Everybody Heard That

Nigel’s Lunch

By noon the rain had left the bird table alone, but it had not improved Nigel’s lunch. Batman Smith examined a swollen seed and pushed it over the edge.

“You are allowed to eat something yourself,” Mr Jack Daw said.

“I have eaten.”

“Then allow someone else to eat something. The Oak is full of volunteers.”

It was. The Jacks had occupied so many branches that every late arrival was greeted as an administrative problem. Gary moved among them, collecting versions of the same story and improving each one before passing it on. When Batman asked whether any of those stories involved a pigeon, Gary found a sudden interest in the clouds.

Several Chiffchaffs travelled through the hedge. Batman made an attempt to stop one.

“Colin?”

“If he says yes,” said Gary, “will you believe him?”

The bird was gone before Batman could decide.

Separate Concerns

The afternoon remained cool and grey. Stirling’s squad emerged in force across the lawn, then broke into smaller parties around the Vegetable Garden. Gary appeared while they were at work and took a branch with a good view but no obvious route down to the beds.

“They have seen you,” Mr Jack Daw observed.

“I should hope so. I am very conspicuous.”

Below, the squirrels changed direction almost together. Gary watched them go and resumed asking the Jacks what they had heard about Marjorie.

By late afternoon the squad had withdrawn and Gary had returned to his usual circuits. Chiffchaffs kept slipping through, some lingering just long enough to make Batman more certain that Colin was among them and less certain which one he meant. Brenda briefly emerged to object to the traffic. Percy crossed the higher branches without stopping to endorse anyone’s account of it.

The squirrels came back as the light began to fade. This time Gary did not move away. He held his place above the Vegetable Garden while Stirling worked below, both of them apparently devoted to entirely separate concerns. Gary spoke to the Jacks. Stirling rearranged his squad. Neither looked directly at the other for long.

“You could ask what he is doing,” Batman suggested.

“And lose the pleasure of finding out?” Gary said.

As evening settled, the Smiths filled the hedge with their own family business. Steve made one last pass across the darkening lawn. The clouds hung low, and the garden emptied of everyone who had a sensible place to sleep.

At the Boundary

Marjorie arrived alone.

She took her familiar side of the boundary and regarded Marlboro’s neighbouring garden. “I am not going to call you back,” she said.

Nothing answered.

“I only meant to see whether you had kept your place.”

Still nothing. Marjorie left, returned later, and spoke once more into the dark. As the night cooled, she moved away through the trees until even the Jacks on their roost could no longer make out where she had gone. Then she was back at the hedge, behaving as though she had never left it.

Near the middle of the night, Marlboro answered from next door.

“You have checked,” she said. “It is still here.”

Marjorie turned towards her. “I can see that.”

“Then why do you keep coming?”

“Because you keep answering.”

Marlboro began an indignant reply. Marjorie cut across it. For an instant the two gardens erupted at once; something else broke through their quarrel, so fierce and strange that both owls stopped. Neither claimed it. On the Oak, Mr Jack Daw opened one eye and wished he had kept it closed.

What the Hedge Means

Marlboro withdrew into her own darkness. Harold arrived almost immediately afterward.

“I thought you were leaving her alone,” he said.

“I was.”

“She has gone.”

“You have eyes, Harold.”

“I also have ears. You came back.”

Marjorie faced him. “I wanted to know she was there.”

“She told you.”

“After I asked.”

“And now you know.”

That ought to have ended it. It did not. Husband and wife moved along the Oak, interrupting each other, drawing apart, returning to the same argument from new angles. Marjorie said she was not trying to bring Marlboro home. Harold said he knew that. She accused him of treating concern as a trespass. He asked whether Marlboro could tell the difference from the other side of the hedge.

“You stood here with me last time,” Marjorie said.

“And I am standing here now.”

“Then stop speaking as if I crossed over.”

Harold fell quiet for a moment. When he answered, it was from farther along the branch.

“I did not say you crossed it. I said you keep asking her to come to it.”

Marjorie had a response ready. She let it go. Harold waited, perhaps hoping silence might finally be useful, then moved away. Marjorie remained at the boundary after he had gone.

“You can stay there,” she told the neighbouring garden.

No reply came. She left it alone until much later, when the moon shone over a clear, bitterly cold Square. Then Marjorie returned once more, looked across the hedge, and departed without waking anyone.

Gary Arrives Late

At dawn the Smiths burst into the cold as though they had been promised an audience. Brenda followed from the brambles. Steve and Mrs Steve took the lawn while Mildred kept beneath the hedge, unimpressed by everybody’s urgency. The Jacks assembled more slowly. Derek worked down the Oak before most of them had found their places.

Stirling’s squad made a brisk morning sweep of the Vegetable Garden and disappeared. Only after they had gone did Gary arrive. He found Mr Jack Daw on the Oak and looked down at the empty beds.

“Did I miss something?”

“Several squirrels,” said Mr Jack Daw.

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only one they left.”

Sunlight warmed the Square. Clive crossed with a few small birds, and Percy appeared above Mildred’s head. Dorothy the Goldfinch dropped in just long enough to hear Gary asking what the owls had settled.

“Nothing,” Mr Jack Daw said.

“After all that?” Dorothy asked.

“They were quite thorough about it.”

Hopalong climbed past, oblivious. Gary glanced once more towards the Vegetable Garden, then up at the branches where the Jacks were still talking.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I should arrive earlier tomorrow.”

Mr Jack Daw watched him consider the problem. “Perhaps,” he said, “they already know that.”

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