The House on Sunset Lake (3 page)

Jim shook his head angrily, about to spit out a reply, but Elizabeth reached over and touched his cheek with the back of her hand. It was such an uncharacteristically tender gesture, it stopped Jim in his tracks.

‘Oh darling,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want you to let some idealised vision of something that never really was cloud any chance of happiness you might have here in the real world.’

‘I’m not.’ He looked over at her, then down at the wine bottle. ‘Actually, I’ve been asked to go back to Casa D’Or.’

That was the real reason he hadn’t slept the night before. He’d tossed and turned in his bed, his thoughts consumed by the house, by the memories. By her.

‘Back? Whatever for?’

‘Simon Desai wants to acquire a historical Southern property. I told him about the house and he wants me to buy it. Blank cheque.’

Elizabeth raised her glass to her lips. ‘Well, it could be for sale.’

‘Really?’

‘You heard David Wyatt died recently?’

‘I didn’t know,’ he said with surprise.

Of course there was no reason he should have heard. Wyatt was a wealthy man, celebrated in his own circles, but he wasn’t famous, or of any particular note beyond the society pages of north Georgia. Besides, Jim had been working so hard on Munroe, the bomb could have dropped and he wouldn’t have noticed.

‘I can’t imagine anyone in that family will want to hold on to it,’ added Elizabeth, picking up a cashew. ‘Not after everything that happened there.’

Jim could feel his heart beating harder.

‘Who do you think the house went to?’

Elizabeth gave a disinterested shrug. ‘The wife?’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘You do know that Jennifer is married.’

Jennifer.
He hadn’t heard anyone – least of all his mother – say her name out loud since that far-off summer. He was amazed how unsettled it made him feel, even now.

He knew, of course. Every few months he would do a Google search on Jennifer Wyatt-Gilbert, usually calling up a picture of her at some benefit dinner or society party. So he knew she had married Connor Gilbert, her childhood sweetheart, and that they lived in New York. It no longer bothered him – well, not as much, anyway. Anyone could see Jennifer was leading the life she was destined to lead, and that was one without him in it.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I know.’

‘
Then move on, James.’ Elizabeth raised her eyebrows meaningfully as Melissa walked back into the room. ‘It’s high time, don’t you think?’

Chapter Three

They stayed at the party as long as they could, making conversation with whatever writer, actor or architect they were introduced to next. Melissa threw herself into the throng, cosying up to Jill Jenkins, a firebrand old-school feminist, declaring herself a lifelong fan, although Jim had not been aware of her feminist credentials before. Early on in their relationship she had announced that she wanted to give up work the second she got married, and he couldn’t remember her ever paying for dinner. He wasn’t sure if this made her not a feminist, but he was sometimes confused when it came to women and what they wanted.

When Jim ventured back into the living room to say his goodbyes, Bryn was still holding court by the fireplace. He was in the middle of a heated discussion with a noted TV historian over the role of women in politics and barely noticed when Jim said they were leaving, merely giving him a distracted wave. Jim knew it shouldn’t bother him: that was the way his father was – and besides, hadn’t he wanted to slip away without fuss or a confrontation? But as always, being ignored, being dismissed so easily, was what cut the most.

Melissa slipped her hand into his as they walked down the quiet street away from the lights of the house. A cab passed them as they turned on to the main road, but Jim didn’t raise an arm to stop it. He wanted to keep walking for a while; the numb of the cold on his skin felt good. The houses were even larger here, set back from the road, surrounded by walls and gardens. Was this what happened when you got rich? he wondered. You worked all those years and kissed all those arses and laughed at people’s jokes just so you could cocoon yourself inside high walls, hidden and alone? Was that what it was all about? He took a deep breath and let it out in a white cloud.

‘Sorry it wasn’t much fun,’ he said finally. ‘That’s what it’s like when you get a literary crowd together, I’m afraid.’

‘I thought it was great. All those brilliant people in one room. Your father, he’s amazing, isn’t he?’

Jim glanced at her, wondering if she was being ironic, but there was no smile.

‘And it was good to see where you grew up,’ she added, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

Jim laughed. ‘My mum says she’s turning my bedroom into a gym.’

‘I had that a few months ago.’ Melissa smiled back. ‘My parents said they were having a clear-out, which is just a polite way of saying they’re sick of being a storage facility for all my old stuff.’

‘I guess it means we’re grown-ups,’ he said, feeling a pang of sadness.

