The Thing Beneath the Summerhouse

A Windy Afternoon

By lunchtime, the wind had got into every corner of Lightwood Square and was attempting to rearrange the tenants.

Derek clung to the Oak with the calm of someone who had never accepted that a tree had a right way up. Percy vanished into its highest branches. Brenda emerged from the hedge, declared the weather “an insult with leaves attached,” and went back in. Mr Jack Daw’s family filled the sheltered side of the Oak and argued about whether shelter could be reserved.

Gary arrived in the afternoon beneath a sky that looked as if it had been saving up its grievance.

“Did they come back?” he asked Mr Jack Daw.

“Yes.”

“After I left?”

“Yes.”

Gary looked towards the Vegetable Garden. “You might have mentioned it.”

“You might have stayed.”

After the Rain

Rain drowned the argument. Gary retreated; the Jacks huddled deeper into the Oak. When it eased, Stirling’s squad crossed the garden in a tight rush. Not a magpie was in sight.

“Convenient,” said Mr Jack Daw.

No squirrel answered. By the time the Jacks had agreed on what convenient meant, the squad had gone.

The evening dried slowly. The Jacks reclaimed their branches, the Smiths returned to their customary inspection of other people’s affairs, and Reginald swept over the far end of the Square. Batman opened his beak to object to the manner of the fly-by, thought better of it, and watched the sky empty.

An Argument in the Moonlight

Night lowered its voice. The rain stopped; cloud drifted across a round, bright moon. Marjorie appeared alone and settled where she could look towards Marlboro’s neighbouring garden.

Marjorie did not immediately address the darkness next door. She stayed, considered it, and eventually said, “Your father and I are not standing guard over you.”

A little later Harold joined her. He let the silence have a reasonable chance, which was more than it had earned.

“I thought we had agreed,” he said.

“We did.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because agreement is not the same as being pleased.”

Harold moved to the outer branch. Marjorie followed him, still intent on finishing a conversation that neither of them seemed to have started tonight. From below, their voices travelled together through the trees; farther off, Harold tried a gentler approach and Marjorie held her ground. At moments he fell quiet and she carried the argument alone. Then he answered again.

“Do you want me to tell her?” he asked.

“No. I want you to stop asking what I want you to tell her.”

That left Harold with very little room in which to be useful.

They returned nearer the Oak. He said something Marjorie did not permit to stand, she responded, and for a while their disagreement became so private and so public that even Batman stopped pretending it concerned him. A sudden stir among the leaves sent them both alert. Harold spoke once more; Marjorie gave her reply and remained after he had gone.

Next door, Marlboro offered nothing. Whatever her parents had been debating, their daughter had not volunteered to sit through it.

Much later, when the Square seemed entirely asleep, Marjorie passed through again. She said nothing to Harold; he was not there. She faced the neighbouring trees, left a single remark in the darkness, and moved on.

Across the Boundary

Before dawn she returned. The air was cold enough to make the hedge seem brittle.

“I know you can manage it,” Marjorie said towards the garden beyond.

This time an answer came.

“Then let me.”

Marjorie held her place. Marlboro, somewhere on her own side of the boundary, held hers.

“I am,” Marjorie said.

“From over there, you could almost believe it.”

Neither crossed. Their final words followed one another into the paling sky, and the distance between them remained exactly as troublesome as before.

At first light the Smiths made an enormous business of waking up. Steve and Mrs Steve searched the lawn for breakfast. Brenda resumed her complaints at ground level, while the Jacks convened an argument in the Oak that had apparently survived the night without any of them attending it.

“Do you think the owls settled anything?” Steve asked.

“If they had,” said Mrs Steve, “we would have heard less of it.”

Gary came through early, disappeared, and came through again. He asked about the squirrels. Mr Jack Daw gave him a look.

“I told you yesterday,” he said.

“You told me after the fact.”

“That has always been your preferred kind of news.”

A loose party of long-tailed tits passed through while Derek worked the Oak. Clive the Coal Tit joined the morning traffic, and Batman briefly tried to inspect everybody at once. Gary paid him no attention. His attention was on the paths below.

Beneath the Summerhouse

The squad showed itself for an instant and withdrew. Gary remained. The Jacks kept up their commentary; Brenda insisted the hedge was not a viewing gallery. Then, as the morning grew milder, Gary moved towards the Summerhouse.

Stirling was there.

For one breath neither of them made the first move.

“You keep arriving after we leave,” Stirling said.

“And you keep leaving before I arrive. One might think we were coordinating.”

“One might.”

Stirling glanced beneath the Summerhouse. Gary followed the glance, and whatever joke he had prepared failed to appear.

“I found something there,” Stirling said. “It came from another magpie’s territory.”

Gary’s tail gave the smallest possible twitch.

“Did it?” he said.

“That was my question.”

Gary looked at him properly then. The other territory was suddenly much closer than the garden around them, though he had no intention of explaining why.

“I think,” Gary said, “you have already decided on an answer.”

Stirling’s squad shifted in the beds behind him. He did not move aside.

Before either bird could say more, the Jacks broke into one of their louder disputes. Batman arrived demanding to know whether the Summerhouse was now an official checkpoint. Gary took the opportunity to leave. Stirling let him.

What Belonged to Whom

Later, Gary returned to the Oak as if he had only been away gathering material. Jay crossed the garden on a brisk errand. Derek kept to the trunk, and the Jacks immediately tried to extract an account of the conversation by pretending not to ask for one.

“Well?” said Mr Jack Daw.

Gary settled his feathers. “Stirling thinks I took something from another magpie’s territory.”

Mr Jack Daw waited. For once, so did the rest of his family.

“Did you?” he asked.

Gary looked back towards the Summerhouse. “That depends,” he said, “on who you think it belonged to.”

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