The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  People descended singly, blinking as they emerged. We watched everyone get off the plane and still we stood staring at the now empty doorway, waiting, but my mother did not appear.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jack said.

  ‘Oh God. I might have known.’

  ‘Did you check she was on this flight?’

  ‘Yes. I also checked her flight from Singapore was on schedule.’

  ‘OK. Let’s go and talk to someone at the desk.’

  The girl looked down her list. Yes, Mrs Campbell was on the passenger list. The girl got up and went out and talked to the two pilots and then came back. Mrs Campbell had not taken the flight from Auckland, despite calls over the Tannoy.

  Was it possible, Jack asked, for her to make a telephone call to see if Mrs Campbell had been on the flight from Singapore to Auckland?

  The girl looked irritated as I rummaged in my bag for Fleur’s flight number from Singapore. She obviously wanted to go off-duty. ‘I’ll try, but you might have to do it yourself from home…the lines get busy.’

  ‘That would be great of you. Melanie, isn’t it? So sorry to be a nuisance…’ Jack said smoothly, giving her his most toothy and boyish grin. It did the trick.

  She spoke on the phone for some time, obviously being transferred from one department to another. Then she looked at us and nodded. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh.’ She shot me a look. ‘Yes. Someone’s here in Kerikeri to meet her. Her daughter. Yes. OK. I’ll put her on.’ She handed me the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ I said. ‘I’m Nikki Montrose, Mrs Campbell’s daughter.’

  ‘Hi there.’ The Kiwi voice was relaxed, wanted to reassure. ‘Now, Mrs Montrose, try not to worry, perhaps there is a message waiting for you at home. Mrs Campbell was on the passenger list from Heathrow to Singapore but she was not on the second leg of her flight from Singapore to Auckland.’

  ‘Did she book in for her flight to Auckland from Singapore airport? Did her luggage have to be offloaded when she didn’t board?’

  ‘No. The information I have is that she did not return from her stopover in Singapore and the flight left without her.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said.

  ‘Could I have your home telephone number, Mrs Montrose? If we hear anything we’ll contact you straight away, but what I advise is for you to contact her stopover hotel. Do you have the name of it?’

  ‘Yes. It was the Singapore Hilton. It’s Miss, by the way, I’m not married.’

  ‘I’m sorry’ the man said ‘to hear that, Ms Montrose.’

  Humour was the last thing I felt like responding to. I also caught a quick flash of regret cross Jack’s face, because I didn’t want to get married.

  ‘It could be your mother has been taken ill or missed her flight for some reason and is booked on a later one…’ I could hear him fiddling with his computer. ‘She is not on any of the flights out of Singapore tonight or tomorrow…Sorry, I don’t think I can help you further at the moment…’

  ‘Thanks…you’ve helped all you can. Thank you for your time. If you hear anything you will contact—’

  ‘Of course. No worries. Good luck, Ms Montrose. I’m sure you’ll find your mother safe and well. Old people do go astray, you know.’

  I laughed as I put the phone down. Fleur, old! Never. But she was vague.

  We thanked Melanie and left the now deserted little terminal. As we drove slowly home I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know whether I was annoyed or anxious.

  ‘It seems you were right, Nik, she has gone walkabout.’ Jack looked at my face. ‘Darlin’, you really are worried something’s happened to her?’

  ‘I was being facetious before, Jack. Fleur is perfectly capable of travelling long distances. She spent her whole childhood doing it. How can you miss a plane on a stopover? A bus picks you up and deposits you, bang, at the airport. She knew we were meeting her. If something has happened why hasn’t she rung us?’

  ‘As soon as we get home we’ll ring that Singapore hotel. There may be a message waiting for us.’

  But there wasn’t. Dark seemed to descend quickly and the house seemed oddly stilled. We had been poised waiting for Fleur. I didn’t want her to be ill and alone in some huge hotel full of strangers.

  I rang the Singapore Hilton and could not make the first girl understand what I wanted and needed to know. I could feel my voice rising and Jack took the phone and calmly went over it all again. Then he put his hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘They’re getting the manager.’