‘Is that a sign? Being handed all our records back?’

They walked on, their footsteps and the occasional whoosh of a passing car the only sounds.

‘So who’s Jennifer?’ Her voice had a contrived lightness to it.

‘Jennifer?’

Jim found himself unconsciously dropping her hand. He buttoned up his coat and started to quicken his pace a little.

‘An old family friend.’

There was a pause.

‘Just a friend?’

‘Well, a sort of girlfriend, though barely. We were thrown together when we went to America one summer, years ago.’

Jim glanced to his side and realised Melissa had stopped walking. He turned, frowning.

‘What’s up?’

‘A sort of girlfriend,’ repeated Melissa, her voice hardening. ‘I suppose that’s how you describe me too.’

He cringed.
So she
had
heard the conversation about marriage and babies.

‘Mel,’ he said, reaching out a hand for her, but she took a step back.

‘Don’t, Jim,’ she said. ‘We need to talk about this.’

‘Here?’ he said, casting an arm towards the road.

‘Why not here? Why not now? You’ve been ducking the question every time I try to bring it up.’

Jim ran a hand through his hair. Clearly there was no getting out of it this time.

‘We’ve been together almost a year,’ she said. ‘I’m thirty-five, you’re almost forty, for God’s sake. Are we supposed to carry on behaving like school kids, meeting once, twice a week? You get jumpy when I leave a bloody cardigan at your flat.’

He blew out his cheeks in irritation. ‘And what did you have in mind?’

‘Something! Anything!’ cried Melissa, throwing her hands up. ‘Cath moved in with Daniel before Christmas and she only started seeing him six months ago. Nikki’s just had her first baby. All my friends are settling down.’

‘So now we’re keeping up with the Joneses?’

She looked at him, her gaze level: her ‘don’t screw with me’ face.

‘Do you know what I did on New Year’s Eve, Jim? Do you?’

He sighed. ‘You were at Suzanne’s dinner party.’

‘Wrong,’ she hissed, her eyes sparkling with fury in the dark. ‘I was on my own, watching some crappy repeat movie with a bottle of wine and a microwave meal for one.’

He frowned. ‘But what about the dinner party?’

‘
There
was
no fucking dinner party.’

‘
Then why did you tell me there was?’

In the cool moonlight he could see spots of colour rising on her cheeks.

‘All my friends were with someone that night – husbands, boyfriends, lovers. That’s what you do on New Year’s Eve when you love someone. I wasn’t going to admit that my boyfriend didn’t even want to see me.’

‘I did want to see you, Mel. I was working – you knew what I did for a living when we first met. I happen to have a job that means I have to work on nights like that. You know how important Munroe is to me.’

She snorted angrily. ‘Oh, I know how important your job is to you, believe me, but don’t try to tell me I wasn’t there because you weren’t allowed to bring a partner.’

‘I wasn’t!’ he cried in frustration.

‘So why, when I talked to Annabel Miles at Christmas, did she tell me she was going to Munroe for Hogmanay?’

‘Annabel was there because her husband is CEO of Omari. He wasn’t working; he was drinking the champagne I had to carry in from the vans.’

Her tone softened. ‘Jim, you know and I know that you could have invited me if you’d really wanted to. The fact is that you didn’t want me there.’

‘Mel, that’s not true.’

‘But it is, Jim. When it’s me or your precious job, the job wins every time. And you know what? I’ve had enough of being second best. You’re not a workaholic. You’re just sad. A sad commitment-phobe with Peter Pan syndrome who needs to change his ways or he’s going to end up very, very lonely.’

‘Peter Pan syndrome?’

‘
They say Hitler had it.’

Jim laughed incredulously. ‘Now you’re comparing me to
Hitler.
’

‘I’d actually feel sorry for you, Jim, if I wasn’t starting to believe I’m wasting my time waiting for you to do something. Relationship, marriage. It’s not the bogeyman; it’s called growing up. I mean, look where we’re just been. Your parents have been married, what, forty-five years, and I bet he’s not the easiest man in the world to live with.’

‘
Two minutes ago you said he was amazing.’

She shook her head and looked back at him. ‘Tell me, Jim. Is our relationship going anywhere?’

‘I just need time.’

‘
Then look me in the eye and say that you love me.’

He closed his eyes and realised he couldn’t.

