The Question

Gary and the Cousin

Gary was in the Oak before the afternoon had properly begun. Mr Jack Daw’s cousin saw him coming and attempted to become part of the bark.

“Come down,” Gary said.

“I have been thinking about an apology.”

“Have you been thinking about the sentence you apologised for?”

The cousin came down. “You said it was yours before the other Magpie saw it. I told Stirling you took it before he saw it.”

“Good. You can tell the difference.”

“I can now.”

Mr Jack Daw arrived in time to prevent the apology becoming a speech. He asked Gary what he meant to do. Gary looked towards the Summerhouse.

“Ask Stirling what he thinks I said.”

“He may ask something in return.”

“He usually does.”

The wind pushed cloud across the Square. Clive crossed the hedge, and soon Derek was climbing the Oak in the manner Batman Smith had spent several weeks trying to prohibit. Percy followed him along the finer branches. Batman began to explain the correct use of a tree; neither bird stopped.

Jay passed below them on an errand he declined to describe. Gary watched him go, then took a circuit of the garden. When he returned, Mr Jack Daw’s relatives were still discussing whether an apology required an audience.

“It requires accuracy,” said Mr Jack Daw.

His cousin looked wounded. “You are making that sound personal.”

By the middle of the afternoon Gary had come through twice more without finding a squirrel. The Jacks held the Oak so firmly that even the passing long-tailed tit did not linger. As the cloud thickened, Gary left them to it.

Batman’s Advice

Toward evening the Smiths grew busy around the hedge. A goldfinch crossed their conversation without asking permission. Gary returned to find Batman considering the empty path to the Summerhouse.

“You could tell him what happened,” Batman said.

Gary gave him a quick look. “Do you know what happened?”

“No. That is why I said you could tell him.”

Gary remained for a while, watching the path, then disappeared before the garden surrendered to darkness. Later Steve and Mrs Steve came beneath the Fruit Tree, where Batman was retelling the exchange to anyone willing to listen.

“You asked him to explain himself?” Mrs Steve said. “And he did not?”

“He was considering it,” Batman insisted.

Mrs Steve looked at the empty path. “Of course he was.”

Marjorie at the Boundary

Marjorie came out after midnight. The cloud had kept the night close and damp, and the branches shifted around her. She went to the edge of the garden she had once insisted Marlboro must leave.

“I meant what I said,” she told the dark beyond it.

No answer came from next door. Marjorie did not ask for one.

She withdrew, but several hours later she was there again, as if the first visit had settled nothing. She had been proud of Marlboro for making her own place. She was still proud. She had also made her daughter fight to hear it.

“You do not have to thank me,” she said. “You do not even have to forgive me.”

The trees gave her back only the wind. Marjorie stayed a little longer, then left Marlboro’s garden to Marlboro.

Reginald Overhead

At dawn Batman discovered that a fresh breeze had rearranged his preferred lookout. He blamed the Jacks, although none had yet arrived. Steve and Mrs Steve went about their morning beneath him, while Brenda worked the hedge with considerably less complaint.

Stirling’s squad appeared among the grass and the Vegetable Garden. Jay slipped through just behind them. Then Reginald crossed overhead, grand enough to make even Stirling’s squirrels stop and look up. Batman waited until the Buzzard had passed before resuming his investigation into the lookout.

Gary Faces Stirling

The squad returned to its business. Stirling inspected the route beneath the Summerhouse, withdrew, and came back. This time Gary arrived before he could leave.

“Your messenger,” Stirling said, “told me you took it.”

“He changed a word.”

“A useful word to change?”

“A damaging one. I said it was mine before the bird in that territory ever saw it.”

Stirling did not glance at his squad, but it shifted quietly around the path. Gary noticed. He stayed where he was.

“Did you take it from that territory?” Stirling asked.

“From whom?”

“The Magpie there now.”

“It was mine before he arrived.”

“That does not tell me how it came to be under the Summerhouse.”

“No,” said Gary. “It does not.”

For a moment they faced each other while the wind worried at the leaves. Then Stirling stepped aside. The squad went with him, and Gary made no attempt to follow.

“If it was yours,” Stirling asked from the path, “why does he call it his?”

Gary’s feathers shifted. “He calls a great many things his.”

“Including the territory?”

Gary turned at last. “There was a life there before he arrived.”

“Yours?”

Gary glanced at the squirrels. “That is a question for when we are alone.”

Stirling let the squad pass him. “Then we will speak again.”

“We will,” said Gary. He waited until Stirling had gone before leaving in the opposite direction.

The Jacks Wait

The Jacks arrived after both of them had gone. They filled the Oak with questions through the rest of the morning, and the cousin offered, very cautiously, to find someone who knew what had been said. Mr Jack Daw forbade him to go anywhere near a squirrel.

“Then who can tell us?” the cousin asked.

“Gary,” said Mr Jack Daw.

“He’s gone.”

“Then for once,” said Mr Jack Daw, “we shall have to wait until he comes back.”

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