The Elusive Language of Ducks (41 page)

He'd be bereft without Annabel, she knew that. It was cruel. How could they be so cruel? It wasn't much to ask, to hose down a towel each day. They were forcing him to go cold turkey. She had looked up the term. It originally meant ‘without preparation', alluding to the convenience of preparing a dish from cold cooked turkey. And then later, in the 1920s, the term was extended to the abrupt stopping of an addiction. When
a heroin junkie broke the habit, the blood being drawn to the internal organs made the skin look like a cold plucked turkey. Either way, the turkey was dead, and plucked.

Her feet felt icy now and a light breeze was shifting her nightdress around her legs.

A light was switched on behind her. She could hear Simon in the toilet. She moved off the top deck and down to the bottom step, where she sat, pulling her knees up to her chin, her nightdress around her legs. Then another light filtered from the deck above, then another. Soon the whole house was flooded with light, a cruise ship coming in to port.

Hannah. Hannah! She could hear the panic winging her name across the night.

Hannah?

And then he was towering above her, his shins behind her head as he paused on the step behind. His shadow sprawled menacingly, another cut-out layer of darkness across the lawn.

Why didn't you answer me?

Because I hate you, she wanted to say.

Why are you sitting in the freezing cold?

Because you slept with my sister. Because my womb is a useless cavity stuffed with feathers. Because you made me give up my duck for nothing.

You'll catch your death. I was worried about you. Why aren't you answering me?

Because you don't love me anymore. Because you have cut me adrift into the rest of my life.

Hannah? Speak to me.

He was sitting beside her now, his bottom shunting into hers, his arm around her shoulder. Leaning around to look at her. The flat palm of his hand brushing away the tears streaking her face.

I hate you, she muttered matter-of-factly. And there, it was said, not to be unsaid, a tip-truck full of rubble pouring endlessly from her heart, the whole nasty black heap in front of them.

His arm dropped from hers, another bird shot from a high branch in a tree.

That's a pity, he said. That's a great pity. Then he added, A bloody terrible pity.

Well, what do you expect? You slept with my sister for heaven's sake. I tried to ignore it, but I can't.

Actually, and I know you won't believe me, but I didn't.

You're right. I don't believe you. And the worst thing is that you still love her.

Hannah. Listen to me.

He explained how, the night before she arrived home with Toby, he was just preparing for bed upstairs. He heard Maggie give a yelp. They were a bit drunk. He went down to find Maggie crazy with fury. Hannah's nightdress and paraphernalia from under the pillow, along with Toby's socks and underwear from the floor, were displayed in a heap on the dressing table. Simon, too, was incensed. Somehow, and he assured her hurriedly that he knew two wrongs didn't make a right, but they fell into bed together, fuelled with — he said — feelings of revenge. Simon had become aware of a lump in the bed, investigated, and emerged from under the duvet with the urn. Maggie was beside herself. She grabbed it, opened the window and threw it into the bushes below. They had little energy left for anything else and the two of them fell asleep. And they were both awakened by dreams of her mother.

Mine was so vivid, he said. She was sitting in bed between us, her arms folded, in her lacy nightdress, the one she was wearing when she died. And she was singing that old Jim Reeves song, rocking rhythmically . . . ‘I Love You Most of All Because You're You'.

He dropped his chin on Hannah's shoulder.

I woke up crying, he continued. It was very bizarre. I don't know what Maggie's dream was about — she wouldn't say — but it certainly featured your mother. The dreams freaked us out. Enough for Maggie to take herself down to the garden and rescue the urn. She wrapped it up in the pink blanket, the one she gave your Mum a few Christmases ago. The next morning she took the bundle down to the shed, as you know. She insisted on being alone. She was quite upset.

That song, the one in your dream, said Hannah. Mum loved that song. We used to play Jim Reeves around the fireplace on winter nights when we were kids. Did you know that?

I'm not sure. You may have told me once.

Good old Mum, said Hannah. But if all that hadn't happened, you and Maggie would have . . .

Yes, to be honest, it was heading that way. But we didn't.

But it's the intention that counts.

