The House on Sunset Lake (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

The doctors were serious and the nurses sympathetic and efficient. You couldn’t really fault them; everyone did everything right. The ambulance had arrived within minutes and broken every traffic law getting Bryn to the emergency room. Jim had sat in the back, holding his father’s hand, watching his grey face behind the oxygen mask, urging him to live.

Bryn had been wheeled straight into the treatment room, the gurney bumping through the double doors. Elizabeth had arrived half an hour later, white as paper, her cheeks stained. Jim couldn’t remember seeing her cry before. Three hours later, a doctor had informed them that a stabilising procedure had been a success, then explained that ‘success’ simply meant that Bryn had survived the procedure; his survival beyond that was not guaranteed. ‘We just have to watch and pray,’ he had said.

‘Go home,’ said Elizabeth now, putting her hand on her son’s shoulder. ‘Get a few hours’ sleep.’

‘I dozed a little,’ said Jim, forcing his eyes to snap open.

He had not left Lennox Hill hospital from the moment he had arrived in the ambulance the day before. Now he glanced out of the window and saw that the sun was rising, a whole night had disappeared and he had not left the tiny, sterile hospital room, although his mother had gone home around midnight when she had been told her husband was stable.

‘Come on, Jim. You can come back later. We can rotate. Take the keys to the brownstone if you want. It’s closer.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, thinking how much better he would feel if he had even just a couple of hours’ sleep and a shower.

‘Just go,’ she whispered as they both looked towards Bryn lying in the hospital bed. His skin was ghostly pale; a drip fed from his arm to an IV bag held up on a rack. The sound of the respirator was slow, steady, but despite everything, he looked peaceful.

He got a taxi downtown, back to his apartment. It was a dark, wet morning, the streets of New York a sea of commuters and umbrellas, a jigsaw of colour on the rainy streets.

The events of the past twenty hours didn’t make sense to him. His father had always been such a vibrant man. He’d turned seventy that year but he had the energy of someone twenty years younger.

The first consultant Jim had met after their arrival at Lennox Hill had told him that his father had gone into a brief but complete cardiac arrest, which had limited the flow of oxygen to his brain. He knew the doctor was trying to break the news that his father might have incurred some sort of brain damage, though it was too soon to tell if this had been the case. The idea of Bryn Johnson without his mind, without the full range of his faculties, was unthinkable. His intellect and wit were what he prided himself on, what defined his very being. Given the choice, Jim knew his father would rather not wake up.

His phone vibrated. He picked it up without even looking at the caller ID. He recognised Jennifer’s voice instantly.

‘Hello,’ he said, feeling his voice tense.

‘I thought I’d call. I thought you’d be back from the Caribbean.’

‘Yes, I’m back,’ he said briskly.

‘Are you OK?’ She knew him too well, and he was too tired to create the charade of being nice.

‘Something’s happened.’

‘What? Is everything OK?’ she asked with concern.

‘My father has had a heart attack.’

‘Oh Jim. I’m so sorry. How bad is it?’

‘He’s at Lennox Hill. He’s stabilised. That’s all we really know for now.’ He was aware how clipped his voice sounded.

‘Where are you?’

‘In a taxi.’

‘Going where?’

‘Home.’

‘I’m coming round,’ she said more urgently.

‘Jennifer, please. It’s fine. I just need to sleep, and then I’m going back to the hospital.’

‘Jim . . .’

‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said, and before he knew it, he had ended the call.

His apartment had never seemed so small, the four walls of the living room like a cell.

He kicked off his shoes and took the short walk to the bedroom, pulled down the blinds and sat on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. Guilt, regret made his throat thick. His body was crying out for sleep but he could not even lie back on the bed.

He ran the argument with his father over and over in his head.

If only he hadn’t gone to Saul’s apartment, if only he hadn’t been given the manuscript and read it, or seen Jennifer’s mole and put two and two together.

His shoulders slumped in hopelessness. He wasn’t even sure what hurt most any more. Certainly the fact that Jennifer had slept with his father had lost its force. It was only a paper cut now, not the fatal wound it had felt like the day before.

Too restless to sleep, he stood up and went to make some coffee. Every second seemed to stretch out interminably, but he found strange comfort in the simplicity of grinding the beans, filling the machine with water, listening to the glug of the coffee filter through to the jug.

He was pouring the black liquid into a mug when the intercom to his apartment buzzed. It made him jump, then panic made his heart thud hard. He put down the jug and pressed the intercom button.

Jennifer’s voice brought some relief, although she was the last person he wanted to see.

‘Shit,’ he whispered under his breath as he buzzed her up. The night they had spent together just two days earlier felt like another lifetime.

‘I’m sorry for coming over. I just had to.’ She had a nervous gentleness in her expression. As if she wanted to hold him but something was keeping her back.

‘I’m fine,’ he said quickly. ‘I just need to sleep.’

She took a step forward but he felt himself instinctively flinch away.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

‘Can I do anything? How about brownies to go with that coffee? I can run down to Molly’s Cupcakes . . .’

‘No, it’s fine, honestly.’

Another long silence. He almost felt sorry for her until he thought about Chapter 37 in
College
.

‘What happened?’

Jim shrugged. ‘He had a heart attack last year, but he still drinks, smokes . . . Infallible Bryn Johnson, or so he thought.’

‘Did it happen at the party?’

‘No. A few hours before it started, although I think he might have quite enjoyed the drama of collapsing in front of New York’s finest.’

