The Watcher in the Garden

by Joan Phipson

  “Goodbye Catherine. There’s no need for you to go. I shall see you again.” He felt for the corner of the seat with his stick and stepped on to the path. Quick, confident steps took him up the path and out of sight.

  She continued to sit on the stone seat for a long time after he had gone. Cold air was beginning to flow up from the gorge, but the sun still shone on the look-out. There were no clouds. The late sunlight was very bright and yellow and calm. The night was coming, but she knew she would carry home with her the brightness of that day and it would remain with her, even into the night.

  Chapter 4

  After that day she visited the garden several times, and each time she left it with the same feeling of well-being. Occasionally she saw the gardeners, but because she wanted to be alone she tended to avoid them. Mostly when she came they had not yet arrived or had already left. But always she saw the signs of their presence in little heaps of weeds or prunings and watered areas when the weather was dry. The gardeners had nothing to do with her and she thought little about them. She did not see the old man again and it would have taken more resolution than she had to approach that big front door and ring the bell. Besides, she had never been able to imagine herself having anything to talk about important enough to demand his attention. But she often thought of him. He became a very positive presence in her mind and, oddly, a source of strength. She knew now why the front windows of the house had been dark on that first night. The garden had a new significance for her now she knew it was the domain and, in a way, the prison of an old, blind man. Often she considered his words: “My garden is not an ordinary garden.” She thought so, too, but she had not yet found out what it was he had been going to say. Sometimes when she walked in it she shut her eyes and tried to imagine herself blind. At these times the sounds and smells—the whole feel of the garden—came to her much more strongly. But she quickly lost direction as soon as she moved, and she found herself blundering into bushes and over stones until she sometimes felt that as soon as she shut her eyes the garden deliberately moved round, losing her on purpose. But the feeling it gave her was never malevolent. It was always kindly and healing.

  There came a day when this was not so. If she had known it she had the answer in her hands. It was late autumn. Most of the leaves had fallen and lay dead beneath the trees that had given them life. As on her first visit, it was late afternoon and the daylight was already half drained from the garden. As soon as she entered it she knew it was not the same as before. Immediately a kind of uneasiness filled her. She found herself jumping suddenly to look behind her when a small bird flew out of a bush as she passed. She almost shrieked when one of the first big, silent moths of the evening blundered into her face. She began to think she was being followed, and she forced herself to walk steadily, feeling that to run was to start something that could not be stopped. But there was nothing that she could either see or hear. The bird was only a bird and the moth was nothing but a frail and velvet moth, searching perhaps for the last nectar of the day. Nevertheless the feeling did not leave her and became stronger as she penetrated farther into the garden. She could see nothing unusual. The terraces above lay quiet under the cooling sky. The trees stood strongly behind her with no wind to move their few remaining leaves. But something hung, invisible, in the air. And now she knew the threat was not to her but to the garden itself, and it came from—she drew her breath quickly as she looked first at the house, pale on the hillside with its rows of lightless windows. Nothing moved there. No sound came from the dog. A Virginia creeper blazed, warm and comforting, over the side porch. There was nothing different about the house.

  She stood with her back against the trunk of a tall eucalypt and felt the warmth of the living tree penetrate her spine, enfolding and protecting her with its strength, and because she stood so close against it and so still she could not be seen from above. And she looked about again to find the source of the evening’s unrest. The sun was near the horizon, sinking below a heavy layer of cloud that was rolling up from the south. For a few moments the garden lay grey and colourless without shadows and without life. There was one small gap in the cloud low down near the black outline of the hills. The evening sky had been shining through, palely lemon-coloured, but as the sun moved downward the lemon warmed to a fiery tomato, became dazzling in its brightness, and quite suddenly one strong shaft of sunlight struck out across the gorge and blazed on the top of the hill on which the garden lay. It caught the row of trees that lined the road above and for a moment illuminated a clump of autumnal azaleas that grew round a rocky outcrop farther down the slope. It illuminated also a tall figure that stood on top of the rocks. In the distorting horizontal rays, and perhaps as a result of the dazzling brightness, the figure looked inhumanly tall, strangely black, and it sent a long black shadow across the slope of the garden. It stood quite still and the shadow lay motionless along the paths and lawns. Yet some kind of life emanated from it, a threat of evil intent, and the menace of the threat spread out across the garden, enveloping everything that was in it, including the house on its terrace below.

  Then the sun sank behind the cloud, the light drained from the sky and the shadow and the figure both faded into the greys and blues of evening. For a long time Catherine was reluctant to leave the protection of the tree. She could no longer see if the figure still stood on the point of rock, whether it had evaporated to nothing with the departing shaft of sunlight, or whether it had simply stepped down and walked away. One thing she did know. The fear which had penetrated every part of the garden and her own body had now gone.

  “Eh—Terry—”

  The four of them had met at the street corner and were waiting for the man to come past. They stood casually, one squatting, drawing pictures in the dust of the roadside, another leaning against the street light. The two others stood a bit apart, as if they had little connection with the first two, and they were talking—idly, it seemed, for their eyes kept wandering up and down the street. The youth drawing the pictures now looked up, and Terry, answering after a small delay fitting to the leader of the group, said, “Well?”

