The Elusive Language of Ducks (40 page)

But it was Dennis's baby? she asked, reaching to place the bag back on the shelf.

No, mine. Well, actually we never really determined. But probably mine, so far as the timing was concerned. We were young. She was my first girlfriend. Probably my only
real
one before you. Her mother was Vietnamese. Her father had been over there as a journalist. Tuyen. They escaped the war, and look what happened. That's the tragic irony. We didn't even know she was pregnant when we broke up. It was such a mess. Dennis loved her. I loved her. She had to choose and she chose him. And then, when we found she was pregnant, Dennis didn't want to have anything to do with her, so she sort of returned to me, but it felt wrong because I knew she wanted to be with him. But then the baby — a little girl — was born with no eyes, and other things were wrong, not sure what. Internal. Wouldn't feed. Two eyeless sockets, two little banana-shaped bowls lined with skin. I can still see them.

He closed his own eyes for a second, his thumb and finger pinching the bridge of his nose.

The baby died three days later. We handled it badly. Both Dennis and I kept away after she died, and my excuse was that before this had happened, Tuyen had chosen Dennis. Well, that's not altogether true, I did visit her at her home a couple of times, and took her flowers. But I was formal, polite. I had nothing to say. I didn't realise how it was affecting her. But anyway, we were young, too young to settle down. I
regret it so much. I could have been more . . . compassionate. We were young but that's not an excuse. And then . . . later, a couple of months later, Tuyen jumped from a bridge.

His legs folded. He stabilised himself against the shed wall, before dropping to sit on the bench. So, there you go, he sighed, absentmindedly picking up a downy feather that had settled on a wall ledge, his fingers intent on smoothing out the explosion of fluff at its base, over and over. Hannah watched him. She loved those smokey-breath feathers. It must have flown high into the air when the duck stretched and flapped his wings, redistributing everything in the shed. Simon flicked it aside and looked up at her. She stooped to pluck up the feather as it drifted to the floor.

He told her that ever since he had told the story to Maggie, he'd been constantly reliving that period of his life. And then, the duck. Hannah's connection with it made him feel doubly distraught. He could see how her biological need to have a child had transferred itself to mothering the duck. He had robbed her of that as well.

So all this happened before the mumps?

No. My infertility was a conscious act on my part. I finally found a doctor who would give me a vasectomy. I didn't have mumps. Well I did, but they didn't make me infertile. As I said, I fully intended to tell you everything from the beginning, but every time I tried, I couldn't. So then . . . the mumps story. And then it was too late. I told myself that it wouldn't have changed anything anyway. The story had been dead for too long to unearth. But somehow Maggie and I managed to do that quite recklessly over the mix of gin and champagne on the night of your mother's funeral. But of course I didn't tell the person who needed to know. The person I had a duty to tell. And then, then I brought that duck home . . . Heaven help us — who could have guessed the feelings that
that
boiled up in the laboratory. That my up-until-then perfectly sensible wife would become infatuated with a
duck.
And for me, the duck seemed to personify my dead baby, haunting me. It was the last straw. Yet again, I felt accountable. I was the one who'd brought it to you. I've failed you in many ways.

They both sighed, Simon blowing his cheeks out like a spent trumpeter.

Oh well, said Hannah. If only the duck knew the things we attributed
to him. He's woken us up a bit, that's for sure.

Simon heaved his body, the extraordinary weight of his body, up from the bench.

Well, there you go, he said once more.

She stepped down from the shed, with Simon following. The trees were filled with the chatter of birds: clucks and clicks and burbles, looped together with long sighing whistles. It sounded like a busy conference, earnest and urgent. She wondered what they were saying and whether the different species of birds were making any sense of each other. She wondered whether they noticed that the duck had disappeared since she and Toby had forced him into a box, and whether this influenced their attitude towards her. She thought of the crows that she once used as symbols for the pressure of her work. She had shot them all, turning down the last couple of contracts. She had dismissed the outside world and pulled herself away.

