‘Yes, of course. You’re at the Lake House. It’s nice to meet you. Come through,’ she replied, guiding them to the back of the house.
The terrace had been transformed, as if someone had waved a magic wand since she had last been here an hour earlier. The garden lights had been turned on so that cones of soft yellow twinkled across the lawns. The table had been set with a starched white tablecloth and the best cutlery. A huge vase of creamy hydrangeas sat proudly in the middle, alongside two softly glowing hurricane lanterns. She knew their guests would be impressed, although for her mother this was little more than a picnic.
‘Bryn. Good to see you again,’ said David, hurrying to greet them. ‘How’s the writing going?’
The group made polite conversation that largely consisted of David telling the Johnsons about the history of the house. How it had been in the Wyatt family since the 1940s although it had been built a hundred years before that, when a wealthy family from Pennsylvania came to exploit the rich farmland and the legalised slavery in Georgia. The plantation had over two thousand acres of land in those days, with peach orchards, pecan groves, and fields of rice and cotton that stretched for miles around, although the Wyatts only owned two hundred acres now.
‘Do you still have the peach orchards?’ asked Elizabeth Johnson, almost swooning.
‘Not any more,’ said David, shaking his head. ‘Most of the farming crops are gone, but we’ve got the woods, the paddocks and the swamps. The tidal creek over there runs into the Wilmington. And you’ve seen the lake.’
Jennifer glanced at her watch. The Gilberts had said they would be here at eight; it was close to that now. To distract herself, she listened to Bryn Johnson wax lyrical about his writing career.
‘I consider myself to be in exile,’ he said expansively, eager to insert his own narrative into the conversation. ‘All the greats did it. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Neruda, although the only thing we’re escaping from is the British weather,’ he added with a rich laugh.
‘How are you enjoying Savannah?’ said Jennifer, turning to the son.
‘We’ve only just got here,’ he said with a casual shrug of the shoulders.
‘Jim would rather be bar-hopping with friends around Europe round now,’ interrupted Bryn.
‘Interrailing,’ corrected Jim Johnson.
Bryn scoffed. ‘I love the way young people make it sound like a cultural endeavour, when really all they want is to score cheap girls and cheaper booze in the sunshine.’
‘Savannah might not be Europe, but it has its own charms,’ smiled David, noticing the younger man scowl.
Marion brought drinks and canapés on to the terrace and the group made small talk. The sun was beginning to set, turning the lake a glorious liquid bronze and daubing the back of the house in the soft golden light that had inspired its name.
Her parents drifted down the lawn to show Bryn and Elizabeth their prize azaleas, leaving Jennifer alone with Jim Johnson. She took a few moments to observe him. The younger man was less obviously handsome than his father. His mouth had a slight downturned moodiness. His hair was a couple of shades lighter than Bryn’s jet-black crown; a long fringe fell fashionably to one side of his face. There was stubble on his chin and his hands were thrust in the pockets of his jeans as he slouched in his chair. She’d seen these sorts of boys before at college, the tortured artists who lured girls into bed with promises of poems and song lyrics in their honour but rarely delivered anything beyond unreliability and eventual heartbreak.
‘So you don’t want to be here?’ she said, trying to make conversation but suspecting it might be tricky.
‘Not really,’ he said sullenly.
‘Have you ever been to Greece?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘I did a tour of Europe the summer before college,’ she nodded.
‘Of course you did,’ he grunted.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She frowned back. ‘That’s what girls like you do, isn’t it,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘Grand Tour, study art history, work in a smart little gallery . . .’
His handful of words had infuriated her.
‘I didn’t realise I was so predictable,’ she said, putting her glass of iced tea down.
‘Am I right?’
She wasn’t sure, but she swore she saw a faint smile pull at his lips.
‘I was interning in a gallery in New York, but I left. Happy now?’ she said with as much dignity as she could manage.
‘So what happened?’
‘I didn’t like it,’ she said slowly.