Free The Elusive Language of Ducks by Judith White Page A

What had they talked about? Before she returned to her unit they had hugged goodnight. Then they kissed. They had melted together in a kiss. They were two ice-creams smashed together. She had pulled away. Aghast. Smirked at him self-consciously.
    G’night, she’d said, backing away like a fool, crashing into a large pot plant. She could feel the crunching of the plant beneath her. She started to laugh, her knees up, her feet waving mid-air, her bottom wedged in the pot. He grabbed her hand. Have a good trip? he’d said, pulling her out. Pulling her out like an unidentified creature rescued from mud. She didn’t recognise herself. The red geraniums were flattened. She tried in vain to pull them upright. Oh dear, she said, and she knew she couldn’t lookat him again, so she turned, scuffling through her bag searching for the key to her unit. She turned around. He was standing there. Waiting. Her hands were shaking. The key, she said. There it was, in her pocket. She opened the door. He was still standing there. Passively. Under a perfectly contained bowl of light under the soffit. Little black flies dancing, so excitedly. She gave him a childlike wave, her fingers playing notes on the keyboard of the night. And closed the door. And all night she thought of him.
    The next day Eric had organised to give the bass player a ride back home. Hannah insisted on sitting in the back seat. She’d dozed, listening to their banter, their boys’ chatter about music and musicians. Simon was much more serious, in general. Hannah and Eric were alone in the car for just ten minutes after Justin had been dropped off; Hannah back in the passenger seat, staring out the window. They were nervous, restrained, quiet. Back home, they stood on the footpath, their arms loaded with their overnight bags, and, in his case, his fiddle.
    I had a lovely time, thank you, she said.
    Yeah, me too, me too, he said nodding furiously. His hat fell onto the pavement. She bent, scooped her finger under the chinstrap he didn’t use, and pushed it under his arm. Then they split; he into his house, she into hers.
    Their attraction to each other boiled for a couple of weeks, lurking under their skin, waiting to be released. Hannah would lie in bed listening to the sombre threads of his cello or the bright enticing notes of his fiddle, and she knew he was playing for her. And all the windows of their houses breathed shared air, gaping to be fed. She imagined them both leaning across the sills, their elongated wavering tongues straining to touch.
    There was no way Hannah wanted to be unfaithful to Simon. No way. But one afternoon, a couple of weeks later, there’d been a storm, one of those crazy furious storms. A flying branch had smashed the window of their basement. Rain was pelting into the laundry. She’d dragged a large piece of plywood from the basement and was trying to hammer it across the window, but the force of the wind was pulling the wood from her grasp. Then Eric was beside her. She held the plywood against thehouse as he hammered. They almost had to yell at each other to be heard above the gale. Thanks so much, she said and then they were drinking the water that fell from each other’s face, into their shared ravenous — yes, ravenous — mouths. His cold hand slipping under the collar of her raincoat, over the skin of her shoulder onto her back. They couldn’t deny it this time. He took her by the hand and led her through the shuddering hedge and up the path and into his house.
    It had lasted a week. Well, eleven and a half days. It had stopped while it still had life. It had stopped because, if it hadn’t, it would never have ended. It had stopped because they didn’t want to hate each other. It had stopped because it had to stop because they would have consumed each other totally. It had stopped because his teenage daughter had arrived unexpectedly when Hannah was in bed with him in the early