The Elusive Language of Ducks (28 page)

So, the woman thought, he definitely is a boy, then. She'd always known, but now she knew.

An overwhelming sense of despair settled upon her. She felt responsible for this creature's isolation, his inability to be a fully operational duck, separated from his own kind. The only nourishment she could offer him was a few handfuls of corn. She was crushed by the dysfunctional nature of it all. Once again she'd found herself in the situation of rendering food and shelter to extend the life of another creature that was so lonely and out of kilter with its true self that it might be better off dead.

Afterwards, he gave the impression of being embarrassed, as she made her way past him to the deck. He plodded laboriously up the steps. His demeanour was one of utter despondency. For once, he wouldn't look at her.

Duckie? she said.

He ignored her. On the railing, he attempted a full wash in his water tray. Then he flew down to the pond. She could hear the savage batting of wings against water as he performed his ablutions. Then he stood on the stones preening every feather, as if in an effort to cleanse himself of the whole grubby episode.

Was sex with a towel and a shoe any less meaningful than making love with no hope of procreation? At least it was sparing some poor muscovy female duck the indignity of being conquered by a ferocious brute having his way with her as well as all the others he could jump. There didn't seem to be any satisfaction in it for the female duck, especially if you considered that even Nature was on her side, designing her bits to counter the twirling dervish components of her assailant.

Hannah turned over, thumped her pillow, and drifted back to her fitful sleep, still not reassured.

Hannah surprised the duck by appearing around the corner of the house. She'd been out in the car and she was carrying a huge plastic bag. The duck flew onto the magnolia branch, pacing backwards and forwards, shuddering and huffing, his crest erect.

Ducko, she called. I have something for you. The duck bent his knees and ejected himself from the branch to fly down to greet her, almost toppling as he landed. She had her little black shoes on and he dived for her feet.

Wait, wait, wait, she cried. She dipped into the bag and brought out a fresh, white and fluffy Dacron pillow. She dangled it at his head, then tossed it down in front of him. He jumped on top of it, his beak clamped on a corner, his tail waggling desperately, his eyes glazed.

Ducko, she said, I'd like you to meet Annabel. Your new best friend.

As he soared down from the deck railing, the duck looked as though he could go anywhere. There was nothing stopping him. He'd launch himself from the railing and twirl around the magnolia tree, on his way to South America, or back to his birthplace of Te Awamutu. He'd hear the call of the wild, feel the forces of the changing seasons and join a V-shaped convoy of huffing muscovies heading south. Or north. Or east or west. Wherever.

But in fact it wasn't like that at all.

He'd take off and head towards her in the garden. There was an air of panic about him as he came in to land beside her, his feet tumbling over themselves to prevent his chest and neck hitting the ground. He'd grown into a feathery lump with wings, big hard wings with elbows that clouted her on the side of the head. And he didn't
go
anywhere. He was able to recognise her boundaries, and trusted them as his own.

On the odd occasion, though, he had crashed across the borders in error. Once she was weeding under the feijoa tree by the shed. He flew from the pond towards her and over the tree. There was nowhere to land but in the yard of their back neighbour. She had to rush out of the gate and down the right-of-way and up the path to her neighbours' house. Knocking on the door, with the leaf rake in one hand, she felt that she'd landed inside that Grant Wood Gothic painting, except the pitchfork was a leaf rake and the man wasn't there beside her.

Excuse me, I'm your neighbour and I think my duck is in your backyard.

Oh how cute, you have a duck?! said the woman, with three kids of various heights peering at her in their dressing gowns, freshly bathed and bundled up behind their friendly mother.

Would you like to come in? We were just saying the other day we need to know our neighbours.

Thanks, I'm sorry I'd love to, but . . . he needs to go to bed, before it's dark.

Oh? Of course, said the mother with her brood of children as if that all made perfect sense.

Hannah went around the back of the house and there he was, stomping through a precious vegie patch towards her, grunting and huffing, into the towel she had brought to wrap around him in case he panicked.

The neighbour opened a window and called out.

Ooh, is he safe? He's enormous. What's wrong with his face? It looks like a monkey's bottom. He looks like a vulture.

He's a duck, a muscovy duck. Hannah tried not to be too arch.

A what?

Muscovy. Muscovy duck. Well, a drake, in fact. They're from Mexico.

Oh really, did you bring him over specially?

Hannah escaped with the wrapped-up duck tucked against her body, clutching his wriggling feet through the towel until they quietened — the hands of a frightened child in her grasp. The leaf rake swivelled under her other arm.

What if he strayed again? And what if one of those children had been playing in the backyard with red sandals and soft white feet and bare arms. Would that have set him off?

Even though she was the only person or thing he had attacked so far, she couldn't honestly say that he was safe.

As she climbed back up the public right-of-way behind the hedge, the woman took the opportunity to have the talk she'd been rehearsing for some time.

Ducko, it's time you have to go. You're not happy here and we can't do this anymore.

What do you mean, I have to go? What do you mean, I'm not happy here?