Really? Is that so? Well, perhaps there is something you can explain to me, Hannah, if we're talking about counting. Hmmm?

Hannah sighed. For heaven's sake. Nothing was happening at all. I painted our room, as you know. I had a notion that I wanted to keep it clean and fresh for when, if, you came home. A symbol of new beginnings, if you like. So I'd been sleeping downstairs in the spare room, in Mum's old room. You can check, I've still got some of my clothes there. The day I was concussed, I must have forgotten, taken myself up to our bedroom automatically. I still don't remember much, actually. I bled on the new pillow. Anyway, when Toby arrived he was in a bit of state, so he collapsed into bed. All my stuff, my nightdress, was still there under the pillow. And then I forgot about it because by then I was sleeping in another nightdress. Upstairs. Believe me or not, that's how it was.

I do believe you, Hannah. Toby explained all that. But there's another thing.

Oh yes, what? she asked. He was pulling his chin to his chest, to one shoulder, to his chest, to the other shoulder. Those neck exercises.

You and Eric? Was that intentional or accidental?

Her stomach twisted. She didn't know what to say.

What do you mean? she tried.

Don't deny it, Hannah.

That was eleven years ago.

Oh, I see. If the infidelity occurs a long time ago, it doesn't count. Whether the intent was there or not, does count. Whether the act actually happens or not, doesn't count. What about the location? What about the method? All these things you have done and ought not to have done. Have you ever had unclean thoughts, Hannah?

Stop it, Simon. OK, how on earth do you know?

Oh, does this count in the final judgment as well? How I found out? Well, let me tell you. Your mother told me, bless her.

Mum? But she didn't know. No one knew. I didn't tell one soul. Not one. Only Eric and I knew . . . well,
I
didn't tell anyone.

Well, she told me. So she must have known.

When was this?

Oh, a wee while before she died. She must have been wanting to clean the slate.

I see. I see now . . . So you said something to Eric.

I quietly told him that I believed he'd had an inappropriate relationship with my wife. And when he didn't deny it, I just told him that he wasn't welcome at our house anymore. That's all. It was all very civilised.

Why didn't you say anything to me?

You were having an emotionally gruelling time as your mother went downhill. Then after she died, you were unhappy enough. As you said, and as Eric told me, it was a long time ago. I might have eventually brought it up. As I have.

They sat unspeaking for a while. Somewhere across the valley a manic babble of voices flowed from a party. All meaning was lost over the distance travelled, as words dropped out of sentences like items spilling from a suitcase. A few isolated phrases made the journey: ‘but did you . . .', ‘yeah but you, you . . .', ‘going like the clappers . . .' Frequent explosions of laughter arrived intact. The revellers were young. She envied their easy laughter.

She thought of a university party she'd gone to with Simon in the early days, before they were married. He was somewhere else, perhaps getting a drink, while she was locked into a corner by a guy with stale breath who was zealously telling her of the declining population of Emperor penguins in the Antarctic. She remembered the closely cropped hair above his ears, the lemon shirt and tie. She was sure she could smell hairspray, but it was his breath that forced her to back further and further into the corner until she felt as though her body was angled ninety degrees in relation to her spine. Simon arrived, hovered for a while, couldn't get a word in. Hannah rolled her eyes desperately. Simon picked up the bottom of the guy's tie, dipped it well into his glass of beer and splatted it first against one cheek — ‘One small slap for man' — then the other — ‘and a giant slap for mankind. Now please,' he said. ‘Can't you see she's not interested.'

At the time she'd found the incident alarming, but it was the first indication that Simon would rescue her should the need arise. What was that guy doing now? He felt like a creep then, confident and unsubtle as he cramped her space. Now she realised he was just a lonely buffoon,
unable to read social cues. Had anyone told him about his bad breath? The population of the Emperor penguins was still declining. He was a nonentity fixed in her memory. She remembered how he'd swung around to confront Simon. There was going to be a fight. She grabbed the guy's arm and steered him out to a balcony, where people she half-knew were smoking cigarettes. Hi, she said. This is . . . sorry, what's your name? As soon as they were all engaged in conversation, she fled, back to Simon.

