The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  Not goodbye; not yet. Not a resting place, but a private lament, easily resurrected because it had never left her, its ceaseless cry had lived on in the folds and creases of her life, touching and colouring everything she did, tingeing all she was.

  Saffie.

  To think of her end was too hard, it made Fleur’s limbs twitch and her throat constrict. It made her heart feel it would burst from her chest. She knew that this way madness lay. She got up and went to the window and looked out at the distant sea. It seemed that her life was vanishing again in the moment of shimmering heat and that everything between that time of horror and this moment now, here in a room alone, was disappearing once more, like her life with David and the twins had vanished long ago.

  She suddenly heard Fergus’s quiet voice: ‘Fleur, you can go on and on blaming yourself for the rest of your life, like a monk whipping himself until he draws blood. Or, you can accept the fact that someone wicked took Saffie’s life while you slept, and you slept because you were human and grieving for someone you loved. You are not responsible for Saffie’s death.’

  ‘I contributed to her death and nothing can change that.’

  ‘Oh, Fleur! You can’t keep five-year-olds under lock and key. You did not take Saffie’s life. Someone else did that and he could have done it at any time…anywhere. How on earth were you to know there was any danger in that peaceful backwater? It was not Peter’s or Laura’s or your fault…’

  Of course, in the end it did not matter what anyone said because you knew the truth of a thing in your heart. But you had to go on living and breathing and getting leadenly through the days if you had other children, and Fleur knew she could not have done that without Fergus.

  She had not heard Jack coming back looking anxious with his mobile in his hand. He entered the room and Fleur jumped and turned her face, naked with sorrow, and Jack, seeing it, suddenly thought: What on earth does losing a yacht mean against Fleur and Nikki’s horror?

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you jump,’ he said.

  Fleur tried to smile. ‘I didn’t hear you, Jack. Is something wrong? Where’s Nikki?’

  ‘She stayed on the beach. I’ve just got a call on my mobile. Someone has holed one of our boats…’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Jack—’

  ‘Fleur,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s nothing…a yacht can be mended…You look…all in. Can I get you something?’

  ‘No, I think I’m going to go and lie down for a bit. It’s coming up for midday, Nikki should not be out in this heat.’

  ‘I’ll go back and haul her in, I promise.’

  ‘Good.’ Fleur smiled vaguely at him and went into her room, thinking as she lay thankfully down on her bed, Poor Jack. Catapulted into a tragedy not his own. How the past goes on and on changing the shape of our lives. She wondered how Nikki had been when she met Jack? Had the loss of Saffie affected their relationship, or had Nikki managed this time, in a new life, in another country, to leave the shadow of her twin behind her?

  Fleur thought of all the disparate men Nikki had brought home from university, as if to illustrate clearly to her mother what her life was turning out to be. Look…all I can manage is to form relationships with no-hopers, men with towering personality disorders. Many had been laughably dreadful.

  Fergus, ever patient, had given her a year and then he had driven down to Bristol without telling Fleur. He had had enough of Nikki punishing her mother for a perceived wrong she would not let go of. He had caught her with an entirely reasonable set of friends in her rented house. Friends who had no trouble meeting his eye and were perfectly articulate. The life she wanted them to believe she was leading bore no resemblance to the actual one she was living in Bristol.

  When her friends had gone out of the room, he had, he told Fleur, laid into her for the first time in her life. He had told her to grow up. He’d told her that tragedy happened to other people too, or hadn’t she noticed? She had no right to decide Fleur must be punished for the rest of her life, or him, for that matter. She had no right to judge a past that was not hers and that she knew little about. She could either make something sensible of her life or screw it up. He told her he was not going to stand by watching her intent on wrecking their lives as well as her own, and she could keep her so-called friends, wherever she found them, to herself from now on…

  He told her they both loved her very much and it was at that point the tears began to trickle out of the corners of her eyes, but she neither made a defence nor uttered a word.

