by Judith White
What was it that had wrenched them apart, so insidiously that the distance between them had seemed insurmountable? Unbridgeable. But here they were. They must have fallen from on high, turning over and over like stones from the moon, to land neatly into the nest of each other’s grasp.
She shifted to watch his face as he lay sleeping, curiously examining the corners and expression of his newly revealed lips. They were parted now and he was snoring softly.
She was waiting, patiently, for him to wake up. The night had been particularly tender, and they had both felt so grateful, and relieved, that she knew that nothing could interfere with the contentment they had found once more. It had been there all along, a misplaced recipe tucked as a marker in a book they’d been reading. A life they’d been living.
He suddenly gasped, his lips and mouth panicking, chomping on a dream-feast before it disappeared. He opened his eyes, closed them again, opened them, looked at her, and then relaxed, his face melting.
Oh. Hello, he said, smiling warmly.
Hi, she said, pressing her body more closely to his.
After a while she said, Simon?
Hmmmm?
I think it’s going to be a lovely day.
It is already, he said. He stroked her hair from her face. I feel it in my bones. The walls around them were pristine white, but on the ceiling above the window, a daddy-long-legs was tremulously occupied with building its web.
I’ve been thinking . . . she said.
Hmmm?
Do you feel like a drive?
That sounds nice. Why not?
Do you think we could go to . . . Te Awamutu? Not to stay, just to say hello to the duck, and back again. I promise I won’t ask for any more than that. We won’t tell them. We’ll just surprise them.
He tensed, itching his ear urgently, as if her suggestion had landed badly there. Abruptly, he turned his face to the wall. Then back again, to look at her. He was frowning now, bringing his bottom teeth over his lip to comb a moustache that didn’t exist any more.
I mean if you really don’t want to, we don’t have to.
She waited.
Oh all right, he said with a short sigh. He kissed her forehead. OK. All right then. Why not.
SURPRISE VISIT
Claire was in her gumboots in the garden when they pulled up. She stood up, grimacing as her hands propped her back. Squinting at the car, then walking over.
Well, this is a surprise, she said, pulling off her gardening gloves, combing her fingers through her hair in a futile effort to tidy her appearance. Her hair was like the willows in the area, Hannah thought, the ends chewed level by cows reaching up for more green.
Claire gave them both a hug as they emerged from the car. Just trying to get at the weeds. They never let up. Come on in. I’ll put the kettle on. I was just going to have an egg on toast. Come in. And you must take some eggs back with you. We can’t get through them all ourselves. All well with you, Hannah? Lovely to see you two back together again. I don’t know where Bob is. He might be at the neighbours’. Oh dear. There’s a nip in the air, isn’t there? Now, where did Bob say he was going? Come on then, come in.
Hannah moved towards Simon, slipped her hand into the protective glove of his own.
Actually, Claire, Simon said. She was engaged in prising her foot out of her gumboot, banging the heel at an upturned spade head buried in concrete. Once done, she yanked up the wad of green woollen socks over her pearly legs, pulled her jean legs over the top and stepped into fur-lined slippers waiting at the porch.
Actually, before we have a cuppa, Hannah was keen to see her duck. Do you mind?
No, of course, of course, of course, Hannah dear. Take yourself down. You know where it is. Are you coming in, Simon?
He caught Hannah’s eye, and she shrugged.
I’ll be fine, she said. In fact, she was happy to greet her duck alone. She didn’t want their meeting to be compromised or sabotaged by the man, or to have the old jealousies rekindled.
As she wound her way around the side of the house, she was almost effervescing with excitement. Her feet swishing through crunchy leaves, the fragrance of autumn sweet and earthy. She loved the full range of countryside smells, so natural and evocative. She walked around the paddock and down to the macrocarpa trees where muscovy ducks were waddling, their tails propelling them along. And chooks scuffing and pecking at the ground. As she approached, some of the hens squawked, scurrying for cover, triggering a general movement away from her.
