Chapter Twenty-One
Lysander Steinherr, whisky on the rocks in hand, looked at the portrait above the fireplace.
It was a curious thing and he had always hated it.
For some reason, his father had commissioned an artist to draw a family that didn’t ever exist. Walter and his children had sat for the artist when Lysander was fifteen, Anastasia was twelve, Caspian was eight and Vivian, as blonde and angelic as a cherub, was six – and the artist had left a gap for their mother, which he later painted in using a wedding photograph of Walter and Anna Maria.
The artist had deigned not to put the children’s dead mother in her wedding dress at least, but it made for a very unsettling family portrait, which only Walter enjoyed looking at.
Wives two and three, Mechthild and Susan, both despised the portrait of course.
Kiki thought it quite funny. Fortunately, it was such a part of the furniture in the Steinherr mansion that no one really seemed to notice it any more. It was just there.
Lysander looked up and actually studied it for the first time in years: the proud patriarch; the sad children; the haunting figure of the mother, only her top half visible behind the progeny she couldn’t have known at that age, a loving arm around her family.
Lysander gently muttered, ‘What the fuck,’ to himself, as Anastasia sashayed in.
‘How was the wedding of the year?’ she asked, with an acerbic bite.
Lysander turned around.
‘Oh, hi.’
His sister approached and proffered her face so he could kiss her on each cheek.
‘Oh you know, usual society wedding.’
His vagueness pissed her off.
‘Is that all?’
Lysander grinned and shrugged.
‘Erm, the dress was … nice? And you must have heard about Simon Le Bon and the Heimlich manoeuvre already?’
Anastasia rolled her eyes and removed a large clip-on earring as she approached the drinks trolley and examined the bottles.
‘Where’s Dimi?’ Lysander asked.
‘He’s taking a bath,’ Anastasia said, as if bathing were a weakness.
‘Nanny Iris took the kids back to school and – where’s Dad and Kiki?
’ Anastasia looked around, as if they might be hiding behind the door.
‘I looked for her to see if she wanted to join us for a riveting game of Monopoly last night,’ Anastasia said sarcastically, ‘but she wasn’t here. ’
‘She went shopping in Milan, stayed over …’ Lysander raised an eyebrow.
‘I guess it’s tiring spending our inheritance,’ Anastasia said, as she took off her other earring.
‘You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘Don’t I?’ Anastasia scrutinised her brother.
Lysander was very aware he might be breaking his father’s trust, and it wouldn’t be prudent for Anastasia to know about it yet, so he deftly changed the subject.
‘Anyway she’s back – they’ve gone for dinner at the Kristall Palace, I didn’t fancy joining them.’
‘You and me neither,’ Anastasia said querulously.
‘Anyway, what about you sis? What’s turning you on at the moment?’
Anastasia picked up a bottle and paused. It would have been nice for Lysander or the butler to fix her a drink, but if she must …
‘What?’ she asked, defensively.
‘Well it’s not shopping, and it’s not the Anna Maria …’
Lysander felt a little guilty about the conversation he’d had with his father about succession. He had nudged him towards Vivian, when Anastasia would be so hurt. But looking at it through his lawyer’s lens, truths were truths. Vivian would be a much safer pair of hands for the Steinherr portfolio.
Anastasia sighed as she poured herself a Pernod and added ice from the bucket with silver tongs.
‘You seem … not yourself sis. What would make Anastasia Diamandis happy?’
She took a large sip and strode elegantly to the fireplace with the freakish family portrait above it, before turning around and hesitating for a second.
The butler walked in.
‘Another drink, sir? Madam?’
‘I have one, thanks …’ Anastasia said crisply, raising her glass.
‘I’ll take a negroni thanks, Kristaps,’ Lysander smiled.
‘Make that two,’ Anastasia commanded, as she took another large sip of her Pernod.
‘Very well,’ the butler bowed, as he retreated to the kitchen, where a more abundant bar was stocked.
‘Go on …’ Lysander said, encouragingly.
‘I want to take on Seven Summits … the three vacant properties.’
Lysander slumped back in an armchair and took the last slug of whisky from the glass still in his hand.
‘I have so many exciting ideas for them and they’re just sitting empty. Why did Father buy them if they were just going to gather dust?’
‘To stop anyone else having them,’ Lysander shrugged. ‘You know he has this weird obsession with Kivvi.’
‘Then wouldn’t it make sense to piss him off more by making a killing out of them? Think of the wasted revenue!’
Think of the fun I could have in them.
‘Maybe it pisses Kivvi off more to know that Dad doesn’t even want the revenue.’
