The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  Fleur had closed her eyes in relief. It was all right, he hadn’t been unfaithful and he loved her, nothing else mattered.

  On one of the postcards he sent her daily from Norway, he had written:

  ‘Fleury, I was just going through a long night of the soul. Felt I did not deserve you or children. I’m knackered too. New OC is a bastard. It’s been a tough exercise out here – longing to get back to you. We’ve got so, so much ahead of us, haven’t we? Forgive me. I love you…David.’

  From somewhere at the back of the house Fleur could hear the cackle of laughter as the amah gossiped or played mah-jong. I am so glad, Fleur thought, that I didn’t let him tell me then. That I didn’t know for years. I have those lovely few years of not knowing.

  But all that time you knew something wasn’t right, didn’t you, if you’re honest? Come on, admit it.

  Yes, I knew. Nikki came softly into the room and looked down at her mother through the mosquito net. It was a double bed and Fleur looked so small in it. The cup of tea in her hand wobbled. All these years, I had it so wrong. You and Fergus. All that I did to you both. All that I said and you never ever defended yourselves. Never screamed the truth back at me.

  ‘Mum? Are you asleep?’

  Fleur jumped and sat up. ‘No Nik. Lift the net.’

  Nikki hooked the net back and peered in. ‘I’ve made you a cup of tea.’

  ‘Darling, I should be making you one.’

  ‘You should not! Thank God, you look better. Have you slept at all?’

  Fleur smiled. ‘Yes, I did. What about you?’

  ‘Mum, it’s five o’clock. I slept for nearly six hours!’

  ‘Wonderful! Do you feel better?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’m like Doctor Janus, far more worried about you…’

  They stared at each other.

  Here we are exchanging pleasantries to put off the moment of talking, of going back, of understanding what our lives really were then.

  ‘Can I get my tea and join you in bed, Mum?’ Nikki’s voice was small and childlike.

  ‘I’d love that,’ Fleur said, hearing her voice tremble with hope.

  Singapore, 1976

  Fleur and David had been to a dinner night and the taxi dropped them off at the entrance to the army quarters as the driver had to take another couple on to the RAF base at Serengoon. They were making their way unsteadily back to their own quarters, singing and giggling as they walked. It had been a good night and David was particularly happy as he had had a hint of early promotion. He skipped ahead of her, walking backwards serenading her.

  ‘Ssh, you idiot! You’ll wake everyone up.’

  ‘Can’t I sing to my beautiful wife?’

  ‘No, you can’t!’

  He grinned, walking back towards her and scooping her up and twirling her round. ‘Did I tell you that you looked amazing tonight?’

  ‘No, actually!’

  He looked down at her. ‘You always look amazing, Fleury. I have to spend all my evenings watching you being ogled…’

  ‘Ogled?’

  ‘Yes, definitely ogled…I watched you dancing all evening with the leery new doctor…and the colonel, and…’

  ‘Watched me all evening? I don’t think so, Captain Montrose. You, as usual, were propping up the bar with your cronies swapping flying stories, while your poor old wife had to be rescued from sitting like a droopy wallflower…’

  ‘Droopy wallflower!’ David gave a shriek of laughter. ‘The biggest little flirt on the army patch…’

  ‘I AM not!’

  ‘You are!’

  ‘Not!’

  ‘Are.’

  They were running down the wide road beside the monsoon drain full of dried leaves which would soon be swollen and overflowing when the rains came. A huge moon kept appearing from behind clouds driven by a wind from the sea which brought the scent of oil and seaweed from the naval base below them.

  Fleur lifted her long, pale dress and ran behind David in his tight dress uniform, the spurs on his boots making little clinking sounds as he moved. The colonel’s car drew level and he wound the window down to the amusement of his driver and waved his finger at them, his voice slightly slurred.

  ‘Time you children were in bed and not causing a disturbance in the gardens of the officers’ quarters. Be gone! To bed!’

  ‘Sir! At once!’ David picked Fleur up and began running towards their quarters singing the bandolier song.

