The Watcher in the Garden

by Joan Phipson

  “Old Nicholson has a junk yard of old motor cars. You’ve probably seen it. Jackson says it’s a very ugly sight. He’s a mechanic, too, of sorts, and some people take their cars to him. He wants to buy a piece of my land to give himself a frontage on the major road. His house is on a dead end, you see. He thinks that if he had that he could put up one or two petrol pumps and make a better living.”

  “You couldn’t let him do that.” She saw in her mind’s eye the big trees coming down, the petrol pumps standing, yellow and ugly, in their place along the road.

  “I haven’t let him do that, for a number of reasons, and he imagines I am deliberately standing between him and a good living. He is a great one for feeling put-upon and he’s managed to persuade his son, to whom protesting is as automatic as breathing, that he’s being victimized.”

  “By you.”

  “By me. But the garden is all I have. I am not more selfish than anyone else, but I need that piece of ground more than he does.” His voice was more charged with feeling than she had so far heard it, and she recognized that she had seen again the crack in his monumental defences. She knew now that she would protect him if she could. She thought of Terry and remembered the sensation of those eyes boring through the shop window into her back—the physical sensation of something bad. The old man would do nothing, ever. But Terry was a man of violence. She looked at Mr. Lovett’s face, sunk now in lines of resignation and melancholy. He had called her a person of violence and perhaps she could match hers against Terry’s.

  “I’ll try and talk to this Terry,” she said at last.

  Mr. Lovett’s reaction was instantaneous. He swung round to her and gripped her arm. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. If I thought that what I said was at all likely to bring you into contact with that young man I’d have said nothing at all.” His tone was vehement, even angry.

  Catherine was no longer afraid of him, and she said calmly, “You told me because I asked you. I had to know, didn’t I?”

  “Of course you didn’t have to know. It’s nothing to do with you, my dear girl, and you are not to become involved. Do you understand?”

  Because he could not see her face she put her hand on his wrinkled, bony old one and said, “You see, Mr. Lovett, I am your dear girl and I’m going to be involved.”

  Nevertheless, she had to promise him she would not go looking for Terry. This was as far as she would go and in the end he gave up protesting. It may even have been that he thought the risk a fair price for her rehabilitation, if that was what he was aiming at.

  Chapter 10

  She did not go looking for Terry, but she went often to the news-agent’s and hung about reading sections of the paperbacks that lined the walls. Occasionally she even bought one to justify her endless browsing. When she heard the roaring of motorbikes, mainly on the week-ends, she made a point of checking on them. It was hard to recognize anyone inside the helmets, but once or twice she had a feeling that she had seen Terry pass by. The feeling came always when a group of three or four went up the road, often at high speed. When she experienced these feelings she noted the day and time, the direction they were travelling and the number of bike riders there were. Little by little she began to build up the hint of a behaviour pattern.

  She went frequently to Mr. Lovett’s garden, often without his knowledge. If Mr. Lovett suspected she was there at any time he said nothing. Unlike her own family, he respected her privacy. And he had her promise. She went at varying times of the day or night, though late at night, when she had to leave home by stealth, was an eerie time she did not much care for. She saw the garden change from winter to spring to early summer once again. She learned to know it through the scents of the various flowers, of the trees and of the marshy plants surrounding the pools almost as well as she did through the sight of her eyes. On most of the occasions when she went, the peace of the garden enfolded her as it always had done, and she knew that all was well. But once or twice she knew as soon as she climbed in through the fence that the air was jangled with a turbulence that had nothing to do with the wind. On those occasions she walked quietly, keeping out of sight as much as possible, and her heart would beat faster as she penetrated deeper into the garden. On these occasions she knew that her time for visiting the garden had coincided with Terry’s. More than once she saw him there, standing against a tree, or sitting concealed among the bushes. Once, as she was about to step on to the wooden bridge that led the path across the top of the waterfall, she glanced down towards the pool. Then she stepped back hurriedly, for he was standing there beside it, quite still, with his head bent and arms folded, gazing down into the water. She was able to watch him for a time, unknown to him. She saw the lank, fair hair, half-heartedly curling where it touched the shoulders. She saw the broad shoulders themselves, and even in repose their width and strength were obvious to her. The feet, in rubber shoes, were long and thin, but firmly on the ground, supporting muscular legs. His presence, dominant and dark, filled the open space about him. He showed no sign of being afraid that he would be discovered. But after she had been watching for perhaps ten minutes he began to move. He lifted his head and looked about and she saw again the pale skin of the cheeks stretched over prominent bones, the narrow mouth and jutting jawbone. He looked slowly round the pool, lifted his head and seemed to look straight at her. She held her breath. She knew he could not see her. His gaze shifted, he turned and without a sound moved out on to the path and disappeared among the bushes.

  She did not move for a long time, but watched in case he should, after all, circle back to where she was. She knew he had not seen her, but she knew, too, that he was quite well aware that she was there. It would not be long now before she was face to face with her enemy. She was afraid, and she was not very sure what she would do when she met him, but she felt a pull towards him that she did not like and could not understand, and sooner or later it would bring her to him.

