She looked up and smiled at Claudia as she entered the drawing room carrying a tray, which she set down on the low table before retreating.
‘I don’t think you’re mad, Tiggy. Really, I completely understand.’
‘In fact, up until our phone call last night, I was feeling happier than I ever have.’
‘It’s because you’ve found your calling, I’m sure,’ I smiled.
‘Yes, that and . . . other things,’ she admitted as I noticed a faint blush appear on her delicate cheekbones. ‘But that’s for another time. When are the others home?’
‘CeCe and Star should be here by seven this evening, and Electra is arriving sometime in the small hours of the morning,’ I said, pouring some tea into two cups.
‘How was Electra when you told her?’ Tiggy asked me. ‘Actually, you don’t need to answer that, I can imagine.’
‘Well, it was Ma who spoke to her. I gather she was bawling her eyes out.’
‘True to form, then,’ said Tiggy, taking a sip of her tea.
Then she sighed suddenly, the light disappearing from her eyes. ‘It feels so odd. I keep expecting Pa to walk in at any second. And of course, he never will again.’
‘No, he won’t,’ I agreed sadly.
‘Is there anything we should do?’ Tiggy asked, rising suddenly from the sofa and walking to the window to stare out. ‘I feel we should be doing . . . something.’
‘Apparently, Pa’s lawyer will come and see us when we’ve all arrived and explain things, but for now’ – I shrugged despairingly – ‘all we can do is wait for the others.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
I watched as Tiggy pressed her forehead against the windowpane.
‘None of us really knew him, did we?’ she said quietly.
‘No, we didn’t,’ I conceded.
‘Maia, can I ask you another question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you ever wonder where you came from? I mean, who your real mother and father were?’
‘Of course it’s crossed my mind, Tiggy, but Pa’s been everything to me. He has been my father. So I suppose I’ve never needed – or wanted – to think beyond that.’
‘Do you think you’d feel guilty if you did try to find out?’
‘Maybe,’ I replied. ‘But Pa has always been enough, and I couldn’t imagine a more loving or caring parent.’
‘I can understand that. You two always did have a special bond. Perhaps the first child always does.’
‘But each one of us had a special relationship with him. He loved us all.’
‘Yes, I know he loved me,’ said Tiggy calmly. ‘But that hasn’t stopped me from wondering where I originally came from. I thought of asking him, but I didn’t want to upset him. So I never did. Anyway, it’s too late now.’ She stifled a yawn and said, ‘Would you mind if I went up to my room and had a rest? Perhaps it’s delayed shock or the fact I haven’t had a day off for weeks, but I feel totally exhausted.’
‘Of course not. You go and lie down, Tiggy.’
I watched as she floated across the room to the door. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Sleep well,’ I called as I found myself alone once again. And oddly irritated. Maybe it was me, but Tiggy’s other-worldliness, her air of being slightly removed from all that went on around her, seemed suddenly more pronounced. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted from her; after all, I’d been dreading my sisters’ reactions to the news. I should be glad that Tiggy looked to be handling it so well.
Or was the real reason I felt unsettled the fact that each of my sisters had lives that went on above and beyond Pa Salt and their childhood home, whereas both he and Atlantis had comprised my entire world?
Star and CeCe stepped off the launch just after seven and I was there to greet them both. Never one to volunteer physical affection, CeCe allowed me to clasp her briefly in my arms before pulling away.
‘Shocking news, Maia,’ she commented. ‘Star’s very shaken up.’
‘I’m sure,’ I replied, watching Star as she stood behind her sister, looking even paler than usual.
‘How are you, darling?’ I asked, reaching my arms towards her.
‘Devastated,’ Star whispered, resting her head, with its glorious hair the colour of moonlight, on my shoulder for a few seconds.
‘At least we’re all together now,’ I said, as Star moved away from me and towards CeCe, who immediately wrapped her own strong, protective arm once more around her.
‘What needs to be done?’ CeCe asked as the three of us walked up towards the house.
