The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  ‘It never occurred to me…not once,’ he said to Fleur. ‘David was always surrounded by pretty girls and flirted all the time. It all makes sense now, how miserable you were when I was in Melbourne. God, Fleur, I wish you’d said something, at least to me. I could have protected you from Mum; she was so hard on you.’

  ‘If you tell one person, Sam, you might as well tell the world. I wanted to protect David and the twins.’

  She told him about their time in Port Dickson and how and why Saffie might have died. It was hard for Sam to take this in and he was deeply upset.

  ‘What a brave woman you are, Fleury.’

  ‘I had Fergus for most of my life…easier to be brave with him, and now I don’t have a choice. I can’t let the past destroy me, Sam. I have Nikki and a granddaughter. I have you, and old parents whom I love.’

  ‘I’m glad you had Fergus. My God you deserved him.’ Sam had hugged her fiercely, shaken with all the implications surfacing.

  Now he cleared his throat and glanced in the back of the car to make sure his parents were sleeping.

  ‘Fleur, I think you should tell Mum and Dad about David.’

  ‘No, Sam, they’ve enough to think about. They’re just too old to take any more.’

  Sam looked at her. He just stopped himself saying, Fleur, what if it becomes public? You’ll have to tell them then.

  He had guessed correctly that Fleur hoped the whole thing would go away if she did not think about it.

  For heaven’s sake, let her bury her child before she thinks about anything else.

  He thought about Angie back at the house and the sons and grandsons he adored, pitching in to build this odd summer house for Nikki before she came home. He thought of Jack caught bang in the middle of this tragedy and of the child he and Nikki had nearly lost.

  This far-flung family were gathering to mourn for a lost child that was only a whispered legend to his grandchildren. And because Sam was an optimist, he saw in this instinctive gathering of the clan a new opportunity for closeness. For honesty and for a gentle moving on to the next generation, when his children and grandchildren might become closer to Nikki and Jack’s children.

  It was as if the catastrophe that had befallen Fleur had scattered them all, yet it did not matter how far away you lived from each other, in the end blood counted.

  Sam had spent half his life in a vast, often inhospitable and uninhabited country, flying to anyone who needed him. He had learnt to listen to the voices of those living close to the land. Jack had explained about tangihanga, the Maori process of mourning. A tangihanga was not just about grieving, but about saying goodbye and talking openly about the dead person. It was also a support system for the whanau pani – the bereaved family. A time where family ties were strengthened and lost relations welcomed.

  Sam had smiled as he listened. It sounded far more sensible than therapy with strangers. It seemed to him that there might be a mysterious pattern to life. Saffie would be buried far from an Anglo-Saxon graveyard, in a place of sun and water. There would be no sad grave to keep, just the growth each year of new life springing from the earth of the meadow.

  We named the baby Alice. She weighed nearly 5 lbs now and had a shock of black hair which the nurses said she would probably lose. She was a little fighter and she had no intention of losing her grip on this world.

  I could hardly bear to leave her to fly home, but I had to. Laura and Peter had travelled so far. Angie, Sam, their children and grandchildren had lives they must get back to. And Jack’s family were slowly gathering from across New Zealand.

  All the bachs on our land, usually kept for visitors, were full. Jack had spent the last three weeks travelling back and forth from Kerikeri to Auckland while Sam held things together at home.

  Before the small plane landed in Kerikeri I turned and saw the weariness in Jack’s face. Love for him gripped me, terrifying but real.

  ‘Jack?’

  He opened his eyes. ‘Will you marry me?’

  I watched the grin spread across his face. ‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’ ‘Don’t you dare play hard to get!’

  He leant over to kiss me. ‘Pot and kettle come to mind? Yes, all right, I’ll marry you…I think it would be churlish to refuse.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No worries,’ he said, pretending to pick up the paper and read.

  I laughed. He still had that stupid grin on his face.

  Laura lay in the bath in her granddaughter’s bathroom which had a clear glass window reflecting the blue sky and the sweep of the bay below the garden. The day was warm, like an English spring or a Cyprus winter, but Laura felt cold and very old.

