Season 1 · Episode 30
The Empty Place at Lunch
Published 26th September 2026
He has not declined.
The Invitation
Batman Smith had left a small pile of seeds on the bird table for Nigel. Soon after noon, Derek inspected it and pronounced the arrangement structurally unsound.
“It is lunch,” Batman said.
“Then it is on the wrong side of the table.”
Batman moved the seeds. Derek inspected the other side and went back up the Oak without declaring victory. No pigeon came to settle the argument.
Clouds crossed the Square, but the afternoon warmed beneath them. The Jacks filled the upper branches, each arriving with news of a better branch and finding a relative already on it. Gary turned up once the audience was large enough.
“Who is lunch for?” he asked.
“Nigel.”
Gary looked at the empty place opposite Batman. “Has he accepted?”
“He has not declined.”
“A distinction on which many romances have foundered.”
Batman decided not to ask what Gary knew about romance. Percy vanished into the foliage before Gary could ask him instead. A long-tailed tit swept through after him, followed by enough bustle to make the Oak seem briefly full of tiny, urgent appointments.
The Oak in Motion
By mid-afternoon Gary had returned to the Oak several times, always with a question that happened to lead back to the bird table. The Jacks supplied commentary from above. Hopalong climbed the trunk by his own peculiar route, ignored every conversation, and was gone before Batman could recruit him as a witness to anything.
Then the long-tailed tits came through in earnest. Flora, Fauna and Merryweather were somewhere in the rushing party, but even Mr Jack Daw declined to certify who had passed which leaf. Clive followed among the small birds, taking each opening the gang left him. Derek worked a different route through the Oak, as though the others had made the elementary error of approaching trees from the outside.
Batman stood guard at the table.
“No one is taking Nigel’s portion.”
“Nobody has asked for it,” said Brenda from below.
“That is why it is still there.”
The light softened. Gary circulated among the Jacks again while their branches filled and emptied. As evening approached, one of Stirling’s squirrels crossed the lawn. Gary appeared a little later and settled where he could see both the Vegetable Garden and the Oak. The squirrel had already slipped away.
“Good evening,” Gary said to the empty lawn.
Mr Jack Daw turned his head. “Expecting an answer?”
“One never knows who is listening.”
He offered no explanation, and nobody asked for one. By dusk the Jacks had departed. Brenda withdrew into the hedge. Steve and Mrs Steve took the last of the light for a quiet inspection of the garden, while Batman watched the space Nigel had failed to fill.
Marjorie at the Hedge
Marjorie appeared after dark, alone, on her side of the boundary hedge.
She regarded the neighbouring garden for a while. “You need not wait for me to tell you that it is yours.”
No answer came back. Marjorie left it at that and moved farther among the trees. Later, under a clearing sky, she returned to the hedge with a look that suggested she had thought of several improvements to her opening remark.
“If you are there,” she said, “you might at least keep the place properly.”
The neighbouring garden remained quiet. Marjorie continued for long enough that Mr Jack Daw, roosting out of sight, became grateful he had no daughter next door. At last she withdrew again.
Across the Boundary
Hours passed. Clouds closed over the moon, and the gardens grew damp and cold. Then Marlboro answered from beyond the hedge.
“I am keeping it.”
Marjorie was back at once. “I did not say you weren’t.”
“You said it before I’d finished moving in.”
“I said you needed to stand on your own side.”
“I am standing on it.”
“Then why are we shouting across it?”
Marlboro had an answer ready. Marjorie interrupted before she could give it, and for a little while mother and daughter conducted the sort of conversation in which neither could later claim the other had refused to participate.
“You wanted me gone,” Marlboro said.
“I wanted you to have somewhere of your own.”
“You could have mentioned that part.”
“You could have listened to it.”
Marlboro retreated into her garden. Marjorie remained at the hedge and called after her, but got no reply. When the clouds thickened, she moved away too. Neither crossed the boundary.
Much later, fog covered the Oak and swallowed the far end of the Square. Marjorie passed through it alone. She stopped once at the hedge, looked into Marlboro’s garden, and went on without trying to wake her.
The Empty Place
Morning found Batman already at the bird table. The seeds had gone soft in the mist. He nudged one, considered it, and nudged it back.
The Smiths busied the hedge. Steve and Mrs Steve arrived on the lawn, and Brenda made her opinion of the fog known from somewhere near their feet. The Jacks returned as the light improved. Gary put in an early appearance, looked from Batman to the untouched place at the table, and for once kept his observation to himself.
Rain followed the fog. Derek crossed the Oak; a passing Chiffchaff slipped through before Batman could ask whether it was Colin. The long-tailed tit gang swept past again with Clive and Percy moving in its wake. Stirling’s squad worked through the Vegetable Garden while Gary was elsewhere, then disappeared before the Square had agreed what they were doing.
By late morning the rain had eased. Gary returned to find Batman arranging a fresh patch of seeds.
“Still expecting a guest?”
Batman looked at the open sky. “No. But he knows where lunch is.”
Gary glanced at the table, then at the seeds Batman had set aside.
“Those are getting wet.”
“I know.”
Gary took a branch in the Oak. Batman stayed beside the empty place, and neither of them mentioned how long it had been empty.