The Watcher in the Garden

by Joan Phipson

  “Would you mind pulling the curtains? I don’t bother as a rule, but since we have the light on—Be careful of the flowers on the table.”

  She crossed the room to where she could see the curtain cord hanging down and pulled them carefully across. She was glad to do it, for the figure on the rock was occupying her whole mind. The curtains were of heavy, brown velvet.

  He seemed to know when she had finished, for he said, “Now come and sit down and tell me why you have come.” He walked over to one of the chairs, sat down and touched the one beside it lightly with his stick. “Sit here beside me.” When he felt that she was sitting he said, “Would you like something to eat or drink before we start talking? A cup of tea or coffee? A piece of cake? Jackson would be very pleased to have a visitor to look after. We don’t have many, you know.”

  She did not want anything—only to tell him, to warn him. She sat and looked round her at the warm, comfortable room, the flowers, and the bowls and bookends of shining brass. He must touch the brass from time to time, and she wondered if he had read all the books while he could still see, or whether they were relics of someone before him. Although there were many things here of no use to him now, the room was full of his presence. His personality was everywhere, and here, as in the garden, there was no sign of helplessness.

  “Well?” he said. He seemed to be looking at her and she gave a start. His question had got lost somewhere in the vibrations of the room.

  “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”

  “Then tell me what you were thinking.”

  “It’s this room. I don’t see how you can not see it.” Immediately she wished herself ten feet underground. It was a terrible thing to have said.

  “The mind’s eye,” he said quite calmly. “I could see once.” She was enormously relieved to see him smile. “Now—tell me why you came. It took some determination to walk up those steps and knock on the door, didn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t brave enough until tonight,” she said, and was surprised that she had confessed as much.

  “I had hoped you would be. And what was it that brought you tonight?”

  “I had to tell you—” She stopped, searching for words. All she had seen was a man standing on a rock in the garden. It was not what she had seen, but what she had felt—what the whole garden seemed to know: that the man standing there had filled the garden with menace and fear. How could she say that? As she sat in the warm, safe room it scarcely seemed worth saying.

  “Yes?” he said, and she was obliged to go on.

  “It was for you. I thought you should know. Now I’m here there’s so little to tell. I saw a man on that little patch of rocks up near the road. He was just standing there.”

  The old man had gone very still. The dog had moved over to his knee and sat down beside him looking up at her.

  “It was nothing, really. He didn’t do anything, and then when the sun went he just—disappeared. I wouldn’t have bothered, but there was a funny feeling. The garden—” She stopped again and then burst out, “I was frightened. Everything was frightened. It was horrible. We thought—that is, I thought something dreadful was going to happen. I thought I ought to tell you. But now it seems so silly.”

  For a time the old man did not say anything. His dog continued to gaze at her, still sitting upright. At last he said, “It wasn’t silly at all. It was perceptive of you, and you did right to come and tell me. I’m grateful to you, Catherine.”

  “But then you see, could I have imagined it?”

  “No. You didn’t imagine anything. He was there all right. I know quite well who he is and it is true that he does mean me harm.” He stopped talking and in the silence that followed she felt a chill creep through her. He was a long time thinking of his next words, but she had no wish to hurry him on. What he had to say next might be something she had no wish to hear. He seemed not to know where to start and the silence had thickened and become heavy in the small, sheltering room before he spoke again.

  “His name is Terry.” It astonished her that what she had seen on the rock should have a name at all, let alone such a commonplace one. “He is a youth probably a couple of years older than you are, and his nature is unusually violent. He has also been blessed, or cursed, with more intelligence than people give him credit for, and with a peculiarly strong personality so that perceptive people, and people like myself, whose senses have been developed through lack of sight, can feel his presence very strongly whenever he is near. You are a perceptive person, you see. And I suspect you can sense not only his presence, but his mood. I’ve known for a long time that he comes into my garden. And I’ve known that he has a grudge against me. Sooner or later he will turn to violence. It is fire in summer I fear most. It’s so easy to set a match to a few dry pine needles. Even the house would burn given the right conditions.”

  “Why don’t you keep him out?” The words burst from her.

  He smiled. “I couldn’t keep you out, could I?”

  “But I wasn’t—” She stopped, suddenly awkward.

  “You were near violence that first night, weren’t you? Perhaps not with me, but violence of some kind.”

  He could not see her head droop suddenly, the long hair hiding her face as she studied the pattern on the carpet. But when she spoke it was all in the sound of her voice. “I didn’t know then that you—”

  “Neither does he know. Oh, he knows an idle, selfish old man lives in this house and owns a larger piece of ground than he has any right to, but he doesn’t know—” Something stopped him and the next words failed to come.

  “He doesn’t know you’re blind,” she said bluntly.

  He was not offended. “Let us say he doesn’t know everything. So he comes from time to time, mainly, I suspect, to think up ways of damaging me or my property.”

  “Surely he’d never—” The thought seemed too fantastic to put into words.

  “Deliberately harm me? Not today, perhaps, or tomorrow, but some day, unless something happens to remove the grudge. Yes, some day I think he will try. It’s the way he’s made, you see.”

