Jack

A short story

We were friends once, Jack and I. It was a brief, intense acquaintance. I embarked on it full of hope for the future, but the harsh reality of an unforgiving world caught up with me in no time, and it ended, as these things so often do, in bitterness, recrimination and a flurry of abuse. There was fault on both sides, of course there was. At the time, blinded by fury, I failed to acknowledge my own part in the debacle. All I felt was betrayal, tinged with bewilderment at my own susceptibility to what I still feel amounted to a callous abuse of trust.

Could I have salvaged something from the wreckage? Could I have seen the signs, acted to avert disaster? Or was it inevitable, doomed from the first moment to follow a well-trodden path, the pattern of faith and falsity playing out in all too predictable a fashion?

Well, you decide.

We met, that early spring day, in the garden of the cafe at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. At first I’d thought I might stay inside, but it was mild enough, and the view from the garden was alluring.

I didn’t see Jack at first. I was preoccupied, scrolling on my phone, sipping my Diet Coke, waiting for my chips to cool to a consumable temperature. And then he was there, coming across from the grass bank towards my table, doing that strange asymmetrical sideways hop they do.

I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t flattered. There were plenty of other customers in the cafe, and yet Jack had singled me out.

We all know by now about the intelligence of corvids, their problem-solving abilities. But did you know that members of the crow family will remember people by the way they treat them? That they can make friendships and bear grudges? I didn’t. Not then, anyway. When I did find about it, the knowledge only made what followed all the more unfathomable and infuriating.

“Hello.”

You might think me strange, saying hello to a bird. But I’ve always done it. It’s only courteous, after all. It really doesn’t matter whether they respond. I feel it’s my little way of treating the universe right.

There was no response at first. Jack just circled the table, stalking around, hopping occasionally. And then, in a flurry, he was up, perched on the edge of the round table, his claws making little scratching sounds on the metal.

When you get close to a bird, I mean really close, close enough to reach out and touch it, you see a different side to them. These aren’t just decorations, pretty little adornments to our lives, sent to give us a bit of entertainment. They’re living, breathing entities. Feather and skin and bone. And Jack was a handsome one, no doubt about it. That grey head, the pale silver of his eye, his quiet intelligence.

It became clear that he was willing to spend time in my company, and I found myself touched by his apparent willingness to admit me into his life. It was an intimacy all the more potent for being surprising – slightly disquieting at first, but, once I’d got used to his beaky presence, a rare privilege.

So I took this photograph, as a record of our blossoming friendship.

What an idiot.

That look in its eye? I mistook it for affection, a genuine bond between two individuals, an interspecies connection of true warmth.

He likes me, I thought. He really really likes me.

Huh.

This is how they get you, of course. Flattery, charm, guile. And I, sucker of suckers, fell for it.

I envisaged future visits. I would arrive, sit at “our” table, and across Jack would hop. We would sit in silent communion, the inexplicable link between us a vindication of my lifelong commitment to cherishing the natural world. A reward for altruism.

How wrong I was. How naive. How appallingly gullible.

I shan’t describe the betrayal in detail. No doubt you’re already picturing it. All I’ll say is that when they want to, jackdaws can move very quickly. There was only one thing on the mind of that shameless grifter that warm spring day, and it wasn’t my friendship.

The hopping around on the floor? Playing for time, casing the joint.

The eye contact? Establishing trust, the stock-in-trade of the conman.

I will say this for Jack. He knew how to pick his moment. That thing about corvid intelligence? Truer than you know. What other animal is capable not only of pulling off an elaborate confidence trick, but also, with pinpoint accuracy and admirable sangfroid under pressure, calculating both the reaction time of a man whose hands are occupied with taking a photograph and the optimum cooling time of a bowl of chips? Credit where credit’s due, I suppose.

I haven’t been back to the cafe at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. Perhaps I never will. But if I do, I think I’ll opt for an indoor table.