What He Left Behind

The Committee Without Answers

By noon Mr Jack Daw’s cousin had decided that Gary’s silence was the most informative thing anybody had said all week.

“He said nothing,” Mr Jack Daw reminded him.

“Exactly. Stirling understood it. I understood Stirling understanding it. We are making excellent progress.”

The Oak filled with Jacks, but not with answers. A Redwing paused among the wet leaves, took one look at the committee and moved on. Long-tailed tits swept past in a hurried little party, apparently having already agreed on their destination without appointing anyone to take minutes.

An Unfavourable Inspection

Rain returned in the afternoon. The Jacks complained from the Oak, Mildred slipped beneath the Vegetable Garden plants, and Batman Smith tried to continue an inspection from inside the hedge. Steve watched him lean out into the drizzle.

“What are you inspecting?”

“Conditions.”

“And?”

“Unfavourable.”

Mrs Steve, beside him, gave Batman the expression she usually reserved for Steve’s least necessary announcements.

Stirling’s Squad

The rain passed, but the air remained heavy. Later, Stirling’s squad moved quickly across the garden. Several squirrels took turns appearing and vanishing around the Vegetable Garden while the Lieutenant Colonel watched from the lawn. Gary was nowhere to be seen.

Jay arrived after the squad had gone. He inspected a patch of ground with the solemnity of a bird whose winter stores could be compromised by one badly placed foot.

“Were they digging?” he demanded of the cousin.

“They were doing something secret.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“It is what everybody tells me,” said the cousin, wounded.

Gary Returns at Dusk

By evening the Jacks had dispersed. Gary returned as the light failed, when Steve and Mrs Steve were still about and Batman was making one last pass along the hedge.

“Stirling came back,” Batman told him.

“I gathered he might.”

“You missed him.”

Gary looked at the Summerhouse, then at the paths where the squirrels had been. “Yes.”

Batman waited for the rest. Mrs Steve drew him aside before he could ask for it.

“But he may know where they went,” Batman protested.

“And he may tell you when you stop standing on his tail.”

Words Marjorie Could Not Say

The garden fell quiet after dark. Marjorie came to the Oak long after the other birds had settled, alone beneath a thick ceiling of cloud. She had spent much of the previous night deciding she was pleased with Marlboro. Now she faced the considerably harder task of deciding how to say so without sounding as though she wished to approve the furniture.

“You have made a respectable place for yourself,” she tried.

No. It sounded like a report from a visiting aunt.

“It suits you.”

That sounded like she had expected it not to.

“I am proud of you.”

Marjorie looked around to make certain no one had witnessed this alarming act of clarity. There was no answer from the garden beyond the boundary. Marlboro had her own affairs, and Marjorie was not about to summon her merely to rehearse a conversation.

The clouds shifted. Marjorie remained for a while, then withdrew through the trees, taking the unsaid words with her.

What Gary Left Behind

At dawn the rain came hard enough to turn Batman’s first appearance into an immediate retreat. A few Robins tried to conduct the morning from under cover. Brenda worked through the hedge; Steve and Mrs Steve kept to its thicker side.

Stirling’s squirrels appeared during the downpour and crossed the garden with their customary urgency. Mrs Steve watched them from shelter.

“They look as though they know where they’re going,” she said.

“Do they?” asked Steve.

“No. But they would be offended if we noticed.”

The squad was gone before Gary arrived. By then the rain had eased, though the Jacks still wore the damp, self-important look of birds who believed they had endured a historic event.

Gary found Mr Jack Daw on the Oak. The cousin was occupied with the rest of the family on another branch, explaining how a squirrel could look both purposeful and evasive.

“Did Stirling ask you anything else?” Gary said.

“Not yesterday. He wanted to know whether his question had reached you.”

“And you told him?”

“Yes.”

Gary looked away. He left before Mr Jack Daw could ask more.

The clouds began to break. The Jacks spread through the brighter branches, making plans to retell the morning as if they had personally negotiated with the rain. Gary returned while the cousin was still occupied. This time he chose a perch close to Mr Jack Daw.

“I told Stirling the truth,” he said quietly. “He drove me out. The shiny thing was mine. It was the one thing I managed to carry away.”

Mr Jack Daw waited.

“It was not the only thing I lost.”

For once Mr Jack Daw did not try to make the silence easier.

“I had a wife there,” Gary said. “He took her too.”

Mr Jack Daw looked towards the territory beyond the Square. “Does Stirling know?”

“No.”

Above them, the cousin was still telling the Jacks what he thought he had seen. Below him, Gary had finally told someone what he had left behind.

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