Lessons From Ducks

Lessons

From

Ducks

By Tammy Robinson

Copyright © 2015 by Tammy Robinson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is set in New Zealand and as such all spelling is in New Zealand English.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Kerrie Ryan and Lorraine Tipene for their fabulous editing skills and support. Any mistakes are their fault entirely (jokes). No seriously, you guys are wonderful and I couldn’t have gotten through the last couple of years and stayed as sane as I have (hey it could be worse) without you. I love you both.

Thanks also to Kate Cooper for her sharp eye in fine tuning the manuscript.

And lastly, thanks to my husband Karl, for coming home from a full day at work and taking on parenting duties so I could sit and write for an hour. This would never have seen the light of day otherwise. I know I kept saying, “I’ve almost finished!” for the last year, but this time it’s true.
It is finished.

Enjoy.

This book is dedicated to my darling little family - my wonderful husband Karl and my beautiful girls, Holly and Willow.

You guys are my everything

And to my dad, for telling me I could do anything and believing it.

Chapter one

The girl didn’t start crying until she saw the blood. Small at first, a scarlet pinprick against the stark white knee of her tights, it spread rapidly, expanding in a circle until it was the size of a two dollar coin.
Then
she started to cry. Her face scrunched up till her eyes were mere slits and her small shoulders heaved like ocean waves.

“Mum-my, MUM-
MY
.”

Anna’s womb tightened upon hearing the word called in such a manner. She tensed, her body ready to spring into action. But it wasn’t her that the girl was calling. It was some other mummy. Anna knew exactly which one; the one with the horrible greasy hair. The one who went tap tap tap at her phone with one talon like fingernail, the end painted incongruous colours that changed from week to week, instead of watching as her child swung on the swing or climbed the ropes. She was a single mother Anna had decided. Young, unemployed, possibly not even sure who the father of her child was, although she could probably narrow it down to a couple of possibilities.

The sort of mother who didn’t deserve the title.

“MUMMY!” the girl sobbed, clutching her knee to her chest, staring in horror at the blood.

That was it. Anna could not just sit there any longer. She hurried to the little girl, knelt beside her. The girl eyed her anxiously; this woman was not her mother.

“There, there sweetheart,” Anna soothed her gently. “Did you hurt your knee? Would you like me to give you a cuddle to make it all better?”

The girl frowned, her tears temporarily forgotten. This seemed to fall into the kind of situation her grandmother always warned her about. Don’t talk to strangers, her grandmother said. Don’t take sweets off them and definitely don’t get in a car with them.

This lady had a kind face though. A nice smile.

Anna picked her up and when the little arms went around her neck she thought she might faint from the pleasure.

“Give her to me.”

The girl turned in her arms and strained towards her mother. Anna reluctantly passed her over.

“She fell and hurt her knee. It started bleeding. She called for you but you didn’t come.”

“I didn’t hear her, but I’m here now.”

“She needed comforting.”

“Yeah, and like I said, I’m here now.”

The mother looked like she wanted to say more but something held her back, and Anna knew what. In her experience there were two kinds of people. Ones who recognised her, who remembered her face from the news, and ones who didn’t. This lady clearly did. There was sympathy woven in with the anger in her eyes.

Anna knew she should shut up and walk away but she had never been good at doing what she should do.

“You shouldn’t spend so much time on your phone. You
should
be watching your daughter play. You could even get up and play with her, or is that too hard?”

“How dare you –“

“You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve to be her mother if you can’t be bothered paying any attention to her.”

“Look lady,” the mother snarled. “I’m going to let that go just this once, because I know what you’ve been through. But if you ever, and I mean
ever,
come near me or my daughter again I’ll deal to you, you got that you nut job?”

“Charming. What a wonderful role model for your daughter you are.”

The mother turned briskly and walked away, the little girl blinking owlishly at Anna over her shoulder. Anna waved at her and the girl poked her tongue out in reply. Anna sighed. What hope did the girl have with a mother like that?