He heard her footsteps walking away, getting quieter and quieter until he opened his eyes and called out, ‘Melissa, wait!’

‘I’m sick of waiting,’ she shouted without even turning back.

He watched her figure recede into the distance. He could see the glowing sign of Hampstead tube just beyond, knew he could catch up with her, plead with her, bury her in a flurry of platitudes and promises. But she was right: he knew in his heart of hearts that he wouldn’t – couldn’t – keep any promises.

He closed his eyes, breathing cold air in and out, picturing the sun on the white stone of Casa D’Or, almost feeling himself back there: the warmth on his skin, the rush of excitement, of anticipation. And of love, true love. His mother had been right: he
had
been measuring every other woman against Jennifer. But as he watched Melissa turn the corner and disappear down the steps to the tube, he knew something else too: he knew he owed it to himself to feel something like that again. He had to try. And there was only one way he could do that. He had to go back to Casa D’Or. He had to get that house, that girl, out of his system.

Chapter Four

Jim slowed the car to a stop as he reached the imposing gates of the Wyatts’ family home.

It had taken him a whole hour to get from his hotel in Savannah’s historical district to the Isle of Hope, cursing himself for not taking the sat nav option at Hertz. He’d got lost in the city’s one-way system, around its warren of park squares and side streets, almost running into the back of a horse-drawn carriage before he’d admitted defeat and asked a traffic warden how to go south. Even when he’d been put on the right highway, the traffic had been terrible, a stop-start hell past strips of nail bars and tyre change shops, until he’d turned off the Truman Parkway and time seemed to slow down again. The streets were wide and shady here, a world away from the grid of tightly packed elegant homes that typified the central historical district. Signs pointed to stables down dusty tracks; clapboard homes hid behind palm trees, picket fences and wide front lawns; and as the road crossed a sweep of freshwater marshland, Jim admired the vivid colours, the bulrushes, the sharp shade of a bowl of limes, against a sky that was a Caribbean blue.

Although he was already late, he turned off the engine and took a moment to think, a creeping sense of unease palpable as he looked up at the stone archway above him. Once scrubbed and honey-coloured, it was now mottled and wrapped in ivy, but he could still read the words ‘Casa D’Or’ chiselled into the centre.

It was over twenty years since he had last driven down this stretch of road, but he doubted a week had passed without him thinking about it. Casa D’Or was only a house, a collection of wood and brick and slate, but it had loomed so large in his life it had taken on an other-worldly feel, and now, as he glanced in the rear-view mirror of his hire car, his heart beating hard, the years falling away, he could almost see an unlined, hopeful face, hair stiffened by too much gel, his younger self who hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place.

It had been Easter 1994 when it had been decided that the Johnson family were to decamp from leafy Hampstead to Savannah, Georgia. No one said as much, but it had been obvious to everyone that the radical change of scene was a last-ditch attempt to revitalise Bryn Johnson’s career. His debut novel
All My Fathers
, a blistering polemic about class, sex and power, had been a huge hit, with the literary world hailing him as the voice of the zeitgeist. Riding the wave, lionised and preening, Bryn had taken three years to follow it up, and the resulting book had been self-indulgent and obscure. The literary elite of London and New York still fawned over him, but the public had moved on: sales were ‘disappointing’, and after diminishing interest for his third and fourth books, Bryn developed a writer’s block that had lasted for almost a decade.

His New York agent, Saul Black, had decided something must be done and ordered Bryn to lock himself away and write. He found a small cottage with adjoining boathouse on an acquaintance’s estate and bought them all one-way tickets.
Create something
, he had said,
or don’t come back
.

Jim snapped back into the present and looked down the drive, an arrow-straight avenue of overhanging trees. Ninety-six live oaks. The Wyatts had always made a great deal of the fact that every one of the trees planted by the original owners of the Casa D’Or estate was still standing, lining the driveway, staring at visitors in silent witness. They had survived hurricane, disease and civil war and it seemed they had managed to survive the last twenty years too. Jim felt their imaginary gaze as he engaged ‘drive’ and slowly rolled down the unpaved road, swerving to dodge potholes and puddles. He peered up, looking at the wispy grey Spanish moss interlacing the overreaching branches and blocking out the sunlight. He felt as if he had fallen into the rabbit hole, and he wasn’t sure if there was going to be a Wonderland at the other end.

As he approached the house, he stabbed a foot hard on the brake, skidding to a stop.

‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered, opening the door and stepping out.

