Page 61 of The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
This was, I knew, a dangerous feeling. He had a wife. He had a house, a business, a whole life here in Dubai, one that he had worked hard to build. I had my career, in Cambridge.
“Patrick,” I said. “What are we doing?”
He took my champagne glass from my hand and put it on the table. I heard the clink as he put his own glass down too. Then I turned to him. Then he kissed me, just as I knew he would, just as I had been waiting for him to. And I can’t explain how it felt, except to say that it did not just feel natural, it felt inevitable. He kissed me and in that moment it all melted away—the sadness and shame and regret. We were two twenty-one-year-olds with no idea of what was to come. I was reminded too of his gentleness, his patience, in those early days. When I pulled away. When he felt me suddenly clam up. Not at physical intimacy but—unexpectedly, uncontrollably—at any hint of emotional intimacy, domesticity. Sleeping together, that was fine. Staying overnight was a habit we slipped into. But it was months before I would let him leave a toothbrush or a change of clothes in my room, years before I introduced him to my grandmother. It can’t have been easy for him, yet again and again I was amazed at the sensitivity with which he would grasp the right thing to say, the right thing to do. All the things not to say and do.
“Maybe we should go inside,” he said, taking my hand.
Afterward, lying in bed, Patrick and I found ourselves talking about the past, our past, specifically our first night together. Did I remember the first thing I ever said to him? Did he remember what song was playing? I remembered his shirt. He remembered the dress I had on. How strange it was to exist in someone else’s head like that, fixed forever, unchanging. I wished there was some way in which we could start it all again from that moment, live the whole thing once more and not let it go wrong, not lose sight of each other this time around.
“I think I fell in love with you that night,” he said. “That very first night I met you.”
“I’m pretty sure I did not fall in love with you until later,” I said. “I did quite like your shirt, though.”
Patrick turned to face me again, propping himself up on his elbow. His face grew serious.
“I have never stopped loving you, you know. I thought I had, until I saw you again, but...”
“You don’t need to say things like that, Patrick. Honestly. This is nice, this was lovely, please don’t feel it’s necessary to say things you don’t mean.”
“I’m serious.”
He stroked my hand.
“You should probably go,” I said.
But he didn’t move. For a long time he said nothing and neither did I. Eventually, reluctantly, Patrick checked the time on his phone and groaned. I asked him if he was sure he was safe to drive, and he said he thought so. He asked if I thought it was too late to knock and tell Harry the good news about the painting’s sale, and we decided it was never too late to find out you were somewhere in the region of thirty million pounds better off. He knew Harry’s room was on the same floor as mine because he had booked and paid for it, and that he would be passing it on his way to the elevator.
I pulled on the hotel bathrobe as Patrick got dressed and kissed him goodbye at the door. Despite everything, there was a longing in that kiss, a tenderness.
Perhaps even some kind of promise.
PATRICK, DUBAI, 2023, THE NIGHT OF HARRY’S DEATH
I was going to tell her. That was what I had promised myself on that balcony, before I kissed Caroline. I was going to tell Sarah. I would tell her what had happened and I would tell her why. There would be no attempt at concealment. I was not a man like my father, with his affairs, his assignations, his endless indiscretions. I could not be.
Room 712, Harry’s room, was halfway between Caroline’s and the elevator. I paused outside it, listened for sounds of life, leaned down to check under the door for lights, then knocked. No answer.
After a minute or two, I knocked again. This time I could hear a faint groan. “Who is it?” Harry croaked through the door.
“Me,” I said, my voice low, urgent. “Harry, it’s Patrick.”
There was a thump, as if someone had just rolled heavily out of bed. A pause. Harry opened the door, just a crack, chain taut across it. “What do you want?” he said.
“Are you not going to let me in?” I asked. The door did not open wider. “How are you feeling?”
He shrugged, grunted. He looked terrible.
“Well, this might cheer you up: your painting sold tonight, Harry. For forty-two million pounds.”
He nodded, mumbled something, noisily took off the chain and let the door swing open.
His room was an absolute mess. There was half-eaten room service on the bedside table, wet towels on the floor. The balcony door was open, a thin white curtain billowing inward. Every lampshade looked askew.
“Excuse all this,” he said.
“Harry Willoughby, what on earth is going on? I have just told you that your money troubles are over. That thanks to the tremendous amount of work and effort I have put in, the auction tonight I organized and bankrolled, you are going back to Longhurst—which you now won’t need to sell—with tens of millions in your back pocket.” I placed my hands on both his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t mean to be needy, mate, but could you at least fucking react?”
A thank-you would have been nice, for instance. It had been my gallery on the line as well as his house. It had been Harry who had come close to fucking the whole thing up. Still his face was sullenly blank. It was like I was telling him he had just put a winning lottery ticket in the wash. I could feel myself growing increasingly angry now.