  She had not come home for months. Then she had turned up for Christmas with a South African girl. She had been polite and distant and told them that after her finals she was going to work for six months on a National Park project with this girl’s brother, near Johannesburg. She had sent postcards regularly, saying little, and sometimes she had written to Fergus excitedly about her work. That had hurt.

  After her degree, Fleur had never been certain what Nikki was doing or where she was. She travelled and seemed to try so many things, but she always moved on. Chasing herself, Fergus said sadly. Never stopping for too long in case she catches herself up. Then she would have had to face Saffie’s death. Accept it.

  Eventually she did a navigation course in New Zealand and helped sail ocean-going yachts from boatyard to wealthy owner. She still sent postcards from wherever she was. But postcards can say little, except where you are.

  Jack made telephone calls back to the Bay of Islands, rang his marine insurer in Auckland and then his father, who promised to go and view the damage. He could not afford to be anything but pragmatic about this, but it could wipe out his profit for this year if it was contested.

  He went out again into the heat and saw Nikki coming towards him slowly and heavily across the beach. Jack, screwing up his eyes, thought he was in danger of forgetting Nikki’s normal quick, fluid movements. Her hat shielded her face but as he reached her she looked as sad as Fleur.

  He put his arm around her and she leant against him, and together, without speaking, they went back inside the house. The amah had laid out salad, fruit and bread and a rice and fish dish. As they came in she nodded at them, pointed at the food and smiled, urging them to eat.

  Nikki sat at the table under the fan and Jack went to the fridge and got her cold water to drink. He dug himself out a beer. She drank greedily and asked, ‘Where’s Fleur?’

  ‘She’s resting. We’ll save some lunch for her, shall we? We can put it in the fridge.’

  Nikki looked down at the table. She was about to say she was not hungry but decided Jack would make a fuss. He helped her to a small portion of fish and rice and she put some salad onto her plate thinking she could hide her food under it. As if reading her mind, Jack said softly, reaching out to touch her stomach, ‘Nikki, you have a seven-month baby in there.’

  She met his eyes, annoyed. Did he ever think of anything else? ‘I’m hardly likely to forget it, am I?’ she snapped. ‘I’m moving about like a beached whale.’

  He stared down at her face, drawn and pale against the natural tan of her shoulders, and wished this hadn’t happened; that her sister’s small body had never been found. He wished with all his heart that they were back home, which seemed, at this moment, a hell of a way away.

  ‘Anyway, tell me about the phone call. What’s happened?’

  He sat down and picked up his fork. ‘Someone pranged Blue Fish as they were trying to moor next to her in the marina. There was a swell on and she took quite a lot of damage…’

  Nikki looked up at him, sorry for her earlier bad temper. ‘Oh, hell! Why did it have to be our newest yacht? Jack, listen…’

  Knowing what was coming, Jack said quickly, ‘It’s OK, Nik. Dad’s going to fly down and check the insurance and everything for me.’ Yet his guilty heart had leapt at the thought of going home to all that was familiar, where he could do something.

  Nikki, staring at the face she loved, felt equally guilty. She longed to be on her own, to take out, privat
ely, the familiar wound that coloured everything.

  She had felt pity for Fleur that morning, and now, strangely and suddenly, the bitterness she had fought all her life with her mother was beginning to seep slowly back. She felt confused and exhausted and craved space, even from Jack.

  They stared at each other for a moment over their uneaten lunch, each hesitating to be truthful. Then Nikki reached out to take Jack’s hand.

  ‘Jack, go home. Go back, darlin’, and look after things there. Fleur and I have to wait for Saffie’s body to be released. We will be perfectly OK here on our own. There is James Mohktar and now the inspector…’

  ‘Nik, you’ll soon be beyond the safety regulation to fly…What if you get ill here and I’m miles away? I need to be with you…’

  ‘Listen, Jack. I could get ill at home when you are over at the marina. We live miles away from anywhere. You could say I’m safer here with Fleur…and nearer to a doctor.’ She leant forward. ‘Let’s take a day at a time, Jack. You’re needed back home. I must stay here with Fleur. You must trust everything will be fine with me and the baby, worrying all the time is not going to help. Please…will you think about it?’

