The Elusive Language of Ducks

by Judith White

  She sat eating another piece of toast and salmon, shifting her bottom uncomfortably over the cold damp ground. Each blade of the grass around her looked recently polished. The duck jumped from the pillow and waddled to the pond where he started his post-coital ablutions, water spraying everywhere, leaving a shattered necklace of pearly drops on the agave leaves.

  Ducko?

  She tossed him a crust. He ignored her.

  About last night.

  He dug busily into his self, his beak clamping on and swishing each feather from bottom to top, every single feather receiving his attention in an efficient matter-of-fact sort of way. He was a parent slicking the hair of all his uncomplaining children.

  The mash. I’ve thought about it and we’re not going to do that now. It’s not fair on either you or my mother.

  Now the uropygial gland again, now the wings. There was nothing he didn’t know. All the clues imparted to him by the sensible overnight educator. If only she had such a mentor.

  We’re going to take you to Te Awamutu. There will be attractive white muscovy ducks there, truly gorgeous ducks there, and I’m talking about actual ducks, not drakes. And there’s a pond there, a much bigger pond than here, a pond with dragonflies and frogs and bulrushes, and a sweeping lawn where you can lie with your friends in the sun, and many trees with fat curling branches where you can perch if you so desire. And natural hideouts amongst the bushes where you can shelter. There will be lots of you, and you can sleep with your furry eyelids closed because you won’t have to be the only one constantly on the look-out for predators. At night you can all traipse into an enclosure protected with a high wire fence. And there’ll be puddles teeming with worms, and also cicadas and crickets and cockroaches everywhere in abundance.

  He stretched and spread his wings.

  You might need to talk to your overnight educator about how to behave with your special white duck. Or ducks, as the case may be. Lovely moving Annabels with wings and legs. And other curly inside bits . . . that pillows don’t have.

  And now his head rubbing nonchalantly on his back, his crest high.

  I must say, Ducko, you are looking extraordinarily handsome yourself. Your plumage is at its best. Every feather in its place, as smooth as the egg you came from. Lovely patterned pebbly grey on white. And your juicy crimson beak knobble, just ripe for the picking. You’d be the beau of any ball. The grand drake of the paddock. If I were a duck myself . . .

  He cocked his head suddenly, his eye bright.

  I’m going to miss you, Duckie.

  He lifted his claws and furiously scratched the back of his head, then edged around the pond, away from her, cutting through the day lilies and across the lawn, where he started munching on dandelion leaves.

  Well, anyway, she called. Tomorrow, OK? Don’t say I didn’t tell you.

  VIGIL

  And when night fell, after the duck was in bed in his hotel, she curled up into the armchair in the room with Toby, still clothed, because the dark held so many uncertainties. Because if the Earth burst into smithereens she did not want to be alone. Because, if the Earth stayed intact, she was frightened that Toby might be dying and she felt that, if she were there, she’d be able to prevent such a thing happening, in the way that a woman could stand at the edge of a dense forest, calling her loved ones back home.

  In the small still hours of the night she woke up from her dozing to hear him groan, then shift heavily around in the bed, patting the sheets. Then the darker shape of his body rose from the gloom.

  Maggs? he mumbled.

  Toby, Toby. Her dislocated whispering filled the room. Maggie’s not here.

  What the hell! Who are you? What’s going on?

  Ssssh, Toby, it’s me, Hannah. Sorry, sorry.

  Hannah, what the fuck? What am I . . .?

  She jumped from the chair and turned on the light, to see him withering from the glare, his arm shielding his eyes.

  Turn it off, turn it off.

  So she did. Stood hesitantly by the door.

  What’s going on, Hannah? What are you doing here?

  I’m sorry. I was . . . concerned about you. I’ll go now.

  Go? Where will you go?

  To my own bed.

  Where’s Maggie?

  In Christchurch.

  Oh yeah. Of course, of course. Yeah yeah yeah. God. OK. Heck. I’d kill for a glass of water.

  She moved to the drawers by his bed, feeling for the glass she’d left there earlier. Their spider fingers touched in the dark as she placed the glass in his hand.

