The House on Sunset Lake

by Tasmina Perry

  She looked around the grounds and smiled sadly.

  ‘They’d have adored what you’ve done with this place. Both of them.’

  ‘My father loved it here,’ said Jim honestly. ‘It’s why he enjoyed working in the boathouse. The whole view of Casa D’Or was so inspiring, and I guess you only see how amazing it is from the other side of the water. Like looking at the Manhattan skyline from Queens.’

  ‘Maybe you should have bought the Sittenfields’ place,’ smiled Marion.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, wondering if that would actually have made life simpler. Had he bought the Lake House rather than Casa D’Or, he might never have met up with Jennifer and his father might still be alive . . . but he didn’t want to torture himself with that now.

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘As well as can be expected. She’s coming to the launch, actually. I’m about to go and pick her up from the airport. I think it will do her good to get out of London.’

  ‘Well, I just wanted to come and see what you’ve done with the place. I’ve heard so many rumours about how fabulous it is, and they’ve not been wrong.’

  ‘You’re not coming to the launch party tomorrow?’ he asked with disappointment.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said in a tone of voice that suggested she would not. Jim didn’t want to push it. He’d had the same dilemma with his mother. He knew that a week in the sunshine would do her good, but there were so many memories attached to the grand old house that he was still worried how she would react.

  ‘At least let me show you around,’ he offered.

  Marion didn’t reply.

  ‘You’ve changed the name,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Yes. The Plantation House,’ said Jim awkwardly. ‘Casa D’Or was your name, the family house name. I’m just glad you had faith in me to do it justice.’

  She fell silent again, and when he looked over at her, she had dropped her head and was staring at her glass.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked after a moment. He was conscious of the heat of the afternoon and wondered if she wasn’t suffering from a touch of sunstroke.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve not been entirely honest with you,’ she said finally.

  Jim pressed his lips together. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what he heard next.

  Marion looked away as if she had regretted starting to tell him.

  ‘There was a reason why I sold you the house.’

  Jim frowned.

  ‘I was having an affair with David Wyatt. Before Sylvia died.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Did she know?’

  Marion shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. But I’ve always wondered . . .’

  He gave an encouraging nod for her to continue.

  ‘Sylvia had been diagnosed with depression. She’d taken an overdose twice in Jennifer’s final year at college.’

  ‘Did Jen know?’

  ‘No, they wanted to keep it hidden from her. They weren’t serious attempts. But still.’

  She took a drink of iced tea and her hand was trembling.

  ‘That’s why David went into hiding after Sylvia’s death.’

  ‘The guilt?’ asked Jim softly.

  ‘He always wondered if he’d done enough to help her. Sylvia was a proud woman. She hated taking medication, and refused to go to therapy. Her condition got brushed under the carpet. It was easier to think that she was just a little bit difficult, and perhaps that’s why David kept the house. To remind him to be a better man. Yet for me it was always a reminder of how we betrayed her.’

  Somewhere in the distance the band was doing the sound check.

  ‘I should probably go,’ Marion said quickly. ‘I’m sure you’re busy. I can come back another time.’

  Usually he would have tried to convince her to stay, but he knew it was right to let her go.

  ‘I’m glad everything worked out for you. Truly,’ she said, and she lifted a tender hand to his cheek. He put his own palm over it for a moment, both of them united by the sadness of the past.

  After he had walked Marion back into the house and said goodbye to her at the front door, he went into the library, which had once been David Wyatt’s study. A trolley of drinks, fine brandy and whisky in crystal decanters, tempted him. He never usually drank at work, but now he poured himself a measure of bourbon and tipped the lot down his throat before sitting down on one of the big cream sofas and tuning out the background noise.

  Richard Steel, the Plantation House’s general manager, knocked on the door and stepped tentatively into the room, holding an old shoebox.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Sure, come in,’ said Jim, standing up and hoping he couldn’t smell the alcohol on his breath.

  ‘Liane said the previous owner of the house was here.’

  ‘She’s just left,’ replied Jim, glancing out of the window, but Marion’s car had already gone.

  ‘I meant to give you this before. One of the decorators found it a few weeks ago in one of the classic rooms in the eaves of the house.’

  Jim nodded. It was strange hearing the nooks and crannies of the old house being referred to in such corporate and sterile terms. Jennifer’s old room was now the Magnolia Suite, redecorated and remodelled, all traces of its former occupant erased. The pink paint had been covered with de Gournay wallpaper, and the room had a canopied bed and a shelf full of artfully created books there to be seen but not read. This transformation had been replicated everywhere. Casa D’Or was gone.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said Jim with curiosity. ‘Where was it? I thought all the Wyatts’ belonging were moved out and put into storage when the sale went through.’

  ‘They were. This was found behind an air vent. We didn’t discover it until we tested out the heating system.’

  Jim took the box and sat back down on the sofa as Richard left the room and shut the door. He perched it on his lap and took off the lid, which was covered in a layer of dust that coated his fingertips.

  An air vent, he thought, with a troubling sensation of guilt. It was clear that whatever was in the box was of great importance to someone; something personal that they wanted to keep hidden.