  Jack repeated his message once more and then listened. I watched his face change and he flashed me an anxious look. He gave the man our number and said, yes, we would ring later. He put the phone down and came over to me.

  ‘Your mother booked in for one night only…’ He hesitated. ‘She didn’t catch the airport bus when it came and no one could find her. Her luggage is still all in her room and she hasn’t booked out of the hotel. No one has seen her since early yesterday morning.’

  I stared at him, felt the blood drain from my face. Something really had happened to Fleur.

  Jack took my hand. ‘I’m going to run you a bath and then make you toast. You’re getting into bed. Do you hear me? We’ve had one fright with the baby, we don’t want another…’ He paused.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The manager is going to contact the police if she doesn’t return tonight. We’re to ring the hotel in the morning. They are going to ask Fleur to ring us immediately if she comes back.’

  My back ached and Jack ran me a bath and made me get in it. I was glad to be in bed. He came and sat on the edge of it with toast, which we shared. Then he brought the phone upstairs where we could hear it and I checked my mobile was switched on. He went for a shower and then got into bed and held me tight, and even though he warmed me I could not stop imagining all the terrible things that could have happened to Fleur.

  Jack always could fall asleep straight away and he did tonight. He had been up since 5.30. I lay there against him thinking it served me bloody well right. I had not wanted my mother to come and now she was probably dead in some alleyway in Singapore. Or…Or what? If she had been taken ill she would have had her passport on her, and hotel and flight details. If she was in hospital we would know by now. Which meant she was in trouble. Or dead.

  I shivered and carried on circuitous conversations in my head. It was a long time since I had prayed. I tried to remember what my mother had said to me on our one and only telephone conversation, how her voice had sounded, and I couldn’t.

  If my mother was dead, I would be to blame for not checking all her plans in detail, like any daughter would have done. For not phoning or texting or letting her know she could contact me and not feel a nuisance. For not monitoring her progress thousands of miles towards me. For not caring enough; for being wickedly self-absorbed and childishly selfish.

  Could it be she had gone looking for some piece of architecture and got lost or gone further than she’d meant to? Or maybe her phone had been stolen and she couldn’t contact us. Maybe she had met an acquaintance or colleague and was staying with them. I was clutching at straws.

  I lay very still with a terrible sense of prescience. More than that, fear lay under my skin as if something dark was crawling my way. Jack breathed beside me and the night stretched on and on and the dawn came, surprising me with its suddenness.

  The phone went and I leapt upright. It was a Detective Sergeant James Mohktar who spoke perfect English. He was ringing from the Singapore Hilton. He asked me if I was Mrs Campbell’s next of kin. Her luggage was still in her room and her disappearance was worrying. Had she contacted me? Was there any place I could think of that she might have gone to?

  No, I told him. She had not contacted me and I had no idea where she could possibly have gone. ‘She once lived in Singapore a long time ago, but she doesn’t know anyone there now. I’m very worried, this is not like her, or the fact that she hasn’t been in touch…’

>   There was a pause and then the detective said, ‘You are advising me that Mrs Campbell is definitely missing and that you have no explanation whatsoever for her disappearance?’

  ‘Yes, I am. My mother was flying out to us in New Zealand via Singapore. She caught the plane from Heathrow to Singapore, but did not catch the second leg of her journey to Auckland. She was then due to fly from Auckland to Kerikeri where she knew we were waiting to meet her. If she’d missed her flight or was ill she would have let us know.’

  ‘OK, Mrs Montrose. We are going to make a search of the hotel now. My men will make inquiries to try to ascertain her whereabouts and safety and which member of staff may have had a conversation with her and who saw her last. Then I will ring you again…’ He paused. ‘If we do not find your mother, I am afraid you must fly to Singapore to register her officially missing and identify her belongings. She did always carry her passport about her person?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t have left her passport in a hotel room. She would have kept it with her.’

  ‘We will’ the detective sergeant said, ‘maintain hope, Mrs Montrose, that there is a rational explanation. I will ring you this evening. Try not to worry. Good day.’