Again, I took both of them into the drawing room and sat them down. And once more, I repeated the circumstances of Pa’s death and his wish to have a private burial with none of us in attendance.
‘So who was it that actually put Pa over the side of the boat?’ CeCe enquired, as clinically logical as only my fourth sister could be. I understood she didn’t mean to be insensitive. CeCe just wanted the facts.
‘It’s not a question I’ve asked, to be honest, but I’m sure we can find out. It was probably a member of his crew on the Titan.’
‘And where did it happen? I mean, near St Tropez where the yacht was moored, or did they sail out to sea? I’m sure they must have done,’ added CeCe.
Both Star and I shuddered at her need for detail. ‘Ma says he was buried in a lead casket which was already on board the Titan. But as to where, I really don’t know,’ I said, hoping that would be the end of CeCe’s probing.
‘Presumably, this lawyer will be telling us exactly what’s in his will?’ she persisted.
‘Yes, I should think so.’
‘For all we know, we’re now destitute,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You remember how obsessed he was about us all earning our own living? I wouldn’t put it past him to have left the lot to charity,’ she added.
Even though I understood that CeCe’s natural tactlessness was almost certainly more pronounced at this moment to help her cope with her current inner pain, I’d reached my limit. I didn’t respond to her comment but instead turned to Star, sitting silently on the sofa next to her sister.
‘How are you feeling?’ I asked her gently.
‘I—’
‘She’s in shock, like we all are,’ cut in CeCe before Star could speak. ‘But we’ll get through this together, won’t we?’ she said as she reached a strong brown hand towards her sister and clasped Star’s slender, pale fingers within it. ‘It’s such a shame, because I was about to tell Pa some good news.’
‘And what is that?’ I enquired.
‘I’ve been offered a place in September on a year’s foundation course at The Royal College of Art in London.’
‘That’s wonderful news, CeCe,’ I said. Even though I’d never really understood her strange ‘installations’, as she called them, preferring a more traditional style to modern art, I knew it was her passion and I was pleased for her.
‘Yes, we’re thrilled, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ Star agreed obediently, although she didn’t look it. I could see her bottom lip was trembling.
‘We’ll base ourselves in London. That’s if there are still funds available after we’ve met with this lawyer of Pa’s.’
‘Honestly, CeCe,’ I said, my stretched patience finally snapping. ‘This is hardly the moment to be thinking of such things.’
‘Sorry, Maia, you know it’s just my way. I loved Pa very much. He was such a brilliant man and he always encouraged me in my work.’
Just for a few seconds, I saw vulnerability and perhaps a little fear appear in CeCe’s hazel-flecked eyes.
‘Yes, he was one of a kind,’ I affirmed.
‘Right, Star, why don’t you and I go upstairs and get unpacked?’ CeCe suggested. ‘What time’s supper, Maia? We could both do with something to eat soon.’
‘I’ll tell Claudia to have it ready as soon as possible. Electra isn’t arriving for hours and I still haven’t heard from Ally.’
‘We’ll see you in a while then,’ said CeCe, standing up, with Star following suit. ‘And anything I can do, you know you simply have to ask.’ CeCe smiled at me sadly as she said this. For all her insensitivity, I knew she meant it.
After they left, I pondered the enigma that was the relationship between my third and fourth sisters. Marina and I had discussed it often, both of us concerned as they grew up that Star simply hid behind the strong personality that was CeCe.
‘Star seems to have no mind of her own,’ I’d said time and time again. ‘I haven’t a clue what she really thinks about anything. Surely it can’t be healthy?’
Marina had agreed wholeheartedly with me, but when I’d mentioned it to Pa Salt, he’d smiled his enigmatic smile and told me not to worry.
‘One day, Star will spread her wings and fly, like the glorious angel she is. You wait and see.’
This hadn’t comforted me, for just as Star was reliant on CeCe, it was obvious that, for all CeCe’s outward self-possession, the dependence was mutual. And if Star did one day do as Pa Salt had predicted, I knew CeCe would be completely lost.
