The Elusive Language of Ducks (10 page)

They lived near the sea. From her window, Hannah could see the mountain lazily swooping up from the ocean, beckoning her to walk through the streets and onto the sandy beach. On this particular day she watched a seagull floating on the water. It seemed content just to
be
there, bobbing on the swell of ruffled waves, succumbing to the action of the water. Like a duck.

The only water her duck had experienced, apart from occasional rain, was confined to a drinking bowl, handbasin, or a cluttered shallow pond.

That night, instead of bathing the duck in the handbasin, she put him in the bath. He eyed the white shiny enamel, and then looked at her, then at the froth of tepid water pelting from the tap. He tried to escape, but the sides were too high. The woman cooed reassuringly at him. He slurped some water. She fed him torn shreds of lettuce. He nibbled and gulped, then sucked up another drag of water. As the level rose, he started to walk around on tiptoes. Little dainty prances. Then he was afloat. He was incredulous. He gave the side of the bath an elegant push and there he was, gliding to the other side. She turned off the tap. Silence. He was weightless. He was an astronaut in a void of fluid space with the grinning face of the moon peering over the edge of the world. Pushing off again with such an air, his big yellow feet touched the bath as an old lady's fingers might nudge a friend's arm as a reminder of something shared. The duck was remembering that, of course, this was what ducks did. The woman felt as though she, too, was hanging there. The white bath, the white duck, the clear water, the silence. She was with the duck in his head, relieved of the gravity of all things. She had an immense sense of joy.

The duck started to wash himself then, his body undulating through the water which swooshed from one end of the bath to the other. He flipped himself upright and flapped his wings. Took himself to the other end of the bath, then back again, surges of water spilling onto the woman's T-shirt and the floor. Finally he'd had enough. He stretched his neck up to the edge of the bath. The woman took a towel and wrapped him up. The duck flitted his beak over her lips.

I liked that, he said.

Of course you did.

And then at that moment Simon walked in and stood by the door. He saw the leaves floating in the bath water, saw the residue of splats settling on the bottom, saw the bathroom floor flooded and Hannah holding the duckling, closer now, to her chest.

I'm going to clear it up, she said. Look, the disinfectant, the cloth. All ready to clean. Don't worry.

It's not
that
I'm worried about, he said, pulling at his beard. He went away saying no more.

The next morning she woke up to Simon sitting alongside her on the bed, his hand resting on her shoulder. Her heart jolted. The duck! Something had happened to the duck!

What? What's wrong?

Ssssh. Nothing's wrong. Hannah, your nerves are frazzled.

Oh, sorry. But—

It's a corker day. Have a shower and hop in the car. We're going for a little tramp . . . to the waterfall, I thought would be nice . . . Then dinner at our restaurant on the way home. I've been waiting for you to wake up, but we mustn't waste the day. It's already after nine. I've made the picnic. It's all in the car.

He gave her rump a friendly whack.

Come on. Like we used to.

Hannah yawned.
Like we used to.
It must have been five or six years. This had always been a special outing for them; they'd seen it as an injection of vitality when they'd sensed their lives becoming staid. They'd be invigorated by the wild dangerous sea, the sharp air of the west coast, just being in Nature. The dinner at the end of the day was always intimate, happy.

I'm sorry, Simon, I can't. I've got work to do.

It's Sunday.

I know, but I have deadlines, if I get behind . . . And I've got to sort out the duck for the day . . .

The duck is sorted . . . all clean and in his cage.

What? You put the duck in his cage? Anyway, he needs food.

He
never
touched the duck. She sat up, reaching for her clothes.

He's eaten. His box is clean. There's food in his cage. Everything is organised. I found a couple of snails even. He couldn't help the self-satisfaction leak from his voice. No excuses.

I can't, I just can't. I'm sorry, Simon. You can't just land this on me.

Whyever not? It's called spontaneity, Hannah. Remember?

I'm tired and I've got work to do. You know what it's like.
You
have contracts you have to finish sometimes. She was dressing now, hurriedly.
The duck would be fretting, worried that something had happened to her.

She pushed past him, but he took her arm, grasping it tightly.

Look at me, Hannah.

She glanced at him, at his intense earnest face. The wall was more comfortable.

I had a dream last night, he said. Look at me, Hannah.

She looked at his chin, his lips within the grey sleek beard. She could smell the dampness of fresh shampoo.

I dreamt that I was looking for you. We were in the mountains, and you raced on ahead, disappearing around a bend. I couldn't reach you. I was calling to you, but I couldn't catch up. When I came to the bend you'd gone. The sky was black, so black. Ahead of me was a track winding through snow, leading down into dense bush. I'd lost you . . . Then I woke up, and there you were, lying beside me.

He moved her so that she was facing him, put his arms around her, pulled her to his chest.

She dropped her head onto his clean crisp shirt. Why? Why, why was it so hard to dissolve into him?

If she let go, she would fall into his dream.

He lifted his hand to her neck, twisted her hair around his fingers, pressed her head closer to his chest.

Slowly she eased away from him. Her hair fell back to her shoulders, he released his arms. She moved away, stealthily, as if she might awaken somebody left sleeping in their bed.

She crept down the stairs, through the kitchen, hurrying now across the deck, down the garden to the duck.

