The House on Sunset Lake

by Tasmina Perry

  Chapter Ten

  The marina at the Isle of Hope was one of Jennifer’s favourite places in the world. Just a short bicycle ride away from her house, it was not huge, with just a handful of boats moored along the slips, but the people were friendly, the sunsets were glorious and the access to the rivers, tidal creeks and coastline was good. Her own twenty-two-foot cruiser, Sparkling Tinkerbell, her father’s nickname for her as a child, had been moored there ever since he had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday. It was small enough to keep by the creek at Casa D’Or, but she liked to berth at the marina, where there was a friendly community of sailing enthusiasts who had been teaching her how to tie knots and improve her seamanship since she was small.

  Back when she was growing up, she used to come here with her father. As an only child whose school was several miles away and who had few local friends, she regarded David Wyatt as a great pal as well as a parent. His increasing workload meant he didn’t come down as much any more, but Jennifer still used it as a place to escape and forget her worries. She liked nothing better than taking Sparkling Tinkerbell out along the intercoastal waterway, with an ice bucket full of soda, snaking along the rivers and estuaries of the Georgian coast, north to Hilton Head or even as far as Jekyll Island, listening to the sound of the water and the squawking of the pelicans and egrets that circled overhead.

  Today she had taken the boat down the Back River. There was much romance and adventure attached to this part of the world, which was one of the reasons why Jennifer loved it so much. It was said that the Spanish had come here looking for gold and instead had found a string of islands so beautiful they had called them the Golden Isles. Back River was also known as Moon River, after the song from her favourite movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Local legend had it that the song’s lyricist, Johnny Mercer, had lived on its banks and it had inspired him. Today she had let the boat just drift with its open sails, her tape recorder blasting out the song. Once or twice, an image of Jim Johnson strumming away on his guitar had popped into her mind, but she had successfully stamped it out and instead concentrated not on the romance of the song but on the sense of adventure contained within the lyrics: two drifters, off to see the world.

  She thought about sailing to Casa D’Or but decided against it. Docking back at the marina, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. It was a hot day; she could feel sweat dripping down her temple and her stash of soda had been depleted. She squinted in the bright light, and when her vision refocused, she could see Connor standing on the pontoon, one hand thrust in the pocket of his chinos, the other shielding his face from the bright early-afternoon sun.

  Her heart sank and she knew it wasn’t the disappointment of being back on dry land. They hadn’t spoken since the night before, when she had walked out of Jeanne’s party, and she knew it was not the sort of behaviour he would take well.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, tying up the boat and not looking at him.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ he said, which surprised her.

  He took her hand as she stepped off the boat. They stood there for a moment, not speaking.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said eventually. She didn’t particularly want to apologise, but it seemed the natural thing to do.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ he said, trying to catch her gaze.

  ‘You’re sorry?’ She smiled slowly, aware that she was teasing him.

  ‘I was rude about your friends. I shouldn’t have been. And I know you don’t like Randy. We didn’t have to go to his drinks, but you should have told me you were leaving. I was worried about you running off like that.’

  She looked at him, expecting his voice to have a hectoring note of disapproval, but instead she heard genuine concern.

  ‘I’m going to have to call you my runaway girl,’ he added, teasing her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, feeling everything soften.

  ‘Looking for you.’

  He said it with such honesty that she felt a sudden pang of affection for him.

  ‘Want a ride home?’

  ‘I’ve got my bicycle.’

  ‘We can come back for it later. Come on, let me take you for lunch.’

  They drove into the city, and it was such a hot day that Connor suggested somewhere by the water. They headed to River Street, past the old cotton mills and the paddle steamers moored at the dock, and found a diner that served jambalaya and key lime pie. Jennifer wasn’t sure that the two dishes went together, but the morning’s sailing had made her ravenous.

  Connor was solicitous from the moment they had got into his sports car to sitting down for lunch, deferring to her choice on everything from restaurant to aperitif. She thought it distinctly out of character but found herself enjoying the afternoon and his company.

  ‘I’ve written a letter to your parents apologising for the business with the gallery,’ said Jennifer, wanting to clear some of the awkward stuff out of the way.

  ‘My dad didn’t become successful wasting his time on things that weren’t going to materialise into anything,’ said Connor with a shrug. ‘I can see why you left New York. We all can.’

  The waitress appeared with two sweet teas and Connor took a sip.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. If I come back to Savannah every fortnight and you to fly to New York every two or three weeks, we’ll still see each other almost every weekend. I reckon I can put eighteen months in at Goldman’s and then I can strike out on my own. Hedge funds, property . . . I can be more flexible with location when I own my own company.’

  She knew that for Connor, this was an incredibly sweet gesture. His own version of buying a fluffy puppy to say ‘I love you’.

  She looked up and grinned at him.

  ‘How about you?’ he said more guardedly. ‘Have you had a chance to think about things?’

  ‘I want to make a documentary.’

  ‘A documentary?’ He didn’t say it unkindly, but it still reminded her of a teacher who had just been told by a five-year-old pupil that he wanted to be an astronaut.

