The Elusive Language of Ducks (16 page)

I'm afraid your duck's mother was killed by a predator. Bob came across the remains by the water trough. After she disappeared she left six chicks behind, but your duck was the sole survivor after a few days.

We do farm them here and sell the progeny for food. Muscovy drakes are much sought-after because of their size.

As I sit here looking out the window, I can see Bob coming out of the shed with his axe. One of the roosters has been causing a bit of trouble and needs a bit of a seeing to. As long as Bob does the plucking and the gutting, I'm happy to deal with the rest. Bob's getting a bit fat, I'm afraid I have to say. Never mind. At least he has a good head of hair.

[Claire's own hair hung close to her head, thin and grey, like damp cotton.]

All the best, dear. We're looking forward to coming up to you for Christmas, and there was some talk that we take your duck back with us if you've had enough of it. We're looking forward to seeing how it has fared. Do let us know what we can bring. Roast duck? Just joking, dear. From Claire and Bob

Hannah screwed the letter into her fist, pressed her hips against the kitchen island, fighting for balance. The midday sun poured into the room, stirring leafy shadows around the walls. At that moment Simon walked in, noticed her face.

What's wrong? he said.

Nothing.

You seem upset. What's that you're holding?

I've just received a letter from Claire.

Oh? What's she got to say?

The duck. It's a muscovy.

But we knew that.

No, we didn't. Well, I didn't. You didn't tell me.

You didn't ask. I thought you knew. I thought you knew they kept muscovies.

I knew they kept ducks.

But anyway, what's wrong with muscovies? Does it make any difference?

I don't know anything about muscovy ducks. As it so happens.

Well, why are you upset?

I'm not.

He eased the letter from her hand and took it over to the kitchen bench where he pressed it flat with the heel of his hand. She watched his face as he read. At one point he lifted his eyes; she met his gaze and he pulled
away to continue reading. She could see the busy movement beneath his lids as he absorbed the words. The busy, shifty side-step of his focus.

He folded the letter. I can't see why you'd be upset that your duck is a muscovy. What did you expect? You thought it was a swan?

. . .
sometimes it takes a little distraction,
Hannah quoted archly,
to see things as they really are.

Yes, that was a bit flippant. Yes, a bit . . . well, not very thoughtful. But she was well-meaning. If a bit clumsy.

Oh well, she said.

What? he said. Is that what you're upset about?

What do you think? All this plotting behind my back to take the duck away.

What do you mean — behind your back? It was
mentioned,
that's all. They expressed a willingness, should you want this to happen.

He stepped towards her, his arm outstretched.

Don't be too sensitive, Hannah. People just want to help. Truly. You push everyone away. I don't know what to do anymore.

His hand floated aimlessly as she darted from his reach. I don't need help, she told him as she left the room to do some gardening with the duck. With the muscovy duck.

The thing was, if she were honest, the thing was Hannah hated
knowing
that he was a muscovy duck or
any
sort of duck. She resisted the thought of his being part of a flock or a paddling or a raft or an anything of other ducks. She didn't want him categorised. She didn't want to know whether he was a male or a female. She assumed that he was a male instinctively, and she didn't know or care why. She didn't want to know what he mated with. She didn't want to know anything about him from any other source except her own observation. She didn't want her duck to be anything except the extraordinary creature that he was, whatever or whoever he was. Claire's letter upset her because there was some demystification that she had called for when she had written her own letter, but resisted now that it was here in the crumpled paper on the bench.

Ducko, Ducko, burning bright

In the shadows of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire around thine eyes?

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Chapter 13

The crows were beginning to shuffle back, placing themselves on ledges, in corners, squawking in sombre undertones to each other. To make matters worse, they'd coerced their way into her sleep, greedily pecking at the juicy morsels of her dreams.

And the day was hot and sticky. She sat outside with the computer on the table, with the duck at her feet, trying to work.

The duck was hungry. Not for the maize or the pellets readily available for him in bowls in the grass. He wanted her to go foraging with him. He wanted snails and slugs and cockroaches. To make his point, he started to nibble at her toes, not painfully but annoyingly. Then the nibbling became harder. She moved her leg, but he bit at her calf, viciously.

Oi! Stop it!

He came in again, this time with a hiss, biting hard. Pulling and twisting her skin. It was as if he'd decided to eat her.

Stop it! she shouted. She shoved him away. He hissed again and went for her leg. She batted his chest with the back of her hand — not too hard, but more firmly than before. He stopped, then backed, eyeing her.

This is silly, she said, picking him up. He sat passively on her knee.

What was that all about?

He didn't answer, but settled quietly into her lap while she worked.

Later, she followed silvery trails across the path and collected a handful of snails which she planted around the edge of the pond. The duck wolfed them all up except for a large one he couldn't swallow that subsequently dropped into the water. She dipped her hand in, to retrieve it. He turned on her, hissing and yanking masterfully at the skin on her hand. She tugged away, yelling at him.