  “Sure you’ll know him?”

  “I see him every day, don’t I?”

  “Just wondered. Sure this is the day OK?”

  “Look—” Terry turned slowly to face him, the pale blue eyes remote, expressionless. “I know him. This is the day, ’cause I seen him, week after week, walk along the street, round by the sports ground to the bank. You want to be boss instead of me?” The last words were very quiet, but the boy squatting on the ground swallowed suddenly and pressed his lips together. He dropped his head and became engrossed in his pictures in the dust. The last time he had ventured to criticize, a pin had inexplicably run in under one of his finger nails. He had not quite known how it happened—only that it had not been an accident. And it had been agonizingly painful.

  The sports ground was not far away, a convenient short cut from the point where they waited to the centre of the town. At the moment it was alive and pullulating with a group of girls from the high school. Along one side of it, where the short cut went—a path beaten in the rough grass at the side of the oval—a clump of trees shaded it from the evening sun. Along this side, attached to the ostentatious and quite useless entrance gates, a paling fence bounded the sports ground and continued as far as the other side of the clump of trees. At this point enthusiasm faded, or money ran out, or both, and the paling fence ended. Beyond it, the path along the edge of the playing field wound its way independently towards the houses of the town.

  Having effortlessly exercised his authority, Terry now stood silent, watching the activities on the oval. The other three one by one became still, shifting their eyes to watch him. He knew, without having to look at them, that there was a question in the eyes of each. And it pleased him to know that not one of them was game to put it into words. But time was running out and he swung round to look carefully up the road in the direction he knew the man would come from. Ther
e was no sign of him yet, but it would be any minute now. At last, in his own good time, he spoke.

  “Anyone know how much longer those girls’ll be there?”

  The youth on the ground, eager to rehabilitate himself, hurriedly looked at his watch, glanced up at the running girls, moved his lips silently and said, “Another fifteen minutes, I’d say. Carol gets home about half past.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” He looked at the girls again. “Many come this way?”

  “Carol does for sure and a few others. Most go out the other gate.” Joe stood up, confidence returned. “Why, Terry?” Too late he remembered questions were unacceptable.

  But this time Terry’s mind was elsewhere and he said, “No point in letting them see us. They might remember—after.”

  “What’ll we do?” They waited for the answer and a little current of fear ran through them all.

  For a moment Terry thought, his eyes first on the length of paling fence and then, hurriedly, along the road where the man would at any moment appear. At last he said, “See that kind of ditch in the road? Just where there’s the hole in the fence? I reckon if we crawled in under those blackberries or whatever they are, we could stay hid till we heard him come.”

  “And we could get through the hole in the fence easy and we’d be pretty near the trees then.”

  Terry nodded. “You got the idea. Come on. Quick.” He looked up the road once more. Nothing moved on it yet, and because he had chosen well he was not afraid of motor traffic. None passed this way at this time of day.

  They left the corner, slipped into the ditch as soon as they were able to and found they could crawl in behind the blackberry as Terry had guessed. Terry, on his stomach in the yellow mud of the ditch, pulled a twig of blackberry leaves from in front of his face and peered through. At last he said, very quietly, “Here he comes,” and felt them tense behind him.

  At the same time the game on the oval broke up. Girls, shouting, screaming, giggling, fanned out in various directions. A group detached itself and came towards them.

  A voice behind Terry said, “What if they all come together?”

  “We wait till next week. You do what I do—when I say.”

  “If he gets to the trees—” A different voice, hoarse and strained.

  “That’s what we planned, wasn’t it? Shut up and wait.”

  But they did not come together. The man left the road and entered the sports ground before he reached the gates. By the time the girls drew near the gates, he was already walking along the path near the paling fence. Terry’s eyes were on the girls. The man could wait. The girls were the threat now. They were throwing a ball to one another and he saw it fly towards him and a voice shout, “Catch it, can’t you? Wake up.” And he saw the nearest girl, who was walking a little apart from the others, stretch out her hands belatedly—too belatedly, for the ball rolled along the ground, went out of sight behind the paling fence, and he heard it bounce off one of the palings not far from his head. The girl ran towards him, disappeared behind the fence, and then there was a scuffle and a bump and a voice, almost on top of him it seemed, said, “Oh, gosh, I’m awfully sorry. Did I hurt you? Didn’t mean to. Where’s the damn ball?” The man’s voice murmured something he could not catch, there was a thud against the fence and then silence. All four in the ditch stopped breathing. At last came the diminishing sound of running footsteps, and then the more deliberate sound of the man’s heavy boots. They waited, motionless, for a very long time. No one dared move before Terry.

  But Terry forgot to move. His head was full of a queer sensation absolutely new to him. And he was not even sure it was only his head that was affected. Was it his nerves, or his heart, that so agonizingly twitched and tugged? He found it deeply shaking, so that it required all his concentration and will power to persuade his mind back to normal functioning. He wondered, even then, if he would ever be quite normal again. So he waited, and when at last the final reverberation died down and all seemed well again he moved cautiously.

