You'll be doing him a favour, she'd thought, and so as he wandered past the kitchen on a mid-afternoon stroll she crept up behind him and grabbed him by the neck.
His name was Donald. He squawked and he struggled, but she was stronger. The road accident that had left him lame had also worn him down. He fought and he flapped and made little gurgling noises, but Angelica hung on.
And realised that she wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do next.
She was hurting Donald, but he wasn't actually dying… there was some knack to this, and she didn't have it. So much for mercy killing. Her grip began to slacken and he kicked a little harder, perhaps sensing a reprieve, and he managed to turn his head around so that he could look at her. Why? his small beady eyes seemed to be saying, What did I do?
"You're holding it wrong," a younger woman's voice said.
Angelica looked up, feeling faintly ridiculous. She hadn't planned for a witness, but it seemed that she had one; the woman was over on the iron steps, watching her across the restaurant deck. Donald flapped and fought and struggled, damaged but not done for, and Angelica — not unaware of the absurdity of trying to maintain some kind of formality under such circumstances — said, "Can I help you?"
"Perhaps I can help you," the young woman said, and she stepped forward onto the terrace planking. "You're holding it wrong."
"Have you done this kind of thing before?"
The woman gave a brief smile to show that it was no big deal.
"I was raised on a farm," she said, and she took the duck from Angelica and efficiently flipped it upside down and twisted its neck. The bird's flapping became as frantic as a wind-up toy's for a few seconds, but this quickly petered out and its body became limp.
She held it out to Angelica, and said, "For the kitchen?"
"For the dustbin," Angelica corrected. The lake birds appeared to be healthy enough, but they were always scrounging food from the tourists and picking over the debris that washed up on the lakeshore. A menu featuring Canard aux Parasites wouldn't be much of a crowd-puller for the coming season. The woman handed her what was left of Donald, and Angelica said, "People feed them and they wander into the road… it's not surprising they get hurt. I know it has to be done, but it seems I'm no good at it. Would you care for a coffee?"
"I brought no money with me," the woman said.
"Restaurant's closed anyway. This is on the house."
The woman shrugged, smiled, inclined her head — a gesture of polite acceptance in the continental manner, none of the foot-shuffling embarrassment of the local stock at all. Angelica loved the valley people — some of them, anyway — but at times she could find them… well, basic more or less summarised the idea. Had it not been for seasonal visitors, the list of locally popular dishes would have been depressingly brief; burned steaks, fried fish, and barbecued chicken. Preferred background music; anything classical that could be recognised from TV. Major fashion influence; the Kays catalogue.
This woman was clearly different.
Compared to some, she was almost a china doll. She seemed dressed for colder weather, in several layers of woollens and a heavy shawl; dull colours, nothing gaudy, and her hair was pulled back and had been pinned in a clasp. She followed as Angelica led the way toward the kitchen, careful not to hold the dead duck too close. The main part of the building faced the lake, and the half-glassed partition of the western wall could be rolled back in decent weather to allow a dozen or more tables to be set in the open air, right out over the water.
As they were stepping inside, the visitor said, "This is a lovely place."
Angelica, trying to place her accent but not managing it, said, "You should see it when the season gets going, it's madness. Let me take a guess. You're not on holiday."
"No. I live here."
"Since when? I'd better warn you, they've a bush telegraph around here that works faster than the speed of light."
"I haven't been here for very long. I only just arrived."
"That would explain it," Angelica said, pushing open the service door that led through into the kitchen. "So, what do you think of the valley?"
The visitor smiled.
"I plan to stay," she said.
They were hit by the scents of baking and spices, the results of the afternoon's work put in by Adele Venetz. Adele, the younger of the two sisters although some privately reckoned that she looked a little drawn-in and slightly older than Angelica, was wiping down the flour from the big kitchen table as they came through the door.
She fixed a baleful eye on Angelica, and said, "If ever they bring back hanging, I wouldn't advise you to apply for the job."
"You were watching?"
"I was listening. Couldn't help it, the racket you were making. Thank God you got some expert help or we'd have been hearing duck screams in our nightmares forever."
"Just get a move on," Angelica said, "so we can use the table. And say hello to one of our neighbours." She pulled out the kitchen trash hopper, a laundry basket kind of affair on squeaky castors, and set Donald on his journey to duck heaven by dropping him into the grey plastic liner. "I'm Angelica, this is my sister Adele. All this is our place."
"Ours, and the bank's," Adele put in.
"My name's Alina Peterson," the young woman said.
Angelica switched on the Cona machine and Adele brought an extra chair. They sat around one end of the work table, which now seemed vast and empty, and Alina Peterson explained how she'd walked down to the village to look around and, where it seemed appropriate, to introduce herself. Angelica said that such a gesture would certainly catch the local people off-guard; a new policeman had been appointed to the area about two years before, and everybody still referred to him as 'that newcomer'.
"You don't think it's such a good idea?" Alina said.
"Well," Angelica said, "I wouldn't want to discourage you. But I wouldn't say it was necessary, either."
The oven timer buzzed, and Adele moved over to attend to it; Alina dug around inside her layers and brought out what looked like a colour postcard. "Well, what do you think of this?" she said, and slid it across for Angelica to see. "Is that a good idea, or is that not how they do things, either?"
Angelica took the card and looked at it. The picture side featured some green and white palace, all columns and arched windows and with a couple of tourist buses parked off to the side. She turned it over, and read the situation wanted ad that Alina had drafted on the back.
"I didn't make it up," Alina said. "I copied it out, mostly. I know they show cards like this in one of the stores, I saw it on the way over here."
Angelica briefly held the card up so that her sister could see it. She didn't have to say anything more. Adele looked back over her shoulder, read it through, and then gave a brief shrug as if to say no objection.
Angelica laid the card down, and looked at their visitor.
She said, "Where are you living right now?"
"On the headland to the north, the place I think they call the Step. I've a temporary room in a house there."
"Anywhere near Pete McCarthy's place?"
"Not too far from him," Alina said.
"I'm not trying to pry, I'm only wondering how far you'd have to travel," Angelica explained. "You see, we usually take on a couple of girls locally for when the season picks up. I don't think we've anything fixed yet. Have you ever done restaurant work?"