The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  It seemed at nineteen such a terrifying thought, because she could not change herself physically. But she could grow up: she would try to be more aloof and sexy, more sophisticated…more…mysterious.

  Fleur could not be unhappy. Her days were carefree and effortlessly spent with the other young wives, thrown together and having fun. There was tennis and endless parties or dinners in each other’s houses. Those without children roamed around Salisbury together, shopping or going to films.

  The men relaxed on their three-year secondment to the Air Corps; the atmosphere was less stuffy away from their regiments. The wives were all of an age, all young, and their lives stretched ahead of them.

  Then, Fleur found she was pregnant. It was a bit soon, but to her surprise David was over the moon and a preoccupation with her desirability gave way, for a time, to morning sickness.

  Then she started bleeding and was rushed to hospital. They found she was having twins and she was ordered to take three weeks’ bed rest in the military hospital with a terrifying army sister who bellowed, Wife of Captain Montrose – but never Fleur’s name.

  After two weeks she could bear it no longer, and David, who was on exercise in Norway, came home and sprung her from the maternity ward one afternoon against orders, and his mother came down to make sure she rested for one more week.

  David managed to send her a postcard every day he was away. She found out later that he had written most of them in advance and left them in Oslo for the Norwegian wife of a colleague to post to her each day.

  When the twins started moving inside her, David would bend his head to her stomach to feel the movements, and Fleur would sigh and run her fingers through his hair, terrified at her absolute happiness.

  She resembled a small whale and the twins came a month early in Tidworth Military Hospital in the early hours of the midsummer solstice and were put straight into two incubators. David was smitten from the first moment he saw them. He was on leave and spent hours sitting with Fleur watching his tiny babies. Nikki weighed just under 4 lbs and Saffie 3 lbs 2oz.

  When she was able to come home with the twins, David had to leave for six weeks’ flying in Germany. Both their mothers swooped down to help Fleur, who felt frightened and helpless and exhausted most of the time.

  When David returned he could not believe how big the twins had grown. He stared down at the two little identical faces in wonder.

  ‘How are we going to tell them apart, Fleury?’ he exclaimed. ‘Two sweet little peas out of the same pod! My God, aren’t we clever?’ ‘Incredibly clever!’

  He sat on the bed, grinning at her. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you. You’re going to like it.’ ‘What? What?’

  David bent and kissed her mouth. ‘I’ve just had my next posting.’

  ‘Quick, tell me!’

  ‘Singapore! As part of the ANZUK force out there!’

  Fleur squealed and clapped her hands to her mouth in delight, then threw her arms around him.

  ‘It won’t be until early next year,’ David said.

  ‘We’re just too lucky,’ Fleur said, feeling overwhelmed by good fortune. They turned to look at the two babies side by side in their cots.

  ‘It will be like taking our little peapods home, won’t it?’ David said. ‘Back to the place where we met; to the place where you grew up. I don’t suppose we’ll ever get another Far East posting. We must enjoy every minute, darling; every single minute.’

  Fleur sighed, threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes, already feeling the hot wind blowing in from the Malacca Straits. Already seeing a vivid Singapore sky turning orange and black before a blood red sun slipped below the horizon, turning the world abruptly and startlingly black.

  THIRTY

  Jack phoned me as I lay spread-eagled inelegantly on my back like a stranded lobster. My neck had started to ache and I wondered if it was because of the overhead fan; but if I turned it off I grew red and overheated immediately. His voice pulled me back to the world I had left, a world that seemed as far away as the moon. ‘How are you doing, Nik?’

  ‘I’m fine…just exceedingly hot.’ I heard my own voice sounding short and tetchy with a sharp edge, as if Jack had woken me or taken me away from something I was doing.

  ‘Did I wake you, darlin’? I thought this would be a good time to catch you…when you were probably resting…’

  ‘It is. Take no notice of me…I’m just irritable, Jack. I can’t stay cool and it’s no fun being me in this heat.’