‘But I could do so much with them!’
Lysander nodded, as if to say tell me more. He noted his sister’s face was more animated than he had seen it all weekend.
‘I could hold salons, creative events, worldwide launches. Dior and Gucci shouldn’t be doing shows from Seville, London or Edinburgh over Switzerland!
Chanel shouldn’t be faking Swiss scenes at shows in Paris.
They could be doing shows here, in Kristalldorf!
If I could just get in and have a closer look … ’
‘What about the Anna Maria?’
‘Oh please! You know Vivian and I can’t work together.
And she’s completely taken over anyway …
But those chalets, Zand, they could get ten K a night, at least!
And it’s not like Papa to waste a money-making opportunity.
Why did he buy them just to leave them barely used and vacant for the best part of a decade? ’
Lysander did wonder why his father’s spite ran so deep.
‘Anyway, talk about cutting off your nose …’ Anastasia lamented.
‘So why don’t you tell him about your brilliant ideas?’
Lysander felt bad that Walter was thinking of leaving the running of the empire to their baby sister when, perhaps, Anastasia could do something brilliant with the Seven Summits properties.
Perhaps their father could carve up the business: leave different hotels and properties to different heirs, rather than leave it all to Vivian and cause immense upset.
Perhaps Lysander could find a way to manage certain elements from overseas.
What if Vivian got the hotels, Anastasia Seven Summits, and he got the mountain train?
Maybe even Caspian would want in – he wouldn’t want to bum around surfing forever, would he?
‘If only Papa would listen to me …’ Anastasia lamented. ‘He’s so distracted at the moment. I don’t know if it’s turning seventy, or …’ she scrunched up her face, ‘Kiki. But he’s so hard to talk to these days.’
Lysander had noticed at the wedding. His father had seemed agitated. Troubled.
‘What does Dimitri think?’
‘Oh you know, Dimitri goes along with anything I want,’ she said, with disdain.
At that they were interrupted by an angry voice shouting from the hallway.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are? Where is she?’
It was Vivian, fuming, entering the room with the butler behind her, carrying a silver platter with two negronis on it.
‘Miss Vivian …’ he said, following her trail, trying to slow her down.
Anastasia and Lysander looked at each other, Lysander stood up. Vivian’s pretty, sweet face was contorted into a livid scowl. Anastasia stood upright, on guard next to the fireplace.
‘What?’ she said, features defiant.
‘You fired Michael, the best sommelier in the canton – dammit the best in Switzerland – why?’
Vivian was jabbing a finger at Anastasia, who had never seen her calm sister lose her temper like this.
‘OK Vivi, don’t get your bloomers in a twist.’
‘How dare you!’ Vivian roared.
Anastasia leaned back, alarmed.
‘What’s with you and Michael anyway?’ Anastasia derided, looking to Lysander for a laugh, but his face wore an expression of concern.
‘Michael’s son has leukaemia – he’s in the hospital. He works like a donkey at the hotel, with the loveliest manners and the best knowledge … And you fired him, for what?’
Anastasia pursed her lips.
‘The wine was corked.’
‘What?’ Vivian almost gasped.
Lysander gently shook his head.
‘My wine, I was dining with Dimitri at lunchtime and my wine was corked.’ Anastasia said it as if it were a heinous crime. ‘We should not be serving corked wine in a Steinherr hotel.’
Lysander winced.
‘So you just fired him? For something that completely wasn’t his fault?’
‘Well I called him over and I didn’t like his attitude.’
‘You didn’t like his attitude, so you just fired him? In front of the staff and other diners?’
‘I didn’t like his attitude!’ Anastasia repeated, obstinately. ‘He looked surly and a little – hangdog – for my liking …’
Vivian raised her voice in a way none of her siblings had ever heard.
‘He probably looked a little “hangdog” because he’s been spending nights in the hospital in Bloch with his kid!’
Anastasia shrugged.
‘I didn’t know that! All I know is what’s in front of me, and he works in my hotel, and I didn’t like his attitude when I told him the wine was corked.’
Lysander interjected.
‘OK, this isn’t good, Anni you can’t just –’
Quick as a flash, Vivian picked up a cut-glass tumbler from the butler’s tray and flung the contents in Anastasia’s face.
Anastasia gasped. The alcohol stung her eyes.
‘Viv …’ Lysander said quietly.
‘I don’t like her attitude,’ Vivian said, a righteous rage making her voice almost wobble into a cry, as she walked out of the lounge and out of the mansion, slamming the huge grand front door behind her.