She slowed her pace. The muscovies also had their eyes on her, keeping their distance. Most of the drakes looked scruffy and she could see patches of naked wing. Moulting time, as Bob had said last time. She went to the pens where there was another brood of ducklings squeaking around their mother, as well as the larger, more gangly ones, probably the little ones she had seen a month or so ago. In the pen next door, the forty-four-gallon drum sat empty, and its pillow was pegged onto the wire netting. The lid that had held the mash was empty. Where was her duck? She wasn’t aware that he had been liberated into the company of the other muscovies.
She checked the other pens, as well as the chook house, then took herself around the trees to an elevated place where she could view the pond. A couple of muscovies were puddling around the edge of the water, vacuuming up bugs with their eyes turned upwards, as her duck used to do. Bulrushes grew in the shallows, alongside clumps of flax bushes with arcing spears of spent flower heads. The surface of the pond had fraying strips of duckweed. A kingfisher launched itself from a nearby branch and flew away.
And now she found herself looking for a scattering of white feathers on the grass or floating in the water. She scanned the paddocks. She spun around, checking and re-checking the grass, the trees, the pens, the pond, the grass, trees, pens, grass trees pens pond grass. How ridiculous to feel so anxious. There would be an explanation. Perhaps she didn’t recognise him. Perhaps he had adapted to his flock life so completely that he was hiding from her, fearful that she might take him away.
Down at the pond she called him, her shoes flooding in the swampy mud. A rat suddenly rocketed from beneath the flax, across the field, and disappeared down a hole.
Then she noticed in a far paddock, almost obscured by a patch of manuka, the figure of a man closing a gate. She could see him climbing into a white ute waiting on the near side. The truck started up and she could now hear it rumbling its way along a dirt track around the base of the hill, bouncing and jogging its way in her direction. As it approached she became aware of a flyaway mop of hair above the steering wheel. Bob, of course. He stopped near his shed. She hurried up to meet him, and was there to greet him impatiently as he clambered out. The door hung open from the cab like a broken wing. She kissed his sweaty fat cheek.
Claire rang me, he said. Told me you were here. Where’s Simon?
Up with Claire. I was just . . . just looking for my duck. She knew by his face that something was amiss. She could feel tears collecting, in readiness.
Oh, didn’t Claire tell you? Just yesterday . . .
He stopped.
What? What happened to my duck? Where is he?
Ssssh, no it’s OK. He dipped his hand under his shirt, into his arm pit, beyond his arm pit, scrabbling intently for an evasive itch. I was out. I was out and someone drove to the house from the road. They do that sometimes. We’ve got a sign there.
He was watching her to see how she was taking it. Let’s have a cup of tea.
Tell me. What have you done with my duck?
They didn’t ring. They had a little boy in the back, very pale. Ill, as it turned out. They wanted a duck to take back home. They’d had one before but they’d been . . . overseas and had to let it go somewhere. A lovely family. An Indian family. They wanted another one as a pet for the little boy.
So you gave them my duck.
Well, Claire said they could choose which duck they wanted, and they selected your duck. Claire didn’t realise it was your duck.
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br /> But he can be aggressive and then what’ll they do? How old was the boy?
About ten or eleven, apparently. Very pale. Big brown eyes. And really wanting a muscovy, apparently.
Have you got their address? Did she give them Annabel? I hope she told them about Annabel. Otherwise he’ll be aggressive.
No, oh no, I forgot to say. He’d become interested in another duck, a female, just one other duck actually, and they took that as well, as a pair. Possibly even to breed.
Can you give me their address? Just so I can check, that he’s in a good home.
No, they came and went. They just drove in from nowhere and left. They’re either from Wellington or Auckland. Or was it somewhere in Hawke’s Bay? I actually have no idea where they live, to tell you the truth.
She flopped down to sit on the grass. I’m going to be sick, she said. Truly, I’m going to be sick.
Oh, said Bob. Can I get you anything?
I can’t believe you would do this. In fact, I don’t. This is a euphemism for the travelling circus, isn’t it?