  ‘I’ll bet it isn’t. I worry about you, Nik. What—?’

  I interrupted quickly. I did not want to talk about Saffie. ‘Tell me what’s happened with you. Did you get the yacht insurance sorted?’

  ‘More or less. But you know what insurance companies are like. It should be all right in the end but the Aussies made a terrible mess of the yacht. There’s a hell of a hole in her stern…’

  ‘Were they pissed?’

  ‘Well, of course they deny it. At least I have their hefty deposit which they’ll forfeit.’

  ‘Good. How are you, darlin’?’

  ‘Missing you. Wishing you and bump were safely home.’

  I smiled at the wistful tone in his voice. ‘It won’t be long. Jack, I don’t think there’s much more they can find out about Saffie…about how she died. We’re never going to know what happened. I think Fleur and I both realise that.’

  I heard Jack hesitate. ‘Could they establish the cause of her death?’

  ‘They think she suffocated.’

  He was silent. I knew he wanted to ask how they could possibly know that. I knew he was thinking that it was probably the most palatable cause the police could come up with.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nik.’

  ‘I know…Listen, this call will be costing you…’

  ‘You are taking care of yourself?’

  ‘I am. My mother is here, remember?’

  ‘How are you two getting on?’

  ‘Oh, we’re all right. Jack, I miss you too, you know?’

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too,’ I said. “Bye, Jack.’

  I turned my mobile off and raised myself into a sitting position and drank some tepid water. I longed to sleep but I had begun to dread the nights and I wanted to keep myself awake so that I would be so tired by the time I went to bed I would crash. I pulled the Hundertwasser book towards me, idly flicking over the pages. It was mildly irritating that Fleur knew more than I did about him when there was one of his buildings just down the road from us.

  I opened the book at random, flicking through his history and his paintings. His only formal artistic training was a three-month stint at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Vienna in 1948. Was this why Fleur had found him appealing: Hundertwasser and his self-trained eye?

  He had a home in Venice near the Piazza San Marco where the light, reflecting on the water, the age of the buildings and the colours of clothes hanging on lines in the jumble of the city, had inspired him. ‘He found decay strangely beautiful.’

  I thought of the path Jack and I had made in our garden at home. We had wanted to make a circular walk from the house back to the jetty. The land dropped dramatically at the far west end to circle the swamp. Trees rose from the murky water like arms seeking the sun. The shapes of them were eerie, angular and broken, frozen in time and stripped of bark by the possums.

  Lichen covered some of the branches in lacy patterns of the palest green and grey, like the faded, tattered clothes on a corpse. The brackish swamp with its rotting logs and grass did not have the easy movement of water; it was still, like the stillness of something thick with decay hidden and clotting underneath its surface.

  Jack and I would stop working and stand there motionless, feeling something primitive and ageless. The silence pressed down like the heat, enveloping us, nudging us back to a time when this wilderness ruled, and we both knew that as fast as we hacked a path for some purpose, it would return faster than we co
uld clear, to raze our time there.

  ‘Hundertwasser believes that within each of us is a compilation of memories, sensations, images, dreams and wishes, which he calls “Individualfilm”. In his opinion the role of art is to bring this material to a conscious level…’

  I found him disturbing and closed the book and turned awkwardly on my side. I thought about Mohktar and Blythe wanting us to write what we remembered of that long-ago afternoon. Did Fleur and I have locked memories waiting to emerge after all these years? I did not think it was likely and somehow it made me uneasy.

  I must have fallen asleep because Fleur woke me coming into the room and the sun had gone; it was almost dark. She had a cup of tea in her hand.

  ‘I’m glad you slept, darling.’

  ‘I didn’t want to,’ I said grumpily. ‘I’m not sleeping at night and I was going to try to stay awake in the afternoons. What’s funny?’

  ‘You. You always were a little grump when you first woke up. I’ll let you wake up properly.’