She walked slowly back to the seat she had been occupying when the girl fell. It was the same seat she sat at every afternoon on her way home from work. The playground was a little out of her way, adding an extra ten or so minutes onto her journey but that didn’t bother her. It wasn’t like she had anyone to rush home to.

Picking up her bag she gave one last lingering look around the playground. The young mother had joined the other playground mothers at the far end by the swings and they were huddled together like a first fifteen rugby scrum. No doubt she was recounting her encounter with Anna with a degree of relish. Sure enough, faces popped up to look her way. Feeling cheeky, Anna waved. The faces quickly turned away.

She’d opened her big mouth and blown it. She sighed. What was done was done, no regrets. The mother had needed to hear it. Perhaps, Anna thought, it would be best if she avoided the playground for a few weeks, let the dust settle.

Chapter two

The rest of the walk home passed uneventfully, although she fretted over the playground encounter. She knew there was no sense to be had in beating herself up with unanswerable questions, such as why that woman was a mother. But it was hard not to.

She focused instead on her feet, taking one step at a time in front of her. The pavement was cracked and chipped and occasionally even missing large slabs of concrete, forcing her to find alternate routes along the grassy verge or even in the gutter. Someone should really complain to the council about the state of the path, she thought. But it wouldn’t be her. She thought the same thing every day on her way home but had yet to pick up a phone or compose an email.

At the gate to her house she paused before lifting the latch. The sight of the small gate that led through the archway always gave her a thrill and she ran a hand lovingly along its curved top, the wood cool beneath her touch. A fleck of paint came away under her hand, flicking off into the hedge that grew to the side of the gate and she frowned, she would need to give it a new coat of paint this weekend before the cruel heat of summer cracked the rest of the paint. She might see if she could find the colour chart inside and choose a new shade, she thought. The duck egg blue it had worn the last two summers was faded and no longer suited the surrounding gardens, not since she’d uprooted the tired agapanthus and replaced them with roses. Perhaps she’d go for a dusky pink this time, or an antique pale green. The latch, she was satisfied to note, opened seamlessly and she lifted and dropped it a few times just to make sure. Last week it had developed an annoying squeak, but some oil spray and a rub with an old cloth had taken care of it.

Up the path Anna went, placing her feet down as softly as she could, but the crushed shell path that she’d wanted as soon as she’d seen it in a magazine wasn’t made for stealth, and the crunch of broken shells under her heels betrayed her presence. From around the corner of her home they came quacking furiously, waddling as fast as their stubby legs and webbed feet would allow them, jostling to be the first to attract her attention.

‘QUACK’

“There you are,” she tutted at them affectionately. “Sleeping on the job were you? I almost made it to the front door today. Call yourself guard ducks, honestly.”

‘QUACK QUACK QUACK’

“Hold your horses. I haven’t even got the key in the lock yet. Give me five minutes and I’ll be back with dinner, ok?”

‘QUACK’

“Yes I know I say five when I usually mean ten. Ok give me ten minutes, can you last ten minutes?”

‘QUACK QUACK’

“Ten minutes I promise.” Then she realised something wasn’t quite right. She counted them.

Five. Someone was missing.

“Where’s Dudley?”

‘QUACK’

She shrugged her bag off her shoulder and put it on the ground beside the front door. Then she kicked her shoes off and peeled down her knee high stockings, leaving them all beside her bag.

“Dudley?” she called, walking barefoot on the lawn, the grass pleasantly cold and soft on the soles of her feet. She wiggled them down deep into the grass, wiping the day and the heat and the sweat off as she walked. The ducks waddled after her, determined to keep her in sight until dinner was forthcoming.

“Dudley?”

‘QUACK’

“Dudley,” she said with relief as she spied him sitting beneath long ribbons of flax leaves, “there you are you silly duck. I was worried about you. Come here boy.”

But Dudley remained underneath his flax, only his beak and long neck moving as he flicked his head anxiously from side to side.

“What is it?”

‘QUACK’

She knelt down in front of the flax, trying to get a good look without scaring him away.

‘QUACK’

What she could see looked ok, but it was impossible to see all of him clearly.