And now, the release of this ancient secret preserved in formalin, in a jar whose lid was so corroded that when Simon brought it out to Maggie that night, the lid had crumbled in the unscrewing. The contents had been leaking all over the place ever since.

As they made their uncertain way across the lawn towards the house, she stopped, turning to grab Simon's arm.

Listen, she said.

What?

Listen! She shook his arm excitedly. It's the duck! He's returned! He's come back to us.

Simon's face dropped with disbelief as he, too, recognised the unmistakable tones of a particular whiny sound that the duck often made. They both shifted their heads to ascertain the direction. Not the deck, not the grass. The tree. He was in the magnolia tree. But wait.

It's a tui! said Simon, and his voice couldn't hide his relief. It's mimicking the duck.

And he was right. They could just see the silhouette of a tui with its curly white beard hopping amongst the branches.

At that moment, the hedge shuddered and two little figures pushed through, followed by Sheila with her ropey fountain of hair shooting from her head.

Hi, she called. I thought I heard voices. Hey Simon, good to see you. Hannah, I thought you'd like an update about Dad. He said to thank you for the flowers and your note.

Rosemary ran towards them. Where's the chicken? she asked Hannah shyly. One eye was screwed up tightly against the sun, pulling her face into a lopsided grimace. Max was racing towards the pond.

Not chicken, she said. Duck. Muscovy duck. And he's not here.

Where is he?

He's . . . he's been taken to a circus. Where there are other ducks to play with.

Oh, that's a load off my mind, said Sheila. I was worried that if we were going to be around he might be a problem. Having seen him in action. Dad's coming home in a week or so. They're still doing some assessment and rehabilitation, but mainly it's a matter of getting his medication right. He was supposed to be taking pills regularly but he wouldn't, until he felt unwell and then he'd take a heap. So anyway, we're going to move in with him for a while. We want to buy a house, so this'll save us rent and we can keep an eye on Dad. Just for a few months or so, or a year, till he's right. Or not right, whatever the case.

There was a splash and a yelp: Max had fallen into the pond. He was sitting with the water up to his waist, jiggling with a flashing whir of orange, using his chin and jerking fingers in an attempt to restrain the flapping goldfish until it sploshed back to the water.

Did you see that! he cried to his mother as she dashed to his aid. I caught it!

His face was beaming with triumph. He climbed onto the bridge, spreading his tanned little arms proudly, his cotton shirt stuck to his body, his shorts festooned with loops of green slime.

No, cried Sheila.
Don't
jump in again. Look, you're soaking wet. Really, that pond should be fenced. Rosemary!
Rosemary,
what are you doing? Come out of that coop at once!

The chicken's gone, Rosemary announced, crawling out of the old cage still lodged on the lawn, her knees and pink dress streaked with mucky mud.

Look
at you. Oh no,
look
at you!

The garden was invaded.

Simon turned and trudged up the steps to the deck. Sheila managed to gather the children together — Rosemary, grubby, on her hip, and Max, dripping, ensnared by her hand tightly over his — and they all disappeared through the hedge as the aftermath of the whirlwind was still fluttering to Earth.

Hannah stayed in the garden, listening to the birds, feeling the warmth of the autumn sun soaking into her hair. She had a sense of unease. She sieved through her mind, but whenever she felt near to hooking the source of her disquiet, it flipped away from her as adeptly as the goldfish had escaped Max's bumbling fingers.

Silence knitting its sticky web into every corner. They were two souls echoing off the walls, doubtful now as to how to
be
with each other. All the elements of their relationship in chaos, while each pretending that they were relieved to be home-and-hosed in the old status quo. They were wearing the same faded masks, the same tatty costumes. They danced the steps they had been practising since they first met, while each was taunted by the intolerable monotony of the tune.

When Eric was discharged from hospital a couple of weeks later, Hannah visited him formally, knocking at the front door with muffins she had baked. She was nervous. She'd chosen her clothes carefully, changing twice before deciding. Sheila let her in, shepherded her towards the kitchen. He's better than he was, she told Hannah, but he's still not quite himself.