  He put the lid on the floor, careful not to get dust on the pale furniture, although his trousers were now streaked with long flecks of it. Inside the box was a pile of papers and envelopes. He picked up one of the envelopes, cream vellum, addressed simply to ‘B’. There were two sheets of matching paper inside. Jim began to read.

  No one forgets a summer spent at Casa D’Or. You remember them so clearly you don’t even need to close your eyes to recall the heavy warm breeze, the smell of azaleas, and the air that sticks to your sun-kissed skin.

  At first he wasn’t sure what it was. Some poetry, perhaps, or creative writing. But as he read on, it became obvious that it was a love letter. One written with great intensity and in the sort of overblown language that would sound odd if you tried to say the words out loud, but that on paper was romantic and lyrical like a sonnet.

  I can feel a storm in the air, and dark clouds are gathering over the lake. The light in your room is on – I spot it twinkling across the water, and if I narrow my eyes I can make out your outline tempting me with your forbidden promise. I want to see you before it rains.

  The letter stopped abruptly, as if it was not finished. It wasn’t signed off with a name, or even properly addressed to anyone. But as Jim stared at that ‘B’ on the envelope, a sad resignation overwhelmed him and he knew with absolute certainty that this letter was meant for his father. As for its author . . . he remembered Jennifer telling him once how she relished the idea of writing love letters.

  He gulped in misery. Bryn and Jennifer’s confession that they had been intimate with one another had crushed him underfoot, but he’d gained some consolation from the fact that it was a one-off occurrence. Yet there were at least a dozen letters in this box. How long had their relationship been goin
g on? he wondered, feeling himself shiver with shame. What a fool he’d been. All that time he’d spent with Jennifer, trying to pluck up the courage to do something, say something.

  He could remember that evening they had been to Tybee Island as clear as day. He’d almost kissed her then, but had been disturbed by a disapproving Sylvia Wyatt on the steps to the house. He’d driven home and stayed up all night to write Jennifer a song, a song that would leave her in no doubt about how he felt, then spent every penny he had hiring a four-track Tascam Portastudio to record it. And yes, the night he’d given her the compilation tape was a night he had never forgotten, never would forget.

  But all that time it had been his father she had been interested in.

  He picked up another letter with masochistic curiosity.

  This one didn’t have an envelope. It was a plain piece of paper folded into quarters, and it was typed rather than handwritten, which immediately gave it a more clipped efficiency than the soulful letter he had read a minute before.

  An electric summer fades. It’s one that I will always remember. The very thought of you across the lake has made my words bloom and my heart smile. Your touch, the secret taste of you, has kindled a passion for love and life I thought had long been extinguished, and for that I will always be grateful.

  But my flight home leaves tomorrow and please accept that we must part. Your plan for a future together is bold, reckless, flattering, but as I told you at the party, my life is in London and yours is here. Let’s not wring out what has come to its sweet conclusion and ruin the fun memories of what we had. Let us preserve this summer, our secret, in amber.

  Yours, Bryn

  Jim’s heart was beating hard as his eyes trailed to the top of the page.

  The letter was dated the final day of his summer in Savannah. And it was addressed to Sylvia.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The party was packed to the rafters with the great and the good. Everyone was here, New Yorkers, Hollywood stars and Georgia’s richest and most celebrated. A walkie-talkie in Jim’s pocket kept him up to date with problems – so far there had been few niggles to deal with. American Vogue had sent a photographer, who said the hotel was one of the most picturesque places he’d ever seen and he would be recommending it as a location shoot to the magazine, whilst Richard Steel had reported a five hundred per cent increase in forward bookings.

  Flitting between rooms, Jim checked that everyone was happy. Celine Wood was here, and had teased him that she might ask him to organise her wedding to Richie Hawkins. Their stay in Baruda had gone swimmingly well. Not only had her boyfriend proposed after his one-hour acoustic set for the mayor’s daughter’s birthday party, held around the swimming pool at RedReef, but Celine had had a meeting with Gregor Bentley, who had agreed that the range of swimsuits and sarongs she had been developing over the past year could be sold at the hotel’s on-site boutique.

  ‘I’m fucking forty,’ she’d told Jim over a glass of champagne on the terrace. ‘I don’t want to be a model any more. I want to be the new Diane von Fürstenberg.’

  Jim thought it was an excellent idea, and they pencilled in an appointment to discuss Celine taking a small unit at every Omari property to start her empire, which seemed like a win-win situation for everyone.

  Elizabeth Johnson and her sister were sitting at a table by the lake with an expensive bottle of wine. Jim knew that his mother wasn’t in the mood to party, but it had been good to see her all dressed up: a smart new outfit, some make-up on her face and a softer, happier expression than she had worn in the weeks since Bryn’s death. In a flash of recklessness, he had also invited Sarah Huxley.

  ‘How are you, Johnson?’ she grinned as she came towards him holding a bottle of Krug.

  ‘Are you going to drink all that, or is it just a fashion accessory?’