  She wanted very much to ask what the grudge was that he nursed against this harmless old man, but there was a knock at the door and the dog jumped up.

  “Come in, Jackson.”

  A small, middle-aged man came into the room. The dog stretched, yawned and moved his tail once or twice. The man looked surprised to see Catherine, but, in a way, pleased. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lovett. I didn’t hear the bell.”

  “She didn’t ring the bell, Bob. She used the knocker. You see, we were right to leave it there.”

  She was surprised to see the depth of affection there was in the smile that passed over the man’s face. “I came to ask about your dinner.”

  “Oh yes. Is it time already?” He leaned towards Catherine. “Would you like to stay and have some dinner with me? I’m sure Jackson has got enough out there. He’s always very optimistic about my appetite.”

  She had not thought of the time passing and she got up quickly from the chair. “Oh, I’d better go. I’d forgotten.” She saw that he was still waiting for her answer and she felt suddenly uncouth. “I mean—thank you very much, but they’ll wonder where I am. I only came to tell you—to warn you. I would like to stay, but really, I can’t.” Everything she said seemed to her ill-chosen, even rude. Into her mind came her mother’s exasperated voice. “It’s your manner, Kit. You put everyone off. Why can’t you occasionally say the right thing? It’s no wonder—” and her shortcomings would be spelled out once more. Rather desperately she took a step towards him and looked into his face. “You are very kind to me, and I would like to have dinner with you, but I will go now so that you won’t be late.”

  “In that case—” He turned to Jackson. “I won’t be a minute, Bob. I’ll just see Catherine safely on her way home.”

  “Oh, but you don’t—” A sudden vision of the darkened garden outside made her stop.

  He went on as if she had not spo
ken. “Which way will you go? Up by the road, or the way you usually come? I think, on the whole, your usual way would be best.”

  She could guess why he said it and was suddenly glad of his offer to go with her. Jackson opened the front door for them and held it open so that the light shone out on to the terrace. Mr. Lovett walked with a surer step than hers, and she realized it was for her the front door had been left open. She followed him down, treading in his footsteps, and the shrubbery enveloped them and the trees closed over them. Without hesitation he took the path to the left and came at last to the boundary fence. Below them on a platform of rock overhanging the gorge and facing down the long valley to the south was the look-out, just visible in the gathering darkness.

  He felt with his stick, found the fence and stopped. “Here we are. Can you find your way from here in the dark?”

  “Yes. I shall be all right now. Thank you very much—Mr. Lovett.” She would not for a moment suggest that there might be danger still lurking on the isolated path to where she lived.

  But as if he had guessed what was in her mind, he said, “Terry won’t hang about down here. But in any case you’ll be in no danger from him. His violence has never been irrational.” He spoke calmly and then said goodnight to her, feeling for the wire and holding it up for her to get through.

  On the other side of the fence she said, “Shall you be all right going back?”

  “I shall be all right. I think you can feel, as I can, that the garden is empty now. Besides, Conrad is here to warn me.”

  Half-way home she stopped to look back. The garden lay quiet under the night sky. The look-out was still visible. But it had changed. Surely the stones had altered? Then she saw that it was now inhabited. Her old man had not gone straight back. He was standing on the look-out, his hands on the waist-high wall, leaning forward, looking, it seemed, down the valley. He was very still, and the dog, invisible beside him, was still too. The air flowing up the valley must be brushing his face, bringing scents from far away, and the feeling of space, the endless night and the open sky. For someone who could not see it was a kind of freedom.

  Then she thought how vulnerable he was, just as he stood now. Anyone—Terry—could creep up behind and, catching him unawares, tip him over the wall. It was a long way down to the gorge, on to the rocks below. No one would believe he had not simply lost his balance.

  Chapter 6

  She looked for Terry after that, half fearful of finding him. The image she had of him in her mind—inhumanly tall and black as night—was scarcely adequate. But she knew that he lived near the garden, and she listened and she watched. And one Saturday in the news-agent’s she heard his name. She knew that there was someone behind her buying the morning paper, but she took no notice until a voice said, “Here, Terry, better take this for your dad. He’ll find the racing tips inside.”

  His reply was too low for her to hear, but she stood where she was, unable to turn her head, though there was no reason at all that she knew of why he should recognize her. It was not until she heard him go out of the shop that she dared look round. She glanced quickly through the glass door, thinking to see him walk up the street. But the street was empty. She found herself queerly edgy, as if bubbles ran along her nerves, and decided it was because the ridiculous thought had come to her that, once outside the shop, he had again dissolved into air, that he had ceased to exist. Then it seemed to her that the shop window, as she viewed it from inside, was unusually dark, and she looked up and saw him standing there looking at her. He was neither inhumanly tall, nor black as night, but she recognized him at once. His eyes, staring at her through the window, were pale blue. He was reasonably, but not unduly tall, and his hair was longish, blond and faintly curly. His face—always after that she had trouble remembering his face. It was pale, with a small, well-cut nose and thin lips, the jawbone sharp, the chin firm. It was not a particularly thin face, yet the bones everywhere were clearly visible. Its expression was totally blank, as a blind is blank, pulled down, not to shield the room from what is outside, but to conceal what is happening inside. He wore jeans and a yellow T-shirt, and the clinging fabric outlined the bone structure beneath. There was little spare flesh in between and the effect was of strength and high tension. She felt herself suspended in time, all her nerves anaesthetised, her brain halted. Then, as if a spring had been released, he swung round and walked quickly away.