  He drank, burped loudly, and bumped the glass onto the bedside table.

  Ta. Yern angel.

  Then he flopped down again under the covers. Shortly afterwards she could hear that he was asleep. She refilled the glass from the jug, then dragged herself up the stairs to the pristine white bedroom that she had prepared for Simon’s homecoming.

  Chapter 27

  A MILLION QUESTIONS FROM THE BOX

  It was another two days before they managed to set off with the blindfolded duck enclosed in the cardboard box on the back seat of her car. Hannah sat with her hand resting in the box, like a child feeling for a lucky dip.

  The sock over the duck’s eyes had sent him into a sleepy, albeit reluctant trance. Her palm cupped under his beak seemed to soothe him. If she took her hand away he’d panic, scrabbling noisily round the box that was just big enough to contain him. It was reassuring that he trusted her enough to feel pacified by her. Nonetheless, or even because of this, she felt treacherous. This time, the operation to coerce — no . . . capture and force him into the box — was planned and neatly managed, with Toby clasping the duck’s wriggling body at arm’s length as she manoeuvred the sock over the head. Toby then helped by holding the box and closing the lid. She could hear workmen across the valley dismantling a house, hammering and smashing, crashing building materials into a bin. The afternoon echoed with the sound. She imagined birds in the trees nearby, and on the roof, cocking their heads accusingly. She was the cat that had finally, inevitably, pounced.

  It’s OK, Ducko, she whispered into the box, it’s OK.

  But it wasn’t.

  Toby drove silently. She could see the profile of his intent face as he drove, the sharp triangle of nose, his cheek drawn, his thin lips tight. How many millions of years ago since he had arrived on her doorstep, sleeping and sleeping from the evil fairy’s spinning needle as creepers enveloped their house, enfolding them all into a silent pocket of breath-held time? How many millions of years since the Earth had found its boiling orbit around the sun? How many million years since ducks waddled the Earth as dinosaurs? And how many millions of ducks had arrived and left the planet since the first one? Hatched into ducklings and died amongst the teeth and slimy tongue of whatever predator? And this one, this stupid duck, this drake? Nature’s miracle of perfectly designed feathering-up, and the overnight educator. What was the significance of the ridiculous regret and grief mangling her heart? In the big picture, what did anything mean?

  She had rung Claire to say they were coming. And don’t you think, she had cautiously suggested to Toby on the third day, that it might be a good idea to tell Maggie where you are? He had shrugged and agreed, and taken the phone she had offered into the garden. His phone, he’d told her, he’d deliberately left behind. She had watched him pacing below, kicking nonchalantly at stones around the pond as he spoke in low tones, his skinny back soaking up the weakening sun. And once inside, he had returned the phone to her hand without a word, slipping away to the bedroom. When she peeped later he was lying on the unmade bed with his hands behind his head. Her nightdress, she noted, was still hanging from beneath the pillow.

  Everything all right? she’d asked, venturing to the end of the bed.

  You could say my wife is somewhat pissed off. We’d better get that duck on the road.

  His gaze had slid towards her, then back again to the blank white page of the ceiling above.

 
Did you know, she said to Toby as they drove, that muscovy ducks actually originated from Brazil? In the 1500s Spanish conquistadors found wild ones rounded up for food in Indian villages. And the Spanish and Portuguese took them to Europe where they became a popular table bird. Now they’re established in Mexico and other parts of South America.

  Encyclopaedia Brit-hannah-ca, he replied.

  She lifted the lid with her free hand. Hello, Ducko. You OK? she whispered. He shifted uneasily. His beak hot. Before they left the car, when they arrived, she would enclose her fingers around a small cloud of his warm breath and place it in her pocket.

  Love is a very bewildering thing, she sighed.

  Auntie Hannah. Don’t start. At the moment, love is rather stern and unforgiving. Once we get this duck in its right and proper place, we might be able to see things clearly.

  Muscovies tend not to migrate like geese and other fowl, she added.