  ‘Visual arts was the bit I liked most about my course,’ she replied cautiously. ‘Besides, I think we are living through interesting times, the fallout from the crazy eighties. We’ve got friends who’ve graduated summa cum laude working in gas stations; have been brought up to think that one in two marriages ending in divorce is normal. We haven’t really got anything to rebel against any more, so we just get cynical, resigned to it all. I thought it was worth recording.’

  Connor’s face had softened into something that almost resembled pride.

  ‘You’ve thought about this then.’ He smiled.

  ‘I was out on the water this morning and couldn’t think of anything else.’

  She felt a wave of relief wash over her, as if she had been transported back to the ways things used to be before they went off to college, when Connor was the perfect gent, the only grown-up she had met in a sea of silly boys who just wanted to get their hands in her panties and then tell all their friends about it.

  The waitress brought their food and they started picking at it.

  ‘Where did all this come from, then?’

  Under the circumstances, the way they’d been getting on so well for the past hour, she decided not to tell him it was Jim Johnson’s idea and that they had concocted her life plan on a moonlit walk after she had abandoned Connor in the bar.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea? A plan, at least,’ she said, avoiding the question.

  ‘Have you even got a video camera?’ he asked sceptically. Jennifer didn’t blame him. She’d met girls who were seriously into film at college; intense students with posters of Jim Jarmusch films on their walls and a working knowledge of Czechoslovakian cinematic history. Among her own favourite movies were When Harry Met Sally and Moonstruck.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Come on then,’ he said, wiping his chin with his napkin. ‘It’s time to go shopping.’

  They went to an
electronics store at the mall and Connor paid for her brand-new Sony camcorder. He insisted. He would be working at Goldman Sachs within the month; he would be earning and wanted to treat her.

  She opened the box on the car ride back to Casa D’Or, stroked the smooth black casing, and it felt like the start of something good.

  It was late afternoon by the time they approached the house, and lazy peach light was streaming through the leaves of the live oaks along the drive.

  ‘Why don’t you pick up an overnight bag and come back to my parents’?’ he offered.

  ‘Are they going to be at home?’

  ‘They’re entertaining tonight. But we could go to the guest cottage.’

  ‘When they’re entertaining, aren’t you supposed to put in an appearance?’

  ‘Then how about you come tomorrow instead? Bring that.’ He smiled, motioning at the camcorder. ‘Maybe we can have a little fun with it,’ he added as Jennifer slapped him playfully on the wrist.

  Connor parked the car outside the house. As he switched off the engine, Jennifer could hear noises from inside.

  She hesitated for a moment and glanced at Connor as she got out of the car.

  In the still, sticky summer air, she could hear it quite distinctly. The raised yet controlled voice of her father; her mother’s more malevolent and hysterical screams.

  Connor got out of the car and stood with Jennifer in solidarity on the steps of Casa D’Or.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said softly.

  ‘I can’t.’ She couldn’t just drive off and leave her parents to it. She didn’t want to go into the house either, but when she heard something smash, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

  It was as if she were witnessing a picture on freeze frame. Her mother stood motionless, clenched white fingers raised to her face. Her father glanced over towards Jennifer. The expression on his face was tired and frustrated.

  She heard Sylvia take a sharp inhalation of breath. Tension quivered around the room. Then her mother dropped her arms to her sides, crossed the hall to the walnut cabinet and snatched up a set of car keys, striding towards the front door without another word, not even glancing in her daughter’s direction.

  Jennifer watched her go, watched her pause for a moment when she saw Connor standing there, and although she could no longer see her mother’s face, she imagined it flushing with anger and shame to be caught out like this.

  ‘Let her go,’ said her father, pre-empting Jennifer’s next question. ‘She’s just had another one of her turns. She’ll be back soon.’

  Jennifer bit down on her lip, memories of her childhood flooding back to haunt her. Feelings of fear and guilt, and anxiety. Even when she was old enough to understand that her mother had changeable and unpredictable moods, she still wondered what she had done to make her behave like this, wondered what she had done to upset her and how she could have been better. Thoughts that were going around her head at that very moment.

  She heard her mother’s car gun off in the distance and then the soft sound of footsteps coming up the steps. Connor put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her reassuringly close.

  Her father was already headed upstairs.

  ‘I’m going to read,’ he said, his voice drained of any life or emotion.

  ‘Come back to mine,’ said Connor, as David Wyatt turned back and nodded his approval.

  Jennifer agreed, knowing that at least her boyfriend had seen all this before, and understood.

  Chapter Eleven

  David Wyatt had taken a pragmatic approach to his daughter’s unemployment and a deal had been struck. He would support the idea of her making a documentary and would continue to pay her the allowance he had given her whilst she was at college. He had emphasised that it was only a temporary arrangement; in fact he had given her a deadline of the end of the summer, at which point Jennifer had to do something with her creative body of work: use it to find a job in the media, or submit it to film festivals to gauge whether it – and by implication, she – had any artistic merit.

