The Elusive Language of Ducks

by Judith White

  That’s preposterous! What would I have to be jealous of?

  She heard this but chose to ignore it.

  Let’s run away together, said the duck suddenly. Just you and me.

  Ducko, she said. We can’t do that. Anyway, where would we go? But honestly, I have to head off, now. I’m late.

  I see. So this discussion means nothing to you?

  It does, truly. I’ll come back to it. Remember, I told you about the crows? I have to go.

  Remember what I told you, the duck huffed after her as she made her way up the grass back to the house. All is not as it seems.

  And as much as the rational side of her dismissed this, his words, like feathers from an exploded pillow, floated throughout her day.

  Chapter 12

  CURE BY DEMYSTIFICATION

  Hannah would wake up in the night battling with her logical self. She had always considered herself a reasonable, contemplative person. She imagined the possibility of the overnight educator infiltrating her mind as well as the duck’s.

  She remembered the stories of ducks vacating lakes that they’d inhabited during the year in preparation for the duck-shooting season, and, what’s more, flying to duck sanctuaries where they would be safe. How could they possibly be aware in advance of this man-made licence to kill, the permit to wipe ducks off the face of the Earth? The overnight educator had a finger on the pulse of duck flocks in general. There was something going on, something that defied education or explanation, and she was being vacuumed into it.

  Her mother’s words also haunted her: There’s madness in this family. I think you should know that. I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time.

  Eventually, after a night of skidding on the surface of sleep, she crept out of bed at dawn and settled at the kitchen table with pen and paper to write a letter to Claire, who did not have a computer, let alone email. She felt the occasion warranted a fountain pen and an ink well, but she had to make do with a biro.

  Dear Claire,

  I’ve been meaning for a while to write to you about the duck. And [she hesitates here] to thank you. I have a few questions. It looked like he was going to be a pristine white duck, but he is developing a lumpy red frame around his beak. Is this normal? I’m hoping it’s not cancer. I’m thinking of the Hans Christian Andersen story about the ugly duckling. He’s looking rather scruffy. His head has a furry mohawk of yellow fluff.

  I need to know how much he should eat in a day. Can I overfeed him or will he know when to stop?

  I’m also wondering what happened to his mother and the other ducklings. Simon said you didn’t know for sure, but do you have any idea? Also, what sort of pond do you have? Where do your ducks sleep at night? Do they all huddle together? Do you farm them or are they wild ducks that arrive and leave when the whim takes them?

  Every time I pose a question about the duck, Simon says: well why don’t you just ask Auntie Claire, so here I am, doing just that! Best wishes, Hannah

  A few days later the reply arrived in the post.

  Dear Hannah,

  I am so glad to hear that our duck has helped you come to terms with your dear mother’s demise. After all, she’d had a good innings and you did what you could when the quality of her life was compromised by failing health. Simon admitted to me that he was concerned about your emotional well-being. I know how these things take their toll, and really, dear, sometimes it takes a little distraction to see things as they really are. If your duck ever gets a bit much for you, you know we have a good roasting dish we can send up next time Simon calls in!!!!! And, a fabulous recipe!

  Anyway, dear, your duckling is not a swan but a muscovy duck. Probably a male, from your description of the lumpy red around the beak. Muscovies in general come in a mixture of white, grey, grubby beige, and black. They graze on grass, and ours have a feeder of kibbled corn and pellets which last several days, so no, they don’t just gorge until there’s none left.

  The ducks are really Bob’s territory. He rounds them up at dusk into the covered duck-run — sometimes they escape and potter about at night. Possibly looking for snails or bugs in the moonlight. Apparently they keep together when they sleep, so Bob tells me, and the ones on the outer edge of the group tend to keep an eye open. They keep half their brains awake when they sleep so they’re ready to detect predators. Isn’t that interesting! I didn’t know that until now.

  We don’t have a large pond, but it keeps them happy. Muscovy ducks mate with mallards, but their offspring is infertile. Still good for eating, though. People call them mullards, like a mule to a horse and donkey, I suppose. As long as your duck is getting food it won’t wander.

  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 musc
ovy duck.

  DUCK EXTRAORDINAIRE

  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.

  MUSINGS BY WILLIAM DRAKE

  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

  WAR

  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.

  I DO, BUT NOW I DON’T KNOW

  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 th
ey 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.

  A pear? It says duckling on the menu. Is it a duck or duck-ling? she repeated.

  Oui, Madame, he said. Eet eeza duck leg, oui.

  She looked at Simon. Why did he care whether she had duck or not?

  I’ll have the duck, she said. Her heart flipped. She quaffed a gulp of champagne.

  Good girl, he said. Happy anniversary.

  Indeed the meat was the shape and size of a pear. It was also the shape and size of a little fat duckling. The bone poked perkily from the meat. Decapitated. It was positioned on the plate in a pool of dark juice. Blood.

  How is it? asked Simon, chewing his lamb, a trickle of fat wending its way through his beard and down his chin.

  Fine, she lied. In fact, it was overcooked, falling into sinews like tiny worms.

  Can I try it?

  Sure. Have as much as you like. She stabbed half the meat from the bone and transferred it from her fork across the table to Simon’s plate.

  Hmmm, he said. Hmm, that’s delicious. Isn’t it, hmmm.

  Yes, she said flatly, at that moment hating him. How many years had they been married? No one was married that long these days. Surely, enough was enough.