The Seven Sisters Read online

  Privately, Ally, Tiggy and I had our own nickname for her; she was known among the three of us as ‘Tricky’. We all walked on eggshells around her, wishing to do nothing to set off a lightning change of mood. I can honestly say there were moments when I loathed her for the disruption she brought to Atlantis.

  And yet, when Electra knew one of us was in trouble, she was the first to offer help and support. Just as she was capable of huge selfishness, her generosity on other occasions was equally pronounced.

  After Electra, the entire household was expecting the arrival of the Seventh Sister. After all, we’d been named after Pa Salt’s favourite star cluster and we wouldn’t be complete without her. We even knew her name – Merope – and wondered who she would be. But a year went past, and then another, and another, and no more babies arrived home with our father.

  I remember vividly standing with him once in his observatory. I was fourteen years old and just on the brink of womanhood. We were waiting for an eclipse, which he’d told me was a seminal moment for humankind and usually brought change with it.

  ‘Pa,’ I said, ‘will you ever bring home our seventh sister?’

  At this, his strong, protective bulk had seemed to freeze for a few seconds. He’d looked suddenly as though he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Although he didn’t turn around, for he was still concentrating on training the telescope on the coming eclipse, I knew instinctively that what I’d said had distressed him.

  ‘No, Maia, I won’t. Because I have never found her.’

  As the familiar thick hedge of spruce trees, which shielded our waterside home from prying eyes, came into view, I saw Marina standing on the jetty and the dreadful truth of losing Pa finally began to sink in.

  And I realised that the man who had created the kingdom in which we had all been his princesses was no longer present to hold the enchantment in place.

  2

  Marina put her comforting arms gently around my shoulders as I stepped up onto the jetty from the launch. Wordlessly, we turned to walk together through the trees and across the wide, sloping lawns that led up to the house. In June, our home was at the height of its beauty. The ornate gardens were bursting into bloom, enticing their occupants to explore the hidden pathways and secret grottos.

  The house itself, built in the late eighteenth century in the Louis XV style, was a vision of elegant grandeur. Four storeys high, its sturdy pale pink walls were punctuated by tall multipaned windows, and topped by a steeply sloping red roof with turrets at each corner. Exquisitely furnished inside with every modern luxury, its thick carpets and plump sofas cocooned and comforted all who lived there. We girls had slept up on the top floor, which had superb, uninterrupted views of the lake over the treetops. Marina also occupied a suite of rooms upstairs with us.

  I glanced at her now and thought how exhausted she looked. Her kind brown eyes were smudged with shadows of fatigue, and her normally smiling mouth looked pinched and tense. I supposed she must be in her mid-sixties, but she didn’t seem it. Tall, with strong aquiline features, she was an elegant, handsome woman, always immaculately attired, her effortless chic reflecting her French ancestry. When I was young, she used to wear her silky dark hair loose, but now she coiled it into a chignon at the nape of her neck.

  A thousand questions were pushing for precedence in my mind, but only one demanded to be asked immediately.

  ‘Why didn’t you let me know as soon as Pa had the heart attack?’ I asked as we entered the house and walked into the high-ceilinged drawing room that overlooked a sweeping stone terrace, lined with urns full of vivid red and gold nasturtiums.

  ‘Maia, believe me, I begged him to let me tell you, to tell all you girls, but he became so distressed when I mentioned it that I had to do as he wished.’

  And I understood that if Pa had told her not to contact us, she could have done little else. He was the king and Marina was at best his most trusted courtier, at worst his servant who must do exactly as he bade her.

  ‘Where is he now?’ I asked her. ‘Still upstairs in his bedroom? Should I go and see him?’

  ‘No, chérie, he isn’t upstairs. Would you like some tea before I tell you more?’ she asked.

  ‘To be quite honest, I think I could do with a strong gin and tonic,’ I admitted as I sat down heavily on one of the huge sofas.

  ‘I’ll ask Claudia to make it. And I think that, on this occasion, I may join you myself.’

  I watched as Marina left the room to find Claudia, our housekeeper, who had been at Atlantis as long as Marina. She was German, her outward dourness hiding a heart of gold. Like all of us, she’d adored her master. I wondered suddenly what would become of her and Marina. And, in fact, what would happen to Atlantis itself now that Pa had gone.

  The words still seemed incongruous in this context. Pa was always ‘gone’ – off somewhere, doing something, although none of his staff or family had any specific idea of what he actually did to make his living. I’d asked him once, when my friend Jenny had come to stay with us during the school holidays and been noticeably awed by the opulence of the way we lived.

  ‘Your father must be fabulously wealthy,’ she’d whispered as we stepped off Pa’s private jet which had just landed at La Môle airport near St Tropez. The chauffeur was waiting on the tarmac to take us down to the harbour, where we’d board our magnificent ten-berth yacht, the Titan, and sail off for our annual Mediterranean cruise to whichever destination Pa Salt fancied taking us.

  Like any child, rich or poor, given that I had grown up knowing no different, the way we lived had never really struck me as unusual. All of us girls had taken lessons with tutors at home when we were younger, and it was only when I went to boarding school at the age of thirteen that I began to realise how removed our life was from most other people’s.

  When I asked Pa once what exactly it was he did to provide our family with every luxury imaginable, he looked at me in that secretive way he had and smiled. ‘I am a magician of sorts.’

  Which, as he’d intended, told me nothing.

  As I grew older, I began to realise that Pa Salt was the master illusionist and nothing was as it first seemed.

  When Marina came back into the drawing room carrying two gin and tonics on a tray, it occurred to me that, after thirty-three years, I had no real idea who my father had been in the world outside Atlantis. And I wondered whether I would finally begin to find out now.

  ‘There we go,’ Marina said, setting the glass in front of me. ‘Here’s to your father,’ she said as she raised hers. ‘May God rest his soul.’

  ‘Yes, here’s to Pa Salt. May he rest in peace.’

  Marina took a hefty gulp before replacing the glass on the table and taking my hands in hers. ‘Maia, before we discuss anything else, I feel I must tell you one thing.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, looking at her weary brow, furrowed with anxiety.

  ‘You asked me earlier if your father was still here in the house. The answer is that he has already been laid to rest. It was his wish that the burial happen immediately and that none of you girls be present.’

  I stared at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. ‘But Ma, you told me only a few hours ago that he died in the early hours of this morning! How is it possible that a burial could have been arranged so soon? And why?’

  ‘Maia, your father was adamant that as soon as he passed away, his body was to be flown on his jet to his yacht. Once on board, he was to be placed in a lead coffin, which had apparently sat in the hold of the Titan for many years in preparation for such an event. From there he was to be sailed out to sea. Naturally, given his love for the water, he wanted to be laid to rest in the ocean. And he did not wish to cause his daughters the distress of . . . watching the event.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said, Marina’s words sending shudders of horror through me. ‘But surely he knew that we’d all want to say goodbye properly? How could he do this? What will I tell the others? I . . .’

  �
�Chérie, you and I have lived in this house the longest and we both know that where your father was concerned, ours was never to question why. I can only believe,’ she said quietly, ‘that he wished to be laid to rest as he lived: privately.’

  ‘And in control,’ I added, anger flaring suddenly inside me. ‘It’s almost as though he couldn’t even trust the people who loved him to do the right thing for him.’

  ‘Whatever his reasoning,’ said Marina, ‘I only hope that in time you can all remember him as the loving father he was. The one thing I do know is that you girls were his world.’

  ‘But which of us knew him?’ I asked, frustration bringing tears to my eyes. ‘Did a doctor come to confirm his death? You must have a death certificate? Can I see it?’

  ‘The doctor asked me for his personal details, such as his place and year of birth. I said I was only an employee and I wasn’t sure of those kinds of things. I put him in touch with Georg Hoffman, the lawyer who handles all your father’s affairs.’

