The Olive Tree (55 page)

I watch, fascinated, as Chloë glides towards us, then stops as if she can feel the heat of his stare through her back. Then she turns, slowly, and looks at him. And they both smile. She
gives him an almost invisible nod, then reaches for her father’s hand and joins our family circle, as the band begins to play again.

I see Viola – who has changed into a white, one-shouldered number that makes her look very similar to the statue of naked Granny/Aphrodite – appear behind her. Jules comes up to her
and Viola surveys her mother, then goes slowly towards her and kisses her on both cheeks.

It is not a hug, but it is a start. An olive branch held out.

It is the beginning of understanding.

And forgiveness.

Viola turns towards us, pulling Jules with her, who in turn pulls Rupes in to join the circle. And soon Alexis follows with Angelina, then Fabio and Sadie and Peaches and eventually, all the
others around us, until we are one long human chain, holding hands under the stars and celebrating life.

The music ends and everyone roars their applause. Then they begin to shout for Alexis and Helena to recreate their performance of
Zorba
from ten years ago.

‘Hello,’ I say to Viola as she walks over to me. ‘You look beautiful.’

‘Thank you.’

She continues talking softly into my ear, but I’m distracted by the expression on my father’s face as my mother walks towards Alexis and takes his hand. Then she blows a kiss to Dad
and mouths ‘I love you’ as she is led into the centre of the circle. And Dad smiles too, nods, and blows a kiss back.

I turn to Viola. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘I said,’ she chuckles, ‘that I love you, Alex. I always have, and I think I always will.’ She shrugs. ‘It just . . .
is
.’

I look at her as the haunting music begins to play, and I realise she wants me to say something in return.

Immy’s hand grasps my shoulder and chivvies me and Viola into completing the circle of arms and bending bodies.

‘Concentrate, Alex!’ she reprimands me.

‘Sorry, Immy, I can’t.’

And with that, I pull Viola away. We leave the terrace, and the human circle is quickly closed behind us. Like thieves in the night we run down towards ‘Old’, its branches supporting
lanterns that sway very slightly in the gentle breeze, to be together and alone. I take her face in my hands and the moonlight shines down on it.

‘I love you, too. And I always have and I think I always will.’

And then I kiss her, and feel her respond with equal fervour. And as I hear the music rising to a crescendo above us, I know for certain that our dance of life is only just beginning.

It. Just.
Is.

I began writing this book ten years ago after a family holiday in Cyprus. We were staying in a beautiful old villa just outside Kathikas, where
The Olive Tree
is set. At
the time, our five children were of similar age to the children in the book and we had family friends visiting, too. Even though much of the plot and the characters are of course fictional, there
is no doubt that this is the closest I’ve come to drawing from my own life experience of being a mother, a stepmother, a wife and a trained dancer . . .

I put the manuscript away and then found it again last year when I was clearing out my desk drawer. Of course, my children are ten years older now and it was fascinating to read the descriptions
I’d written when they were young. In a way, it was
my
journal of their childhood, so I decided I should finish it. And yes, it was a departure, with no ‘sweeping’
historical backdrop or one-hundred-year timespan – just time spent in the same house, with a small cast of characters. I learned so much during the writing of it.

So of course, the first and biggest thank you goes to my amazing family: Olivia, Harry, Isabella, Leonora, Kit and of course, Stephen, my husband, for inspiring me in the first place.

Thanks also go to my wonderful band of international publishers who gave me the confidence I needed to finish the book and actually send it to them when I had: Jez Trevathan and Catherine
Richards at Pan Macmillan, Claudia Negele and Georg Reuchlein at Goldmann Verlag, Knut Gørvell and Jorid Mathiassen at Cappelen Damm and Donatella Minuto and Annalisa Lottini at Giunti.

To those at ‘Team Lulu’: Olivia Riley, Susan Moss, Ella Micheler and Jacquelyn Heslop. My sister, Georgia Edmonds, and my mother, Janet.

And to all my wonderful readers around the world: thank you.

OUT NOW

The Seven Sisters

A MAJOR NEW SERIES FROM
L
UCINDA
R
ILEY

Maia’s Story

Maia D’Aplièse and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, ‘Atlantis’ – a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of
Lake Geneva – having been told that their beloved father, the elusive billionaire they call Pa Salt, has died. Maia and her sisters were all adopted by him as babies and, discovering he has
already been buried at sea, each of them is handed a tantalising clue to their true heritage – a clue that takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Once
there, she begins to put together the pieces of where her story began . . .

Eighty years earlier, in the Belle Epoque of Rio, 1927, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is
working on a statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela – passionate and longing to see the world
– convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafés of
Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss – the first in a unique series of seven books, based on the legends of the Seven Sisters star constellation – Lucinda Riley showcases her
story-telling talent like never before.

Turn the page to read the spellbinding opening chapters now.

I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died.

I was sitting in the pretty garden of my old schoolfriend’s townhouse in London, a copy of
The Penelopiad
open but unread in my lap, enjoying the June sun while Jenny collected her
little boy from nursery.

I felt calm and appreciated what a good idea it had been to get away. I was studying the burgeoning clematis, encouraged by its sunny midwife to give birth to a riot of colour, when my mobile
phone rang. I glanced at the screen and saw it was Marina.

‘Hello, Ma, how are you?’ I said, hoping she could hear the warmth in my voice too.

‘Maia, I . . .’

Marina paused, and in that instant I knew something was dreadfully wrong. ‘What is it?’

