoured with her – he was called Josh, and the party was at his house. Josh’s seeming lack of interest had awoken Julia’s own. The night before, she had initiated me in her plan to seduce Josh at his party. Not because she was in love with him, or anything like that. He was a very ordinary person – I can’t even really remember his face. I think she did it simply because she considered it a challenge. I always kind of suspected that because she was so much more intelligent than everyone around her and because everything came to her so easily and quickly, she was actually pretty bored most of the time. I think she needed little challenges like that just to keep herself entertained, you know? But in any case, we’d sat up in her bed the night before and plotted seduction strategies: what she would wear, what she would say and in which tone of voice, how she would look at him and when she would touch his hand – that kind of stuff. Ultimately, I ended up being much more nervous and excited about the whole thing than she was. At that point, sexuality and all that hadn’t really featured much in our lives.

Unsurprisingly, Julia’s seduction strategy worked completely according to plan. Josh, who’d probably just been shy about expressing his affection, or else was a little slow or something, was massively flattered by Julia’s perceived interest in him, and he chitchatted animatedly with her. He was totally ridiculous, and I remember that it really annoyed me, the way he kept casting proud glances around the room to check that everyone was taking notice that the coolest girl in the school was gracing him with her attention. As always on these occasions, I sat next to Julia and observed her every move. I’ve studied her very carefully over the years. When we were still close, I mean. Sometimes, she’d throw me a conspiratorial little smile. I was terribly thrilled and quite agitated. I knew that the next step would be for her to casually put her hand on Josh’s knee, whisper something in his ear, and then she’d lead him to his parents’ bedroom, and... you can imagine it. She’d even bought some condoms, because she didn’t think Josh was the type who would have any himself.

And again, everything went just as we’d imagined it would. Before Julia left the room with Josh, she kissed me on the forehead and said: ‘You’ll be all right on your own for a bit, Amy, won’t you? I won’t be long – I promise.’ I’d never really been alone with her friends before, and didn’t know what to do with myself. I guess I must have looked lost and even sadder than usual because one of them, Tobias, took pity and sat down on the floor next to me. He was quite cute, and I actually really liked him. But almost immediately he began quizzing me about my sister – everybody only ever wants to talk about Julia with me. Even you, right? Anyway, Tobias asked all sorts of questions about her – what she was reading, what bands she liked, what perfume she wore, that kind of stuff. He jokingly offered me a bottle of beer, and looked terribly uneasy when I accepted it. I’d never drunk alcohol before, and it affected me immediately. Somehow, I allowed myself to believe that Tobias was actually interested in me rather than in Julia, and that she was simply the only shared topic of conversation we had at that point. Somehow, I even managed to convince myself that Tobias wasn’t just interested in me in a general kind of way, but interested in me sexually. I told you I was really bad at reading people. I blame it on the beer.

Anyway. There I was sitting on the floor drinking beer with Tobias, in a little makeshift hippy outfit that Julia had put together for me. I was wearing this knee-length flower-patterned blouse of hers with a thin leather belt – it was supposed to be a dress – a few of Julia’s necklaces, and even some lipstick and mascara. No doubt I looked grotesque, like a little girl who’d just raided her mother’s wardrobe and played around with her make-up, or a prostitute child bride or something like that. But after having drunk half of my beer, I decided to seduce Tobias: I wanted him to kiss me. For once, I, too, would have something exciting I could tell Julia. I started to look at Tobias in the way I’d seen Julia look at Josh – a look that she’d practised on me the night before. I think he must have found that really amusing, and he started to be playfully flirtatious back. Very gently though, I should add. He wasn’t a bad person, and I still feel pretty guilty about what happened later. I was feeling increasingly dizzy. I kept swaying towards him half-deliberately and half-drunkenly, and I began to slur my words. Some of his friends were watching us. No doubt they were all laughing at me.

‘Kiss me,’ I said finally. ‘I want you to kiss me.’

‘Kiss you?’ Tobias laughed. ‘Amy, with all due respect, you’re a bit young for me.’

‘Just kiss me,’ I insisted. I was speaking louder than I had intended.

‘Come on, Tobe, be a gentleman,’ one of his friends sitting on the other side of the room shouted.

‘Just do it, you coward,’ another one cried. Everyone was laughing and firing Tobias on.

Tobias looked totally embarrassed for a while, but then shrugged and finally said, in a resigned voice, ‘OK, just one quick kiss to make you happy then.’

Just as he bent over to plant a quick kiss on my lips, cheered on by the entire room, Julia came back down. Everybody fell silent at once. For a split second, she just stood there and looked at us. Her skin was alabaster-white, her eyes were narrow green slits and her lips pressed together so tightly that they’d turned white, too. She looked like an angry goddess about to wreak havoc, but who didn’t really know where to begin. She let her gaze travel slowly across the room. She looked at Tobias, and at the half-empty beer bottle in my hand, and then she looked at Tobias again.

Tobias got up immediately and said, ‘Look, Julia, don’t get angry, it’s not what it looks like. We were just having fun. Amy asked me to... ’

But Julia interrupted him. ‘How dare you,’ she said very quietly. Her voice cut through the room like a whiplash. What followed happened very quickly. She walked over to where Tobias and I were sitting. She stood right up against Tobias and looked at him for a few seconds that felt like an eternity. Everyone was holding their breath. Then she took the half-empty beer bottle from my hand, and smashed it down on Tobias’s head. He howled, and sank to his knees, holding his forehead in his hands. Blood was beginning to trickle from a small wound on his left temple.

‘For fuck’s sake. Damn you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re totally mad, Julia. It was a bloody game – your sister asked me to kiss her.’

But Julia wasn’t interested in his story. ‘That’ll teach you, you piece of shit,’ she hissed. Then she grabbed me by the hand and dragged me outside. We walked home in silence. I was crying, and Julia was still pulling my hand and going far too quickly for me to keep up. I wanted to tell her that it was true and that I’d asked Tobias to kiss me, but I didn’t dare. Eventually, she stopped her frantic walking and took me in her arms. She, too, was crying at that point.

‘I’m so sorry, Amy. I’m so sorry, forgive me, forgive me,’ she kept saying. ‘I’ll never leave you alone again like that in a room full of hormonal drunken arseholes, I promise.’

Again I wanted to tell her what had really happened, but she stopped me: ‘Hush, hush, now, it’s fine, let’s not talk about it anymore.’

Julia never spoke to anyone who was at that party again. I know I should have told her what had really happened, but I was too ashamed, and too scared to p...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• EDITORIAL NOTE
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV
• XV
• XVI
• XVII
• XVIII
• XIX
• XX
• POSTSCRIPT
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR