Page 27 of The Seven Sisters

‘Ally told me that she also had all our coordinates.’

‘Have you opened your letter yet?’ I asked. ‘No. Star and I have agreed we’ll pick a quiet moment together and open them then. But it would be very helpful if you could write down our quotations, put them in an envelope and give them to me before we leave. I’ve asked Ally to do the same with the coordinates.’

‘I can certainly give you yours, yes, CeCe. But Pa said explicitly in his letter to me that I must only hand over the translated quotes to the sister in question. So I’ll give Star’s directly to her,’ I said, surprising myself with the smoothness of the lie.

‘Okay,’ CeCe shrugged. ‘But obviously we’ll share.’ She glanced at me suddenly. ‘Are you going to be okay here by yourself, what with Pa gone? What will you do?’

‘I do have my work to keep me busy,’ I reiterated.

‘Yes, but we all know you were living here because of him. Anyway, it would be great if you could come to London and visit us once we have our new apartment. I’ve already contacted some rental agencies. Both of us would love to have you.’

‘That’s very kind of you, CeCe. I’ll let you know.’

‘Good. Maia, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course you can, CeCe.’

‘Do you . . . do you think that Pa liked me?’

‘What a strange question! Of course he did. He loved us all, equally.’

‘It’s just that . . .’

I saw CeCe’s stubby fingernails moving like a pianist’s on the tabletop.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘Well, to be honest, I’m scared to open the letter. I mean, as you know, I’m not the most emotional person and I never felt the relationship I had with Pa was very close. I’m not stupid, I know that people think I’m brusque and too practical – except Star, of course – but Idofeel everything inside. Do you understand?’

CeCe’s unexpected revelation made me instinctively reach out a hand to touch hers. ‘I understand completely. But CeCe, I remember you coming home as a baby and Ma being shocked because your arrival here was so soon after Star’s. When I asked Pa why we’d had another sister so quickly, he said that it was because you were so special, he simply had to bring you home with him. And that’s the truth.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

For the first time since I’d known her, my fourth sister looked as though she was about to cry.

‘Thank you, Maia,’ she said gratefully. ‘Now, I must go and find Star and tell her that we’re leaving soon.’

As I watched her stand up and walk inside, I thought how Pa’s death had changed all of us already.

*

An hour later, having handed each sister a copy of the inscription I’d translated for her, I was yet again on the jetty saying goodbye. I watched Ally, CeCe and Star skim across the water in the launch, on their way back to their own lives. In the Pavilion, I poured myself a glass of wine, thinking how each one of my sisters had offered me space in her life; if I chose, I could literally spend the next year traversing the globe and inhabiting their various worlds.

But here I was, still living in my childhood home. And yet, I thought, there had been somewhere before this place. A life I didn’t remember and knew nothing about.

I walked determinedly to my office and switched on my laptop. Maybe now it was time to discover whoIwas. Where I came from. And where I belonged.

My hands trembled slightly as I accessed Google Earth. Carefully typing in the coordinates as Ally had instructed me, I held my breath, waiting for the laptop to tell me where to find my heritage. Finally, after the small circle on the screen had spun for an eternity – like a globe on its axis – the details appeared in front of me. And the place of my birth was revealed.

8

Surprisingly, that night I slept a deep, dreamless sleep, from which I awoke refreshed. I lay staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, processing what I’d learnt yesterday.

I felt the information I’d discovered had not been shocking – it was as if I’d always known it somewhere in my DNA. And in fact, purely coincidentally, my life had already encompassed a part of it. I could hardly believe that I had actually viewed the very house in which I might have been born. The aerial view on Google Earth made it seem enormous and very grand, and I wondered why, given its apparent splendour, I’d been removed from it by Pa Salt as a baby.

As I climbed out of bed, my mobile rang, and I grabbed it to try to answer before it rang off. I saw on the screen it was an unknown number and probably a cold call, so I left it and walked into the kitchen to revive myself with my usual morning mug of English Breakfast tea.