‘Who said that?’
‘Me.’
Her eyes fall upon a mallard, standing away from the other ducks that are pecking at the bread roll, and each other.
‘Hi,’ it says. ‘I’m guessing by the look on your face that you can hear me.’
Her mouth falls open. She’s speechless.
He laughs. ‘Okay, nice talking,’ he says, then waddles off towards the lake.
‘Wait! Come back!’ She snaps out of her shock. ‘I’ll give you some bread!’
‘Nah, thanks,’ he says, but he waddles towards her. ‘You shouldn’t feed ducks bread, you know. Aside from the fact that uneaten bread causes changes to the chemical and bacteriological content of the water, which in turn increases the risks of avian disease, it’s bad nutrition. The recommended food for ducks is defrosted frozen peas, corn or oats. That kind of thing.’
She stares at him, completely lost for words.
‘Don’t be offended, it’s sweet of you, all right, but white bread is the worst, it has no nutritional value whatsoever. Ever heard of angel wing?’
She shakes her head.
‘Didn’t think so. It’s caused by an imbalance of nutrients in a duck’s diet. It causes a deformity in ducks’ wings, can hamper our flight or stop us altogether, which is, you know, crappy.’
‘Gosh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
‘That’s okay.’ He studies her. He can’t help himself. ‘Mind if I sit with you?’
‘Sure.’
He flies up to the bench. ‘Work getting you down again?’
‘How did you know?’
‘You’re here every day. Fucking Colin. Fucking Peter. Fucking world markets. Fucking Slimming World. Bastard tomatoes.’
‘You hear all that?’
‘Hear it? We feel it. Every time we hear you coming, we armour up. You fire those pieces of bread at us like grenades.’
‘Sorry,’ she replies, biting her lip.
‘That’s okay. We figure it does you some good, even if it takes a duck eye out here and there.’
‘Thanks for understanding.’
‘We’re all human, after all,’ he says.
She looks at him, baffled.
‘That was a little bit of bird humour for you,’ he chuckles. ‘But seriously, everybody needs to have a place where they can let loose. Where they feel safe.’ He has a faraway look.
She studies him. ‘Do you?’
‘Yeah sure, there’s this great river region in Senegal where I go for the winter. There’s a sweet little pintail that I meet up with. We watch the sunrise and sunset, we hang out by the river. That’s my place.’
‘It sounds beautiful.’
‘It is.’
They sit together in silence.
‘How about we reverse it?’ he asks suddenly.
‘You want me to fly to Senegal? I’m not sure I’m your pintail’s type.’
The duck laughs. ‘Let’s reverse the feeding.’
She giggles. ‘Are you going to throw bread at me?’
‘In a way. A little food for thought.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s not my place to say it, which is why I never said it before, but you seem more open to it today, being able to hear me speak and all. You seem angry. Very stressed, frustrated. I get the impression you don’t like your job very much.’
‘I like my job. And if there was nobody in the office, I’d love my job.’
‘Hey, look, who are you talking to? If I was the only duck in this pond, life would be much easier, let me tell you, but I pass the time watching people and I’ve noticed you. You’re not very good with people.’
‘Or ducks, by the sounds of it,’ she says, trying not to take offence. She’d always thought she was a good people person. She stayed out of everybody’s way, never asked questions, never got into conflict with anyone …
‘You’ll be better with ducks after this. As for the people: you should tell Colin he needs to trust your instincts. Tell him you were right about the Damon Holmes account. The account taking that turn for the worse had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the earthquake in Japan.’
She nods.
‘Tell Paul to stop interrupting you in meetings. Tell Jonathan you don’t enjoy the dirty emails, that donkeys don’t do it for you. Tell Christine in Slimming World that you’d appreciate it if she stopped telling people your husband was her first boyfriend. She may have taken his virginity but you took his heart. And tell your husband you don’t like tomatoes; he’s adding them to the baguette because he senses you’re stressed. It’s his way of making things more special for you. He doesn’t know that your bread is soggy by lunchtime, or how much the sogginess bothers you.’
The woman nods, taking it all in.
‘Stop hiding here and making things worse. Deal with it head-on. Calmly. Stand up for yourself. Talk to people. Be an adult. Then come here and just enjoy feeding the ducks.’
She smiles. ‘Oats, corn and peas.’
‘That’ll do just fine.’
‘Thank you, duck. Thank you for the advice.’
‘Sure,’ he says, flying down from the bench to the ground and waddling into the lake. ‘Good luck,’ he adds, swimming to the centre and narrowly avoiding the piece of bread that flies from another direction, towards his head.
The woman stands, feels dizzy, and quickly sits down again. Something the duck said hit a nerve.
Stop hiding. Talk to people.
She’s heard those words before, but not in a long time. As a child the words seemed to pass everybody’s lips; from her mother at children’s parties, from her father when he took her anywhere, from teachers, from every adult whose path she crossed until she made it her intention at a very young age not to cross people’s paths. After that, the only time she’d heard the words as an adult was from her then-boyfriend, soon to be her ex-boyfriend, though his exact words had been, Stop hiding. Talk to me.
She had always been a hider and she never wanted to talk. As a child she was afraid to speak up because she knew she wasn’t allowed to tell them the things that she wanted to say. They wanted her to be normal and act normal, but nothing really was normal, and she couldn’t tell them that. If she couldn’t say what was real then there was nothing else to say, and avoidance became the name of the game. There was only one person who had ever truly understood her, never uttering those words, even in her childhood. Her eyes filled up at the thought of him: Granddad.
Her parents’ marriage had been a volatile one. She was an only child and whenever things fired up at home, her granddad would come to collect her and they’d go for a drive. They’d have chats, little ones, innocent ones. She felt safe in his company because she was safe in his company. She loved the smell of his woollen cardigans, and the way he removed his full set of teeth and chattered them in her face to make her laugh. She loved the feel of his fat wrinkled hands when her small hand got lost in his grip, and the smell of pipe smoke from his wax jacket. She loved being away from her house, even more being taken away. She always felt that he was rescuing her, showing up at the right