The house was exactly as he had remembered it – tall windows, a wide terrace running front to back and a high gabled roof that spoke of grandeur, a desire to join a more elegant age – though when he looked closer, Jim could see it was in a fairly advanced state of disrepair. Tiles were missing from the roof, the once proud pillars were grey with bird excrement, the gardens hopelessly parched and overgrown. Even the front steps, once gleaming with their blue and white Italian tiles, were choked with unswept leaves and creeping weeds.

He walked towards it, gravel crunching underneath his feet. It was warm and balmy in Savannah compared with the cold grey winter that Jim had left behind in London, but still he shivered.

Casa D’Or represented the outer limits of his emotions: utter joy and crashing despair. Sometimes he had hated it, wished it had burnt to the ground that night, reduced to ash, but standing here now, he could see it for what it was: just a house, unique and beautiful. And someone had let it fall apart.

‘Hello, James.’

He turned to see a tall woman walking towards him, a familiar smile on her face. Marion Wyatt, or Marion Wilson as she had been back then, when she had been Casa D’Or’s housekeeper. He’d heard that she had married David Wyatt, her employer – inevitably there had been gossip. He supposed she must be early to mid-fifties: she was certainly still a beautiful woman, with alert dark eyes and smooth coffee-coloured skin. Perhaps a little heavier, and the gamine crop she had sported with such verve twenty years ago was now worn to her shoulders, but the cheekbones and the elegant bearing were still there. He could see how she had caught David’s eye.

‘Marion,’ he grinned, offering a hand. ‘So good to see you again. I didn’t know you were here. Couldn’t see a car.’

‘Oh, I parked at the back, by the staff quarters,’ she said. ‘Old habits, even now.’

‘Even though you’re lady of the house.’

‘I don’t know about that.’ She smiled as she touched him on the shoulder and led him into the house, where the temperature seemed to drop by twenty degrees.

The first thing that hit him was the smell, a cold, stagnant mustiness that reminded him of churches. The second was the sight of the wide sweeping staircase that dominated the wood-panelled hall. He found himself looking away, not wanting to think about that night, his last night in America. He imagined Sylvia Wyatt’s thin body lying on the polished walnut floor like a puppet with broken strings, then took a sharp inhalation of breath, forcing himself not to think about it.

‘I thought we’d have lemonade on the terrace, if that suits?’ said Marion.

He nodded, grateful to keeping moving and get out of the hall.

As he followed Marion, his eyes darted left, then right, towards the library and the kitchen. Corners of the thick paisley wallpaper were peeling away from the plaster, the paintwork was cracked, but everything else remained exactly as he remembered it. He could see the black grand piano by the arched windows, pages of sheet music still on its stand; a cookery book open on the farmhouse table, gathering dust.

He knew he should be looking at the house with a developer’s eye, working out how much work there was to do and how quickly it could be done, but it was impossible not to think about his last days there. The place looked as if it had been so hastily abandoned that the family had not even stopped to pick up their belongings.

He remembered that night so clearly. The sound of an urgent siren piercing the thick, swampy night air; running round the lake so fast he thought his heart would burst; then his memories dissolved into fragments of noise and images: the red light of the ambulance, the frantic, panicked conversation. Looking back, there hadn’t been many people at the scene – Marion, her parents, Jennifer, and the paramedics, – but even now, despite the eerie stillness of the house, he could feel the sense of chaos and despair that had consumed them all.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Marion quietly. ‘How did we let it get into this state?’

Jim forced his attention back to her, welcoming the distraction from his thoughts.

‘Big properties are my stock in trade. I know how high-maintenance they can be. Unless you have the staff and finance to maintain them on a day-by-day basis, all it takes is one bird’s nest in the wrong place, or a split pipe, and it’s a downward spiral.’ He stopped in his tracks as they reached the back of the house. ‘But wow, the view, that view is still amazing.’

For all the grandeur of Casa D’Or’s architecture, the terrace had always been its show-stopper. Sweeping and elegant, it faced green lawns that ran down to a forty-acre expanse of water, known as Sunset Lake on account of the early evening light that transformed it, most days, into a pool of liquid copper.

There was a single wrought-iron café table set up under an umbrella, a jug of lemonade beading with condensation. Jim took a glass gratefully and settled into a wicker chair with a creak. Across the lake he could see the boathouse where his father used to work, the cottage where they’d all lived for two long, heady months.