  I crumpled on the edge of the bed, Jack’s anxious eyes on me. Was God or fate visiting some sick and terrible retribution on me? Was my mother too going to disappear without trace? Her body never found, so that I would never know what happened or where she had gone, who took her or why?

  Just like Saffie. Snatched from under our noses; disappearing from us without trace twenty-eight years ago.

  EIGHT

  It was time to leave for the airport. Fleur walked round the army quarter which would soon be empty of all their personal things. She moved slowly, touching the heavy mahogany furniture, staring past the small Malay house that chimed in the window of the twins’ room, the sound as familiar as breathing in the easy, somnolent days spent there.

  Far below her came the dull thud of the naval base and the hot morning breeze brought to her a vague smell of sea mixed with frangipani blossom from the garden. Fleur stood looking out, invoking the image of David moving through the house with her.

  Surely if she closed her eyes for a moment she could shift time back, change by sheer will the sequence of events. Make it all a bad dream. A small tragedy you spot suddenly in a paper, the abrupt end of someone else’s life.

  The sun flowed across the polished floor and touched one arm, making the other instantly cold. She shivered and moved to the front of the house. There it was, the black car moving sleekly up the road towards her, small pennant flying. Fergus would get out, immaculate in his starched uniform, looking as pale and stunned as Fleur; a familiar presence to take them to the airport and the long journey home to bury David.

  Fleur turned and walked through the house and down the steps from the kitchen, and stood watching the twins and Ah Heng crouched outside the amah’s room. Ah Heng was filling little bags for their journey and the three of them squatted outside her door on the concrete, heads bent together, chatting in Cantonese like noisy sparrows. From her open doorway Chinese pinkle-ponkle music issued softly.

  Two fair heads, one dark smooth one. Ah Heng, feeling Fleur’s stillness, looked up and in that fleeting unguarded moment Fleur saw the bleakness in the amah’s flat, impassive face. The two women stared at each other, accepting an ending where nothing in either of their lives could ever be the same again. No contentment so taken for granted; no happiness so whole.

  In lives at each end of a cultural divide, they would, Fleur knew, remember in quiet moments their innocent rivalry for the twins’ love. Here in a house that had been filled with the cheerful life of Master and husband; a place the three of them had experienced together the thrill and joy of the twins, the flourishing of small lives.

  ‘Time, Missie?’ Ah Heng broke the silence.

  ‘Yes, Ah Heng. The car’s coming up the road. Saffie, Nikki, come on, time to go.’

  The twins looked up but hung on to Ah Heng. Their mother had an unnerving listlessness, a restless preoccupation with something that lay beyond them. It was as if she could no longer see them, as if they had suddenly become frighteningly invisible.

  Ah Heng gathered their bags and led them firmly up the steps past Fleur, through the kitchen to their bathroom where she made them use the loo and washed their hands and faces one last time. She checked that the small jumpers she had bought them were still in their cases. Missie had a habit of changing over the clothes she bought the twins from Chinatown. She led them down the front stairs to the open front door where the black official car was crouched, waiting for them.

  Mohammed, the driver, had stowed their luggage in the boot. Fergus stood beside Fleur. He was watching the twins with Ah Heng. The children seemed passive, too devoid of emotion. Had Fleur given them something?

  Ah Heng let go of the children’s hands and moved towards Fleur. ‘Missie take care. Missie have chil’ren think about. If Missie no come back to hand house over to army men, Missie write me all news of babies, please.’

  She held out both hands and Fleur took them, clasping them tight, and tears sprang up between the two women.

  ‘I have to come back, Ah Heng. There is an army memorial service for Master…’ She hesitated. ‘I will leave the babies in England…I think it is best…I don’t want them to have to say goodbye to you twice…and…’

  Ah Heng nodded. ‘Yes, Missie. I stay here. I clean house. I wait till you return. I help you hand over to army men…’ She pulled her hands gently from Fleur’s.