  They heard the colonel laugh behind them and the car purred away. Fleur twined her arms round David’s neck and said happily, ‘Put me down! You’re drunk and you’ll fall and break your nose.’

  ‘Shan’t.’

  ‘Will.’

  David dropped her at the front door of their house on stilts and they climbed the stairs up to the sitting room shushing each other noisily. Ah Heng looked down at them disapprovingly, holding her little backless slippers in her hands.

  ‘Good night, Master. Good night, Missie. Chil’ren sleep all night.’

  She hurried away to her own quarters. ‘Now,’ David said. ‘Do I need a little nightcap?’ ‘No, you do not!’ Fleur said firmly. ‘It’s a good thing you’re not flying tomorrow…Come on, bed.’

  ‘One small whisky, darling…’

  ‘You’re going to have a hell of a head in the morning.’

  ‘Officers do not have hangovers. They merely feel the need to move extremely carefully the next day.’

  Fleur moved towards him. He looked wonderful in mess kit, meltingly beautiful.

  ‘Just come to bed,’ she murmured, kissing his mouth.

  He kissed her lightly back, amused. ‘By the time you’ve used the bathroom and hung up your dress, I’ll be there…’

  She left him with the whisky decanter and by the time she came out of the bathroom he was sitting on the bed trying to get his boots off. Fleur bent and undid the spurs and then pulled at his boots so hard he fell off the bed. They both giggled.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘how many army wives have pulled their husbands’ boots off down the centuries.’

  ‘And the rest!’ Fleur said, helping him out of his jacket, undoing his braces and pulling his tight dress trousers with the stripe down the side over his hips and down his long legs.

  ‘What a lovely, capable girl you are!’ David murmured sleepily.

  ‘Get in!’ Fleur ordered. She poured him water from his jug and he drank two glasses gratefully and fell into bed. Fleur switched the overhead fan off and checked the coil Ah Heng had lit, and then she pulled the mosquito net down and got in beside him.

  David scooped her to him and wound his arms around her, as he did every night. He was instantly asleep, but Fleur lay against his body, feeling the warmth of him with longing. Dinner nights were always a hopeless prelude to romance; sex was quite impossible, there was always too much to drink, but oh how she ached to be made love to. She closed her eyes tight, making herself slide into sleep before she sobered up and became maudlin.

  She woke early, her back to David, his arm still thrown over her hips. She was unsure what had woken her but she was conscious of David and felt that he was lying awake too, very still. There was something tense in his body and with a surge of happiness Fleur realised he had an erection.

  She turned sleepily to him, her body sliding to his, her head buried into his neck. He jumped slightly as if startled that she was awake, then bent to kiss her cheek and the curl of her ear.

  Fleur arched, her body trembling as David pulled her small bottom to him and, slowly turning on his back, pulled her over on top of him. Her hair fell around their heads like a curtain, hiding them, locking them together. Fleur bent to his mouth, staring down into his face, his eyes fringed with those incredible black lashes.

  She loved him so much and kissed him with passion, hard, wanting to bruise his mouth. She was ready, her body throbbing. He turned her head gently and slid from beneath her, turning her over on her stomach, which was what he liked.

  Fl
eur felt disappointment. She loved seeing his face when he came and he rarely let her. Then, feeling his trembling need to be inside her, she moaned gently as he murmured things she could not hear, nibbling gently at the back of her neck which always made her taut with pleasure. They came together and she did not hear what he cried out.

  It was so good. So good.

  David rolled off her, and Fleur, turning in his arms, longing to prolong the moment of rare intimacy, pulled his face down to hers to kiss his mouth.

  He flinched. It was only a tiny, involuntary movement but it felt like a slap. Both their eyes flew open and for a second they stared at each other aghast. Fleur could not read what was in his eyes. Numb, she slowly pulled her body away from him. David reached out to touch her.

  ‘Darling…sorry…don’t look like that…I…didn’t mean…’

  Fleur waited but he did not know how to finish the sentence. Eventually, she said in a voice that did not sound like her own. ‘You dislike me to kiss you like that. I revolt you…’

  ‘Fleur, don’t be so silly. You’re overreacting.’