  The girls were now out of the gate, going away from them down the road, and the one who had chased the ball had caught up to them, though she walked apart. He looked at her long and hard, for he had the curious notion that it had been something in her voice that had penetrated his ears and had so shaken him. But he was all right again and she was going from him, and all was well. He decided it had been some kind of vibration of sound to which he was obviously allergic. He crept out through the blackberries and slipped through the gap in the fence. After a moment his head reappeared and he beckoned to the others.

  One by one they came out and slipped silently through the fence. They saw that he now held something in his hand. It was a short length of metal pipe ending in a heavily padded nob. He waved it.

  “Only me,” he said. “Just a tap. Don’t want trouble. You, Bill. You grab the bag. And see here—no running. We stay quiet—in among the trees. And then we go out one by one so we won’t be seen together. We’ll meet after, where I said.”

  They could all see the man. He was just about to enter the trees. They were squatting along the inside of the fence and in the fading daylight were almost invisible from any distance. Once the man had disappeared Terry stood up. “Come on,” he said. “Quick now.”

  They ran down the path and stopped when they reached the trees. Terry’s hand motioned them back. A few paces ahead they saw him. He was whistling to himself now, swinging the bag as he walked. Terry lengthened his stride, raised the piece of metal.

  And then—something blocked his arm. Something blocked his will. He felt again, and this time with a kind of terror, an echo of the earlier vibration in his mind—or his heart; he still could not tell which. It was acutely uncomfortable and it made him helpless. His arm dropped and for a moment he stood quite still. Then he turned round and they saw that his face was full of rage. Its pale colour had changed to a dull red. He looked at them as they waited, open-mouthed, behind him and then he said, “I can’t do it.”

  Bill stepped forward, reached for the piece of metal pipe. “Let me—” His hand was shaking, but his eyes blazed.

  Terry snatched the weapon out of his reach. Through his clenched teeth he said, “We’ll let him go.”

  “No. Not now.” Joe came up beside Bill with the same light in his eyes.

  “You try to touch him—” The rage was still there. Terry raised the weapon again, but this time it was over Joe’s head. Then, with a kind of a shudder, he lowered it. He drew a long, wavering breath and the flush faded from his face. “Let him go,” he said again. And then, dangerously loud, “I said let him go.” He moved now, pushed past them, still clutching the pipe, and walked with long strides back the way they had come.

  They waited until they saw him climb through the paling fence and gain the road. Then they moved. They left the clump of trees, quietly as they had entered it, and, without speaking again, went their separate ways.

  Chapter 5

  After she had seen the figure on the rock it was a long time before the girl in the garden stepped out on to the open lawn. When she did, it was with a strangely naked feeling, like standing unclothed in a winter wind. But it passed and she knew what she had to do. All her earlier indecision left her and she crossed the lawn, climbed a flight of stone steps and arrived on the terrace where the house stood. It seemed to tower above her, the walls glimmering pale in the twilight and the windows blank and dark as usual. This time the dog did not bark, and she knew it would never bark at her again. The front door was closed. She walked up the steps, reached for the shining brass knocker and banged four times. The sound was like thunder in the dark hall beyond and it seemed to take an eternity for the vibrations to die away. She knew she could not bring herself to knock again. She stood there for a long time. Then a door closed far away inside the house. She continued to wait, hearing nothing more. Then, quite suddenly, the big cedar wood door swung open. She gasped and stepped back. It was the old man himself. The dog stood beside him waving it
s tail.

  “I know who it is,” he said. “Conrad hasn’t barked. Come in, Catherine. I’m glad you have come at last.” He stepped back, waiting for her. She might have said nothing and gone away. She might have said she was someone else. But he was so sure and would remember her voice better than she remembered his face. She stepped in through the door and without anything said, or any obvious communication between them, he shut the door behind her.

  “If you had rung the bell,” he said, walking past her down the hall, “Jackson would have come at once. He can’t hear the knocker with the doors shut.”

  “I just saw the knocker. I thought I was meant to use it.”

  “Yes. Well. It seemed a pity to take it down when we installed the bell. Perhaps we should have.”

  “Please don’t,” she said quickly. “I like it.”

  Although he did not look round she could tell he was smiling. “So do I. And that’s why it’s there.” She wondered how he could like or dislike it if he could not see it. “I like its shape and the feel of the polished brass. Come in here.” He went through an open door into a small, book-lined room. It had been in darkness but he switched the light on as he went in. In the grate of the old fireplace a slow-combustion stove glowed silently. There were some comfortable chairs and a desk, and she wondered who used the desk until she realized that, somehow, the work of paying bills and answering letters had to be done, too, and afterwards she found out it was a book in braille. There was quite a pile of them in one corner of the room. On a table under the window a large bowl of late chrysanthemums shone yellow and gold against the blackness of the windowpane. Their peculiar, pungent smell filled the room.