The Question Nobody Answered

Six Incompatible Accounts

By lunchtime, the Jacks had turned Gary’s last remark into six incompatible accounts of what he had meant. Unfortunately, Gary was not there to reject any of them.

“He said the thing might have belonged to somebody else,” said one Jack.

“He said it depended,” Mr Jack Daw corrected.

“On whom?”

“That,” said Mr Jack Daw, “is why we are still talking.”

Batman Smith heard enough to become interested and not enough to be useful. He was soon distracted by a neighbouring Robin’s opinion of the Fence Post. Above them, the Oak filled with Jacks until its branches appeared to have acquired a second, louder set of leaves.

Stirling’s Squad

Early in the afternoon Stirling’s squad arrived. They crossed the lawn in several short, disciplined movements, occupied the Vegetable Garden, and withdrew towards the Oak roots. A party of long-tailed tits slipped past them through the branches. Flora, Fauna and Merryweather might have been among the travellers, but the party had no intention of stopping for introductions.

Mr Jack Daw watched the squirrels work.

“If you want to know what Gary meant,” he said, “you could ask Gary.”

Stirling did not look up. “I know what he said.”

“That has not helped us.”

“It was not intended to.”

The squad moved on. By the time Derek came down the Oak, headfirst as usual, the squirrels had already changed positions twice. Batman tried to follow all of them and ended up questioning Derek about the direction of the trunk instead.

The afternoon grew cloudier. Jay crossed the garden on a private errand, took one look at the Jacks’ audience and disappeared without announcing what he was carrying. Stirling’s squirrels made another brief appearance below the trees. Every time the Jacks thought they had found the centre of the operation, the operation proved to have moved somewhere else.

Gary Returns

Gary finally arrived as the light began to soften.

Mr Jack Daw met him in the Oak. “They were here.”

“Were they?”

“You have been looking at the beds since you landed.”

“I also look at clouds. It does not mean I suspect them of anything.”

“You should. They are gathering.”

Gary ignored the sky. “Did Stirling speak to you?”

“Only to confirm that he knows what you said.”

“That is impressive. I am still deciding what I said.”

Neither bird mentioned the Summerhouse. The omission was deliberate enough for Batman to notice it from the hedge, where he had no reason to be listening.

Gary stayed into the evening, long enough to watch the squad make one last crossing and vanish. The Jacks had begun to settle; the Smiths were still conducting business on opposite sides of the hedge. With nobody willing to tell him what Stirling intended, Gary left before darkness made another visit pointless.

No Answer Next Door

After the Square quietened, Marjorie came to the Oak beneath a clear, bright sky. She faced the garden beyond the boundary and allowed herself a moment to believe that she would say nothing.

“I am not checking on you,” she told the darkness.

There was no answer.

“Your father would call this checking. Your father calls standing in a tree thinking about something ‘checking’.”

Marjorie shifted along the branch and tried a different argument. She said Marlboro had made her own place; she said she had never doubted that she could. Then she paused, apparently dissatisfied with how generous that sounded.

“You needn’t prove it to me every night.”

The neighbouring garden remained silent. Marjorie stayed a while longer, went quiet, and left it in peace.

Near Midnight

Near midnight she returned. The wind had risen, but the moon still lit the Oak. Marjorie took a place close to the garden, as though the distance itself had become an objection.

“You are not required to answer,” she said.

Harold answered from farther away. “Then perhaps you are not required to ask.”

Marjorie turned. He came nearer, careful not to make his arrival look like an intervention.

“I was speaking to our daughter.”

“I know.”

“She will hear it as criticism.”

“She usually does.”

“That does not make it criticism.”

Harold waited. Marjorie found no improvement in the silence and continued. He offered a few words from the darker trees; when he came nearer, she gave him her full opinion of them. Then he fell quiet and she finished what she had begun alone. Marlboro did not join them.

Much later there was a sudden stir at the Oak. Marjorie came in close, decisive enough to make the branches tremble. She looked towards next door, then back at the place Harold had occupied.

“I said she could manage without us,” she told the empty branch. “I did not say I enjoyed it.”

She departed without an audience.

The Smaller Question

Morning came under a heavier sky and a wind that made every hedge conversation somebody else’s business. Marjorie passed once more before the garden woke fully. She offered no fresh argument, and no answer came from next door.

Then Batman was out, Brenda was objecting to the weather, and the Jacks resumed the inquiry they had abandoned only because it had become too dark to see one another. Mrs Steve worked the lower garden with her customary good sense.

“If Gary wants you to know,” she told Mr Jack Daw, “he will tell you. If he doesn’t, you will survive not knowing.”

Mr Jack Daw considered that a reckless prediction.

Stirling’s squad passed through early and was gone before Gary returned. Long-tailed tits travelled the Oak again; Hopalong took his own route up the trunk. Later, a Chiffchaff passed through the hedge while Batman attempted to decide whether he recognised him. The Jacks remained numerous enough to make privacy a theoretical concept.

Gary came back near the end of the morning. Mr Jack Daw did not ask about the object. He asked the smaller question.

“Does Stirling know whose territory it was?”

Gary watched the empty path beside the Summerhouse.

“He knows who has it,” he said.

“And who is that?”

Gary looked at him. “The bird you ought to ask.”

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