  ‘But why was he so private, Ma? I was thinking today on the plane that I don’t ever remember him bringing friends here to Atlantis. Occasionally, when we were on the yacht, a business associate would come aboard for a meeting and they’d disappear downstairs into his study, but he never actually socialised.’

  ‘He wanted to keep his family life separate from business, so that when he was at home his full attention could be on his daughters.’

  ‘The daughters he adopted and brought here from all over the world. Why, Ma, why?’

  Marina looked back at me silently, her wise, calm eyes giving me no clues as to whether or not she knew the answer.

  ‘I mean, when you’re a child,’ I continued, ‘you grow up accepting your life. But we both know it’s terribly unusual – if not downright strange – for a single, middle-aged man to adopt six baby girls and bring them here to Switzerland to grow up under the same roof.’

  ‘Your father was an unusual man,’ Marina agreed. ‘But surely, giving needy orphans the chance of a better life under his protection couldn’t be seen as a bad thing?’ she equivocated. ‘Many wealthy people adopt children if they have none of their own.’

  ‘But usually, they’re married,’ I said bluntly. ‘Ma, do you know if Pa ever had a girlfriend? Someone he loved? I knew him for thirty-three years and never once did I see him with a woman.’

  ‘Chérie, I understand that your father has gone, and suddenly you realise that many questions you’ve wanted to ask him can now never be answered, but I really can’t help you. And besides, this isn’t the moment,’ Marina added gently. ‘For now, we must celebrate what he was to each and every one of us and remember him as the kind and loving human being we all knew within the walls of Atlantis. Try to remember that your father was well over eighty. He’d lived a long and fulfilling life.’

  ‘But he was out sailing the Laser on the lake only three weeks ago, scrambling around the boat like a man half his age,’ I said, remembering. ‘It’s hard to reconcile that image with someone who was dying.’

  ‘Yes, and thank God he didn’t follow many others of his age and suffer a slow and lingering death. It’s wonderful that you and the other girls will remember him as fit, happy and healthy,’ Marina encouraged. ‘It was certainly what he would have wanted.’

  ‘He didn’t suffer at the end, did he?’ I asked her tentatively, knowing in my heart that even if he had, Marina would never tell me.

  ‘No. He knew what was coming, Maia, and I believe that he’d made his peace with God. Really, I think he was happy to pass on.’

  ‘How on earth do I tell the others that their father has gone?’ I entreated her. ‘And that they don’t even have a body to bury? They’ll feel like I do, that he’s simply disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘Your father thought of that before he died, and Georg Hoffman, his lawyer, contacted me earlier today. I promise you that each and every one of you will get a chance to say goodbye to him.’

  ‘Even in death, Pa has everything under control,’ I said with a despairing sigh. ‘I’ve left messages for all my sisters, by the way, but as yet, no one has called me back.’

  ‘Well, Georg Hoffman is on standby to come here as soon as you’ve all arrived. And please, Maia, don’t ask me what he’ll have to say, for I haven’t a clue. Now, I had Claudia prepare some soup for you. I doubt you’ve eaten anything since this morning. Would you prefer to take it to the Pavilion, or do you want to stay here in the house tonight?’

  ‘I’ll have some soup here, and then I’ll go home if you don’t mind. I think I need to be alone.’

  ‘Of course.’ Marina reached towards me and gave me a hug. ‘I understand what a terrible shock this is for you. And I’m sorry that yet again you’re bearing the burden of responsibility for the rest of the girls, but it was you he asked me to tell first. I don’t know whether you find any comfort in that. Now, shall I go and ask Claudia to warm the soup? I think we could both do with a little comfort food.’

  After we’d eaten, I told Marina to go to bed and kissed her goodnight, for I could see that she too was exhausted. Before I left the house, I climbed the many stairs to the top floor and peered into each of my sisters’ rooms. All remained as they had been when their occupants left home to take flight on their chosen paths, and each room still displayed their very different personalities. Whenever they returned, like doves to their waterside nest, none of them seemed to have the vaguest interest in changing them. Including me.