  When the water lost its heat, she got up and wrapped herself in a large towel, shivering slightly and once dry, she pulled on her dressing gown again.

  Reluctantly she met her eyes in the mirror. It was a defining moment. She was forced to face herself: to admit to the horror of having got something so wrong. She did not like the person she saw. Her voice of long ago clamoured in her head as if it was yesterday.

  She was back in that cold Berkshire house she and Peter had never felt at home in and had sold without regret. Those awful words she had shouted at Fleur after Saffie disappeared and they returned to England. She had always remembered the scene but did so now with brutal clarity.

  Peter had just returned to Northern Ireland and they were all missing him acutely. They did not know how to fill their days, she and Fleur; they could not talk but circled each other in limbo, a sort of suspended animation. Life seemed to have stopped for Fleur and for Laura too and she resented it and was ashamed.

  One morning, out of the blue, Fleur had announced that she was taking Nikki to a chalet in Cornwall belonging to Fergus’s parents. Laura had been furious. ‘Look, Fleur, I’ve stayed behind to look after you and Nikki. I could have gone back to Northern Ireland with your father if I’d known you were going to take off.’

  ‘Well, now you can go and join Dad and not feel full of resentment.’ Fleur had retorted.

  ‘You are in no state to look after a child on your own; you can’t even look after yourself.’

  Fleur had turned and run upstairs with poor little Nikki scrabbling worriedly up after her. Laura could not leave it. She had followed Fleur upstairs and watched her angrily throwing things into a suitcase. Peter had given Fleur his car and Laura thought she meant to drive to Cornwall.

  ‘You can’t drive, Fleur. You’re drugged up to the eyeballs.’

  Fleur had looked up and said in a voice Laura had never heard before. ‘All my life you have told me what I can’t do, what I’m no good at. Even now, even now! I’m not driving. I’m going on the train. Fergus has offered to drive the car down for me next weekend.’

  Laura had felt sudden righteous outrage. ‘You mean he’ll be staying there with you?’

  Fleur had looked at her with an expression as cold as the inside of that house. ‘Fergus is coming down with his parents and they are all staying with friends nearby for the weekend. He flies back to Singapore on Monday. They are all trying to be helpful and kind, not judging me the whole time. You can never think the best of me; it’s just too difficult isn’t it? Even in these moments when I need you more than I ever have…you are resentful.’

  She clicked the suitcase shut. ‘Go to Dad.’ She said quietly. ‘Book your flight to Belfast.’

  Laura had been smitten. She sat heavily on the bed. ‘I’m not resentful about not being with your father, Fleur. For heaven’s sake, you are my priority. I am trying…it’s just…’

  ‘You blame me for…Saffie?’

  ‘Of course I don’t! How could I?’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘I guess it’s to do with trust, Fleur. Trust and betrayal.’

  Fleur had gone very still. ‘Spit it out.’ She said. ‘It has sat there unsaid ever since Dad left.’

  Laura had taken a deep breath. ‘You had a husband who adored you and was a wo
nderful father. He was our friend too, your father’s and mine. He did not deserve to be betrayed by you and his best friend.’

  ‘This is what you believe?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, Fleur, it was being said all over the mess.’

  ‘Why, then, it must be true, Mother! Dad heard it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he believe what he heard?’

  ‘I don’t believe he did.’

  Fleur stood in front of Laura pale and still. ‘You know absolutely nothing about my life or my marriage to David. I betrayed no one and neither did Fergus. He was a true friend to David and to me. Do you know, Mum, at this moment I don’t like you very much…’

  Then she had called a taxi and gone, leaving Laura with a bitter taste in her mouth: a raw feeling that however justified she had felt in saying the things she had to Fleur, she had misjudged the moment.

  Laura put her hand up to her face and found she was crying. She sat on a small white chair in the bathroom and cried silently. Misjudged! My God! I’ve spent a lifetime doing it.

  Peter was sitting up in bed when Fleur carried up her parents’ tea. She could hear her mother in the bathroom.

