The House on Sunset Lake

by Tasmina Perry

  She felt tears come to her eyes at the thought of it.

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ said Jeanne, noticing that her friend was upset.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly.

  Jeanne peered at her over the rim of her glasses with a look that said she was not going to take no for an answer.

  ‘Look, we almost kissed. But we haven’t seen each other since and he’s going home tomorrow.’

  ‘Why haven’t you seen him?’

  ‘He hasn’t got in touch. But it’s for the best. I have Connor; Jim’s going back to London. It was a friendship that got complicated. That’s all.’

  ‘There’s nothing that’s all about the way he looks at you, Jen. Or the way you glow when you’re with him.’

  ‘That’ll just be the sunburn,’ she said, not wanting to be persuaded.

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No. And that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?’

  ‘There you are, darling,’ said David Wyatt, touching her on the shoulder. ‘I’ve apparently paid for the best jazz band in Savannah, and my own daughter hasn’t even given me the honour of a dance.’

  ‘Of course,’ smiled Jennifer, allowing her father to whisk her off in the yellow cloud of chiffon of her dress.

  She rested her hand on his shoulder and allowed him to twirl her round, feeling joyful and safe.

  ‘Are you enjoying yourself?’

  ‘It’s a wonderful party.’

  ‘I know you don’t really like being the centre of attention. If it all gets a bit much, I can go and smoke my cigar near the fire alarm and we can make them all go away.’

  ‘Mum seems to be enjoying herself,’ smiled Jennifer, looking across the dance floor to where her mother was talking to Bryn Johnson and even laughing.

  David gave a soft conspiratorial laugh, as if they both understood how hard Sylvia was to live with.

  The band started to play ‘The Shadow of Your Smile’, and Jennifer listened wistfully to its lyrics.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said her father, stopping dancing. ‘She came.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your aunt. Your aunt Donna.’

  Jennifer turned round to follow her father’s line of sight. A blonde woman was standing at the French doors that led from the house to the terrace. She was taller than Sylvia, but still slim, although an obvious boob job made her look very top heavy. Her hair was a harsher shade than her mother’s elegant do, but there was no mistaking that the two women were related.

  ‘Did Mom invite her?’ said Jennifer with surprise, wondering if her mother’s mood had really improved that much.

  ‘I did,’ said David with an expression that told her he was wondering if it had been such a good idea.

  ‘And you’ve told Mom . . .’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said her father with a frown. ‘Look. I have no living family any more. Neither does your mother, with the exception of Donna. I just thought it was important that you meet. Your mother might not have any desire to see her sister, but Donna is still family, and now you’re twenty-one, it’s up to you to make those sort of decisions yourself.’

  ‘What are we waiting for, then?’ said Jennifer, giving her father a grateful squeeze, both excited and nervous about speaking to her aunt.

  Donna’s expression melted into joy and relief when she saw them. She took Jennifer’s face between her hands and beamed.

  ‘Look at you,’ she said with a note of sadness.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said David. ‘Is your husband with you?’

  ‘Frank’s probably still outside gaping at the size of the house,’ she said with a strong Southern accent.

  ‘I didn’t know you were married,’ said Jennifer.

  ‘We don’t know a lot about each other’s lives,’ Donna said regretfully. ‘I think that’s why your father invited me this evening.’

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ asked David briskly. He was the most poised and confident man she knew, but Jennifer detected a reticence in his voice. It was just like her father to want to mend the rift between his wife and her sister, but they all knew that Sylvia might react unpredictably to the situation.

  They both glanced around but could no longer see her.

  ‘I’ll go and find her,’ said David. ‘Jen, you show Donna around the party.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Donna, rooted to the spot. ‘I knew it was going to be lovely, but this place . . .’

  ‘We didn’t buy it,’ said Jen modestly. ‘It’s been in our family for years. My great-grandfather bought it and everyone else has just tried to keep it going ever since.’

  ‘Lordy, the pressure’s on you then, the next generation, to keep it all going.’