  ‘Swig?’ she asked, offering it to him.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ she said after a moment. ‘An evening’s worth of quality gossip might make up for the way you broke my heart. Celine Wood told me she’s launching a fashion company in the new year and has a chain of stores raring to go. She says I can even sell the story to the New York Times.’

  She grinned at him playfully and he felt a note of sadness. Sarah looked great tonight, he thought with a fleeting moment of desire. With her long red hair and wearing an emerald-green dress, she looked like a very sexy leprechaun. He didn’t doubt that with another bottle of Krug and a few choice words he might be able to win her round again, but that wouldn’t be fair to anyone. No, he was married to his work now. That was the way it had been for the past twenty years and it was a way that worked.

  He had planned a week’s holiday in the new year in Patagonia, where he planned to trek and walk and climb, something he had wanted to do for years. Then he had the Santai empire to launch and the Omari group to expand, and perhaps in a few months, when the wounds had healed, he might be able to start dating again. Maybe one of his football mates knew someone nice. In fact, in the days after his father’s funeral, a couple of them had taken him out for a drink in Highgate and one of them had mentioned that his wife had a friend, a single mum at the school gates, a cracker by all accounts, who they thought Jim might get on with. ‘You know, when you’re ready.’

  Twelve months ago, Jim would have smiled politely at the suggestion, horrified at the thought of being fast-tracked to cosy domesticity. But now the thought of a stable relationship, without the highs of a Manhattan romance with someone young and beautiful, or the complexities of an affair with the love of your life, was an appealing one. There was comfort in the ordinary.

  ‘So what happens next? Now this place is finished?’ said Sarah, putting the bottle down. ‘Are you staying in New York?’

  ‘No, I’m heading back to London tomorrow, actually. I’m officially the new CEO of the Omari group.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ said Sarah, giving him a hug.

  ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted,’ he said, not convinced by the words coming out of his own mouth. ‘Besides, I can’t turn an opportunity like this down.’

  ‘What does Jennifer think about it?’ she asked cautiously.

  Jim took a sharp intake of breath to compose himself. After his father’s death, he had made a resolution to put Jennifer Wyatt completely behind him, which wasn’t easy, especially given that he was renovating her old home. It had been particularly difficult finding Bryn and Sylvia’s love letters the previous day, a discovery that had unleashed a mixed bag of emotions.

  He remembered something his father had said to him – was about to say to him – just before his heart attack: Look what she did with me . . . it was a fuck-you to her mother . . .

  At the time, Jim hadn’t known what he meant, but now the knowledge of Bryn and Sylvia’s affair helped him make more sense of what had gone on that summer. Perhaps it confirmed that Jennifer had had no real feelings for Bryn; that it had been a one-off affair. Her relationship with her mother had always been complicated, and so sex with Sylvia’s lover could well have been some twisted cry for attention that hurt all of them.

  But right now, it brought little consolation to Jim, reflecting badly as it did on both Jennifer and his father, two people Jim had adored. His feelings about his father were especially complex. Bryn had always been both his tormentor and his hero, but since his death, Jim could barely countenance any negative thoughts about him, even though he knew how unfaithful he had been towards his mother. Death had exonerated his wrongdoings. No, it was best to forget everything about that summer.

  ‘It didn’t work out between us,’ he said finally.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ replied Sarah, touching his shoulder.

  They were distracted by the appearance of Simon.

  ‘My new CEO,’ he said, striding over and slapping Jim on the back. ‘What an amazing party. I never doubted for a minute you could do all this.’

  ‘Well here we are,’ said Jim, g
rateful for the supportive words.

  ‘For one moment, I thought I saw Connor Gilbert,’ Simon said, glancing back towards the crowd. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he had the bare-faced cheek to turn up here.’

  Jim smiled nervously at the mention of his nemesis.

  ‘I heard about Marshall Roberts,’ said Simon, looking at him over the rim of his glass.

  Jim glanced at Sarah, hoping she would take the hint to leave them alone, but she stayed rooted to the spot.

  ‘It was all sorted,’ he said diplomatically.

  ‘So I hear,’ chuckled Simon. ‘I thought that showed the sort of initiative I expect from my CEO.’

  Jim felt his shoulders sag with relief. Whatever Simon knew about RedReef clearly no longer mattered. He had no idea how his boss had found out about the extortion that was going on at the hotel, but the fact that he had sorted it out had obviously earned him some brownie points.

  ‘As for Connor, let’s just say I’ve dealt with him,’ said Simon, leaning in more closely. ‘Nothing too serious, just enough pressure to make him sweat with his condo development.’

  ‘Whatever you’ve done to put that slimeball in his place isn’t enough,’ said Sarah, brazen in her eavesdropping.

  Simon roared with laughter. ‘Know Connor Gilbert then, do you?’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ she snorted.

  ‘Simon, meet Sarah Huxley,’ said Jim, introducing them.

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Sarah, extending an eager hand. ‘I just wanted to say how much I loved the cover feature on you in Forbes. I didn’t realise you were from Jaipur. I did my university dissertation on the reign of Man Singh II, the state’s last maharaja.’

  Simon’s eyes lit up and the pair began to talk animatedly. Suddenly Jim felt painfully alone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’