‘I was sorry to hear about David.’

‘I bet you never expected that, did you?’

‘David’s passing?’

‘No, the fact that I married him.’

Jim shrugged, spread his hands in a ‘none of my business’ gesture, but he could see Marion was waiting for some sort of response.

‘I’m not surprised, no. After that summer, I can see that anyone would need . . .’

‘Comfort?’

‘I guess so.’

She nodded and looked out over the water.

‘After Sylvia died, David went to Charleston. He told us it was to be nearer to work, but we knew he didn’t want to be in the house. We were all so worried about him, especially when we didn’t see him for three months. When Christmas came around, I hated to think of him on his own, so I went to Charleston with a turkey, determined to cook for him. I only went for an hour or two. I never left.’

‘And you never came back here?’

Marion shook her head. ‘David used to say, “We’ll go back soon.” But soon never came. There were too many ghosts. Too many memories. Besides, I think we were both happy to have a fresh start.’

‘What about Jennifer?’ He was almost afraid to ask.

‘She went to New York not long after the funeral.’

‘With Connor?’

She nodded. ‘Her father had become a recluse. She was lost, bereft, and Connor was there.’

She paused and looked at him more directly.

‘So you became a hotshot.’ It was said with a note of surprise, and he didn’t blame her. He doubted that he would have been anybody’s pick for most likely to succeed. Not compared to Connor.

‘I work for Omari Hotels. I’m their global investment and project manager.’

‘I know, I read your sales pitch.’

Jim sipped his lemonade and seized the opportunity to keep this as professional as possible.

‘My boss, Simon Desai, saw Casa D’Or and thought it would be a perfect addition to the Omari portfolio.’

Marion put down her glass, the ice cubes clinking.

‘Don’t talk about it like a business asset, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘You know Casa D’Or is more than that. This house has been the Wyatt family home for nearly seventy years. The thought of getting rid of it makes me want to cry.’

‘So is it for sale?’

She glanced at him, then sighed. ‘I didn’t bring you here to play games. Of course it’s for sale, although I’ll be honest with you, Jim. I don’t feel comfortable doing it. You can imagine the whispers about me when David and I got married. People called me a gold-digger, a whore. Part of me thinks that if I sell now, I’m just confirming everything those people believed was true.’

‘So you were the sole beneficiary?’ He chose his words carefully.

Marion nodded. ‘Jennifer didn’t want the house. She always made that clear. Not after what happened. And what do I need a place this size for? If I don’t do something soon, it’s going to fall down of its own accord. David would have understood that, even though he could never quite instruct the realtors himself.’

‘Why didn’t he?’

Marion gave a low, soft laugh. ‘You know there were an awful lot of good memories that happened in this place, not just that one tragedy.’

‘How is she?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice as level and casual as possible. Marion responded with a soft smile.

‘I wondered when you were going to ask. She’s still in New York.’

‘Does she still sail?’

‘Not sure Manhattan’s quite as good for sailing as Georgia.’

He looked out at the water
.
A shame, he thought. She really had loved that boat.

‘Are you ever in New York?’ said Marion, breaking into his thoughts.

‘Quite a lot, actually.’

Marion laughed. ‘I miss that word, “actually”. You never hear it around here.’

‘
That’s what Jennifer used to say.’

‘You should look her up. She’s on the Upper East Side. 61st Street, I think. I’ll give you the address.’

He nodded politely, knowing he would do nothing of the sort.

‘Promise me you’ll look after her,’ said Marion after a moment.

‘Who?’ replied Jim, awkwardly.

‘
The house, of course,’ she said, her eyes trailing over the water. ‘She has such a dark history. Not just what happened here that summer. But the past. I’ll never forget the stories my father used to tell me about the plantation, and how the original owners of this place got so wealthy. Dozens of slaves used to live here, harvesting the fields, working the cotton gins. And since the Georgian landowners couldn’t get the workforce from Africa, not legally anyway, they used to smuggle them in, up the creeks all around here.’

She paused and looked at Jim directly.

‘Sometimes I think Casa D’Or deserves to fade away. But David was right when he said there were golden times too.’ A tear glistened in the corner of her eye.

‘So you’ll sell?’ ventured Jim carefully.

‘Yes,’ she said, standing up and taking a long look at the house. ‘Sometimes you have to know when it’s time to let go, no matter how much you love something. Have you ever felt that?’