  She had checked this as she entertained the idea of her duck returning north, landing one day unannounced in the back garden, battered and forlorn, lumbering up the steps to the deck, huffing and houghing at the window, to greet her.

  THE CRUNCH

  Already. Already she was missing him.

  Claire was crunching her way over the stony driveway to greet them, her face now at the car window, so pleased to see them, so pleased that Hannah had finally come to her senses. Toby climbed out and stretched and lit a cigarette, jiggling from foot to foot. He’d met Claire at Christmas, and they brushed cheeks awkwardly, his cigarette held out from his arm like a smouldering wing, a light plane ready to crash. Hannah wound down the window. Hi hi hi, she’d called. Her hand still in the box that had become a cumbersome appendage, a growth that needed amputation. I’ll be out in a minute. She eased her arm away. The box erupted. She pressed the lid down, covered it with a towel. Claire opened the car door. Clean brown trousers sitting loosely on her hips, earthy coloured blouse and a dark green cardigan covering her flat bottom. She was in her outdoor camouflage suit. Her grey hair flat and straight around her face as she leaned in. The air was cool, smelled sweetly of cows. Somewhere the grumbling of a tractor, and dogs barking.

  Hannah refused help as she slid from the car cradling the bumping box.

  Come and have a cup of tea.

  The porch was cluttered with dusty macramé hangings, a forest of dangling pot plants, and a vine of kumara leaves climbing aimlessly around the walls. A river of ants wound through grime along the window sill. Boxes of shoes and gumboots, umbrellas. Stiff raincoats bound by cobwebs huddled in a corner.

  Leave the box in the porch and we’ll have a cuppa and scones before we introduce him around.

  Oh, um, Claire, would it be all right if I kept the box with me until we take him to the . . . his hotel, or wherever it is he’s going?

  Hotel? That’s funny, dear. Well, yes, I suppose you can, as long as he’ll stay put.

  So Hannah sat on the floral sofa with the worn velvet cushions and managed to drink a cup of tea with the box on her knee, choosing the smallest scone with a pond of jam in the centre of a dollop of whipped cream. The house smelt cosily of slowly cooking meat. On the mantelpiece was a framed black-and-white photo of Bob and Claire on their wedding day, the stereotypical bride and groom, tightly clasping hands as they stood on the steps of a church, their smiling faces squinting from the glare of . . . what? The sun? The realisation of their lives together, stretching interminably ahead of them? And here they are, another childless pair, surrounded by ducks. They had done better than she with their brood. And now the sun was just dipping behind a bank of trees, sending an image of glowing stripes through the venetian blinds onto the wall.

  She could see Toby, who had managed to avoid the afternoon tea, pacing around the lawn, smoking another cigarette. Beyond him, behind a bed of dahlias and an electric fence, a paddock rolled down to a wooden shed under a stand of macrocarpa. And she could see white ducks and chooks casually drifting around, beneath the trees. There was a cutting that she assumed was a stream wending around the bottom of the paddock.

  Indistinguishable tones of a radio came from somewhere in the house. Claire was talking to her, and a part of her was answering perfunctorily, about the weather, about the bruise fading around her eye, about Japan, and Christchurch and how was Simon (he’ll be pleased the duck is coming back, dear), about whether the light was bothering her and did she want the blinds closed and, oh yes, the joke about whether they were going to have duck for dinner.

  Perhaps, Hannah said, shifting the box on her knees, it might be better to take him to where he’s going to sleep tonight, before it gets dark. He’s getting restless.

  Claire stood up, holding out her hand for Hannah’s cup and saucer, noting the unfinished scone left on the plate.

  And Toby, too, seems restless, Claire said with a knowing air, nodding her head towards the window. A shiny tip of tongue was trapped between her mussel lips, something sneaking its way out, forcing itself to be said. Then suddenly she stooped to Hannah who was trying to stand up without upsetting the duck in the box.

  I hope, dear, that there’s nothing going on between you and Toby, is there? She spoke so quietly that Hannah wondered whether she had imagined the words. It’s just that you haven’t kept your eyes off him all afternoon. You mean the world to Simon, you know. It would break his heart. He hasn’t had an easy life, you know.

