Lessons From Ducks (24 page)

Chapter thirty one

“A simple coffee, at a cafe?” His voice was desperate. Anna had already turned down, in no particular order, dinner, the movies, and a home cooked meal at his house, although he couldn’t blame her for not being overly keen on that last option.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? No is a fairly self explanatory word. It’s as basic as they come. Any three year old could tell you the meaning of it.”

“There you go again, insulting my vocabulary.”

Anna sighed. “I’m not insulting anything. I’m merely confused as to why you keep questioning my decision.”

“Because it’s a stupid decision, that’s why.”

“So now you’re insulting my decision making skills?”

“You better believe I am.” He lowered his voice and turned his back on a young couple walking hand in hand past him up the cereal aisle. He’d called Anna from the supermarket to propose a date for that night. The last thing he’d been expecting was a response in the negative. “I don’t understand. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” She took her frustration out on an ant trailing across the bench top carrying a crumb three times its own size. Squish went her thumb. Then she immediately felt awful. After all it was hardly the ants fault. “But I don’t want to discuss it anymore. Look, Matt, you’re a nice guy, and your son is delightful. But there’s just no room in my life for any kind of, -” she floundered, trying to think of an alternative word to the only one that came to mind. She failed. “Relationship,” she finished reluctantly.

“No room?”

“No room.”

“Anna, I’ll admit I haven’t known you all that long. But it seems to me all you do is work and garden. How can there not be room for a couple of dates in amongst there? Or am I missing something.”

“What I do in my spare time is none of your business. Now if you’re done, I need to go now.”

“No I’m not done. You’re going have to be a bit more explicit. I thought we were getting on great, I thought you enjoyed the kiss as much as I did. I assumed, wrongly it seems, that we might be at the start of something here,”

“Matt, you’re making too much of a big deal of things. We barely know each other for goodness sakes. I’m just not interested in taking things any further, and I think it’s best if Oscar stops coming over. Buddy is becoming too domesticated. I plan on introducing him to the wild soon.”

“By the wild I take it you mean your garden?”

“Yes.”

Matt sucked in a breath and let it out again in one long, confused, exhale. The young couple turned to look at him and he scowled at them. They moved quickly away.

“So, if I understand this correctly, you don’t want to see either me
or
Oscar anymore?”

“Correct.” Anna felt a pang when she said this, and the thought of Oscars sad little face at being cut off from Buddy nearly made her change her mind, but then she caught sight of Tim’s jandals by the back door and her resolve strengthened.

“Was it something I did?”

“No.”

Something
he
did?”

“Definitely not.”

A thought came to Matt. “Oh.”

“What?”

“Is it…because of, you know-?”

Anna was slow on the uptake. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You know, what happened, to your husband and kid.”

Anna sagged against the counter top. So he
did
know. “Goodbye Matt. Feed Oscar properly and make sure you tell him how much he’s loved each night. Please don’t contact me again.”

And she hung up.

Matt stared at the flashing screen.
Call ended,
it mocked him. He considered calling her back but her voice had become angry with the mention of her family, and he thought the best thing he could probably do right now was to give her some space. Any other woman and he would probably decide at this point that she wasn’t worth the grief and cut his losses.

After a few dayshe sent her a text message. She didn’t reply. He sent her a bunch of flowers, the nice ones from the florist, not the cheap ones from the supermarket. He attached a card that said,
‘
I’m sorry. Can we meet to talk things through? Venue of your selection and time of your choice.’

He assumed she got them, he’d paid five dollars extra for them to be delivered, but still he heard nothing. He started to feel annoyed. Ok, maybe it was as simple as her deciding he just wasn’t her type. Fair enough. He could live with that. But the very least she could do was tell him that and put him out of his misery. The worse part about the whole thing was Oscar. The boy couldn’t understand why he suddenly was no longer welcome at Anna’s, and at the breakfast table he was filled with questions that Matt had no answer for.

“Doesn’t she like us anymore?”

Matt winced with his back turned to Oscar. It was heartbreaking. “Of course she does. Well, you anyway. Me, I’m not so sure.”

“Did I do something to upset her dad?”

“Definitely not.”

“Was it because you kissed her?”

“Maybe. “

“Did you do it wrong?”

