At last Julia entered the study. This had been Robert’s domain for years and she rarely entered it, always allowing him his privacy and space. It was now nine months since his death and today she felt that the time had come to clear away the remainder of his things. The house had been sold and she had found a bright maisonette in Belsize Park which she thought would provide a peaceful home for this new chapter in her life. She had fond memories of Robert in their early years together but not so in the latter. For the past few years he had spent more and more time, when he was not travelling, alone in the study, very often into the early hours of the morning. They had somehow drifted apart. Elise, their daughter and only child had completed University and now lived in New York where she worked as a journalist for the NY Express. The maisonette with its established garden and large sunny rooms would make a lovely retreat for her when she occasionally visited, which was usually at Christmas and sometimes for a week or so in the summer.
The room still felt strange and somewhat alien to her. She had often wondered what he did in here until the early hours. Business, she thought, keeping the wheels turning of Ellis Electrical, the company he had started shortly after they first met. He had done well and left her very comfortably off in death. The house, just off the King’s Road had sold for nearly two million and then there was the company for which I.C. Industries had offered close to seventeen million pounds. She and Elise would never have to worry about money for the rest of their lives.