  Jennifer smiled uncomfortably. She’d never really considered it before, but perhaps there was a financial imperative in her mother’s belief that Connor was perfect for her. Jennifer knew that her father had struggled throughout the recession; she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t noticed that they didn’t live quite as lavishly as they once had.

  Only five or six years before, Casa D’Or had had a full-time staff of five. Marion’s parents, Jeffrey and Dolores Wilson, were the chaffeur and cook respectively; Marion was an unofficial sous chef and housekeeper; a gardener and estate manager were also on the payroll. But when the Wilsons retired, replacements were never recruited, and over time, the other members of staff also disappeared, a state of affairs that was in sharp contrast to the Gilbert family, who in addition to a fully staffed house north of the city had homes in Lyford Cay and on the Côte d’Azur as well.

  Jennifer didn’t want to dwell on all that tonight and linked her arm through her aunt’s to show her around.

  Donna was as warm as her mother was cool. As they walked around Casa D’Or, swapping stories about their lives, Jennifer wondered why she had always been portrayed as such a family cautionary tale. The reasons for Donna and Sylvia’s estrangement had always been unspecified. There were rumours of drink and gambling, but speaking to her aunt about her job as a restaurant supervisor in Pensacola and her travels around the world on the cruise ships, Jennifer could just see a nice ordinary lady whose only weakness – as she explained herself when she told Jennifer that her new husband Frank, circulating somewhere around the party, was in fact her fourth – was her poor taste in men.

  Jennifer took Donna upstairs for the best view from the house. Her parents’ master suite had the biggest terrace, with sweeping views of the grounds, but feeling sure that her mother would be annoyed at anyone going into her room uninvited, she took Donna to the top floor, into her favourite part of the house.

  ‘You’re going to love this,’ she grinned as she led her to a cupola on the rooftop.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Donna, sounding like a gleeful child.

  Jennifer opened a small door and they stepped out on to a platform that surrounded the circular room.

  ‘It’s a widow’s walk,’ she said, inhaling the balmy night air. ‘Lots of houses on the coast have them. Apparently they were for the ladies of the house, so they could come out and look for their mariner husbands returning from sea.’

  ‘And I take it some of them never came back.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Jennifer, glancing towards the Lake House. ‘I guess it makes it either the saddest or the most romantic part of the house.’

  Donna leaned on the balcony and looked wistfully out into the fairy-light-studded darkness.

  ‘Why don’t you and my mother speak?’ asked Jennifer quietly.

  ‘I don’t know. I tried,’ Donna said with a sad laugh. ‘She moved to Charleston and fell off the radar. We didn’t even know where she was. We’d get the odd Christmas card as if to tell us, I’m out here, I’m all right, but there was never any number to call or address to get back in touch.’

  ‘Who’s we?’ asked Jennifer, puzzled.

  ‘Our parents. Your grandmom and grandpop.’

  She frowned. ‘But I thought they died when Mom was eighteen.’

>   ‘No,’ said Donna, shaking her head. ‘It was a long time after that. Sylvia had married your father but you hadn’t been born.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Jennifer, not sure that she was following correctly. ‘I thought they died in a car crash.’

  ‘Car crash?’ said Donna with surprise. ‘No, they’d been in poor health for a long time. We were dirt-poor, with no money for medical bills, so I nursed them both for a couple of years. I suppose that’s why I was angry with Sylvia for so long, for not doing her bit. But she had a new life by then. The life she always wanted. If there’s one thing about my sister, it’s that she’s unsentimental, especially when it comes to getting what she wants. Just ask Ethan Jamieson.’

  ‘Ethan Jamieson?’ repeated Jennifer. The name was familiar. She was certain it was the man whose photograph her mother had showed her. Sylvia Wyatt’s lost love. ‘The war photographer she met in Charleston?’