  She went out of the room and I pulled myself upright. I drank my tea and went under the shower and washed my hair. I felt better. The worst aspect of pregnancy, I thought, was not being able to anticipate that wonderful first glass of wine.

  Fleur had a glass at her elbow and was sitting at a corner of the table, writing. I didn’t disturb her or speak in case I broke her train of thought. I went to the fridge and got out a jug of fresh orange juice and then I walked out onto the balcony, which faced the sea. I didn’t want to churn up my memories of that dreadful afternoon; the exercise was pointless.

  I looked out to sea. There was silver light on the surface of the water and a small breeze brought in the smell of fish being barbecued somewhere. A boat slid from behind rocks. The fisherman was silhouetted against the sky which was lighter than the sea. He poled fast across my field of vision. Black and white; black and white. His arms bent and lifted, bent and lifted as he poled from right to left and into darkness.

  My heart beat wildly in my chest. My baby kicked hard and I gave a small cry for at that moment I caught out of the corner of my eye the shadow of a man, slightly to my left, superimposed, for a second in line with the fisherman…moving fast, running past me…and then I heard the sound of a door opening and closing…

  Fleur called, ‘Are you all right, Nik?’ She had raised her head and was looking out of the open door towards me. I turned and something in my face must have alarmed her for she scraped her chair back and came out to me.

  ‘What is it, Nik? What is it?’

  I was suddenly cold on this warm night. So cold. I shivered and the goose bumps stood out on my arms, and I could not speak and just stared at Fleur, feeling the blood drain from my face.

  Fleur caught my fear, bent to me, took my hands in hers. ‘Nik, what is it? Darling…darling, are you in pain? Is it the baby?’

  I shook my head. Took my hands from hers and curled them round my stomach as if to protect the life there.

  ‘No,’ I whispered. And I looked at her without hope for I knew now that I couldn’t escape what was locked in my head. Saffie wasn’t going to let me. There was something I had to act out. There was something I had to remember. I was so afraid that my teeth began to chatter and my knees trembled and then my whole body began to shake and my mother wrapped herself around me as if to protect and warm me.

  ‘Not the baby,’ I managed. ‘Not the baby, Mum. It’s something inside my head.’

  Fleur lifted her head and her eyes were as dark and frightened as mine.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Fleur put me to bed. She made more tea and brought me supper on a tray, which I played with. I grew warmer and the fear left me as quickly as it had come. Fleur sat on a chair with her book on her knee and I began to feel like a child again. It was as if Fleur and I were in a bubble together, convalescing, our lives revolving around the comfort of bed as if it was an island no one else could reach. She didn’t press me to talk and I couldn’t have explained anyway.

  She had put an exercise book and a pen on my bedside table in case I wanted to write anything down. I realised that something in Fleur dreaded but needed to know what happened that afternoon and why.

  I looked at her sitting in the chair in the half-light. We had thrown the shutters open and there was a moon out there, in a crystal clear sky of stars. If we turned the light on the mosquitoes would have had a field day. The small mosquito coil burning on the bedside table reminded me of Ah Heng squatting on the floor waiting for Saffie and me to go to sleep. The smoke from the coil would waft up around her head, the smell of it so much a part of being young. I looked at Fleur’s face and saw such sadness there, and I wondered, if she could go back, what she would change, apart from the obvious. I could hardly remember her happiness with Dad; I had concentrated on my own memories. Mostly they lived on in photographs and stories. Stories Fergus and Fleur had shared with me to keep him alive for me, to keep him firmly in my heart. And it had.

  I was unsure if she had gone to sleep in the chair because her eyes were closed. I said softly, almost to myself, ‘If you could go back and have your life again would you wish for a life with David or with Fergus?’

  I had wondered this so many times. Fleur and Fergus had been close, like soul mates. They liked each other as well as having a love that was unmistakable. I had been too young to know what sort of love my parents had. I only knew that Fleur and Fergus surmounted the sorrow they carried together, the sorrow I added to for most of my childhood. I saw now that their sadness added to the depth of their relationship, to the life they shared together. They never argued about unimportant things and I don’t think either of them ever took happiness for granted.