He snorted lightly, then shook his head at the macabre humour.

‘We were at his house,’ he said quietly.

‘What? And he just keeled over?’

He closed his eyes and knew he had to tell her.

‘We had a disagreement.’ The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, but they wouldn’t come out.

‘What about?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I hope you’re not blaming yourself.’ She tried to catch his eye but he would not let her fix her gaze on his. ‘It’s not your fault, Jim,’ she said.

‘Look, Jen, I don’t want to be rude, but I should get some sleep. I was at the hospital eighteen hours straight and I have to be back by eleven o’clock so I can swap shifts with my mum.’

She nodded tightly, then her face softened and she reached out and touched his shoulder, stroked the cotton of his shirt.

‘I’m here if you need me.’

‘Thank you,’ he said crisply.

She headed for the door, then turned back.

‘It doesn’t matter, not now, but you should know that I’ve left Connor.’

She paused as if she was waiting for an answer, then opened the door.

‘The argument was about you,’ he said.

She closed the door slowly. He instantly regretted saying anything. But it was done, and it needed to be said. Her expression was like stone until her lip began to quiver. Right then he wanted her to feel pain. The pain he had felt, that his father had felt.

‘Me?’ she said finally.

He inhaled sharply, wiped his dry lips with the palm of his hand.

‘I read his book.
College
. The first draft. The one he started when he was in Savannah. And the character, the beautiful brunette, she had a mole. A diamond-shaped mole, just like yours.’

He looked at her but she remained quiet. A tiny tear glistened in the corner of one eye.

‘He told me what happened. I know it didn’t mean anything and I understand that he’s an irresistible man,’ he said with a note of sarcasm. ‘But you have to understand how it hurt me and I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be for me to get past it. Not now.’

Her lips were pressed together, full, trembling.

‘We shouldn’t let what happened twenty years ago spoil things between us again.’

‘How can it not?’ said Jim, feeling his own emotions rise again at her tacit admission. ‘How could you do that to me? I was in love with you.’

The tear had escaped and was trickling down her cheek.

Jim shook his head. ‘Why does everything have to be so difficult between us?’

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she said, inhaling audibly. ‘Please, Jim. Let’s talk about it.’

‘Just get out,’ he said quietly. ‘If you care about my feelings at all, just go.’

She nodded and walked with purpose out of the apartment, not looking back. As Jim listened to the fading sound of her footsteps in the stairwell, he heard another noise – the insistent ringing of his mobile phone.

He snatched it up. At first he heard nothing, just a cavernous silence, and then the small and defeated voice of his mother, uttering the words, ‘Your father is dead.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

Casa D’Or was finished. The paintwork gleamed, the marble shone and the linens on the king-sized beds practically crackled when you lay on them. The old house was almost unrecognisable from the sagging wreck Jim had seen that day he had bumped down the driveway. All those potholes had been filled, of course, the trees forming the avenue expertly trimmed, the gardens primped and planted to look as if an army of gardeners had been carefully tending to the grounds since the twenties. Not that Jim was seeing any of that. There was less than thirty-six hours to go before the bells-and-whistles party to launch the resort was due to begin, and there were a thousand things to see to before then: the wine, the catering, the crooner who would serenade the VIP guests as they arrived, and who was currently stuck in Reykjavik.

In the six weeks since his father’s death, Jim had let work be his saviour.

He had returned to London for his father’s funeral and spent a week’s compassionate leave with his mother. Simon Desai had been incredibly understanding and had told him to take as long as he wanted. But Elizabeth’s sister and brother-in-law had moved into the Hampstead house to be with her, and when she had insisted that he return to America, Jim had decided it was for the best.

‘Just go and finish that property,’ she had said when she had waved goodbye to him at the airport. He knew exactly what she meant. He wanted to put it all behind him, and had thrown himself into the final preparations for the Casa D’Or launch with a fervour that even the most zealous workaholic would have found tiring.

‘Excuse me, Mr Johnson, you have a visitor.’

Jim was having a final inspection of the spa, which had been created in the style of a boathouse on the far reaches of the property. He was wondering whether to ask to actually try out a massage himself – his back seemed to be a series of knots these days – when Liane, one of the receptionists, came to find him.

‘Who is it?’ he frowned, glancing at his phone, where all his appointments and calls for the day had been logged. He had nothing scheduled for that moment.

‘Says her name is Marion Wyatt.’

‘Oh,’ said Jim more brightly. ‘She used to own this place. Bring her to the terrace and send over a couple of glasses of sweet tea.’

He wrapped up his conversation with the spa manager, and by the time he got back to the house, Marion was waiting for him at one of the white wrought-iron tables under the shade of a linen parasol.

‘Hello, Marion,’ he said, kissing her warmly on both cheeks.

‘How are you, Jim?’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘I was so sorry to hear about Bryn.’

Jim sat down and nodded at the reminder of his father’s death. He had been trying so hard to shut it out, but whenever someone mentioned it, or whenever he stopped working and caught his breath, he was knocked sideways by a wave of grief and emptiness.

‘Thank you. I guess you know what it feels like,’ he said quietly, remembering David Wyatt’s passing.

Marion nodded. ‘I don’t think it ever goes away. Every hour of every day I still stop and feel displaced, and for a split second I don’t even know why something feels so wrong, until I realise it’s because David isn’t ever coming back.’

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 going 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.