  ‘Am I?’ It was as if Fleur had been blind to the truth and suddenly had bandages ripped from her eyes. ‘Am I? You haven’t made love to me for weeks, sometimes it’s months. You…you nearly always turn me over so I can’t kiss you. Now I know why. There’s something about me that repels you and I didn’t realise, wouldn’t see it…’

  The tears were pouring out of her eyes and down her cheeks soundlessly and she turned to get out of bed, to run to the bathroom. David caught her arm and pulled her to him.

  ‘Fleur, listen to me!’

  Something in his voice made her freeze. He was very pale, grey round the mouth, almost as if he was afraid. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he said, ‘I love you more than you will ever know, Fleur. Of course you don’t repel me. I hate sleeping without you close to me. I love the feel of your sweet little body…’

  ‘You flinched…like a reflex action, just now when I tried to kiss you. I know…I know, whatever you say, that my body doesn’t turn you on. I’ve always known it…in my heart…that you don’t really like making love to me. I’m not sexy enough…I must have the wrong chemistry.’

  She looked up and to her horror she saw tears in the corners of David’s eyes.

  ‘Have there always been other women?’ she whispered. ‘David, I need to know…I need to know this now, or I will go mad.’

  He looked at her then, right in the eyes, and the pain there made her flinch this time.

  ‘Darling, I’m gay. I’ve always been gay. I tried to tell you before…I love you, but I’m gay.’

  Fleur stared at him stupidly. ‘But…you married me, we have children.’

  He nodded, put his hand over his mouth, which was trembling.

  ‘But…why?’

  He tried to smile. ‘Why am I gay or why did I marry you? I married you because I absolutely adore you. I wanted a wife and children and I thought, I thought wrongly, that I could change, I could deny what I am.’

  ‘But you can’t?’

  ‘I’ve tried. My God, Fleur, I’ve tried.’

  ‘You bastard! What was I, a social experiment? All these years I’ve thought there was something wrong with me.’ She leapt out of bed, pulled a kimono round her and headed for the bathroom. She turned at the door. ‘You utter bastard.’

  David got out of bed too. They both heard Ah Heng’s keys in the lock of the back door. She would bring in tea and papaya. The twins would be bounding in at any moment. They stared at each other.

  ‘Fleur, whatever you, rightly, think of me, I love you. You and the girls are my life. My life,’ he whispered.

  ‘Where does that leave us?’ Her voice was hard.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He was wretched. ‘I don’t know, Fleur.’

  They heard the sound of small running footsteps and laughter and Fleur turned and went into the bathroom and locked the door and stood leaning against it, eyes closed, her mouth open in shock.

  She heard the twins fly into the bedroom. ‘Daddy!’ they yelled. ‘You’re still here!’

  ‘Hi there, peapods! I’m still here! I’m not flying today. Come on, let’s have brekkie together. Morning, Ah Heng. Missie’s in the shower…How are you today?’

  David. The same as ever. Fleur switched on the antique shower and cried silently as the water ran down her face and body. Outside in the garden the kebun began brushing up the dry frangipani petals from the lawn and fingering the small, tight bunches of bananas to see if they were ripe. A dog barked somewhere. Ah Heng shouted to Annie, the wash amah, to collect up the bed sheets. A snake slid down into the dry leaves of the monsoon drain, where Indian women in faded saris would soon come to sweep them out. The phone rang. It would be Lucy to say she would pick Fleur up for yoga.

  It was an everyday weekday morning; a morning that should have been much the same as any other. Fleur, turning the shower off, listened to all the sounds that made up the beginning of her days. Dizzy and sick, she reached for a towel and sat on the edge of the bath and shivered.

  Was this the end of the life she shared with David?