  I guess it was why I could not help loving Fergus; despite the fact that I could never understand his lack of integrity when my father was alive. I knew he had saved us, Fleur and me. I knew he was special. He had the sort of loyalty and love that nothing can kill, absolutely nothing. It lasted his whole life. I could see and hear him now, saying, the day I got my degree, ‘How lucky I am! How incredibly lucky to have a beautiful and clever daughter!’

  He had scooped me up in a bear hug with one arm, and Fleur, laughing, with the other. They had been inseparable, yet he never, ever made me feel the outsider in their lives.

  So I said now, ‘If you could go back and have your life again would you wish for a life with David or with Fergus, Mum?’

  She looked up straight away. ‘Nikki, you know it’s a question that I can’t answer. You might as well ask me if I would have preferred to be an Eskimo.’

  I was glad to hear the exasperation in her voice. It was a pointless, childish question. I knew I had asked it instead of the thing I really needed to know, but did not want to hear. Why did you fall out of love with my Dad? What happened? What happened in that seamless memory I have of you both?

  In the light from the open window her face was obscured, but I could feel her weariness, a sudden sapping of her strength. I propped myself up on an elbow.

  ‘Mum? Go to bed. I’m all right now, really; perfectly all right. It’s probably my hormones.’

  She smiled. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. I’m sorry I asked that stupid question. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘I know…’ She got out of the chair and came to the bed. ‘You need to get home to Jack, darling; back to your life…’ She took a deep breath. ‘You must look forward, not turn constantly back to the past…to a terrible thing neither of us can change, Nik. I suddenly believe it’s wrong to think about that afternoon, to try to write anything more down. Leave it. Try now to think only about pleasant things. You, Jack and the baby…’

  I smiled. It was such a Fleur statement. How can you possibly dictate what your mind throws up? This is the terror of memory; the tiny slits that open to reveal slithers: clear, sharp shards that make you bleed. We both knew this.

  She bent to kiss me. ‘Good night, Nik. Shout if you need me. Promise?’


  I reached out for her hand and held it for a moment. ‘Good night, Mum.’

  When she had gone I turned on my side and watched the sky for a long time. I did not fight sleep. I just lay waiting for Saffie. I knew she was near. I knew she would come.

  I pulled down the mosquito net. I did not close the shutters. I liked the sky and the faint scent of sea and herbs on the wind. I moved the pillows to help my aching neck and turned the other way as I felt my child kicking again. I wondered how many of our feelings – love and anxiety – are transferred to the child in our womb.

  I slept and when I woke it was the dead of night. The moon had gone, the stars were hidden by cloud and the night was very still. I lifted the mosquito net to go to the loo and then, thirsty, I moved out into the main room to the fridge in the corner. The water was blissfully cool. I poured another glass and took it back to bed. I slept immediately.

  When I woke it was no longer night but a hot afternoon. I could tell because the heat hovered heavily outside the shuttered room.

  We were both in Fleur’s bed. Saffie was sitting up on the other side of Mum, fiddling with her hair. She was awake and bored. She had a small paper flower and she bent to tickle Mum with it, wanting her to wake up.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said sleepily. ‘Mum doesn’t like to be woken up.’

  ‘Let’s go out,’ Saffie said. ‘Come on, let’s go out and play on the beach.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Go back to sleep, Saffie, you’ll make Mummy cross.’ I turned over, away from her.

  I heard her get out of bed and go to the door and look out. ‘The amah’s asleep,’ she whispered. ‘Come on…Nikki, please come with me. I don’t want to go out on my own…’

  ‘No!’ I said, annoyed. I curled up tight into a small ball, my back touching Mum’s. I heard Saffie moving about trying to be quiet. She was looking for her dress. I heard her on my side of the bed picking one up from the floor. I half opened my eyes as she pulled it over her head. It was my dress; it had a tear in the pocket.