  Peter patted the side of the bed. ‘Come and sit for a minute, darling.’

  Fleur sat. ‘You’re looking better, Dad.’

  ‘I should jolly well hope so after three days doing absolutely bugger all. Your mother’s her old self, though, so watch out.’ He looked at her. ‘How are you really, Fleur?’

  ‘I’m OK, Dad, really I am.’

  ‘We are worried, your mother and I. What about when you get home to England to an empty house? Bit different then, we are all so far away from you.’

  ‘Dad, I’ve got my painting and friends and…’

  ‘We wondered if you would think about coming to live in Cyprus, near us, darling. You can get wonderful villas with a pool.’

  ‘Dad, that’s a lovely thought, but my life is in London.’ Her father nodded. ‘I suppose you’re too young to bury yourself. It was just a thought. I miss you, Fleur.’

  ‘I miss you too, Dad.’ She looked at his face. ‘Oh God! Sam has told you, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t be angry. I’m so glad he did. You see, I wondered…’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes. But then David married you and you were so happy I knew I must have got it wrong. We did have homosexuals in the army, more than you would suspect. But they didn’t usually marry or come out. I guess if they were ambitious they were discreet and then they just got more like crotchety old women, like we all do…’

  Fleur smiled. ‘Not you, Dad.’

  ‘I thought when Sam told me, what if I’d warned you, even if you’d been furious with me. But you see, Fleur, I had no real evidence, it was just a feeling.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have listened, Dad. I’d have thought you were making it up. You know what David was like with a room full of women, he could take his pick.’

  Hearing her mother moving about, Fleur said quickly, ‘Does Mum know?’

  ‘No, but I think she should know…for obvious reasons I won’t go in to…’

  ‘Dad, I don’t want her to feel guilty, it’s a long time ago and she’s old and frail.’

  Laura came out of the bathroom in a pretty, flowery dressing gown, smelling lovely. ‘Not that frail, Fleur.’ She put her vanity case on the dressing table and Fleur saw how carefully she was made up. Too carefully. Had she been crying?

  Laura met her daughter’s eyes. ‘I overheard Sam and your father last night. They thought I was asleep.’ She sat on the end of the bed, facing Fleur. ‘To say it was a shock would be a vast understatement and I deserved to hear it in the way I did, with no preamble or forewarning. I’m not a frail old woman, Fleur, but a wicked, wicked one who rushed to judgement and never even considered she might have got it wrong. Not only did I judge you, I judged Fergus…’

  She bit her lip. ‘You see, I never thought for a moment you had it in you to be so brave or loyal, to keep silent for a lifetime. And now this, with Saffie…Look at you, still so brave, with a frightening strength and dignity.’

  She held out her hands in a misery so abject Fleur could not bear it. ‘I have the most lovely, talented daughter with a gift for loving beyond anything I am capable of, and instead of recognising that, I have spent years blaming you and I’ve lost you.’

  Fleur took Laura’s hands and held them. ‘Mum, you haven’t lost me. I’m still here, as I’ve always been. I don’t blame you. How could you understand something I wasn’t prepared to disclose?’

  ‘Because I should have known you, Fleur. That is the tragedy.’

  ‘Mum…’ She turned to her father. Peter saw Fleur could only cope with so much at one time and this wasn’t the moment for Laura’s unburdening.

  Laura immediately saw this too. ‘Darling, I’m sorry. We’ll talk another time. We must have everything ready for Nikki and Jack. What time are they due?’

  ‘Not until about five p.m. Sam will drive to meet them. I’m going to take breakfast to the men up at the summer house now and see how they’re getting on. See you both later…’

  Fleur backed out of the room and ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. She gathered up the basket with flasks of coffee and bacon rolls and flew out into the overcast morning. She took huge gulps of air and made herself observe everything around her as she walked, trying to drag her mind away from so many conflicting emotions, trying to ignore the knot of pain which never lay far away from the surface.