Dinner that evening was a sombre affair as my three sisters began to adjust to being home, where everything around us served as a reminder of the enormity of what had been lost to us. Marina did her utmost to keep everyone’s spirits up, but seemed uncertain how best to do so. She asked questions about what each of her precious girls were currently doing in their lives, but unspoken memories of Pa Salt brought sporadic tears to all our eyes. Eventually, the attempts at conversation gave way to silence.
‘I’ll just be glad when Ally’s been located and we can move on with hearing whatever it is Pa Salt wanted to tell us,’ Tiggy said with a long sigh. ‘Excuse me, but I’m going up to bed.’
Kissing all of us, she left the room, followed by CeCe and Star a few minutes later.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Marina, when it was just the two of us left alone at the table, ‘they’re all completely devastated. And I agree with Tiggy: the sooner we’ve located Ally and she’s back, the faster we can all move on.’
‘She’s obviously out of mobile phone range,’ I said. ‘You must be completely exhausted, Ma. Go to bed and I’ll stay up and wait for Electra to arrive.’
‘Are you sure, chérie?’
‘Yes, positive,’ I confirmed, knowing how difficult Marina had always found dealing with my youngest sister.
‘Thank you, Maia,’ she said, acquiescing without further protest. She rose from the table, kissed me gently on the top of my head and left the kitchen.
For the next half an hour, I insisted on helping Claudia clear up from the evening meal, simply grateful for something to do while I waited for Electra. Used to Claudia’s lack of small talk, tonight I found her steady and silent presence particularly comforting.
‘Shall I lock up, Miss Maia?’ she asked me.
‘No, you’ve had a long day too. Go to bed and I’ll see to it.’
‘As you wish. Gute Nacht,’ she said as she left the kitchen.
Wandering through the house, knowing it would be at least a couple of hours before Electra arrived and feeling wide awake due to my unusually long lie-in that morning, I arrived at the door to Pa Salt’s study. I had an urge to feel him around me, so I turned the door handle, only to find that it was locked.
This surprised and disturbed me; during the many hours he’d spent in the room working from home, the door had always been freely open to us girls. He’d never been too busy to offer a welcoming smile at my timid knock, and I’d always enjoyed sitting in his study, which contained the physical and material essence of him. Even though banks of computers sat on his desk and a large video screen hung on the wall in readiness for satellite conference calls, my eyes always strayed to the personal treasures placed randomly on the shelves behind the desk.
These were simple objects that he’d told me he’d collected during his constant travels around the world – amongst other things, a delicate gilt-framed miniature of the Madonna, which could fit in the palm of my hand, an old fiddle, a battered leather pouch and a tattered book by an English poet I’d never heard of.
Nothing rare, nothing particularly valuable that I knew of, just objects that all meant something to him.
Even though I was certain that a man such as Pa could have filled our home with priceless works of art and exquisite antiques if he’d so desired, in reality it did not contain many hugely costly artefacts. If anything, I’d always felt he’d had an aversion to inanimate material possessions of any great worth. He’d derided his wealthy contemporaries vociferously when they’d paid exorbitant sums for famous works of art, telling me that most of them ended up locked away in their strong rooms for fear of their being stolen.
‘Art should be on display to all,’ he’d said to me. ‘It is a gift to the soul from the painter. A painting that has to be hidden from sight is worthless.’
When I’d dared to mention the fact that he himself owned a private jet and a large luxury yacht, he’d raised an eyebrow at me.
‘But Maia, can’t you see that both those things are simply a mode of transportation? They provide a practical service, a means to an end. And if they went up in flames tomorrow, I could easily replace them. It’s enough for me to have my six human works of art: my daughters. The only things on earth worth treasuring, because you are all irreplaceable. People who you love are irreplaceable, Maia. Remember that, won’t you?’