Matt choked on his coffee. When he could speak again he smiled at his son and reached out to ruffle his hair. “I don’t think so, but who knows. Maybe look it up in the library next time you’re there.”

Oscar didn’t laugh.

Matt sat down at the table put his arm around Oscar’s shoulders, pulling him in close. “Look, I don’t know why Anna doesn’t want to see us right now. But I
can
tell you that she’s had some pretty, -” he searched for the right word and remembered something the reverend had said, “tragic things happen in her life. She may just need a bit of time.”

“You mean like what happened to nana, don’t you.”

“How did you know that?”

Oscar shrugged. “Something Anna said.”

“It’s not exactly like what happened to your grandmother. We had time to say our goodbyes to her. When someone gets sick and then dies, at least you have a little bit of time to come to terms with what’s happening. You can say the things you need to say. With Anna’s family, she didn’t get that chance.”

“That’s sad.”

“I know,” he squeezed his son tighter. “It really is.”

Chapter thirty two

Work, while never satisfying, had become unbearable. Anna felt stifled at her desk, like she was shackled there. Every time the front doors opened the breeze would reach in to touch her with its soft, delicate fingers. It smelt of the big outdoors, warm currents that smelt of the muddy river and traces of salt that had come from the sea. It was delicious, and on more than one occasion she found she had risen off her seat and was half way to the door, her nose lifted to the breeze, her hands already reaching to peel the constricting polyester shirt off her back.

“Anna?” one of the other ladies would say, snapping her from her trance.

And she would return to her seat, feeling sweat glue her stockings to her legs, and dream of escaping this hellhole once and for all.

Her phone rang and she recognised the number as Matt’s. She ignored it. It stopped ringing after six rings when the answering machine picked up. Ten seconds later it started ringing again, the number his again. Anna busied herself on her computer as if she couldn’t hear it.

“Aren’t you going to get that Anna?” Judy snapped from her desk when it rang for the third time.

“What? Oh the phone? No, I wasn’t planning on it.” She didn’t tell Judy it was a personal call, letting her assume that Anna was ignoring a potential customer. She just couldn’t be bothered anymore, not with Judy and not with this place.

“I guess you’d like a written warning to go with that verbal one then.”

“What?”

“Don’t think because Hedley saved you that your job is safe. It just means it’ll take a little longer to get rid of you than I’d thought.”

Anna swivelled in her chair to look at Judy. Her fluffy blond helmet of hair gave Anna an idea. She swivelled back to her computer and did a quick google search.

“You know Judy,” she said. “I’ve been trying to Keep the Faith, but honestly, sometimes I just feel Shot through the Heart.”

She heard Louise snort.

“What are you on about?” Judy snapped.

“I mean, I know this job can’t always be a Bed of Roses, but lately I feel really Misunderstood, you know?”

“No I don’t know. You’re talking crap, as usual.”

“It’s ok Anna,” Holly piped up from her desk, “I’ll Be There For You,”

“So will I,” said Rochelle, barely concealing her laughter, “Always.”

Anna smiled gratefully at the girls. The joke was much funnier knowing they were all in on it. She looked at the Bon Jovi song titles on her screen.

“Judy,” she said, “I’ve Been Living on A Prayer, but it’s clearly too much to ask for you to Have a Little Faith In Me.”

The other ladies laughed. Judy knew there was a joke going on and that it was aimed at her, but she couldn’t figure it out. “Just shut up Anna,” she said. “Get back to work.”

“No.” Anna stood up. She picked up her purse from under the desk and her pot plant, which she tucked under her armpit. “It’s My Life, and I don’t want to waste another minute of it in here looking at you. So if you’ll excuse me,” she couldn’t bring herself to knock her computer to the floor nor do any real damage so she settled for knocking the magazines off the waiting table onto the floor, “I’m outta here,” she announced, “In a Blaze of Glory.” Then she took a bow to the applause of the others, and laughing at the bewildered expression on Judy’s face she swept out.

It was the most satisfied she had felt in a very,
very
long time.

On her way home she stopped at the supermarket and bought herself a pizza in a box. She couldn’t be bothered cooking. At the crossroads that led to the playground she paused and considered heading that way, but in the end she resignedly took the turn that led home. There was always the risk that Matt and Oscar might be there, and if she saw them her resolve might crumble.

