Lessons From Ducks (6 page)

Having Oscar in such close proximity was testing every ounce of strength to feign normality though. If she didn’t know otherwise she would have sworn, on a bible in any courtroom with hand held over heart, that he was –

Obviously a lot older, but how she imagined Ben would have looked if -

No. She couldn’t allow herself to think like that. It was merely that they had a similar hair colour – a sandy pale colour like the fluffy bunny tail plants that grew along the beach – and eyes – such a clear, startling blue, like –

Stop it, she scolded herself.

“Would you like to feed them?” she asked him, holding out the bread. He was standing back, unsure still about this woman who looked at him like she might devour him. However, his dad was nearby and seemed to think she was harmless, and the ducks were about the coolest thing he’d seen in a while, so he accepted the bread and followed her to the back door. Anna had to nudge it open slowly with a foot to stop it from crashing into the ducks who were gathered in an angry mob on the far side.

‘QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK’

“Now now, calm down. You lot need to remember your ancestors weren’t spoon fed like this. Neither are your friends in the park, no, they have to forage for their food. Imagine what they’d think if they saw you carrying on like this just because your dinner’s a little late. They’d think you’re a bunch of drama queens.”

But the ducks weren’t listening. They’d spied the bread in Oscars hand and waddled towards him. He backed away. Their beaks looked like they could do some damage.

“It’s ok,” Anna told him. “They won’t bite unless you try and pet them. Throw the bread out over their heads. That’s what they’re after.”

He did as she said and was relieved when the ducks turned and rushed towards the bread. He watched as they gulped it down eagerly, scooping up a bit and shaking their long throats to swallow it down.

“Hungry aren’t they?” he said.

“Always,” Anna sighed. “I don’t know why, it’s not like they’re running marathons or anything particularly strenuous.”

Oscar chuckled at the mental picture this conjured up.

The sound made Anna sag against the doorframe and clutch a hand to her chest.

“Are you ok?” Oscar asked her.

Anna straightened. Now who was being the drama queen? She had to stop scaring the poor boy.

“Yes I’m fine,” she said brightly, ‘just twisted my ankle a little on the step.” She held her left foot off the ground and rolled it in a circle a few times to back up her story. “Seems ok again now though.”

“I think dad and I better get going,” Oscar said. “Thanks for the offer of food but I’m kind of past the hungry stage now. I’ll just grab something at home.”

“Nonsense. It’s my fault your dad dragged you here so the least I can do is feed you. There’s one more duck we have to feed first though. Follow me.”

Oscar watched her head off down the garden and swallowed. The night sky had darkened even further and the first stars were making themselves known. He looked nervously over his shoulder to where he could just see his father on the opposite side of the lounge studying book spines on a shelf. Looking back to where Anna was disappearing into the shadows, he tried not to think about garden sheds and shovels. Surely if this woman intended him harm she wouldn’t do it with his father nearby? He knew he was being silly. It was his mothers fault for the dangers she was constantly filing his head with. As well as the usual,
don’t get into cars with strangers
and
don’t accept sweets/gifts from strangers,
she had also warned him:

-
         
Not to walk down side streets on his way to and from school, stick to main roads only. (More witnesses to any abduction attempts. )

-
         
To cross the road if anyone remotely odd looking approached.
(This often resulted in a complex zig zag journey home – never mind the fact he had to dodge traffic)

-
         
To always pause before driveways in case a car backed out in a hurry

-
         
Never to cross or walk behind parked cars (see above)

-
         
Never engage in small talk with ANYONE he didn’t know. You never knew who was fresh out of the Looney bin or in need of a visit. (Concealed weapons were dangerous because they were just that; concealed.)

-
         
Never go off on his own with anyone not first sanctioned by his mother

There were other, more odd ones- -
never swim in jeans
for example.
It was at times like these he wished his mother would keep her fears to herself. She had made him overly cautious, untrusting. He wanted to be more like his father; open to new people and experiences.