  Jack nodded. ‘All right. Nikki, stop playing with that food and go and rest.’

  Nikki smiled. ‘Will you thank the amah and ask if some lunch can be saved for Mum?’

  ‘I will.’ He got up and kissed her forehead. ‘Try to sleep. Go on, I’ll bring you cold water from the fridge.’

  ‘You’re a very sweet man…’

  ‘Go, woman, or I’ll be forced to carry you…’ He made a face and clutched his back and Nikki laughed. ‘Don’t rub my size in…so cruel…’

  At the door, she turned. ‘It isn’t that I don’t want you here, Jack…It’s just…’

  ‘I know,’ he said gently, handing her a bottle of cold water. ‘I know.’

  When she had gone, he thought: This is not my story. I have no place here. This is something that happened to the woman I love, a long time ago.

  Nikki and Fleur needed to be left alone to come to terms with this; Jack was sure of it.

  When James Mohktar returned that evening and sat with Jack out on the balcony while the two women showered, Jack felt he could voice his thoughts. Mohktar smiled his priest’s smile and said, ‘It is hard, I think. You are torn. Your woman is having a child. But maybe Miss Montrose and Mrs Campbell need to be alone together to talk over their lives at that time, lah?’

  Jack was unsure whether Mohktar was talking as a policeman, hoping they might remember something vital if they concentrated, or if he was being an astute judge of character.

  ‘I will make sure they are taken care of. We do have good doctors here you know. It is a tourist area, so English is spoken.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Jack said hastily.

  ‘You must decide. But if you wish, I could find out what flights there are out of Kuala Lumpur to Auckland?’

  ‘Could you? That would be great.’

  Fleur and Nikki came out of their rooms looking rested and cool. Jack’s heart missed a beat. Nikki looked so young and pretty and he thought, It is as if our future hangs in the balance; as if I know somewhere inside me that she might never return to the life we have together; that this terrible thing that happened so long ago might erupt once more and destroy us.

  Mohktar, watching him, said very quietly, reaching out to touch Jack’s arm, ‘Your woman is having your child. Neither distance nor the past can change this fact. Inshallah. God willing.’

  And the strange policeman moved from the veranda into the room where the two women waited anxiously for whatever he had to report.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jack flew to Auckland from Kuala Lumpur twenty-four hours later. He felt guilty relief not to be sitting on his butt doing nothing, but going home where he could be of some use. Driving through KL brought back memories of student days. He realised how caged and restless he had felt in the small rest house with two grieving women, but he left Nikki with a heavy heart.

  After Jack had driven off in the hire car the wooden house seemed still and empty. I felt a surge of loss for the largeness of his presence. But if I couldn’t sleep I could roam the house at night without alarming him, and I felt my limbs begin to relax at the thought of time alone trying to understand how I felt about everything.

  Fleur and I were suddenly awkward with each other. Jack had acted as a buffer without either of us being conscious of it. The heightened emotions of Fleur’s disappearance and the relief at finding her safe were slipping away from me. I felt the old vague irritation creeping back, the childhood suspicion that she might be playing a role. It was the unpleasant side of me that I would have hated anyone to suspect I had, especially Jack.

  Fergus said once, ‘You judge your mother so harshly, Nik, it takes my breath away. Fleur loves you unconditionally whatever you do, whatever you say to hurt her, as I do. How sad you are unable to suspend judgement for even a second, to understand the person she is.’

  My feelings towards Fleur have always yoyoed frantically. Yet the relief in finding her safe and alive had been overpowering. In those dreadful moments in the pathology lab I didn’t want anyone but her, not even Jack. And now? Now I had no idea how I felt about anything except this aching sorrow under my ribs and an anxiousness that would not go away.