“Come here Dudley,” she coaxed.

‘QUACK’

There was nothing else for it; she would have to gently pull him out so she could examine him closer. As tame as her ducks were, in that they would gather at her feet and accept bread from her fingertips, they did not like to be petted or held. She had learnt this lesson the hard way, one nip from a beak pinching the skin on the back of her hand so tight it had stayed bruised for over two weeks. As much as she had no desire to repeat that incident, she could see no other option. He must be hurt, otherwise why hadn’t he come to greet her with the others? She knelt down so she was at his eye level.

“Ok Dudley. I’m going to touch you now, if that’s alright with you, and I promise I mean you no harm whatsoever. I’m doing this out of complete concern for your wellbeing. You got that?”

‘QUACK’

“Was that a yes, I’ve got that, or a warning to back off?”

‘QUACK QUACK’

“Right. Ok. Here goes.”

Keeping a wary eye on his beak she edged towards the flax.

‘HISS’

“There’s no call for that, I’m trying to help you.”

‘HISSSSSSSSS’

And just as her fingertips were making contact with his feathers he lunged at her, his beak narrowly missing her hand. She quickly withdrew.”

“Well will you look at that,” she said.

For as Dudley had moved to attack she had noticed something she had not been prepared for.

Eggs.

Dudley was sitting on eggs. She frowned. Were ducks like penguins? Did the male of the species nurse the eggs until they hatched? Or was Mr Dudley in fact a Mrs Dudley? She would have to Google the answer. In the meantime she went back to where she had dropped her things and picked them up, the other ducks quacking furiously at her feet. The promised ten minutes had already morphed into twenty. This was not on.

“I’m sorry,” she told them placatingly before she closed the front door on their indignant faces. “But there was a very good reason. I’d do the same for any one of you. Now go shoo and meet me by the back door in ten.”

‘QUACK’

“Ok, five.”

Inside the house she sighed. The place was untidy, with toys and clothes strewn over the floor and furniture.

“Honestly,” she said to herself, “you’d think I was the only one who could pick up after themselves.”

Although she would rather pour herself a glass (large) of wine, cut off a wedge of that nice blue cheese she bought on the weekend and consume the two in front of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’, she had obligations. After all, she told herself, a mother’s work is never done.

So she opened the pantry and took out a loaf of bread which she threw onto the lawn from the back door. Mrs Dudley did not get off her nest to join the others. Anna walked as close as she dared without risking another attack and threw a couple of slices near the mother duck.

“Eat,” Anna told her, “you’ll need your strength once they arrive.”

Then she tipped out the murky brown water from the large stainless steel bowl – “I do wish you lot wouldn’t swim in your drinking water,” she scolded the others, “there’s a perfectly good trough in the round garden and you know it. Stop being so lazy” – and refilled it with fresh clean water from the hose.

Then she bade them goodnight and set about tidying the house. Clothes went into the hamper in the tiny laundry off the kitchen, toys went into the giant wooden toy box in the corner of the lounge. When she was satisfied the house passed muster again she went upstairs and changed out of her work clothes into a pair of black tights and a long blue tunic top. As she changed she mused on what she might cook for dinner. Her husband’s favourite was lasagne, but she had no tinned sauces in the cupboard and she couldn’t be bothered going to the effort of making one from scratch. His second favourite, very close behind, was meatloaf. But she wasn’t in the mood for meatloaf.

In the end she threw some lettuce, carrot, beetroot and cucumber in a bowl and mixed it, then she grated some of the blue cheese over the top and ate salad for her dinner, with a buttered slice of crusty bread and a large glass of merlot.

She turned the television on and flicked through the channels, bemoaning the lack of entertaining programmes. These days it was all reality shows; people stuck on islands trying to outsmart each other, or in houses trying to make out with each other. People dancing, cooking, racing around the world. Where were the classic shows like in the old days? The sitcoms that made her laugh? Friends, Mad about you, Seinfeld; these were the shows she missed. Disappointed, she turned the television back off.