She shivered.

Her body was aching with cold, but she didn't want to go inside where everything would become the normal pretence again.

The way I see it is this, Simon was saying. He lifted a side of his large fleecy dressing gown to include her, wrapping it like a cloak around the two of them. We're both in our fifties. I guess if you hate me you're also telling me you want to leave me. But what I have to ask is this. What about love? I love you, Hannah. If we leave each other, we may or may not find someone else. Or we can get on with our lives and do the solitary thing, without any encumbrances. Be free. But it's not what I want. I want to be with you. I
like
being with you.

Why did you leave me, then?

You'd shut me out. And after your mother died, for different reasons, we'd both moved away from each other. I needed to think. So, when I was offered this work down in Christchurch, I thought I'd go and see what happened.

I bet it was Maggie's idea. You love her.

Hannah. I love
you.
I'd
told
you I had the possibility of a contract offered down there and I'd
asked
you to come along. Would have
preferred
you to come, but you wouldn't. I mentioned the contract to Maggie, who suggested I follow it up. As for love, well, possibly in the same way you love Toby? They're very different from us, Hannah, as you know. Maggie would never be interested in an old fuddy-duddy like me. I've come to the conclusion that I have a tendency to be boring. When they're sober or not totally drunk, they're sharp and funny and alive together. They were both kind to me. But Maggie has had some very difficult times with Toby. When he's under the influence of drugs or alcohol he can be nasty. Or worrying. But I certainly wouldn't be the one she'd be interested in, in that way.

He was talking to himself now.

You're not
that
boring, she said.

But quite, he replied.

Something inside her was splitting open. A tight membrane, tearing from end to end, to release an explosion of laughter. She managed to contain it.

Yes, she said quietly. I think you might be.

A police helicopter was moving across the sky above them. Men cocooned in a hovering machine, staring down at the world below. She wondered if they could determine the motion of the sea. But no, they'd be focused on searching for someone, like a rat in a field, cowering from a hawk.

She could jump up waving her arms, screaming. We surrender! We've stolen from each other, withheld information, done away with body parts, committed adultery. Cruelty to animals, to each other, unclean thoughts. Drugs. We're the criminals you're looking for.

But the helicopter veered off and soon was just a shudder in the distance. They were nobodies, unwanted by anybody. The party across the valley was diminishing in intensity or had moved inside. Now they were surrounded by the piping sounds of those unknown insects. Rhythmic squeaks from the rusty turning wheel of night.

One thing you might be able to answer for me, Simon, she said.

What's that?

How did I fill my time up until now? What did I do with my minutes, my weeks, my months, my years and years and years? How did I get to this actual point in time? What did I
do?
What have I
done
with my life?

He didn't answer. He clasped her closer under the big tent of his dressing gown, with the big comforting cradle of his arm. Every leaf around them was licked with light, from the hedge, from the giant feather fronds of a palm, all leaning towards them, as if waiting for an answer. Enormous shiny tongues of strelitzia hung on their every word. And now a car swishing from one edge of the night to the other.

That's a very good question, he said eventually, and I'm not sure that I can answer it.

Bugger, she said.

He shifted his buttocks uncomfortably.

Since my stay in Christchurch, I have been interrogating myself along similar lines. There was all the upheaval with you. Then the earthquake. I don't think anyone who experienced that February earthquake was left unscathed. I still have nightmares.

He shook his head, inhaled a jerky breath.

When I was there, I was around people who'd shared the experience, in however great or small a way. It was a bizarre matter of needing to have been there to be a member of the club. Everyone had their story of where they were at the time: near-misses from fridges and microwaves flying across the room, separation from loved ones, just leaving a room at that moment when a boulder crashed through the roof. After the quake, we were all in it together, helping if we could. There was something about that . . . a sense of being useful, of being part of the community. Now — and you'll think I'm mad — I feel that I'm abandoning them. The shakes are still happening and I'm up here doing nothing. I feel guilty. Alone, because at least down there everyone knows what you're going through.