The pizza had cooked and she was just settling down at the outside table, alone, with two slices and a large glass of wine when the phone rang inside the house. She frowned and checked the time, just after 6, and decided not to answer it, knowing it would either be Matt or a telemarketer or someone with an Indian accent telling her there was a major issue with her computer and unless she let them remotely log in to ‘fix’ it, she was screwed.

It rang for twenty rings then stopped.

It started again, this time for thirty rings, before it stopped.

Two minutes later she had just started to relax when its shrillness disturbed the silence again. When it hadn’t stopped after a minute she threw her pizza down onto her plate, annoyed, and stalked inside intending to unplug the cord from the wall. It came as a surprise when she found herself picking it up and pushing the green talk button instead.

“Hello?”

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Matt.”

She bit her bottom lip in frustration and mentally kicked herself.

“Matt please stop –”

“Anna, please!”

Something in his tone made her pause and listen.

She heard him take a deep breath and let it out with a shudder. Her pulse quickened. Something was wrong.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s Oscar,” his voice caught, “he’s been in an accident.”

She gasped and put a hand over her mouth. “What happened? Is he -?” she couldn’t finish the question.

“Ok? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

Anna could hear the desperation and panic and uncertainty heavy in his voice.

“I don’t know what to do Anna, tell me what I can do? They told me I just have to wait, let them do what they need to do. How can I just stand here and wait? How can I leave my little boy’s life in the hands of others? Oh god Anna.”

It was the first time she had heard him swear, but she didn’t begrudge him it. She didn’t have a clue what she could say that might help him. The irony wasn’t lost on her. All those times she had resented people for saying the wrong thing to her, or in some cases even nothing at all, and now here she was in the same situation unable to think of a single suitable thing.

“Anna?”

“I’m here,” she cleared her throat. Her heart wanted to ask questions. She wanted to know what had happened, but she really didn’t know if she could handle the answers. To her shame, self preservation took over.

“I’m sorry,” he continued, “I didn’t know who else to call. Can you come? Please?”

She didn’t answer.

“Anna? Please?” His voice was broken, needy.

She had nothing she could give him. Her reserves were all depleted. “No,” she said in a small sad voice, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

And she hung up the phone. Then she stared at it as if unable to believe what she had just done. “Oh my god,” she whispered, her hands to her cheeks. She couldn’t go through this again. It was too much to expect from one person. A person who had only just started to claw their way out of a very deep hole, with grief and depression shovelled on top of her. She had
just
started to catch glimpses of light; to think maybe she could live some semblance of a life again. Now this had happened. She wondered what she had done in order to attract such awful karma, then she felt mortified that she was thinking about herself at this time instead of the poor boy somewhere in a hospital bed and his father pacing the hall outside.

She reached for the phone to call him back but her fingers stopped just short.

No.

Yes.

No!

Yes. She would call. Then as her fingers grazed the receiver again she heard a noise outside.

‘WOOF! SNARL’

She dashed to the door and in less than five seconds she clocked the situation. A dog was in the garden, and he was circling an anxious Buddy. A large black and brown dog of undetermined breed, he had his head lowered and his teeth bared. A low growl emanated from between his lips. He looked feral and vicious, and Anna froze, before searching with her eyes desperately for anything that she could use as a weapon.

“Get away with you!” she yelled, picking up a sandal and throwing it with all her might. It fell a few metres short of its target and the dog barely glanced her way, before it moved in for the kill. Before Anna could react she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. It was accompanied by a deafening chorus of quacks, angrier than she’d ever heard them before.

‘QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK!’

The other ducks rushed at the dog, a tangle of sharp beaks and angry wings, and with a yelp it turned on its heel and fled the garden, Rodney waddling furiously after it as far as the gate. The dog leapt over the gate and was gone, and Rodney said ‘QUACK QUACK QUACK’ which Anna translated to mean ‘and don’t you ever come back!’

She sank against the door frame feeling an enormous flooding of relief. Buddy was ok. The other ducks circled him protectively, soothing him with their voices and gentle touch until he was calmed. Anna watched. It was as if they were saying, “We’re here for you Buddy, no matter what. We’ve got your back.”

Something in Anna fell back into place.