The Hour Before Dawn. Sara MacDonald
knew her fear was due partly to the stories her father had told her about the communist insurgents of the 1950s when plantation owners and managers had been attacked and killed, but she always found the stillness of the rubber plantations sinister and in some way threatening; a place where people could hide and pounce. The palm oil trees, with their thick green fronds, softened the landscape, their shape curving like the tops of pineapples.
After David’s funeral, Fleur had lain motionless in the dark, one twin each side of her in the lumpy bed. Saffie placed her fingers on her mother’s ribcage to see if she was still breathing. Her fingers felt, under the cotton nightdress, the flutter and throb of Fleur’s heart. She wanted to whisper to Nikki over her mother’s still form. She wanted to feel her sister’s warmth seep into her. If Mum died there would be no one, only their grandparents. They would have to live in this horrid village and probably go to boarding school.
Saffie trembled with fear of the future. Would they have to stay in this cold house of long corridors and draughty rooms? Here in this rolling garden full of huge fir trees that shaded the lawns and made you shiver? Where the roses smelt in the middle of the day but there was no scent of frangipani wafting in on the morning wind; no white frangipani petals covering the lawns. There was no familiar sound of the kebun brushing the bruised petals up with his long, slow, indolent sweeps.
No bougainvillaea climbed the walls of this house in a great purple cloud. There were no sounds of cicadas in the night or Ah Heng’s high cackling voice coming from the kitchen. Saffie ached with homesickness: for the Chinese chimes moving imperceptibly in the draught of the shuttered windows; for Ah Heng just a shout away.
Home; where Daddy had been, his laughter filtering through the rise and fall of sleep, making you smile as if you were awake. His laugh mixed up with the sound of music, of people chatting and partying.
Saffie thought of his largeness, remembered his happiness just beyond the darkness of the room making you safe to turn and sleep again. She strained for the memory of his face. She could remember his smell: soap and tobacco. She could remember the feel of him, the strength of his brown arms…but she trembled in case she forgot his face…Singapore…the safe place where Daddy had been.
Her face, curled upwards towards her mother, was becoming wet. She touched her cheek. These were not her tears. She was not crying. She reached up to touch Fleur’s face. Her mother was weeping silently, motionless. Her chest was not heaving, her mouth was not open; she was crying without sound, tears cascading out of the sides of her eyes. The pillows and her nightdress and Saffie’s hair were becoming soaked. Saffie did not know anyone could cry this quietly. She heard Nikki whisper in the darkness,
‘Mummy, Mummy, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.’
Saffie leant up on one elbow. ‘It’s all right…we’re here.’ She got out of bed and padded across in the dark to the dressing table to get a box of tissues. She handed Nikki a bundle and together they tried to blot Fleur’s eyes and cheeks and neck until she slowly became aware of them, came back from a long way away and registered their distress.
Saffie thought, Mummy doesn’t even know she’s crying.
Fleur sat up and wiped her face and blew her nose, looked down at them, one each side of her. ‘Cuddle up, darlings, cuddle in close, you’re both frozen. That’s it; pull the covers up to our chins…that’s right. Now we’re like dormice…’ She held the children to her tight, rubbed her chin over their smooth hair that smelt like hay, murmured to them to sleep, that it was all going to be all right.
‘Mummy, do we have to stay here?’ Saffie whispered. ‘In this house?’
‘No, darlings, we’re not going to stay here.’
‘Where are we going? Can we go home?’ Nikki asked.
‘We can’t go home, darling. All our things have to be packed up and Ah Heng has to go and look after a new family. I have to go back to hand our house back to the army and Grandpa thought we might all go and have a last little holiday in Malaya…’
‘Where we used to go with Daddy?’
‘Yes, in one of the rest houses in Port Dickson.’
‘With the round baths, where the water comes out of a big plug and goes all over the floor?’
‘That’s right. Does that sound like a good idea?’
‘With Grandpa and Grandma, or just us?’ Saffie was unsure she wanted them to come. On the other hand, it might feel safer.
‘I like just us,’ Nikki said quietly. But she could not help wondering if her mother was going to be like she was now or like she had mostly been since they got back to England. Would she see and hear them like she did tonight? Or would she go back to a place where they could not reach her, when sometimes she looked as if she didn’t know them any more? As if she had gone somewhere else and forgotten all about them.
‘Of course they are coming with us, darlings. But after the holiday we’re going to find a little house together, just us three. OK?’
Saffie could feel her heart swelling with a strange sad happiness because Mummy was holding them and for the first time the dark felt safe again.
‘You will stay with us all the time? You won’t ever go away and leave us in this house on our own, will you? You won’t leave us even for a minute?’ Nikki asked breathlessly.
Fleur bent to her and kissed the top of her head with sudden passion and then did the same to Saffie. ‘My silly little peapods, of course I won’t leave you. There is just the three of us now and we’ll stick together always, won’t we?’
Nikki smiled and curled in for sleep. ‘Yes.’
Saffie could feel her mother’s body going slack as she fell asleep. After a moment she whispered, ‘Nikki?’ but no one answered. Nikki too was asleep.
Lying in the dark, Fleur’s breath moving her fingers like the quiver of leaves, Saffie heard a fox bark suddenly out in the garden. It was a primeval sound that made her heart jump. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, wanting to sleep too. She thought it was the loneliest sound she had ever heard.
The train slowed and stopped at a junction. Fleur smelt betel nut and curry powder and the musty smell of live chickens carried in cages. She felt a nudge and a fat smiling Malay woman with a child was holding out her bottle of water. Fleur took it gratefully, drank and then handed it back. The woman shook her head, showing her she had another bottle. ‘You keep. You keep.’
Fleur thanked her and leant back and closed her eyes.
After the funeral she had flown back to Singapore with the twins and Peter and Laura There was an army memorial service and a quarter to hand over…and then…And then I let it happen. I let my child die for one selfish craving for oblivion.
The train shunted forward again. It seemed to stop at every single station. Fleur sat up and looked out. The day was ending. The carriages were emptying. People were leaving the train in droves now.
The Malay woman and her child had gone. They were still travelling inland. Her heart jumped; she must be on the wrong train. Oh God, where was she going? She shook with jetlag and tiredness.
A large Indian with a purple turban was watching her with gentle eyes.
Fleur lent forward. ‘I think I’m on the wrong train.’
The Indian smiled. ‘I was wondering, Madam. You are on what we call the Jungle Railway all the way to Kota Bharu. Mostly workers travel this line. The journey from Singapore takes fourteen hours, no less! Where is it you are wanting to be?’
‘Seremban. I must get off there for Port Dickson.’ Fleur fought panic.
‘Well, Madam, the next stop is Mentakab. Here you must get off immediately for the next stop is Jerentut. There is nothing in between. I am afraid there will be no train back to Gemas tonight. This is where you must return to catch the train to Seremban.’
He