The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd

Author:Ellery Lloyd [Lloyd, Ellery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

CAROLINE, LONGHURST, 2023, FIVE DAYS BEFORE HARRY’S DEATH

“Hello, Harry,” I said. “Thanks so much for agreeing to see me on short notice.”

“Caroline!” Harry said, hesitating a moment before embracing me in an awkward hug. “Of course, of course, you’re always welcome here.”

We both knew that had not always been the case. For decades, as Juliette’s biographer, I had been petitioning Harry’s parents (through Harry, or by letter and email) for access to the house at Longhurst, feeling there were aspects of Juliette’s personality, elements of Self-Portrait as Sphinx, that being here would help me decode. Not a chance was the answer I always got, via Harry, apologetically.

“Once my parents have made up their mind about something, or someone . . . ,” he would regretfully begin, before trailing off. “And I can’t say you made a great first impression at my twenty-first.”

In the end, all it took to arrange a visit was one of the Willoughbys having something to gain financially from saying yes.

The painting itself was already in Dubai with Patrick, but I wanted to hear from Harry’s own lips how and where he had found it. Nor was that all I wanted to investigate at Longhurst Hall.

“Well, Harry’s in the process of selling the place,” Patrick had advised. “So it may well be your last and only chance to visit before it changes hands.”

I had seen the estate agent’s listing online, so I knew that the house was in a bad way. What I had not been prepared for was the state Harry himself was in. He looked not only much older than I was expecting, but a lot less well. In my mind, he was forever fixed the way he had looked at university: flushed, cherubic, with buttery curls. Now his frame was angular and slight, his hair reduced to fluffy duckling tufts around the temples. He was wearing a shirt that might once have fitted but was now several sizes too big, with red corduroy trousers worn shiny at the knees and bunched at the waist with an ancient cracked leather belt.

Admittedly, it had been a long time since we last met. Harry had been at our wedding, and a few times the three of us had been out for dinner, usually somewhere stuffy and expensive, at Harry’s suggestion, although somehow Patrick always picked up the bill—Harry never seemed to have the right wallet with him or the right credit card. Since then, I had caught Harry on TV too, interviewed in the lobby of the House of Commons, or sent out to defend the government’s position on Newsnight. For a Cambridge graduate with such lofty political ambitions, his career had been surprisingly unspectacular, marred by the MP’s expenses scandal and the discovery that he had claimed tens of thousands in taxpayer money for repairs at Longhurst. Shortly after the scandal broke in the newspapers, Harry announced his decision not to contest his seat at the upcoming election.

“It’s freezing,” he blustered, waving me in off the doorstep.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.