Page 212 of The Moon Sister
‘Speaking of which, I heard this morning that Ally is intending to visit in a couple of weeks with little Bear. I cannot wait. She hopes that you will still be in residence,’ she added pointedly.
‘Well, even if I go to London for the interview, I’ll try to be back to see them both. And if I’m not, at least you won’t miss me with a baby to coo over. Gosh, it seems like only a day ago that I was a little girl myself, sick in bed here with Electra screaming the house down!’ I smiled.
‘Well, let us hope you are now on the road to recovery. It is growing cold, Tiggy. We should go inside.’
‘Up to bed with you now,’ Ma said as we walked into the house. ‘I shall bring you some tea.’
‘Actually, as I have the lift, I’d like to sit in the kitchen with you and Claudia for a while. I get lonely upstairs,’ I added plaintively.
‘D’accord,’ Ma agreed. ‘Give me your coat and I will hang it with mine.’
I did so, then wandered along the corridor to the airy kitchen – my favourite room as a child. When I’d been ill, it had been a great treat to be allowed downstairs and have Claudia mind me, and help her with the cooking whilst Ma ran errands.
‘You know, Claudia, if a perfumer could bottle the smell of your kitchen, then I would buy it,’ I told her as I went to give her a peck on the cheek. She turned from a pan of delicious-smelling soup she was stirring, her wrinkled skin creasing in pleasure at my words.
‘Then it would need to be a range of many different scents, because it smells different many times a day.’ Claudia filled up the kettle and switched it on.
‘Haven’t you noticed, Claudia? I’m downstairs. I’ve just been for a walk with Ma.’
‘I have, and I am glad of it. I agree that you need fresh air. Marina, like most Parisians, seems to be terrified of it.’
I was used to Claudia’s derogatory comments about the French – being German herself and of a certain age, the enmity was de rigueur.
‘Do you find it . . . difficult working here without Pa?’ I asked her.
‘Of course I do, Tiggy, we all do. The house has lost its soul . . . I . . .’
It was the first time I’d ever seen Claudia on the verge of tears. Even though I’d forged a closer relationship with her than any of my sisters, I had never seen her display such emotion before.
‘I just wish things were different,’ she continued as she indicated I should sit down at the table before placing two scones and a little pot of jam in front of me.
‘You mean, you wish Pa Salt was still alive?’
‘Yes, of course that is what I mean.’ As Ma appeared in the kitchen, I watched Claudia’s normal brusque manner wrap around her like a cloak. ‘Tea?’
Fifteen minutes later, Ma insisted I returned upstairs for a rest. As I watched Ma extract the key for the lift from the key box next to the kitchen door, I felt like a prisoner being escorted back to her cell. I stood behind her in the hallway as she unlocked the panel and slid it back. I carefully noted the technique she used to pull it open.
‘Why did Pa decide to hide the lift, Ma?’ I asked her as we rose upwards.
‘Don’t ask me,chérie. Maybe he didn’t want you girls sailing up and down in it all the time,’ she replied. ‘Or maybe it was pride. Perhaps he didn’t want you girls to know how sick he was.’
‘So the heart attack was not unexpected?’
‘I . . . no, it wasn’t, and it just shows how serious any form of heart condition can be,’ she added pointedly as we arrived on the attic floor. ‘Rest now, Tiggy, then I might consider you coming back downstairs again for supper.’
She left me at my bedroom door and I went to sit on the window seat to collect my thoughts. Even though I’d seen many spectacular sunsets at Atlantis, they never ceased to thrill me, as they set the mountains on fire with red-gold light. What was different now was the silence inside; in the past, the sound of music would be blaring out from one of my sisters’ rooms, there would be laughing or squabbling – the humming of the speedboat edging towards the dock, or the lawnmower gliding across the lawn.
Now, even though both Ma and Claudia were in the house, it felt as if Atlantis had been abandoned – as though all the energy my sisters and Pa had provided had disappeared, leaving only the ghost of past memories behind. It was depressing and terribly sad, and I wondered how Ma and Claudia dealt with the emptiness on a daily basis. What purpose did they both serve now anyway? Claudia with only Ma to cook for, keeping a house to which us sisters seldom came, and Ma with her large empty nest. Atlantis had been their life; what stood in front of them now must feel like a gaping void.
‘I don’t like being here without my sisters and Pa . . .’ I muttered, climbing off the window seat and realising how much better I must now be. Two and a half weeks here had shown me that I’d outgrown my childhood home.
‘I want to get back to my life,’ I murmured to myself. ‘Or more accurately, I need tofinda life.’
Opening my laptop, I took out the letter from the wildlife reserve in Malawi. I reread it, and then, without thinking about it further, replied by email that I would indeed be attending the interview in London.
Feeling relieved I’d done something – anything – to move my life forwards, I then turned my attention back to Atlantis. Later tonight, I had something planned . . .
*