Get out! Get out, go away! Go and find your own food in future.

She marched away and up the steps to the deck and into the house.

He made no attempt to pursue her, as he usually would. Quite a while afterwards, when she peered down from the window, she saw him still sloshing around the pond, contentedly slurping around the edges. Normally he'd be sitting under the deck, waiting for her like a dog, wagging his tail when she approached.

It was as if the attack had severed a tie between them. He had chewed his leash and was free. She was free. They were free from each other. Just like that. She imagined the overnight educator had mocked him for being so clingy. He'd finally taken note, taken the plunge, the twenty-five-centimetre jump from the bridge into the sloppy waters of independence. Well, that was fine by her!

She showed Simon the three blood blisters on the back of her hand. She was turning into a boysenberry. It's all over, she told him. The duck and me. We're finished.

Simon looked at her slyly. It just happened to be their wedding anniversary.

About time, he said. Welcome back. And then he added, To the real world.

There'd been a period of a few days at Primrose Hill when her mother had unaccountably turned against her, greeting her coldly when she visited. At first Hannah assumed it would pass, but the following day she was worse.

Go home! Be gone with you! her mother had said dramatically, flicking her purple hand as if Hannah might be a blowfly. Be off with you! Go home.

She decided not to visit over the weekend, but on the Monday her mother was still furious.

Mum, are you angry with me about something?

Indeed I am.

But . . . why? What have I done?

All her mother would say was, as haughtily as she could muster, You know very well.

I think if that is the way you feel, I'd better go home.

Yes, you'd better.

The following day, though, when she arrived at the rest home her mother's face was shiny pink with fear that she might not return. Her eyes sparked with relief to see her. Even now, Hannah wondered what it was she'd heard, or thought she'd heard, that had made her so angry.

Although she'd been aware that the pathways in the darkening mind of
her mother did not always make rational turnings or often arrived at cul de sacs of confusion, and even though she knew that the duck was just a hungry animal expecting food from her and that was that, in both cases their attacks had made her flinch, as if they had each found tender places to pick at, normally concealed.

She kept away from the duck for the rest of the day and he eventually moved back to his place of vigil under the deck. By the time she trudged down to put him in his hutch for the night, he was peaceful. Neither said anything to the other. It was a grumpy truce.

It had been an almost casual decision to marry. They'd been running through busy streets, caught in a warm cloudburst after watching a movie in the city. When they arrived at the car, soaked through, breathless and laughing, they stopped to kiss. Let's get married, said Simon. OK, she said.

They had the wedding a month later on Rangitoto Island. They'd taken the ferry over, Simon in his suit and red bow tie attracting a few bemused glances, not to mention twenty-year-old Maggie who'd shaved her head for the occasion. She'd worn her deliberately-torn black jeans, black jacket with overhanging burnt-orange shoulder pads. Her sulky lips were purple, her eyes rimmed with fat black eye liner. Her boyfriend of the time was bare-armed, in a waistcoat adorned with safety pins, strutting in jeans and newly spiked black hair with a spiral through an eyebrow.

They were an eclectic group clambering through the meandering scoria path to the top of the volcano. Hannah wore shorts and T-shirt for the climb, but threw on a simple white dress when she arrived at the crater's rim. Neither Simon's parents nor his brother had been able to make it from Australia, but her mother and Claire and Bob had braved the ascent in semi-formal attire, grumbling good-naturedly, while all insisting on wearing sensible shoes, ‘wedding or not'. Her mother wore a fuchsia hat with a flimsy wide brim. Hannah could still envisage it fluttering below her like a giant butterfly as she watched her mother make the last leg of the ascent.

They'd invited only six good friends. Their commitment to each other had felt so natural that they believed it was destined to be. It had seemed unreasonable to make a fuss, though they'd written their own words for the ceremony, which was officiated by a fresh-faced university chaplain. The weather had been spectacular. Blue skies, blue sea, and a view of the ocean and islands and city all around.

Hannah had just finished her studies and Simon took time off work. They'd rushed away three days later for five weeks' bone-numbing trekking in Nepal.

So now, twenty-five years later, they were out for dinner to celebrate their anniversary.

You look nice, Simon said. Is that new?

She didn't answer. She would rather not admit that she was wearing an elegant black dress that used to belong to her mother.

And as they contemplated the menu, of course she was confronted by duck. A crispy duckling on a kumara mash with a jus de plum.

Go on, said Simon. Go on.

Duckling, she said. It's not even duck.
Duckling,
it says.

She thought back to the yellow pom-pom on her shoulder, nestling itself into her hair. It wasn't so long ago.

Meat, said Simon. Go on. I know you want to.

No, she didn't. She pressed the blister on the back of her hand with her thumb. It was actually bruised, quite sore.

The waiter was French. She questioned him about the duck. Whether it was a big duck or a baby duck. He told her that eet eeza drumstick, comme une poire, a pear, Madame. Oui. The size of. The shape of. A pear. Oui.