Then she stood in front of the bookshelf for a good twenty minutes, waiting for a title to jump out at her. She’d read them all before but these were her favourites, the ones she kept when the others got donated to op shops or given to friends with the instruction to pass on after completion. These ones were well loved, with fingered covers and ever so slightly folded page tips. Was she in the mood for a travel memoir? Romance? A thick book dripping with literary fiction and poetic prose that would require all her mental attention? No. None appealed.

So she cleaned out the pantry. Checking expiry dates and discarding anything that had passed or was close. There weren’t too many; only a box of crackers (unopened) and a jar of fish sauce she’d forgotten all about buying when she went through her Asian cooking phase. Both went into the rubbish bin. The rest she lined up on the bench while she wiped the shelves down with spray and wipe cleaner, lemon scented. Everything then went back in, neatly sectioned into areas, dry goods, bottles, canned foods, miscellaneous odds and sods. Tallest at the back and shortest at the front.

Finally, when the clock over the mantel chimed eleven, she knew she could put it off no longer. But she didn’t need to. She had survived another evening. The rubber gloves went back under the sink, the spray cleaner beside it. She closed the doors on her shiny, ordered pantry and she flicked the light switches off, after first making sure the chain was on the back door and the deadbolt across.

Up the stairs she went, down to the end of the hallway where her tall cast iron bed awaited her. She showered using a shower cap to keep her hair dry, and selected her pink pyjamas from the drawer, the ones with the black cats that Tom’s mother had given her one Christmas and which Tom had never really liked as he felt they were more suited to a twelve year old. She pulled back the covers on her side of the bed and slid in, pulling them right up to her chin. It was something she’d done since she was a child and her cousin ghoulishly warned her that if she left her neck exposed at night a vampire would bite it.

Sleep did come, as it always did, at first. A few hours passed uneventfully before she woke sometime after two, heart racing, panicked, craning to hear if it was a noise in the house that had woken her but knowing it was the noises and the pictures in her head instead that had done it.

After that, sleep would remain elusive. She might start to doze but always she jerked to full conscious again, with that horrible start you get when it feels like you have fallen off a kerb. Around three, as she always did, she gave up; sliding out of the covers, pulling them up tidily and straightening the pillows, before making her way quietly down the hallway to the blue door on the room next to hers. Hand on the knob she took a deep breath, as she always did, before she opened it and that familiar smell assailed her. It was weakening, with time, but it still lingered. She didn’t look in the cot, just crossed to the lazy boy in the corner, the one that she used for breastfeeding and rocking while singing soft nursery rhymes, and sank down into its familiar curves.

Here Anna slept fitfully, as she always did, for short periods. Until the cracks around the curtains started to lighten and she was able to make out the black blobs that were animal stickers on the wall, and as the room lightened, their faces. That’s when she knew it was time to get up. When she could legitimately once again join the world of the awake. She got up slowly from the chair that wasn’t designed as a bed, her back making the sort of crunching sound that, really, a human body shouldn’t be making.

“Sorry,” she apologised to it, stretching into an arch to try and ease some of the tightness out.

Then she gingerly made her way to the window and taking a deep breath, she opened the curtains to watch the sunrise.

It was the eleven hundredth and forty first sunrise she had watched in a row. She knew exactly which number because her life was separated into days before, and the days since. Into days filled with shades of love and laughter and chaos and occasionally anger and impatience, and days which stretched endlessly and quietly and blended into one and which sometimes went by without her hearing a single other living voice or seeing another face.

This sunrise was up there amongst the more beautiful; vivid and orange, peeping cautiously over the rooftops before exploding violently across the sky like someone had fired a paint ball gun. When it had finished, when the colours had settled and merged and the world started to come alive, Anna crossed to the tall dresser, again ignoring the cot, and opened the drawers, selecting a few T-shirts and a pair of navy shorts and red and white striped socks.

She showered, this time without the shower cap so she could wash her hair. She pretended for a moment to stand and consider her outfit options in front of the wardrobe, before resignedly pulling a grey and green shirt and skirt from a hanger. They were identical to the ones she had worn yesterday and to the ones she would wear tomorrow.