There he was, chirruping at her as normal.

I'm sorry, Ducko, she said, lifting him out of the cage.

Once inside again, finally, she found a note on the kitchen table.
I'm off. Can't waste a good picnic. Can't waste a good day. Can't waste a good life.

Chapter 8

My mother came home today, the woman said to the duck.

Hannah was supposed to be working, but she'd taken her laptop outside, to the chair that cut under her legs, and the glass-topped table covered with a wintering of green that she could scrape runnels into with her fingernail. She'd decided to work outside so that the duck could run around on the lawn, out of the prison of his cage.

She'd always hated the cruelty of battery hens. She didn't want him to become a battery duck, although sometimes she worried that he was living like one. Or a wind-up toy, with a switch that made him walk like a clown, slapping his flippers on the wooden floor inside, or on any flat surface like the paths and deck. When he ran, it was as if the switch was set to a pace too fast for the machine, his whole body flailing out of kilter, one leg almost crossing over the other. Yet there was a gracefulness in his gracelessness, and he never failed to make her laugh. He could make her laugh from a deep happy part of herself, a part of herself she hadn't accessed for a long time. She'd been like a piano accordion from which the last wheeze had been squeezed, to be clipped up and stored away in a cobwebby cupboard.

And now she was holding him. She'd hoped that he would run through the grass, pleased to be free, poking his beak amongst the leaves and stones. Instead he'd dumped himself at her feet under the chair. She wondered whether she had trained him to be dependent upon her, whether every morsel he ate from now on would have to come from her hand, whether he might die from starvation should they ever be parted.

The wind was fresh and the shadows of the late afternoon were beginning to creep under her skin. The duck nestled against her stomach, edging his head beneath her breast. He let his eyes close, although they shot open again at any sudden noise — a car door somewhere, a nail-gun across the valley.

The computer sat untouched as she studied the changing terrain of the duck. He was half feathers and half fluff now. His back looked like a carefully landscaped triangle of toetoe planted from his tail and halfway up his spine, yellow tufts that stood up amongst the white fluff when he
was preening himself, as if a wind was gusting across a tussocky headland. His naked chicken wings were almost concealed beneath a curve of new white feathers. His fat dog-waggy tail was a grubby brown.

Didn't you hear me? said the woman. She was playing with the remaining yellow fluff on his head, licking her fingertips to sculpt it into a ridge of mohawk. Punk duck.

What? said the duck.

My mother came home today.

Ah yes, he said. I heard that. You're testing me. I know your mother is dead.

Yes, said the woman. That's true. But she came home. A woman dressed in black arrived on the doorstep holding an orange rose and my mother in a box in a brown paper carry-bag. She came inside and placed the bag on the kitchen floor. The woman had a cup of tea and a gingernut and we talked about Christmas and then she went away. And there Mum was. A bit like you. You arrived in a bag and there you were.

But I wasn't dead.

No. But you were in a carry-bag and you smelt as though you were.

Why did I smell?

You'd come a long way in a car. And stayed overnight in Hamilton. Old poos. But I gave you a bath and cleaned out your straw and stuff, and you were soon as fresh as a daisy.

Does your mother smell?

No. You'll have to meet her. She would have liked you. She always said that after she died she'd like to come back as a seagull.

I'm not a seagull.

I know, but you're a duck.

I don't see the connection.

Well, a seagull is feathery like you, with webbed feet and the same shape, more or less. They fly over the sea.

Why did she like seagulls?

She had this idea that they were free. She wanted to be free. She loved the idea of soaring high on a current of wind and just hanging above the world.

The woman looked at the duck. His head was now cocked to one side, with that inquiring eye. It occurred to her that her mother might have been
reincarnated as a duck. And this duck. There would be an irony in that. Her mother's essential self still held prisoner. Free in a way but bound to her. Her wings still undeveloped. Perhaps it was true that death was not a release but a stopping for a moment until the next time. And then a carrying on from where you left off. And perhaps you were always as you had been then, in an essential way, before you died.

Are you my mother? she asked the duck.

Don't be ridiculous, what are you talking about? I'm a duck. Was your mother a duck, too?

No. She quite liked ducks, though. Yes, she did. We'd go to the park and feed them.

Them?

Yes, lots of them.

Lots? What did you feed them? Snails?

No, bread.

Are there lots of ducks?

Yes, lots. Like me?

Some like you. Some different but the same. But you're an individual. You're one duck.
They
are lots of ducks . . .

The duck was thoughtful for a moment, before he said, Yes. I remember now. Lots of ducks.

And Hannah was taken back in time as well, and she can feel rocks under her feet and hands, the gentle warmth of a cloudy summer's day, and her mother close by with tanned arms and legs, wearing shorts and a flowing blouse. Clambering over boulders. To one side, the sea sloshing around the rock edges; and to the other, grassy cliffs rising to the mottled sky. Back at the campsite on the private farmland, her father is taking care of her baby sister.

They wander on and on, investigating pools and shells and bones until they stumble upon a plump creature with gaping beak crouching amongst the rocks. Her mother is just as puzzled as she is as to what it might be, which compounds the mystery. Her mother, who has the answers to everything, except who made the world and when did the world begin and when will it end. And where does the sky end and what's on the other side. And . . .