Why, after more than a decade, was she thrown back to the time when they had talked and laughed and teased each other so freely, when he had played his cello to her in this kitchen as she fried bacon and eggs? Perhaps it was those words spontaneously released as he lay beside her in the grass by the hedge. And now he was sitting in a chair with his back to the window as she entered, his face hidden by a magazine he was reading, held up to catch the light.

Visitor, Dad, said Sheila, popping her head around the corner before she left them. He snapped down a page, and there he was, an old man, his skin too loose, and his cheeks puffs of soft pink. And the image was dispelled.

Hello, she said, placing the muffins in front of him. It's good to have you back.

He put his magazine down, and pulled his chair up to the table.

And yes, he was gruff but, thank goodness, friendly and beguilingly shy.

She sat across from him. You've been through a rough patch.

I believe I owe you an apology . . .

Not at all. I'm glad you're feeling better. She looked around the clean kitchen. All his jars of screws and small bowls of oddments, and bundles of accounts shoved behind bottles and appliances, had been tidied away. A bowl of fruit gleamed in a ray of sunlight. She noticed a single walnut amongst the feijoas, bananas, kiwifruit. Crayon and felt-pen drawings were stuck with magnets onto the fridge.

I was just thinking . . . I haven't heard your cello or the fiddle for a while.

Nah. They're gathering dust. Like everything else.

I miss the music, she told him.

Little strokes, he said.

What do you mean?

Little strokes. Little soft strokes.

Oh? She remembered how his hand had lifted through her hair, his fingers on the back of her neck.

He nodded slowly. Yep. That's what they said. Little strokes building up.

Oh. You mean, what they said in the hospital?

Thanks for the cakes, he said. She could hear the muffled thunder of kids running through the house, the squealing of voices, an eruption of wailing. The house reviving itself with the energy of young life again.

I'd better go, she said. But I just wanted to say hello. That's all.

Thank you, he said. A single tear suddenly burst from his eye and flowed down his face.

Eric, she said gently. Are you all right? What's wrong?

I'm hungry, he said.

She suggested he have an apple, or a banana, or a feijoa. What about a muffin? I'll butter one for you. Baked this morning. But he ignored her.

I'm hungry, he repeated. They don't feed you here.

He stared at her. Then he reached his hand across the table and clutched her forearm tightly, giving it a brief shake, as if to check for life. Her own eyes welled. Retrieving her arm, she stood up, stepping on a green plastic car in the process. She had to grab the table to prevent herself from skidding across the room.

Ooops, she said, and they both laughed.

Hope you had a good trip, he said, his voice unexpectedly lifting.

See you later, alligator. She blew him a kiss from the door as she left the kitchen and let herself out of the house.

I'm just over half a century old, thought Hannah as she lay in the dark next to her husband.

Her mother had been seventy-nine when she died. If she lived as long, she had another twenty-eight years to fill in. All those years drifting before her as empty as a balloon. More than half the length of her life again. What would she do with the time? She couldn't think of one thing to do. She didn't have one thing left to say. Or anyone to say it to.

Simon was unmoving beside her. He was awake, his back bent away from her. He was a man lost in the snow, curled around the burning embers of a fire that was eating him inside out. She let him lie there. She was glad he was suffering. As it happened, so was she.

She slipped from the bedclothes and went downstairs, opening the ranch sliders to stand in the centre of the deck, her arms folded across her breasts for warmth. Far away from here, a large muscovy duck was huddled alone in a forty-four-gallon drum, his feathery eyelids opening and closing, opening and closing as the unfamiliar noises rustled and squeaked and sighed and mooed and barked around him. And whose eye would he look for in the daytime, now that she wasn't there? He would have no vital connection any more. No recognition. How could she have betrayed him so?

Several times she had rung, only to be assured by both Bob and Claire that he was doing well. He'd gone off his food a little the first few days, but was now eating the mash that Bob was putting out for him, and the supply of wheat she had left. As far as Annabel was concerned, she was told, there was no point, if he was to start responding to the ducks, the females. The drakes had noticed him, though, and had done a bit of pacing along the wire netting.