The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel by Schaffner Anna Page B

other girls who were complaining about him. In my view, the whole affair was a witch-hunt.
    Back then already, Julia was entirely devoid of scruples when it came to achieving her aims. One day she drugged Mr Harris’s coffee during lunch. How exactly she did that I never found out. Perhaps she used some of my mother’s sleeping pills. When he was fast asleep in a soft chair in the gym, she sneaked in and with pink superglue wrote ‘PERV’ on his forehead. I will never forget the hurt and bewildered look on the man’s face when he rushed past us in the corridor a few hours later, after someone had found and woken him. The defamatory word was clearly legible for all to see.
    Julia was caught entering and leaving the gym on CCTV. She was summoned by the headmaster that very afternoon. Our parents were called in, too. But my sister must once again have delivered one of her manipulative speeches, since she was never punished for what she did. Instead, Mr Harris was forced to accept a package and to resign. There was never any solid evidence against him apart from the hyped-up stories of a few pubescent girls. Four years ago, by pure chance, I read in the papers that he had been killed by a train on a small level-crossing in Sussex. It didn’t sound like an accident to me.
    I think Julia has always hated me. When she was younger, she treated me with open hostility, and later with cold contempt and mockery. I suppose in her twisted view of the world I stood for everything she despised most. In her eyes, I was the epitome of self-satisfied bourgeois normality. I never had a teenage rebellious phase; I never wallowed in angst; I have never felt guilty about my privileges, just blessed. I always believed that a good work ethic, self-discipline and intelligence can get you anywhere, regardless of your background. I always had concrete aims and realizable dreams, and I worked bloody hard to achieve them. I am not ashamed of anything I have done.
    When I was seventeen I told my family that I had decided to study for a business degree. Julia just laughed out loud, in that scornful way that she masters so well. Then she said: ‘Of course you have, Jonathan. What else would you study?’ When I announced to my family a few years later that Susanna and I had decided to get married she rolled her eyes and once again laughed out loud.
    ‘How cuuuuute,’ she said. ‘Congratulations!’
    There was so much loathing in her voice that Susanna, who was present, was really taken aback. She just couldn’t understand where Julia’s contempt was coming from. She found it really upsetting. But as we were to find out, that incident was nothing compared to what my sister did on our wedding day.
    Susanna and I got married on a Saturday in August 2008. Julia was studying at Oxford at the time. I think it was her last year. She had very reluctantly agreed to come down and celebrate the big day with us. I think my parents must have more or less forced her. We got married in a beautiful thirteenth-century church in a little village in Surrey, close to where Susanna was born. Her parents still own a large country house there. After the ceremony, we celebrated in their beautiful gardens. We had erected a white marquee for the occasion. It was a stunning day and everyone was in great spirits. There were about 150 guests, many of whom had brought along their children. They were chasing around between the tables and the trees. There was laughter and birdsong, and the sun was shining. Susanna was six months pregnant, and looked dazzling in her white lace dress. We just couldn’t stop smiling at each other. It looked like it really would be the perfect day of which we had dreamed.
    My sister missed the church ceremony in the morning, which really upset Susanna, who is more religious than I am. She turned up late in the afternoon. She was wearing ripped jeans and a washed-out oversized T-shirt that kept slipping down her shoulder. It was a slap in the face,