The Hour Before Dawn
A rich, multi-generational saga, set in Singapore and New Zealand. The mysterious disappearance of a young child sets in motion a series of events that will haunt future generations of the family.Singapore in the 1970s. A handsome army officer falls in love with the young daughter of his captain. Although she is determined to become a ballerina, Fleur falls deeply for David and abandons her aspirations to become an army wife and mother. After their first blissfully happy years together, tragedy strikes and Fleur is left widowed with her young twin daughters, Nikki and Saffie. Grief-stricken, she prepares to take her daughters back to England – and then one of them mysteriously vanishes, without a trace.New Zealand, present day. Nikki Montrose, pregnant, is still haunted by the disappearance of her twin sister. Unable to reconcile with her mother, the ghosts of the past haunt her dreams. Fleur’s impending visit forces her to confront her fears. Then when her mother goes missing en route, Nikki must journey to Singapore and attempt a reconciliation. But what they discover back in Port Dickson will send shockwaves through the entire family.Sara MacDonald has written another rich, absorbing family saga which will appeal to all fans of Rosamunde Pilcher and Anita Shreve.
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The Hour Before Dawn
Sara MacDonald
For my beloved twin Nicky, with love.
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception, The future futureless, before the morning watch. TS Eliot
Table of Contents
Fleur treads water in the deep end as the twins slowly climb to the diving board. An older girl goes up behind them to make sure they don’t fall.
Fleur is laughing at their excitement. Nikki jumps first, plummets downwards, hits the water and keeps going down. Fleur hauls her up to the surface and she opens her mouth and screams with joy.
Fleur sits her on the edge of the pool and swims back to the middle for Saffie. Saffie leaps and lands almost into Fleur’s arms and Fleur scoops her up before she sinks. The onlookers round the pool clap their hands; it is an amazing sight to see toddlers jumping from the diving board.
‘We did it! We did it!’ they both cry.
Fleur swims to the edge and pulls herself out and sits next to them. ‘You’re so brave! I’m so proud of you!’
‘Now you! Now you, Mummy!’
Fleur looks at them, small brown bodies, wrists and ankles round and babyish still, their fair hair plastered to their heads. They could both swim before they could walk. They have no fear of the water, no fear of anything. She is suffused with love, overtaken; wants to pull them to her and bite into those plump legs and arms, bury her head in their wet little stomachs.
‘OK. But go back to the rug and get your armbands first.’
She watches them run noisily away over the grass; watches heads turn as they always do at the two identical little figures. When they return she blows up their bands, then blows a raspberry on each brown stomach making them shriek.
‘Go and sit on the edge of the shallow end, you noisy little girls, and don’t jump in until I’ve dived and I’m in the water. You know the rules. I mean it. If you jump in before I’m in the water, no more diving board.’
The twins nod solemnly and Fleur walks away and climbs the ladder to the top board. Over to her right the sea glitters over the Straits of Malacca and sounds from the naval base below reach her. It is late in the afternoon and a cooling wind is coming from the sea, ruffling the palm trees, touching her wet skin like a whisper. Colours are softening over the grass and families, some with amahs, sit scattered on towels and rugs around the pool, reading, talking quietly, and waiting for the men to finish work and join them.
Fleur stands poised, eyes almost shut, dark hair, dark skin, in a white bikini. She raises her arms, thinking about her movements and the alignment of her body as only a dancer does. She pauses, the diving board rocks, and then in perfect slow motion her body bends, jumps and turns in a perfect arc as she dives, breaking the water with hardly a splash.
She isn’t aware of the watchers, of the men turning from the bar, of the women stopping for a moment, of the children, their mouths open in admiration. She is only aware of this small act of precision reminding her of what her body can do.
When she surfaces, the twins are swimming like small, fat beetles towards her, racing to see who can get to her first. She laughs and propels herself towards them and when her feet touch the bottom she holds her arms wide, turning her face upwards away from their splashes. They grab her arms.
‘I won!’
‘No, I won!’
‘You both won,’ she says, clasping them to her. ‘Now let’s go and get dry because Daddy will be here any moment.’
She plonks them on the side and they start to pull their armbands off. When she looks up David is standing in his uniform watching them, his eyes shielded by dark glasses. Her heart turns over as it always does when she sees him from a distance. She thinks, ‘Oh God, he’s mine.’
The twins haven’t seen him yet and Fleur knows why he hasn’t called out. He likes to watch them. He likes to watch them when they are unaware because he too cannot quite believe in this happiness.
She smiles and the twins turn to see who she is smiling at, then squeak and jump up and run across the grass to him. He scoops them up and walks towards Fleur, laughing.
‘Ugh! Horrid, beastly little wet rats.’
‘No, no! Peapods. We’re peapods.’
‘You jolly well are not! Peapods are nice and dry and green.’ He drops them beside their armbands, takes off his dark glasses and bends and puts out a hand to pull Fleur out of the water.
‘Hi, you.’ He kisses her nose, his eyes amused, and Fleur wants to wind her arms round him, press her body to him; the feeling is visceral and overpowering.
‘Are you going in?’
‘Yes, I’ll cool off for ten minutes while you get these rats dressed. Can you get me a beer, darling? I’m parched.’
