The Hour Before Dawn. Sara MacDonald

Чтение книги онлайн.

       ONE

      I saw so clearly the hollow grave on the edge of the jungle and the small skeleton curled inside it that I woke up screaming.

      Jack erupted from the pillow in fright and switched on the lamp.

      ‘God, Nikki.’

      His startled face peered at me, still full of sleep. I clamped my hand over my mouth willing the image to fade.

      ‘Sorry,’ I whispered, but my whole body was shaking and I felt icily cold.

      ‘That must have been some dream. Are you OK now?’ Jack rubbed his hand up and down my arm to sooth me but it had the opposite effect and I shrank away, back under the covers.

      Jack turned to look at the clock. It was four-fifteen.

      ‘Oh God,’ he groaned. ‘I’ve got to be up in two hours.’

      ‘Sorry,’ I said again, trying to stop shivering.

      ‘I’ll make you tea,’ he said in a resigned voice. ‘I might as well. I’m never going to get to sleep again.’ He got out of bed. ‘It’s bloody freezing in here.’

      He wound a sarong around his naked body and went to the window which was wide open and shut it.

      ‘I wonder why it’s so cold? I’ll come back and warm you up…’ He paused, staring at me worriedly. ‘You’ve only had bad dreams since you got pregnant, haven’t you?’

      I nodded and he grinned at me. ‘I’d better start monitoring what you eat for supper.’

      When he’d gone the room was still, but it was full of something too, full of the cold darkness that was Saffie. Saffie, desperately trying tell me something. Why now, after all these years, when I had run so far and thought the past was settling into something I could just about manage?

      Of course, she was always with me, each and every day, because she was my twin and her likeness was mine. Of course she was with me, a shadow, a mote in my eye, there on the turn of a stair, on the end of a street, waiting.

      But I had never known her frightened before. She had never called out to me in my dreams as she was doing now. Nothing should hurt her. She should be safe.

      I carried new life in me and I felt full of dread. I tried to tell myself that terrifying glimpse of a grave was something I had watched on the television and nothing to do with my sister.

      As she faded the room warmed, and when Jack came back with tea and dry biscuits I was able to smile. He kissed the top of my nose and climbed back into bed.

      ‘Thank God, it’s warming up,’ he said.

      ‘Thank you for the tea.’ I smiled at him gratefully.

      ‘No worries,’ he answered sleepily, and I knew in a moment he would be asleep again, leaving me to wait for the birds and the sun creeping up over the bay.

      An hour later I slid out of bed and pulled my clothes from the chair. I went into the bathroom and dressed quietly and pattered downstairs and out into the new day. I walked down the garden and the dew was heavy and cold and drenched my feet. The bay was full of yachts below me and the sea beyond the oyster beds was the deepest blue, yet summer was beginning to fade, the height of the season was over and soon Jack would be able to relax a little.

      In England the worst of the winter would be over and sliding into spring and my mother would be leaving her London garden and making her way inexorably my way. I dreaded it. I dreaded the thought of her here in New Zealand, in our small piece of paradise. I wondered suddenly if that was why I was having bad dreams. If the dread was manifesting itself in my sleep, because it was difficult to articulate to Jack, to explain how I felt about my mother.

      He looked at me in a certain way when the subject of her came up, a little shocked and uneasy, as if mothers were sacrosanct, and my not wanting to see her was breaking some taboo. And the worst thing was, I knew he would be charmed by her.