The House on Sunset Lake Read online

Jim hadn’t been to his parents’ house for a few months, but it looked exactly the same as it always did. A whiff of cigar smoke clung to his father’s study; the slightly musty smell of old books pervaded the hallways. His old room was also untouched. Piles of vinyl, all in mint condition, he noted, were stacked up under the window. The blue walls were still festooned with posters – the moody black and white graphics of a Joy Division cover, a psychedelic portrait of Hendrix – plus a pinboard full of tickets from the Mud Club, the Camden Palace and Wembley. He tried to remember when he had last been to a gig or a live venue. He’d taken some clients for dinner at Ronnie Scott’s a few months earlier, but he wasn’t sure if that counted.

  Melissa excused herself to the bathroom and Jim went to refill their glasses in the kitchen. His mother was standing at the island filling a glass bowl with cashew nuts. Surprisingly, they were alone.

  ‘Having a good time?’ she said without looking up at him.

  She never hired outside caterers, said it was a waste of money. As the daughter of an army officer, she had always had a practical, can-do side, even though her husband demanded that they put on a show.

  ‘Dad seems to be enjoying himself.’

  ‘Never happier than when he’s surrounded by people he hardly ever sees.’

  Jim fished around the fridge looking for a cold beer.

  ‘Sad news about Ian.’

  ‘I know. He’s thrilled with his knighthood, though. Although don’t bring that up with your father.’

  ‘I did. He seemed touchy.’

  ‘Touchy? He’s been like a bear with a sore head ever since it was announced.’

  ‘But Ian’s his friend. He should be pleased for him.’

  ‘In theory,’ said his mother softly.

  ‘Don’t worry, Melissa will massage his ego.’ He opened his can with a hiss and took a long, satisfying sip.

  ‘Pretty little thing.’

  Jim looked up and observed the sardonic look on his mother’s face.

  ‘Any plans for making an honest woman of this one? Or is this just another of your conquests?’

  ‘Mum,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t see why I can’t ask. You’re forty this year and you’re still no closer to settling down.’

  ‘It’s not a race.’

  ‘Just as well.’

  He thought about his brush with Celine Wood at the Munroe party. What would he have done if she had slipped him her number? He had never been unfaithful to any of his girlfriends, but even now he was having thoughts.

  Elizabeth reached for a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.

  ‘What is she, Jim? Thirty-four, thirty-five?’

  ‘We’ve only been dating a year, Mum. Neither marriage nor babies have been mentioned.’

  His mother laughed. ‘That doesn’t mean they’re not on her mind.’

  The thought of it made his heart sink. It wasn’t that he was against a wife and family per se. Until recently he’d felt sorry for his friends who had disappeared into family life; the boys he’d drunk with, played football, skied and white-water-rafted with, but who now he only saw occasionally: the odd brunch in pubs with playgrounds or crèches, where he was lucky to get ten minutes of undisrupted conversation with his mates, thanks to their children acting up. But lately he had been worried about ending up alone. Work filled his life, but not entirely, and apart from Melissa, there seemed to be fewer and fewer people to spend his free time with. But did he want to settle down with her? He wasn’t sure.

  ‘Honestly, she seems very nice,’ continued his mother. ‘She’s a solicitor, too. Why are you hanging around?’

  ‘Perhaps because “very nice” isn’t what I’m looking for in a woman.’

  Elizabeth sipped her wine and looked at him disapprovingly over the rim of her glass.

  ‘What?’ asked Jim, feeling uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

  ‘You’re not still clinging to that girl, are you?’

  ‘What girl?’ said Jim innocently, although he knew exactly what she was talking about.

  ‘Jim, you have the world’s worst case of rose-tinted spectacles.’

  ‘Don’t try and tell me what I felt,’ he said, feeling defensive.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘You met a girl. It didn’t work out. Simple as that. Plus you were kids, another lifetime ago almost.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That you’ve spent the last twenty years measuring every other woman against her.’

  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.