  The summer suddenly felt full of promise, and Jim Johnson had offered to help with the filming. It made sense to turn down Jeanne’s offer of a room in her apartment and instead Jennifer started seeing her Lake House neighbour every day. Once Connor had left Savannah for New York, Jennifer had felt a little guilty about seeing so much of her new friend, but two heads were better than one, and Jim had a lot of good ideas. Sometimes they made their creative brainstorms sociable; she’d had her first crack at a shooting script over ice cream and soda after they had been to see a matinee performance of Forrest Gump.

  She’d started videoing her friends almost immediately after Connor had bought her the camera, and had been surprised how many people were keen to get involved, confirming Jim’s view that everybody liked the opportunity to talk about themselves.

  Today she was at the Lake House with Jim, watching the tapes of everything she had filmed so far. It was a particularly hot and sticky afternoon, the sort of day when she loved to go sailing, but with the clock ticking, it made more sense to stay out of the sun and do some work.

  Bryn Johnson came into the main house smoking a cigar. According to Jim, his father usually worked in the boathouse at the end of the pontoon, but he was clearly taking a break. He had grown a stubbly beard since the last time Jennifer had seen him and reminded her of Ernest Hemingway, which was almost certainly the look he was after.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ he asked.

  ‘Gone swimming,’ said Jim from his reclined position on the floor, not even looking up from the television.

  Bryn paused and watched what they were doing.

  ‘What’s this then?’ he said, pointing at the screen.

  ‘Jen’s documentary,’ replied Jim. There was a note of pride in his voice that made Jennifer feel more confident in front of his celebrated father.

  Bryn perched on the end of the wicker sofa and blew a smoke ring as Jennifer resisted the urge to cough.

  ‘Elizabeth mentioned you’d been filming. Let’s have a look, then.’

  ‘Dad, please.’

  Jennifer was glad that Jim had picked up on her embarrassment. ‘They’re just video interviews,’ she said, both horrified and secretly thrilled at the idea that an author, a famous author, would want to have a look at her work.

  ‘Come on, don’t be shy. I know what that feels like.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ replied Jim under his breath.

  ‘I do. Creativity of any description is deeply personal. The only person to see my book before it goes to my editor is my agent, Saul, and even then he has to prise it from my fingertips.’

  They sat in silence as they watched Connor’s friend Randy Chubb speak of his place at Harvard Law School and his plans to make partner on a Wall Street firm by thirty.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Bryn, stubbing his cigar out on a saucer. ‘His father is a prominent Savannah attorney.’

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Jennifer with surprise.

  Bryn dismissed her question and looked thoughtful.

  ‘So what’s your narrative then?’ he asked, making himself comfortable in a chair.

  ‘It’s a documentary, not a movie, Dad,’ replied Jim, sitting up straighter.

  ‘I worked on World in Action for six months in my twenties. Fantastic training for novel writing. You’re still telling a story, you still need themes, a point, otherwise you’ll spend twelve months in the editing suite, sifting through the rubble, wondering why a few dozen interviews with a bunch of twenty-year-olds doesn’t make ten minutes of compelling television.’

  ‘Dad, I thought you had a book to write.’ Jim obviously wanted to get rid of his father.

  ‘What’s it called, this documentary?’

  ‘Friends,’ replied Jennifer. ‘Although I read there’s a sitcom coming out with that name, so maybe I’ll have to change it.’

  Bryn grunted as if the title didn’t meet with his approval.

  �
�How about Hopes and Dreams?’ he said dramatically, sweeping his hand in front of his face as if he were imagining the name made up in lights. ‘Why do we do what we do?’ he continued expansively. ‘To what degree is free will involved in our adolescent career choices, or are we in fact obligated or influenced to make certain professional decisions because of our parents?’

  Jennifer nodded thoughtfully as Jim spoke up.

  ‘So what are you saying? We need to get back to everyone we’ve interviewed and ask to speak to their parents?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ said Bryn as he ambled back towards the open porch doors.

  ‘Thanks,’ shouted Jennifer after him.

  Bryn lifted his hand languorously and waved without even turning back.

  Jennifer switched off the VHS machine and took out her tape.

  ‘I should go home.’

  It was almost five o’clock and her mother would be back from the country club. Sylvia was always in a spiky mood when she came back from the club, especially if she had lost her tennis match. Jennifer would much rather hang out at the Lake House with Jim, but she knew that her mother would start asking too many questions if she did.

  ‘I’ll walk you home,’ said Jim.

  The afternoon was hot and sultry. There was a complete absence of breeze – even the birds seemed to have stopped singing and had retired for quiet siestas in the treetops – and it made the short walk from the Lake House back to Casa D’Or exhausting.

  ‘Do you ever use your pool?’ asked Jim as they skirted the edge of the lake.

  She smiled and knew what he was hinting at.

  ‘We don’t use it much. I think my mother finds it vulgar.’

  ‘I thought she was playing tennis.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll appreciate coming back to find you dive-bombing in the deep end.’