Well, escaping like that.

I didn't escape. I didn't have anywhere else to land. You were hiding beneath the tree. I wanted to be by you. Really, what do you mean: not
happy
here? What have I done now?

You're potentially a dangerous bird. Nothing is the same anymore. The feral in you is boiling under your feathers. Just look at your face.

You're insulting. And that woman in the house. Monkey's bottom, indeed!

I know, that was rude. But anyway, Duckie, the man isn't going to come back until you've gone.

Ah. So that's what it's about. I hate the man. I always knew he had it in for me.

He struggled under her arm through the towel and swung his neck around to peck at her. They were at the top now, in the street. A car went past. He panicked, all bone and dragon-fire and pumping needle-claw feet dragging through the skin of her arm. She managed to unclasp the latch to the gate and contain him long enough to release him onto the steps down the garden path, where he belly-flopped down one step then another, a ball of legs and wings and towel and huff. He spun around and started for her gumboots, but she grabbed the leaf rake and held it between them.

By the front door was another pillow, one of several replica Annabels, planted there for such a situation. She managed to shuffle her way there with the rake between them, and sure enough, all his fervour was immediately directed to Annabel.

Truce. For now.

Chapter 23

Several mornings later, when she was releasing the duck for the day, she discovered a freshly dug tunnel leading from the lawn into the cage. Inside, the ground was scattered with feathers and maize. The duck was unsettled, quivering and side-stepping.

She'd been putting it off, but while the duck was still with her, even temporarily, it was time to do something about his night shelter. It hadn't been satisfactory for some time. He was a perching duck, as Simon had revealed. She'd found images of feral muscovies with their great clawed feet curled around branches in trees. His preference for standing all day along the deck railing or the limbs of the magnolia tree indicated that he liked to be elevated. Apart from that one branch on that tree, there were no other suitable large branches in the trees on their property.

The duck's cage came up to her thigh. There was no room for stretching upright or flapping his wings within this space that had seemed so enormous when Simon had built it for the wee duckling. The duck now had to lower his head to make his way into his bed each night. He was an old man crawling into a hole, his dreams cramped into a matchbox.

So now this latest evidence of a night-time intruder, lured by his food, forced Hannah to act.

She had to force the key into the pitted old keyhole before it would turn. The door opened stiffly and lopsidedly, one of the hinges loosely hanging from its screw in the frame. She emptied the shed, then set to with a broom, bucket and hose, working on the network of spiders' webs that looped and hung from one wall to another. When she was overtaken with a spate of fierce sneezing, the duck, outside amongst the kikuyu grass, stood erect, whinnying.

She gathered Simon's books from the shelf and took them outside onto the plastic matting she'd brought down for the purpose. Back inside, she swished soapy water across the shelves, the workbench and the bench seat beneath it. She hosed it down. She cleaned the sill and window, heaving it open onto the catch. The interior was beginning to smell almost fresh.

As the shed dried in the hot breeze, she positioned herself in the doorway, and one by one she flicked through the books to release their
dust into the air. She wiped each cover with a cloth and slid them in lots into supermarket bags. University textbooks, engineering books, project notebooks. She felt a twist of sadness when she saw her husband's jottings and markings, the highlighting and underlining and diagrams that meant nothing to her. Once again she was reminded of the differences between them. But somehow they had complemented each other. He was a fastidious man; it was evident in his handwriting, small and neat with a gentle slant backwards. He was logical, with a whole world of knowledge filed away neatly inside him. She was dreamy, with everything she had ever known shoved erratically into her attic mind, the stuffing of non-descript old sacks.

Amongst papers and certificates was a letter of her own, written to Simon. It was a loving letter, contemplative, missing him. Her grandmother had just died and Hannah had been accompanying her mother on holiday. Her letter expressed concern about her mother, who, after the years of caring for her own ailing mother, was faced with the sudden emptiness in which the grief for her husband, Hannah's father, was re-visited.

Hannah paused in her reading.
Was
he her father? Did it matter? How much did
knowing
a thing change the subsequent living of a life? Or a life in retrospect? It didn't change the outcome unless a person acted upon the information.

Her mother's thinking and expression had been so woolly towards the end that the statement about Hannah's father was most likely a spasm of nonsense. Hannah asked herself why she should cling to the notion as if it had significance. She could have her DNA tested against Maggie's, but what good would that do? She had no children or grandchildren for whom she had responsibility to pass on genetic information. Whoever her father was, her branch of the family tree stopped right with her. Simon and Hannah Baker.

The final destination.

Terminus. Everybody disembark from here.

The duck had been sitting on his belly peaceably in the shade, his fluffy eyelids closed, but he perked up and waggled his tail when the woman dropped the letter onto her lap.

What's up? he said.

I've just had a thought, she said. I've always thought of you as an orphan. But your father, he's probably still alive. Do you remember him?

My father is a father amongst many fathers, he said. He didn't recognise me as his. There were many fathers, and they all had a part in the killing of my brothers and sisters, once my mother was killed so brutally.