  If Hannah’s arms hadn’t been full of box she would have swiped the woman. Well she wouldn’t have, but she felt like it. She had a ridiculous thought that she was being punished for not eating the scone.

  What do you mean, she said guardedly, ‘hasn’t had an easy life’? It’s been roses, actually. We’ve been blessed with all the good things, to tell you the truth. Though right now, she couldn’t for the life of her think of any of them.

  All that baby business. Terrible for him. He’s such a dear boy.

  A whip of anger flicked through Hannah’s chest.

  Look, Claire, this duck needs to be settled before nightfall.

  I thought you were arriving earlier. You said you would. Well, you said yesterday. We were ready for you yesterday.

  I’m sorry, things don’t always go to plan. She didn’t tell Claire that Toby hadn’t crawled out of bed until after midday today.

  Well, I’m not going to be party to this. I’ve prepared separate bedrooms.

  Hannah spun around, spinning the duck across the box, which set him scrabbling once more. She propped the box between her chin and her knee and opened the door to the porch. Down the steps and around the car to the lawn where she’d seen Toby smoking. She found him by the macrocarpas talking to Bob. Toby the city boy in his neat jacket, Bob all crazy hair and open shirt, sleeves pushed up past his elephant-trunk elbows. Grubby jeans bunched into gumboots.

  Well, here she is, said Bob. A box of birds.

  He moved around the box to kiss her cheek, his skin cold, his cheek plump and prickly and smelling of poisonous farm-crisp air.

  So what have we got here? Let’s have a look at it. He reached out to take the box from her, but she swerved away from him. Their voices and the movement caused the duck once more to shamble from side to side.

  No, I’m sorry, Bob, we’re not leaving him here now. Or ever.

  She could feel Toby’s disbelief as he searched her face.

  Please, Toby, can we go now. Right now. I’m not leaving my duck here.

  Just a minute, Hannah, said Toby. He took her arm firmly. Excuse us a minute, Bob.

  Sure, mate, sure.

  Toby led her quickly up the paddock away from Bob, the pens, the trees, the house. At the top of the rise they came to a stile, which led to another paddock. Toby climbed over and she passed the box to his open arms before she, too, clambered over. They sat down in a sunny patch of grass, the box placed between them.

  Right, he said firmly, his arms folded, his hands delving under his jacket. You’ve really thrown a Hannah in the works. Spill. What’s up?<
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  I can’t stand it, she said, and she started to cry into her hands. She was going to have a nervous breakdown, right here and now in this paddock, this very place where her duck had been born and this was where she was finally going to totally disintegrate. Then she stopped, her fury swallowing the snivelling mouse of her self-pity. All the jigsaw particles of an eggshell flying back into place. If she started now she would never ever stop. Here was not the place.

  Hannah, he said, binding himself tightly with his arms across his stomach, rocking back and forth, back and forth. A stick insect in an unseen wind. It’s normal that you should feel this way. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But we have to go through with it.

  She tugged the towel from the box, then opened the flaps, tipped it on its side. The duck tumbled his ungainly entrance along the cardboard catwalk into his birthplace.

  We don’t actually, she said.

  If we don’t now, when?

  Never.

  She pulled the duck towards her, slipping fingers along his neck, feeling his busy blinking eyes as she flipped the sock from his beak. They watched as he stood in the grass with the sun lowering itself from twig to twig in the trees above the hillside where they sat. Shadows slunk on haunches towards them and the duck stood, rigid, his mouth hanging open. His world had disappeared. To be replaced by sky and shadows and smells and grass unknown. Duckie, she said, and she reached forward, manoeuvring him onto her lap. He stayed there, houghing, his claws piercing her thighs, his neck pumping, testing this foreign air on his tongue.

  We need to get him down before night falls, don’t you think? said Toby.

  Look, he’s petrified, she said.

  Hannah, he said. I can’t drive back tonight. I’m knackered.

  I’ll drive.

  You’d need to be with the duck to keep him in check. Why, what’s happening? What brought this on?