  Fleur knew exactly how her daughter was feeling. If Nikki had ever shown open love or need for her, or sudden understanding, it was certain to be followed by puzzled regret. It was inevitable that Nikki should automatically revert to a position taken long ago in childhood. A perceived injury as familiar as a playground chant, repeated often to make it true.

  Even if Nikki, as a mature adult, could now recognise that the flaws she saw in Fleur were part of being a human being and making mistakes, to let it all go and move on meant she had to question the persistent and uncertain stand she had taken; the childhood she had shaped; the life she had determined for herself.

  Fleur longed for the easy intelligence of Fergus, who had understood them both better than anyone. Who had been able with quiet insight to lay in front of her the substance, the reality of his and Fleur’s love that had survived so much.

  ‘You have to take responsibility for your own life and your own mistakes,’ he had said. ‘It was to betray yourself, twist your own motives, ruin your life and the lives of those nearest to you if you believed you were responsible for the actions and emotions of other human beings.’

  He had clinically laid before Fleur the facts of their life together; why it had happened, that attraction between them. For Fleur to have a future, to have a life with him, a life that must always hold regret and sadness, she had first to put away that terrible burden of guilt; for herself as well as Nikki.

  They had managed, despite their difficulties with Nikki, to have a happy and close marriage. Except that there had been no children with Fergus, and oh how she had longed for more children. Nikki, the only child, had become Fergus’s child, and in the end his unfailing patience had been rewarded with her love.

  Fleur, walking alone on the beach as the day cooled and the colours changed, preparing for the dusk that would come quickly, felt surrounded by shadows from the past. David, whose face she struggled now to remember. Fergus, always present. Ah Heng. The twins; as they were, running towards the misty ocean in tiny shorts and nothing else. And her parents, the background for this life she had led here.

  Peter and Laura! Fleur realised that she must let them know about Saffie. They could get English papers in Cyprus and it was possible they could come across an article…She turned and hurried back to the rest house. She must ring them. They were old now and becoming frail. How would they cope with the news after all this time?

  Fleur was relieved it was her father who answered the phone. She told him quickly and briefly, trying to keep the mounting emotion out of her voice. Peter was shocked. He had to go and sit down.

  ‘Oh my dear girl…how dreadful for you…a
fter all this time. Oh dear. I am so sorry…’

  ‘Dad, I don’t want to upset you, I just thought you ought to know in case you saw something in the papers.’

  ‘Of course we need to know, darling, and from you. Don’t worry about upsetting me; it’s you I’m worried about. Shall I fly to you? Would that be a comfort?’

  ‘No, Dad. Bless you. Nikki’s here with me. It’s too far for you and there is nothing you can do. We have to wait for the pathology report. The police here have reopened the case. A detective who was on the original case has been flown out from London.’

  ‘Good heavens. What on earth do they hope to find after all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad.’

  ‘Bloody awful for you and Nikki.’

  ‘Yes. But it’s so good to see her. She’s asleep at the moment, or you could talk to her.’

  ‘I’m so glad she’s with you. How is she?’ Peter asked carefully.

  ‘Heavily pregnant, poor girl.’

  ‘Bad timing, all this…’ Then, aware of what he had said, Peter added hastily, ‘I mean, darling, extra hard for her and a worry for you…’

  ‘I know what you meant, Dad.’

  A long pause and then Peter said, ‘Fleur, can they tell, after all this time, how my lovely granddaughter died?’

  Fleur swallowed. ‘They don’t know yet.’

  ‘Oh, how I wish we were with you and not so old…’

  Fleur smiled. ‘I know you’re there, that’s what’s important.’

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow…my darling Fleur.’

  Tears sprang to Fleur’s eyes. As she replaced the phone Ah Lin put her head round the door to say that supper was ready for the Mems. Fleur went to find Nikki. She was lying on her bed trying to read, but actually watching the ceiling fan go round.

  ‘Nikki, I think the little amah might commit hari-kari if we miss another meal.’

  Nikki half-smiled and got up awkwardly. ‘OK.’ She actually felt hungry.