No, Hannah, don’t be silly. And if I’d been here it wouldn’t have happened; Claire didn’t realise he was your duck. A duck is a duck so far as she’s concerned. And the little boy was so happy apparently. They’ve got a stream on their property, they said, all fenced off. They know about muscovy ducks.
Hannah yanked at chunks of grass. In the rich black soil underneath, a worm extricated itself from view. Can you please ask Simon to come and get me, she said. Tell him I want to go home right now.
When he left, she curled up in the grass, until Simon arrived and knelt alongside her, his warm comforting hand on her shoulder.
Chapter 31
BREAD
June the third. It is the first anniversary of the death of Hannah’s mother. It is also the anniversary of the simulated take-off of six men to Mars from a Moscow hangar. They have reached their destination and are on their way back, and now they are grappling with boredom.
The heater is on and Hannah is making bread. The room is filled with the same comforting smell of basic cooking that has wafted from ovens through the ages. As she breathes, she absorbs the ethereal vapours of her mother and her grandmother and great-great-great-grandmothers that have been transported through time, only to stop with her.
On the floor, by the deck windows, two children are lying on their stomachs, each with their own desk-pad, a packet of felt-pens and a box of crayons. Their mother is taking Eric to a doctor’s appointment. Rosemary is drawing wavily elliptical circles, which she is attempting to colour in with her crayons. She also has a couple of sheets of stickers, and from time to time calls to Hannah to help her peel these off to place around her drawing. Max is drawing stick-figures that float randomly through his picture with arms spread like wings. He hasn’t yet thought to anchor them to the ground. He has also scribbled great swirls of dense black smoke. Enemy fire.
Hannah thinks of her mother, but at the moment no specific memories are coming. She is thinking of the essence of the person she once was . . . warm and generous, kind, with a sense of humour, and a love of colour and beauty. All the usual stuff of a hastily drawn-up CV with unexplained gaps. And she is also wondering what has happened to her duck. Whether he is still alive, and whether he really managed to move from Annabel to a pretty pink-faced duck. She has forced herself to believe Bob’s story because the alternative is too painful to endure. And perhaps it is true that he is waddling around a bubbling stream with his wife and ducklings, cared for by a pale little boy who has a passion for muscovies.
Simon flew to Christchurch a couple of days ago to collect his car. The plans for Toby to drive it up to Auckland dissolved into repeated last-minute postponements, though now it has been decided that both Maggie and Toby will accompany Simon on this trip, to stay for a short visit. She is looking forward to seeing them. After Toby left, he and Hannah texted each other with jovial encouragement for their respective withdrawals. Gradually Toby’s texts became more cynical and gloomy in content, less frequent, until they stopped altogether. Christchurch was still experiencing unnerving shakes. Meanwhile Maggie and Simon were in contact with each other as well. Simon reported that Toby had had a bit of a relapse but was now back on track.
The oven timer dings and Hannah pulls out two loaves of bread. She tips the tins upside-down and leaves them steaming on racks, two identical brown modules. She opens the window enough to let a stream of heat mingle with the nippy morning air.
For some reason a stray memory arrives unbidden through the open window. Questions from afar, from a day when Hannah was visiting her mother at Primrose Hill. A pensive little voice asking, So will I write poetry and put it in my head?
It seemed the best thing for Hannah to assure her that she would. Then she asked, Are they going to take it away on Saturday?
Only if you want them to, Mum.
Then, as Hannah was kissing her on the cheek before leaving, her mother asked, Will they look after you well when they take you away from me?
Hannah sighs. The old nostalgia is pouring back again. In a way she welcomes it, just for the day, for the occasion. She knows that it is tied up with love and she knows that it is an ephemeral thing that is beyond comprehension or control, and that one day it will find a place within her where it can rest comfortably and without pain.
As she sits on the sofa, she watches the children experimenting with shape and colour. Then she drops onto her stomach between them, takes a piece of paper, and starts to draw as well.