  As she climbed to the flower meadow she could hear the sound of voices and hammering and someone singing. She looked around her at the vast swathe of uncultivated land sloping down to the swampy river and out to the bay and thought of Nikki’s life here. So different, so unimaginable, all this space and wilderness, unless you saw it for yourself.

  How independent people had to be to live here, thrown on their own resources. It was miles to the next human habitation and Fleur wondered how quickly Nikki had adapted to the loneliness. If she had embraced it first as an escape, and then come to love and feel part of it all because of Jack.

  She looked out over the water. Peaceful. Always moving. She had forgotten how much she missed living by the sea, living by water.

  Fergus. Fergus. Did I tell you every day how much you meant to me? How I loved you? It’s hard, it’s so hard without you.

  She thought of the little chalet house his parents had once owned down in Cornwall. Blue on blue of sea and sky where your heartbeat settled to the pulse of the ocean.

  Fergus had loved it. It was where he had begun to paint. After his parents died they had mostly rented it out but they had tried to go each year. She had not been there since he died.

  I could try it. I could rent out the London house. It came to her in a flash. There was a thriving arty community down there. She saw the glittering arc of blue sea and sky in front of the house. She saw the surfers swooping in on great waves as the sun set. She remembered the throb and shush of the sea, soothing and continuous as she lay in the dark.

  She wanted to wake again to the sound of water. She wanted to live swallowed by sea and sky where the space and silence made room for her. A place to draw breath, to live the sort of life she must live, on her own now.

  As she came to the top of the meadow she stopped at the almost biblical scene in front of her. Sam, his two grandsons and two highly tattooed Maori boys with brightly coloured bandanas were laying turf in strips on the soiled roof of the structure. Fleur had seen grass roofs in the Outer Hebrides and she stood watching, fascinated.

  On Nikki’s instructions Jack had planted two saplings inside the house, their branches leaning out of the windows each side of the doorway.

  Fleur smiled. Tree tenants. All the young had been pouring over her Hundertwasser books, wanting to surprise Nikki, but also fascinated by his innovation which made so much sense to the environmentally conscious New Zealand
ers and Australians.

  Hundertwasser had returned to New Zealand in the Seventies where he bought a dairy farm in the Bay of Islands somewhere. He had planted thousands of trees from all over the world. When he returned to Europe he had the idea of planting tree tenants through windows on the Via Manzoni that could cope with the run-off water and return greenery to the city and cleanse the air and purify water. This was their rent, more valuable than human currency.

  Fleur smiled. At the time Hundertwasser had been here in New Zealand, she had been a young woman in Singapore. She walked on towards the summer house, and seeing her with a basket of food the four younger men waved and stopped working. Sam turned and grinned.

  ‘I see! Tools down and everything stops for food, does it?’

  Fleur threw a cloth over the grass and laid out their breakfast. The four boys threw themselves down beside it. ‘Great! Thanks, Fleur.’

  Sam called her over and took her into the summer house. They had dug a hole half a metre deep for the tiny coffin. Pots of small indigenous trees lay waiting to be planted in the new earth.

  ‘I don’t know how purist Nikki wants to be, but the wooden coffin won’t biodegrade instantly, Fleur. Has she realised that?’

  ‘Yes she has. But the wood was chosen with love and help from the Malaysians. It’s a non-durable hardwood. We both want to keep it.’

  Sam touched her arm. ‘I hope Nikki won’t go on being obsessed with Saffie’s death. I hope this place is not going to become a shrine but something that evolves and changes and eventually goes back to nature…in the spirit Hundertwasser intended.’

  They moved out into the sun again and walked slowly towards the boys.

  ‘Sam, I think she’s going to be all right. Nikki has a child now, and Jack, and a future here. She’s chosen a place where Saffie can be a part of her life…part of all this…’ Fleur waved at the acres of trees and land all around them.

  Sam threw his arm round her. ‘It’s all a bit of a mixture and New Age for me…Christian, Maori…’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Fleur said, wrapping an arm round his now ample waist. ‘You understand this constant fusing of cultures and beliefs perfectly well. The young do it all the time…I’ve heard you talking to Jack and the boys.’