Page 5 of The Seven Sisters

‘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 performed 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.’