SALT
When you get to the beach you leave Simon and the others, and head towards the shoreline. Tiny wavelets are snapping crossly at your feet. You take both loaves from the plastic bag and roll them in the water, to make sure the crusty exterior is wet all over. Not too soggy, but damp. This is to prevent anyone nibbling at the bread.
The sky is icy blue except for suds of white cloud scattered above the brim — little lost ducks blown away from their flock. The sea is blue too, with streaks of silver. A kite-surfer is hurtling along under his bow of kite, catapulting like an escaping cricket, trampolining like a grasshopper on a bluegrass field. The beach is empty of life except for a man and his dog at the far end, and a couple marching arm-in-arm towards you. The man is throwing sticks and the dog is paddling out through the taut sea to fetch them, its ears held flat against its head. You watch the dog warily but decide it is far enough away.
You are sure that somewhere there will be a grounded cluster of seagulls all angled to the same direction, hunched up restlessly against the biting wind with their heads under their wings. There will also be a perky scout on a lamp post or in a tree, on the look-out for food. You tear off a small chunk of bread and throw it in the air. Nothing. You pick up the same piece and throw it again. You start to walk and repeat the action. There they are, two of them, the sentinels, lifting their heads; they have noticed the bread.
They rise, circling high in the sky, before landing near your feet to gobble up the food. They are making sure they get their share before their signal brings the competition. The other seagulls must be watching somewhere or have secondary scouts, because they don’t come until you throw more. You are sure that there must be some remote communication between them. You throw another piece of soggy crust. The seagulls quickly snaffle it. Their beaks are sharp and red. You break off more and soon another three gulls arrive. Then there are more, and you throw more lumps of bread, which are readily devoured. You check that each piece has gone before you throw another batch.
Simon and Maggie and Toby are bunched under the shelter of pohutukawa which lean from a grassy verge over the beach. She waves to them and they saunter down. Toby’s thin face pokes from a helmet of fat hood, his body padded in a blue Michelin puffer jacket. His face is purple. He is smoking. Maggie is bundled up in layers of red scarf, and a black woollen coat. Simon looks the most relaxed in his red parka and jeans. Nonetheless they are all cold and reluctant to be here. It is only bec
ause she has persuaded them to. When Simon and Toby agreed, Maggie complied. She is making an effort to be nice, Hannah notices.
She throws the bread into the wind, and suddenly the sky is teeming with gulls. Simon is informative: The large ones are black-backed gulls. Then you’ve got the smaller black-billed gulls with the black legs, and the red-billed gulls with the red legs. You might notice, he says, that the black- and red-billed gulls catch the bread in the air. They’re accustomed to catching insects as they fly — cicadas, mosquitoes, beetles, whatever. And the big brown ones over there are the baby black-backed gulls.
She breaks the rest of the first loaf into three, and hand out the pieces. Toby extricates blanched fingers from his sleeve to take his portion. Sparse fair hairs over his hands doing a useless job of keeping him warm. Auntie Hannah, he says between clenched teeth, you are killing us. Let’s find a nice warm café and have a coffee. Or, even better, a nice soul-warming red. No Toby, says Maggie, not a wine. They all dutifully toss out their bits of bread into the sand to the crazy wailing squabbling gulls.
Come on, let’s walk, you say, and you start marching along the beach. The seagulls land in front of you. One of the black-backed gulls opens its throat and screams. Its gullet is a tunnel that leads to the centre of time, to the black hole of all the big questions. You throw bread from the second loaf specifically to that bird, but it’s too busy complaining. The cacophony of wings and feet and beaks beats him to it. You toss another which it grabs.
You fling small chunks high into the air. All around you and above you is the whacking of wings and swishing of slicing bodies. Some of the gulls swoop cleanly by and take the bread mid-air with such beautiful precision that you do it again. You love the way they anticipate the rise and allow for the wind and take the bread in their beaks so effortlessly. You love the feeling of heaving your arms into the air to throw.