  Opening the door to my old room, I went to the shelf where I still kept my most treasured childhood possessions. I took down an old china doll which Pa had given to me when I was very young. As always, he’d woven a magical story of how the doll had once belonged to a young Russian countess, but she had been lonely in her snowy palace in Moscow when her mistress had grown up and forgotten her. He told me her name was Leonora and that she needed a new pair of arms to love her.

  Putting the doll back on the shelf, I reached for the box that contained a gift Pa had given me on my sixteenth birthday; I opened it and drew out the necklace inside.

  ‘It’s a moonstone, Maia,’ he’d told me as I’d stared at the unusual opalescent stone, which shone with a blueish hue and was encircled with tiny diamonds. ‘It’s older than I am, and comes with a very interesting story.’ I remembered he’d hesitated then, as if he was weighing something up in his mind. ‘Maybe one day I’ll tell you what it is,’ he’d continued. ‘The necklace is probably a little grown up for you now. But one day, I think it will suit you very well.’

  Pa had been right in his assessment. At the time, my body was festooned – like all my schoolfriends’ – with cheap silver bangles and large crosses hanging from leather strings around my neck. I’d never worn the moonstone and it had sat here, forgotten on the shelf, ever since.

  But I would wear it now.

  Going to the mirror, I fastened the tiny clasp of the delicate gold chain around my neck and studied it. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the stone seemed to glow luminously against my skin. My fingers went instinctively to touch it as I walked to the window and looked out over the twinkling lights of Lake Geneva.

  ‘Rest in peace, darling Pa Salt,’ I whispered.

  And before further memories began to engulf me, I walked swiftly away from my childhood room, out of the house and along the narrow path that took me to my current adult home, some two hundred metres away.

  The front door to the Pavilion was left permanently unlocked; given the high-tech security which operated on the perimeter of our land, there was little chance of someone stealing away with my few possessions.

  Walking inside, I saw that Claudia had already been in to switch on the lamps in my sitting room. I sat down heavily on the sofa, despair engulfing me.

  I was the sister who had never left.

  3

  When my mobile rang at two in the morning, I was lying sleepless on my bed, pondering why I seemed unable to let go and cry over Pa’s death. My stomach p
erformed an abrupt one hundred and eighty degree turn as I saw on the screen it was Tiggy.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Maia, I’m sorry to call so late, but I only just picked up your message. We have a very patchy signal up here. I could tell from your voice something was wrong. Are you okay?’

  The sound of Tiggy’s sweet, light voice thawed the edges of the frozen rock that currently seemed to have taken the place of my heart.

  ‘Yes, I’m okay, but . . .’

  ‘Is it Pa Salt?’

  ‘Yes,’ I gulped, breathless from tension. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t . . . I mean I don’t . . . but I had the strangest feeling this morning when I was out on the moors searching for one of the young does we’d tagged a few weeks back. I found her dead, and then for some reason, I thought of Pa. I brushed the feeling off, thinking that I was just upset over the doe. Is he . . . ?’

  ‘Tiggy, I’m so, so sorry, but . . . I have to tell you that he died earlier today. Or should I say, yesterday now,’ I corrected myself.

  ‘Oh Maia, no! I can’t believe it. What happened? Was it a sailing accident? I told him only last time I saw him that he shouldn’t be skippering the Laser alone any longer.’

  ‘No, he died here at the house. It was a heart attack.’

  ‘Were you with him? Did he suffer? I . . .’ There was a catch in Tiggy’s voice. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of him suffering.’

  ‘No, Tiggy, I wasn’t here. I’d gone to visit my friend Jenny in London for a few days. In fact’ – I drew in my breath as I remembered – ‘it was Pa who persuaded me to go. He said it would do me good to get away from Atlantis and have a break.’

  ‘Oh Maia, how awful for you. I mean, you leave so rarely, and the one time you do . . .’