“Coming?”

Something in the timbre of her voice told him he could trust her, so he took a deep breath, and then he took a step forward.

Later that night, in the taxi on the way back to the playground to fetch his father’s car, he found it a struggle to keep his eyes open. He fought as long as he could against gravity, kneeling up on the back seat to wave out of the rear window until the car reached the corner. It paused for a second under the yellow streetlight, indicator blinking, before turning. Anna’s house and street were swallowed up into inky black darkness.

“Right you,” his father said softly, “sit down and buckle yourself in properly.”

Oscar did as he was told, snuggling in against his father’s comforting side, finally surrendering to it and letting his so heavy eyelids close.

He thought back over the night and how much fun it had turned out to be. He was so glad he’d decided to trust Anna. When he’d followed her down the garden she had introduced him to Mrs Dudley, another duck, and her soon-to-be babies; although he’d had to take her word for that as the eggs were hidden safely underneath Mrs Dudley’s plump feathered body. Anna did try to coax her off the eggs to eat some bread but, perhaps due to his presence, she refused to budge.

“We’ll just have to leave her be,” Anna said eventually, “I’m sure she’ll eat something once we’re back inside.”

Then Anna had whipped up a quick meal of spaghetti bolognaise, but nothing like he’d ever associated with those words before. The one his father sometimes served up was mince in a watery tomato sauce. Served with packet noodles it was ok, but nothing to rave about. His mothers spaghetti bolognaise was even less amazing, due partly to her tendency to buy the cheapest mince available. Once you’ve seen that stuff raw, all white bits of tubing and weird, unspecified gristly bits, it was hard to enjoy it cooked. His mother didn’t use pasta sauce, just a tin of tomatoes and a squirt of tomato ketchup from a bottle. No, his past experiences with the dish had certainly left a lot to be desired.

Anna’s though? Wow. Her bolognaise was rich and thick and delicious. She’d diced onion and grated garlic into the oil first which added a flavour burst that surprised him. She served it with crusty bread to mop up the leftover sauce, grated cheese sprinkled over the bowl and a dollop of sour cream on top. The cheese had become gooey and the sour cream melted slightly, and it all blended together to become a creamy and delicious concoction that had made him close his eyes and moan with the pleasure of it. His father had been surprised as Oscar wasn’t normally one for getting excited over food.

“That’s because you never give me food as yummy as this,” Oscar said with his mouth full when his father pointed this out. 

“Hey now, that’s not true,” Matt protested.

“Yes it is.”

“You ungrateful sod. How many hours do I slave away to prepare you extremely delicious – also nutritiously designed to meet a growing child’s needs, I might add - meals.” 

“Nutritious? Dad do you even know what a carrot looks like? Or an apple?”

“Oh ha ha. You see the cheek I have to put up with?” he said to Anna, shaking his head in mock upset. 

“What would you have been having for tea tonight if you weren’t here?” she asked him.

Matt open his mouth then abruptly shut it again. He looked down and mumbled.

“Sorry? Couldn’t quite catch that.”

Matt sighed, knowing the game was up. “Fish and Chips,” he admitted. Then over loud laughter from the other two he defended himself, “but he loves Fish and Chips! And fish is healthy.”

“Not when it’s under a thick inch of batter it’s not.”

After they ate, despite Anna’s insistence that she needed no help, the three of them washed and dried and put away the dishes, and then Anna served them creamy Hokey Pokey ice cream in little blue bowls and they ate it at the table while they played a round of last card with a deck of cards Anna had pulled from a drawer.

The only weird part of the evening was when he had found the toy box in the lounge, and asked Anna if she had a son too and if so where was he? She had gone a funny colour again then, like earlier in the playground, and she had turned away and pretended she hadn’t heard him. He would have repeated himself but a warning look from his father made him close his mouth instead.

Grownups, he had shrugged it off.

The taxi driver was playing some quiet ethnic music, Indian perhaps. It was gentle and soothing like a lullaby.