These were words he’d spoken to me many years before and that had never left me. I only wished with every fibre in my body that I’d remembered them when I should have done.
I walked away emotionally empty-handed from the door of Pa Salt’s study, and went into the drawing room, still wondering why on earth the room had been locked. I’d ask Marina tomorrow, I thought, as I walked across to an occasional table and picked up a photograph. It had been taken aboard the Titan a few years ago, and showed Pa, surrounded by all of us sisters, leaning against the railing on the deck of the yacht. He was smiling broadly, his handsome features relaxed, his full head of greying hair swept back by the sea wind, and his still toned and muscular body bronzed by the sun.
‘Who were you?’ I asked the photograph with a frown.
For want of anything better to do, I switched on the television and flicked through the channels until I found the news. As usual, the bulletin was full of war, pain and destruction and I was just about to switch channels when the news-reader announced that the body of Kreeg Eszu, a famous captain of industry who ran a vast international communications company, had been found washed up in a cove on a Greek island.
I listened intently, the remote control frozen in my hand, as the newsreader explained how his family had announced that Kreeg had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The inference was that, given the diagnosis, he had decided to take his own life.
My heart began to beat faster. Not only because my father, too, had recently chosen to spend eternity at the bottom of the ocean, but because this story had a direct connection to me . . .
The newsreader stated that his son, Zed, who’d been working alongside his father for a number of years, would be taking over with immediate effect as Chief Executive of Athenian Holdings. An image of Zed flashed up on the screen and I instinctively closed my eyes.
‘Oh God,’ I groaned, wondering why fate had decided to choose this moment to remind me of a man I’d spent the past fourteen years desperately trying to forget.
So it seemed that, ironically, within the space of a few hours, both of us had lost our fathers to a watery grave.
I stood up, pacing the room, trying to remove the image of his face – which seemed if anything even more handsome than I’d remembered it – from my mind.
Think about the pain he caused you, Maia, I told myself. It’s over, it was over years ago. Don’t go back there, whatever you do.
But of course, as I sighed and sank down onto the sofa, drained of energy, I knew it could never truly be o
ver.
5
A couple of hours later, I heard the soft humming of the motor launch heralding the arrival of Electra. I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together. Walking out of the house and into the moonlit gardens, the dew warm under my bare feet, I saw Electra was already crossing the lawns towards me. Her beautiful ebony skin seemed to glow with a lustre in the moonlight as her endless legs made short work of the distance between us.
At over six feet tall, Electra always made me feel insignificant next to her statuesque, effortless elegance. As she reached me, it was she who clasped me tightly to her, my head fitting snugly into her chest.
‘Oh Maia!’ she moaned. ‘Please tell me it isn’t true? He can’t have gone, he simply can’t have. I . . .’
Electra began to sob loudly and I decided that, rather than disturb the other sisters currently sleeping in the house, I’d take her into the Pavilion. I steered her gently in its direction, and she continued to cry pitifully as I closed the door behind us, led her into the sitting room and sat her down on the sofa.
‘Maia, what will we all do without him?’ she asked me, her glowing amber eyes entreating me to give her the answer.
‘There’s nothing we can do to take away the pain of his loss, but I hope at least that with all of us being here together, we can comfort each other,’ I said, hurriedly taking a box of tissues from the shelf and putting them next to her on the sofa. She took one and wiped her eyes. ‘I haven’t stopped crying since Ma told me. I just can’t bear it, Maia, I simply can’t.’
‘No, none of us can,’ I agreed. And as I watched and listened to her outpouring of grief, I thought how her arresting, sensuous physical presence was so at odds with the vulnerable little girl who inhabited her soul. Often I’d see photos of her in magazines on the arm of a film star or a rich playboy, looking fabulous and totally in control, and I’d wonder if it could really be the same woman as the emotionally volatile sister I knew. I’d come to believe that Electra craved constant displays of love and attention to satisfy some inherent deep-seated insecurity.
The Seven Sisters Page 4