  The picture Terry carried away with him was a curious one. The girl was not pretty. Had he expected her to be pretty? What, then, had made him stop outside the shop and turn to look at her again? What had he expected? Had he seen her before? He had not even looked at her in the shop. But he had known she was there. He had known she was listening. He had not meant to turn and look, but he found himself there, outside the shop window, and she wasn’t his type at all. She was just a kid, a skinny kid, even, with lank black hair, a pale face and a scowl. This, at any rate, was what he told himself, holding up the image like a shield against—he did not know what. He walked away quickly, resentful that she had seen him watching her. It was nothing. One of those silly things, and he would forget it in five minutes. But he carried her away with him. Some part of her penetrated his skin. Or was it his mind? And while she remained beneath his skin and in his mind he was filled with unease and a kind of fear. He thought he had not known she existed until a few minutes ago. And yet he had always known. She was as familiar as his own toothbrush. He shut his eyes for a moment, shook his head and broke into a run.

  A spring must have been released in her, too, for she felt herself go limp, as if the energy had suddenly drained out through her feet. For a moment her knees threatened to give way. She caught herself in time and managed to cross the shop to the till.

  “Who was that chap?” she asked the assistant.

  “Him?” The assistant peered through the window. “Oh, that’s Terry Nicholson. He lives up on the side of the hill there. Supposed to be working for his dad, but you’ll find him hanging about the street most of the time—him and his mates.”

  She could see him far down the street when she left the shop. There were no mates with him and he was running. She had intended to go the other way, towards her own home. But she turned in his direction and began to follow him towards the hillside where Mr. Lovett lived, where the garden was. When he had turned the corner and was no longer in sight she began to hurry. When she reached the corner she thought she had lost him. She could see the garden now, the big spruce and cedar trees that edged the road and threw their shadows over the footpath. And there he was, sure enough, sliding along under the trees, keeping close to the fence. But his pace had slackened, and once or twice he stopped and seemed to be peering through the palings into the garden. She followed, walking with a purposeful step, as if her goal were clear-cut and quite ordinary, not the subconscious pull, half fascination, half fear, that dragged her after him. She came to a cross-road, looked for traffic and when she had reached the footpath again, discovered she had lost him. The trees of the garden and their shadows reaching out over the fence were nearer and easier to see, but nothing moved beneath them any longer.

  He could have slipped inside, bent on a further session of his silent reconnaissance. Or he could simply have passed beneath the trees and walked home. Entering the garden had not been part of her plan, if she could be said to have had a plan, when she left the shops. But when she reached the corner of the fence she found a gap and slipped through. Here, where the deciduous trees had dropped their leaves, it was impossible to walk silently. The leaves had not been swept up and the sunlit weather of the recent weeks had crisped them so that they rattled and snapped in a series of small explosions as she passed. She moved cautiously and looked about her. Sometimes she stopped and listened, for no one else would be able to walk silently, either. But she saw nothing and heard nothing, and there was a feeling of tranquillity in the air that told her there was no danger here this morning.

  Usually her way had been at a much lowe
r level of the garden in the semi-wild area of native trees and shrubs, but now she made her way near and parallel to the road boundary. The house was below her and for the first time she looked down on its slate roof and the enclosed back yard. From this angle she could see that the side porch, from which the light sometimes shone, opened on to a paved courtyard containing a small pool presided over by the bronze statue of a dancing boy and some large terracotta pots of healthy azalea plants, their leaves yellow and red at this time of year. One wooden chair stood beside the pool and she guessed that Mr. Lovett sometimes sat here sheltered from the wind. It was empty now. From an open window upstairs came the sound of a vacuum cleaner being energetically used. The sound almost blotted out faint strains of music issuing from the open door on to the porch. The house could hardly produce sounds of such normal activity if he had taken advantage of that open door to slip inside. She stood and watched for a few minutes, but nothing happened except that Conrad came pensively through the door, walked to a post on the far side of the pool and returned, still pensive, into the house. There was no sign of Terry anywhere so she went on, cautious, but more relaxed.

  Once past the house she turned downhill, without thinking very clearly why she did so. It was already some way behind her when she found she had reached the garden fence again. On the other side was a small stretch of scrub and then quite clearly someone’s back yard. It was a large back yard and seemed to be taken up almost entirely with broken-down motor cars. Beyond it a small house and several sheds faced an unpaved side road. Higher up the hill where the road junction must be was a respectable-looking brick house on the corner, surrounded by an orderly garden. And this, too, backed on to Mr. Lovett’s garden, except for the narrow patch of scrub in between. She was about to make her way up the garden fence to the major road when she noticed some movement at the back of the sheds. Two figures had come out from between them and were making their way towards one of the wrecked cars. One of them was Terry.