  ‘War photographer?’ said Donna in surprise. ‘No, Ethan was Sylvia’s high school sweetheart. They were madly in love and I’m not surprised. He was the most handsome guy you ever did see. But when Sylva hit twenty, she wasn’t hanging around Dixie any more. I’m not sure Ethan’s job in the timber yard cut it either. She left town, left Ethan and never came back to either of them again.’

  Jennifer went quiet, betrayed by the lies her mother had spun. Not just the other night, when she had shown her the photo of Ethan; her whole life, what little Jennifer knew of it, had been a convincingly told fiction.

  ‘I should get back to the party and find Frank before he gets up to any mischief,’ Donna said. ‘I just wanted to have a proper chat with you. I hope it’s the first of many.’

  ‘I should come down to Pensacola.’

  ‘You should.’ Donna broke out into a grin. ‘We’ve got beaches as white as sugar, and Frank’s got a bar. We make the meanest margaritas. Do you have a boyfriend?’

  Jennifer nodded.

  ‘Bring him for a weekend. We’ll have so much fun.’

  Jennifer couldn’t imagine Connor in a bar in Pensacola, but she said yes anyway.

  Donna gave her niece a tight hug, and for a moment Jennifer was lost in a cloud of blond curls.

  ‘I’m so glad I came,’ she said, pulling away. ‘When your papa invited me, I wasn’t going to accept, not after all this time, but Frank says it’s never too late to say I love you.’

  As Jennifer climbed through the small door back into the house, she had a feeling that her aunt was wrong.

  Chapter Nineteen

  After a few minutes spent chatting to Donna’s husband Frank, Jennifer snaked her way around the side of the house to the far reaches of the back garden, where the party crowds had thinned.

  She needed a few moments of quiet. She was not naturally gregarious, so being the centre of attention, making small talk with the dozens of family friends her parents had invited, felt quite exhausting. Besides, she needed some space to think. Donna’s revelations had shocked her. Her mother was a complicated woman, but she couldn’t believe she had told so many lies. Perhaps Sylvia had been embarrassed about her background, and her family’s poverty, but her story about Ethan Jamieson – assuming Donna had been telling the truth – was a complete fabrication.

  She was by the pavilion now, which looked like a beautiful antique bird cage in the dark. It was soothing out here, and thoughts of her mother started to dissolve, until the sight of the Lake House taunted her again.

  You have to go and say goodbye, she told herself, downing the flute of champagne she had brought with her.

  A tear ran down her cheek as she spotted a light on in the house. She imagined Jim packing, his music on loud. She wondered if he was looking across the lake too, watching the lights of the party and feeling as sad and regretful as she was. She doubted it.

  Jim Johnson had a wild and passionate heart – it was one of the things she liked most about him. When he cared, he cared deeply; whether it was about his music, or an opinion, he was prepared to put himself out there. He was not the type of guy to let awkwardness or embarrassment stop him from doing something, unless it was the sort of embarrassment that stemmed from regret.

  The moon shimmered across the water and she felt her shoulders sag. She had escaped New York at the beginning of the summer to get some clarity in her life, but now, two months later, things seemed more confused than ever.

  ‘Hey.’ She heard a voice behind her and turned round, her heart thudding with hope. She was disappointed to see that it was Connor.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ She laughed awkwardly.

  ‘Looking for you,’ he said, taking a step towards her in the pavilion.

  The space between them seemed to contract. It was an oppressively hot night, but the air seemed to have been sucked out of the tiny glass building. She felt uncomfortable being in such a close, confined space with him, and pushed her hair back behind her ear.

  ‘Great party.’

  ‘My mom would have settled for nothing less,’ she smiled.

  ‘Marion told me you decorated the terrace yourself. It looks good.’

  ‘I didn’t think men noticed things like that,’ she teased.

  ‘Well I did, and I’m proud of you.’

  ‘I wanted it to look photogenic. I did some filming for the documentary.’

  ‘About the documentary,’ he said guardedly. ‘I’ve got some news.’