‘Maia, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but your father had a heart attack here at home yesterday afternoon, and in the early hours of this morning, he . . . passed
away.’

I remained silent, as a million different and ridiculous thoughts raced through my mind. The first one being that Marina, for some unknown reason, had decided to play some form of tasteless joke
on me.

‘You’re the first of the sisters I’ve told, Maia, as you’re the eldest. And I wanted to ask you whether you would prefer to tell the rest of your sisters yourself, or
leave it to me.’

‘I . . .’

Still no words would form coherently on my lips, as I began to realise that Marina, dear, beloved Marina, the woman who had been the closest thing to a mother I’d ever known, would never
tell me this if it
wasn’t
true. So it had to be. And at that moment, my entire world shifted on its axis.

‘Maia, please, tell me you’re all right. This really is the most dreadful call I’ve ever had to make, but what else could I do? God only knows how the other girls are going to
take it.’

It was then that I heard the suffering in
her
voice and understood she’d needed to tell me as much for her own sake as mine. So I switched into my normal comfort zone, which was to
comfort others.

‘Of course I’ll tell my sisters if you’d prefer, Ma, although I’m not positive where they all are. Isn’t Ally away training for a regatta?’

And as we continued to discuss where each of my younger sisters was, as though we needed to get them together for a birthday party rather than to mourn the death of our father, the entire
conversation took on a sense of the surreal.

‘When should we plan on having the funeral, do you think? What with Electra being in Los Angeles and Ally somewhere on the high seas, surely we can’t think about it until next week
at the earliest?’ I said.

‘Well . . .’ I heard the hesitation in Marina’s voice. ‘Perhaps the best thing is for you and I to discuss it when you arrive back home. There really is no rush now,
Maia, so if you’d prefer to continue the last couple of days of your holiday in London, that would be fine. There’s nothing more to be done for him here . . .’ Her voice trailed
off miserably.

‘Ma, of
course
I’ll be on the next flight to Geneva I can get! I’ll call the airline immediately, and then I’ll do my best to get in touch with
everyone.’

‘I’m so terribly sorry,
chérie
,’ Marina said sadly. ‘I know how you adored him.’

‘Yes,’ I said, the strange calm that I had felt while we discussed arrangements suddenly deserting me like the stillness before a violent thunderstorm. ‘I’ll call you
later, when I know what time I’ll be arriving.’

‘Please take care of yourself, Maia. You’ve had a terrible shock.’

I pressed the button to end the call, and before the storm clouds in my heart opened up and drowned me, I went upstairs to my bedroom to retrieve my flight documents and contact the airline. As
I waited in the calling queue, I glanced at the bed where I’d woken up this morning to Simply Another Day. And I thanked God that human beings don’t have the power to see into the
future.

The officious woman who eventually answered wasn’t helpful and I knew, as she spoke of full flights, financial penalties and credit card details, that my emotional dam was ready to burst.
Finally, once I’d grudgingly been granted a seat on the four o’clock flight to Geneva, which would mean throwing everything into my holdall immediately and taking a taxi to Heathrow, I
sat down on the bed and stared for so long at the sprigged wallpaper that the pattern began to dance in front of my eyes.

‘He’s gone,’ I whispered, ‘gone forever. I’ll never see him again.’

Expecting the spoken words to provoke a raging torrent of tears, I was surprised that nothing actually happened. Instead, I sat there numbly, my head still full of practicalities. The thought of
telling my sisters – all five of them – was horrendous, and I searched through my emotional filing system for the one I would call first. Inevitably, it was Tiggy, the second youngest
of the six of us girls and the sibling to whom I’d always felt closest.

With trembling fingers, I scrolled down to find her number and dialled it. When her voicemail answered, I didn’t know what to say, other than a few garbled words asking her to call me back
urgently. She was currently somewhere in the Scottish Highlands working at a centre for orphaned and sick wild deer.

As for the other sisters . . . I knew their reactions would vary, outwardly at least, from indifference to a dramatic outpouring of emotion.

Given that I wasn’t currently sure quite which way
I
would go on the scale of grief when I did speak to any of them, I decided to take the coward’s way out and texted them
all, asking them to call me as soon as they could. Then I hurriedly packed my holdall and walked down the narrow stairs to the kitchen to write a note for Jenny explaining why I’d had to
leave in such a hurry.

Deciding to take my chances hailing a black cab on the London streets, I left the house, walking briskly around the leafy Chelsea crescent just as any normal person would do on any normal day. I
believe I actually said hello to someone walking a dog when I passed him in the street and managed a smile.

No one would know what had just happened to me, I thought, as I managed to find a taxi on the busy King’s Road and climbed inside, directing the driver to Heathrow.

No one would know.

Five hours later, just as the sun was making its leisurely descent over Lake Geneva, I arrived at our private pontoon on the shore, from where I would make the last leg of my
journey home.

Christian was already waiting for me in our sleek Riva motor launch. And from the look on his face, I could see he’d heard the news.

‘How are you, Mademoiselle Maia?’ he asked, sympathy in his blue eyes as he helped me aboard.

‘I’m . . . glad I’m here,’ I answered neutrally as I walked to the back of the boat and sat down on the cushioned cream leather bench that curved around the stern.
Usually, I would sit with Christian in the passenger seat at the front as we sped across the calm waters on the twenty-minute journey home. But today, I felt a need for privacy. As Christian
started the powerful engine, the sun glinted off the windows of the fabulous houses that lined Lake Geneva’s shores. I’d often felt when I made this journey that it was the entrance to
an ethereal world disconnected from reality.