  Fleur whispered, ‘Ah Heng, you must look after yourself. I know the High Commission want you back. You must leave when they need you…’ Her voice broke. ‘Ah Heng, thank you, thank you for everything…’

  ‘Missie go…’ Ah Heng turned away in misery and bent to the twins and held them hard as Fergus gently pushed Fleur into the back of the car. Ah Heng hugged them tight to her and closed her eyes to breathe in their skin. She placed her small, flat nose to their cheeks, took a huge breath, so that they were with her always, clear as their laughter, the childish smell of them. Her babies captured forever, not only in the photographs she would display in her next job, but hidden inside her always.

  Fergus went round the car, picked the twins up quickly and placed them in the back of the car with Fleur. Then he went to sit by the driver. ‘Drive, Mohammed. Drive away quickly.’

  Mohammed started the car. Ah Heng stood like a statue, hands clasped to her cheeks, when suddenly the rear door of the car was thrown open and the twins leapt out screaming like small banshees. They rushed at Ah Heng, threw themselves at her, clutching her black baggy trousers, hanging on to her legs.

  ‘No…Heng…Heng…No…Heng…You come too…You come…’

  Ah Heng folded to the ground in a fluid movement, holding them to her, and her tears spurted, cascaded down her face, soaking the heads of the children.

  ‘Shit.’ Fergus leapt out of the car, followed by Mohammed. ‘We should have left five minutes ago.’

  They tried to tear the twins from Ah Heng but they kicked and screamed hysterically. In the car Fleur sat immobile, staring straight ahead. She could not take any more.

  ‘You…’ Mohammed suddenly commanded the amah. ‘You come airport with English babies…You calm…You tell babies must be good for English Missie or their dada not pleased. Come! You come, please, or I not get to airport in time.’

  ‘It’s a good idea,’ Fergus said quickly. ‘Would you mind, Ah Heng? We’ll see you home again…We must leave now.’

  Ah Heng glanced in the car at Fleur’s blank white face. ‘I come. I lock up quick.’

  In the car Ah Heng wiped the twins’ faces. They had stopped crying and she put her arms around them and whispered to them in Cantonese, admonishing them softly. ‘You’re big girls. No more crying. Look at Mama. She’s very brave, yes? Well, twins too must be brave, take care of Mama for Ah Heng. Who takes care of Mama, if
you do not?

  ‘Ah Heng wants letters to say you are being good girls, then Heng will know you are very grown-up children and Heng will be very happy you are no trouble for Mama. This is what your dada would want…and who knows? Ah Heng’s brother might come to England, and bring Ah Heng to work in cousin’s Cantonese restaurant…Who knows, twins might come back to Singapore one day to see Heng. Heng is always here. Ah Heng will send Mama her new address. No more now. No more crying or Heng will get cross. England is a very good place. You will be very, very happy with your grandparents in the big English house…You’ll see. You listening to Ah Heng?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nikki said.

  ‘Yes,’ Saffie said, putting her thumb in her mouth.

  Ah Heng took it out again. ‘You too big girl for that. You no do. I tell you…crooked teeth…’ And she held them close and rocked them to her as the car purred along.

  In the mirror Fergus saw that Fleur was still looking blankly out of the window. She was leaving all the comforting to her amah. She did not look, touch or reassure the twins. She did not feign cheerfulness or bravery. Fergus felt unease. Those little girls had just lost a father who idolised them. The life they were leaving was all they had ever known. Had Fleur even acknowledged her children’s loss? Or was she only capable of feeling her own?

  If I long to comfort my godchildren, how is it Fleur can bear not to?

  The coffin was waiting. The RAF plane to Brize Norton had already loaded its normal passengers. A small contingent of top brass and David’s squadron were waiting to march David to the plane, on his last journey home.

  Ah Heng handed the twins out of the car to Fleur, who took their hands like a robot. The twins turned once to blow Ah Heng a kiss with their hands, their lower lips wobbling, and then they turned back and walked towards the coffin, which was being slow-marched to a Scottish lament to the rear of the plane.

  Fleur, Saffie and Nikki all shivered in the heat. Like a sleepwalker, Fleur shook hands and accepted the words of condolence and comfort said all over again. Fergus hugged her briefly and painfully and for a moment Fleur clung to him.