“Dad?” he murmured, before he let sleep claim him.

“Hmm?”

“Can we get a duck?”

“We’ll see,” his dad said, which Oscar knew more than likely meant no. Oh well, it had been worth a try. He thought about the ducks, smiled, and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter seven

It was odd. Nothing physical had been altered in her house by Matt and Oscar’s visit, but something less tangible, something
atmospheric,
had. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but it was if something had been awakened, a memory perhaps, of echoed conversations and the sound of laughter. These were sounds that, until last night, the house had not heard in some time, but the memory of them was still there, in the dust on the skirting boards and the cobwebs in the corners. Traces remained.  

Apart from filling in the hours before bedtime, her previous night’s unexpected visitors failed to impact on her life in any other way. She still showered with her shower cap on, slept half the night in one room and dozed fitfully in the other room. She still showered – without the shower cap – and selected an identical grey and green shirt and skirt to the ones she had worn yesterday from the wardrobe.

The moment the taxi had turned the corner and disappeared and her waving hand had dropped back against her side, she had allowed herself a moment to dwell on the events of the evening, before turning and heading back inside the house, banishing them both from her thoughts for good. She could not allow herself to fixate on a stranger’s child and any appearance coincidences between him and Ben that made the hairs along the length of her arm stand erect. Too much time had passed and she’d worked too hard at a semblance of closure.

She
did
allow herself a moment to be pleased that she had not forgotten how to entertain guests, something she had once been reasonably renowned for. She still had the gift; she smiled, remembering Oscar’s pleasure with the food she had served him.

As Anna ate her breakfast in her bowl over the sink, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was observing her. Not in a sinister way, quite the opposite. The air felt expectant, eager, and desperate to please.

Like a puppy.

She turned and eyed the empty expanse of the room. “Don’t go thinking that what happened last night heralds the beginning of dinner parties or BBQ’s or anything,” she warned it, “because it doesn’t. It was a one off. You’re stuck with just me for company again; deal with it.”

As she got ready to leave she sensed a definite sulk in the air, and when she tried to open the back door she found it was stuck fast. Tugging failed to free it, so she was forced to put her handbag and the bag of bread down in order to brace a knee against the wall and pull with all her strength. This time the door flew open as easily as if it had never been stuck at all, and she fell backwards onto the kitchen tiles, landing heavily on her tailbone.

“Ouch,” she said. For a minute all she could do was sit there awkwardly, unable to move or stand up until the pain lessened, and when it did she rolled over onto her hands and knees and pushed herself off the floor. Upright again, she leant against the bench top and rubbed the sore spot.

“You did that on purpose,” she scowled. Of course, no one answered. But she
did
sense a slight feeling of chagrin in the air.

“I should think so,” she scolded, leaving and slamming the door closed behind her. The moment the door clicked shut behind her was the same moment she realised her bag and keys were still on the other side of it.

She groaned and checked her watch.

Throwing the bread to the ducks and telling them they would just have to suffice with the bowl of dirty water today – “like I’ve told you a million times, it’s for
drinking,
not swimming” – she went around the side of the house where she knew she would be able to climb – awkwardly with a fresh back injury to contend with – up onto the top of the porch and with a little bit of elbow strength, jimmy the bathroom window open. After she’d done that it was simply a case of squeezing in over the windowsill – trying not to land a hand or a foot in the toilet – and voila, she was inside. Out of breath and aching, but inside. She scurried downstairs and back through the kitchen – pausing only to cast a dark look around the room – and this time, before she slammed the door shut, she made sure that she had everything she needed in hand first.

There was no denying it; she was going to be late again. Judy would have a field day with her excuse – “
wait, you’re telling me that your house, got shitty, and locked you out??”

Oh well. Anna figured she may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so she stopped and closed her eyes and took several deep breaths until she felt her heart return to its normal rhythm, then she opened her eyes and smiled. She was going to enjoy every minute of her walk this morning.