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘But it wasn’t the end, Mum, was it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t the end,’ Fleur said. Naturally she was giving her daughter the edited version. ‘Your father went off to Malaya for a week, to join some paras on a jungle course. I think it was the most miserable week of both our lives. I was operating in a dream, taking you both to the club and the library, meeting friends. I couldn’t eat or sleep. His words kept going around and around my head. I didn’t know what he wanted. I didn’t know what I wanted. I only knew that the thought of life without him terrified me; it would be the loneliest place on earth. It’s a cliché, but he was my best friend too. I’d known him nearly all my adult life. I adored him, Nik. I absolutely adored him.

  ‘What upset me before, our lack of a real sex life, suddenly seemed unimportant in the light of not having him at all and having my whole life pulled from under me…’

  ‘Go on, Mum.’

  ‘He came back looking as dreadful as I felt. Possibly close to breaking point. He stood at the top of the stairs as if he had no right to come into the room or back into our lives. We just stared at each other for what seemed a lifetime and we both knew without saying a word that we could never live without each other. He needed me as much as I needed him. He held out his arms and that was it.’ Fleur closed her eyes. ‘The relief, the pure relief that he wasn’t going to leave me, that he did not want our life to end, suffocated any other feelings for a while. We packed the car up for the weekend with you and Saffie in the back and headed for Mersing.

  ‘It was strange, we should have gone on our own, there was so much we needed to say to one another and we were quite selfish in those days. We could have left you and Saffie with Ah Heng, but we both needed you with us…as if…’

  ‘You needed us to validate your marriage?’ Nikki asked softly.

  ‘Yes,’ Fleur nodded. ‘As if we needed our children to make us whole again; to be as we were.’

  ‘But you couldn’t be as you were, could you? You couldn’t pretend the words hadn’t been said, that you didn’t know?’

  ‘Of course we couldn’t and we both knew that. The only thing we were both sure of was that we wanted to stay together.’

  ‘But Mum, you were still only in your twenties, how could you possibly live without a sex life, and what would Dad…do? He was an army officer.’

  Fleur looked at her daughter. ‘Oh, darling, we had weeks, months of intense discussion on the way we could live together and make it work. We argued; I often felt bitter and betrayed. Then I got a really bad dose of dengue fever and it seemed to lower my resistance to everything. I felt constantly low and depressed. We went home on leave and I ended up in hospital. David had to fly home with you and Saffie without me.

  ‘When I got back to Singapore, in bad moments I accused him of wanting marriage as a s
hield. In those days if anyone had known about him he would have been out of the army in a flash.’

  Fleur smiled, her whole face lighting up. ‘But he really did want marriage and a wife and children and a normal life. I never doubted that he loved us all far more than a life he might have had and could have chosen.’

  Nikki bit back the thought: Having his cake and eating it.

  Fleur suddenly remembered, It was not true, what she had just said. It was true she’d never doubted his love, but she had agonising misgivings about his control over his sexuality. She tortured herself with the moment of their last love-making, going over and over her waking and knowing in a burst of humiliation that it was not her that had aroused him that morning but the thought of some man.

  She knew he must have been attracted to and possibly unfaithful with men during their marriage. She had considered it in their intense and prolonged conversations into the early hours of the mornings. She was unable to think about it in detail, that was too much to bear, but his faithlessness, in her mind, was always away from the base, for obvious reasons, with dusky and beautiful long-lashed Indian youths. It had never once occurred to her that there might be other homosexuals in uniform.

  ‘Can you live your life in two compartments?’ Fleur had asked him.

  ‘You and the twins are my real life, so is the army and my flying. The other is peripheral and…occasional.’ Fleur had not yet met Fergus on the plane and she had said hesitantly, not believing she really could, ‘What if I…’

  ‘…Want to sleep with someone?’ His face had tightened.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I would hate it. It’s totally and completely unfair, but I would be devastated.’

  Inwardly and immaturely, she had been thrilled. This was evidence of his love for her; his possession.

  ‘But this is how I feel about you, David. It is crucifying, but it won’t stop you…’

  Round and round they had gone in desperate circles until slowly they had to let it go before the damage was terminal. They slid back into the life they had had and kept the secret distant and unspoken, almost as if it had never been, or might go away. If you were busy and you partied enough and loved and enjoyed the lives you shared, this was possible, for a time.