  She felt her mood lift. The last time she had been in New York, Connor had told her about his new friends and acquaintances in the city, one of whom was a film editor who had worked on all sorts of exciting projects and had offered to help Jennifer cut her documentary together. She had hours of footage, was happy with the interviews but Bryn Johnson had been right when he had said that without structure and editing, her tapes were just rambling introspection. Jennifer had been thrilled when Connor said he would set up a meeting, and had been waiting all week for at least a name or contact number where she could reach him.

  ‘Your friend, the editor. Did you speak to him?’ she asked breathlessly.

  Connor paused.

  ‘Well, I spoke to a friend. Another friend.’

  ‘Is he an editor too?’ she asked. She was aware that the clock was ticking. David Wyatt was already making noises about ending her allowance, and Jennifer planned to enter her film into three competitions whose deadlines were fast approaching.

  ‘I haven’t even done a rough cut yet, and if your friend can’t help me, then I need to find someone else as quickly as I can.’

  Connor took another step forward.

  ‘Look, Jen. I’m not being funny, but entering festivals is amateur stuff. What you really want is a job in the industry, and I think I’ve just sorted you out.’

  She didn’t agree with what he was saying but still felt her brow crease with curiosity.

  ‘You’ve met David Clarke. On my course; we watched the rowing with him once. His brother Richard owns a production company. Makes very successful short films. Anyway, I mentioned you to him and he wants to talk to you. Thinks he might have something.’

  ‘What sort of films?’ she asked suspiciously. She had never known Connor to have any friends that worked in the creative industries, and now he seemed to have lots of them.

  ‘Films,’ he shrugged. ‘For the corporate sector. Did something very interesting recently for one of the big oil companies, some digital presentation as part of their sales prospectus.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling herself deflate.

  ‘What did you expect?’ he said, frowning. ‘An internship with Spielberg? Look, this is where the money is, right here.’ He pointed to the ground for emphasis. ‘Corporate videos. The printed word is dead – within ten years, once this internet thing really takes off, we are all going to consume our information visually. Films, pictures, razzle-dazzle.’

  Jennifer felt herself become emotional.

  ‘Connor, this isn’t the sort of film-making I had in mind. If you could get in touch
with your editor friend, that would be amazing,’ she said, but he clearly wasn’t listening.

  ‘To be honest, Jen, when you first told me about this documentary idea, I thought it was a bit ridiculous,’ he said dismissively. ‘But I’ve come to realise that actually it’s brilliant. Go and learn the trade with Richard Clarke, then we can set up on our own. Video marketing. I can tout for business with the banks. You can do the creative side. We can own the financial marketing sector by the new millennium.’

  She started to shake her head. Her breathing was shallow and she felt trapped inside the confines of the pavilion.

  ‘Connor, have you not been listening to a word I’ve said this summer?’

  He held up a hand. ‘I admit it. The gig is in New York. Of course it is. Everything is in New York. I know you hated it at Lucian’s, but I think you hated working in a gallery and it coloured your view of the city. This will be different,’ he said with a smooth reassurance that she almost believed.

  ‘We should probably talk about this another time,’ she said, not even looking at him.

  ‘No, I think we should talk about it now,’ he said with quiet, steely authority.

  He was close enough to take her hands, and guided them to his chest.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you and I want us to be together in New York. I want to be with you. We belong together.’

  An unusual hesitancy appeared in his voice. Connor was never anything other than one hundred per cent confident, but right now there was something different, and it scared her.

  He let go of her hands and reached into his pocket. Her heart was pounding as he produced a small black velvet box, and she knew this wasn’t any old twenty-first-birthday present.

  ‘I know we’re young,’ he said lifting the lid of the box. ‘I know in an ideal world we might wait a while, but when you know, you know, right? Doesn’t matter if you’re twenty-one or forty-one.’

  She looked down at a dazzling oval diamond, flecked with blue and silver in the soft moonlight. It was a beautiful stone, a beautiful ring, but her heart felt heavy as she gazed at it.