  In a way it was the search for a workable plan that drove Terry almost daily to the garden. The motive, as yet scarcely acknowledged, even to himself, was attack, not defence, and its object was Mr. Lovett. Sometimes he was away with his gang. More often he was in the garden. His gang came when he summoned them and stayed away when he didn’t. It was a kind of accolade to be Terry’s pal, but it had its penalties, too. Joe had not wanted to apply for the job of gardener’s boy when, some time later, Terry told him to do so. He did not care for gardens, knew nothing about gardening and was allergic to regular work. But Terry ordered it and it was done.

  “You’re supposed to want to learn about gardening,” Terry told him. “You’re not supposed to know.”

  So, in due time, the defences were infiltrated. For the present Terry came as quietly as Catherine to the garden and watched—and waited. It had taken him quite a long time to realize Mr. Lovett was blind. Everyone knew he was a kind of invalid, but the blindness, only revealed by the unusually thick glasses he had worn at first, had developed slowly and no one except his intimates, and they were few, had known that he finally discarded the last pair because he could no longer see at all. When at last it was clear to Terry he filed the knowledge away in his memory and knew that the tide was flowing his way.

  He cared nothing for gardens, but this one was important to him and he thought it necessary to feel at home in it. When he allowed himself to be, he was as sensitive as Catherine to mood and atmosphere, and at once he knew that he had stepped into something alien to him, something he did not understand. He imagined he felt hostility, and went cautiously, treading softly and withdrawing into himself as much as he could. Quite soon he knew that Catherine came to the garden too. At first he thought she was one of the children from a neighbouring house, slipping through to save the long walk round, but he found that his eyes followed her involuntarily when she was visible and she came far too often to be one of the local children. Long before he learned who or what she was, some part of him registered her presence. Always the knowledge gave him a small
jolt, as if a nerve had been twanged. She was something too insignificant to be afraid of, yet he never knew she was there without feeling uneasy. He began to resent her presence, and because it was not yet the time for him to take any positive action there was nothing he could do about it.

  But she was not always in the garden. He knew she lived in the district and there were other ways of dealing with the situation than confronting her in the garden they had both begun to haunt.

  In the end it was in the newspaper shop that she confronted him. He was there when she went in, standing with his back to the bookshelves, almost as if he had been waiting for her. She came to a dead stop and walked up to him. She had not known what she was going to say. She had not intended to say anything. But when she stood facing him the words came.

  “I knew I should meet you one day.”

  He stood quite still, looking at her. She felt a sudden need to pull some sign of emotion from that deadpan face. But he said, “Yes,” as if it were a fact known to him, too. Then he said, “You’re often in old Lovett’s garden, aren’t you?”

  “So are you.” She would never forget he was the enemy, and her instinct was to attack, not defend.

  “We should go there together sometime.” He seemed to find his own remark mildly funny.

  It did not seem funny to her, and she said sharply, “I go there because I like to be alone.” He made no reply to this and after a pause she said, “Why do you go there?”

  “That would be telling, wouldn’t it?”

  It was a remark calculated to annoy, but he had not bargained on her temper. “Don’t be childish,” she said loudly, and the woman behind the till suddenly looked up. Catherine saw with satisfaction the sudden colour flare in his face.

  When he spoke it was quite slowly and the words were just loud enough for her to hear. “Are you trying to put me down?”

  They came as a threat and a warning, but she was fortified by her anger, and she said, “I’m not trying to do anything. I said you were childish, and if you say stupid things like that, you must be. Please get out of my way.” She had not wanted to go any farther into the shop. The newspapers were beside her on a shelf. But the need for some physical gesture became imperative. She stepped forward, expecting him to move back. To her surprise she came up against his rigid forearm.

  “Oh no,” he said. “That won’t do. I think maybe I’ve got to get an apology out of you.”

  The way to the till and the newspapers was not barred. She swung away from his outstretched arm, picked up a newspaper and handed the money across the counter. The woman looked at her curiously as she took it, glanced once over her shoulder, started to speak and then stopped. The bell on the till rang, the drawer rattled open and the woman handed her the change. When she turned to the door Terry was no longer there.

  As she stepped out into the street she knew it was not the last of it. But there was no sign of him and she started to walk home.

  He was waiting for her just round the corner. She had not seen him, but she felt him step out of a doorway after she had passed it. In two strides he was beside her. She did not look round or hesitate, but her spine tingled. By now her anger had subsided. She began to see that antagonising him would do nothing for Mr. Lovett. Also, as soon as she ceased to be angry she began to be afraid. She could feel him now at her side, hostile, angry as she had been, and perhaps—perhaps just a little baffled. In a strange way she could feel it in him and knew she must exploit this one hint of weakness. Perhaps no one had ever stood up to him before. But she must not antagonise him any more. She waited for him to speak.

  “So I’m childish.” She knew he was looking at her.

  “It was a childish thing to say. I don’t know if you’re childish or not. I don’t know you.”

  “People’ll tell you about me.”

  His arrogance made her angry again. “I shan’t ask them. I’m not interested in you.”

  “Yes, you are. Yes, you are.” To her surprise he snatched at her elbow and swung her to face him. She was already half-way home and they stood under the spreading branches of a Chinese elm behind a garden fence. He looked into her face and she could feel the hard eyes on her skin. “I know you are interested in me. Why do you come into that garden and watch me? I know when you are there.”

  “I go into the garden to please myself. It’s my business why I watch you.”

  “I think it is my business. When people start watching me I like to know why.” He was still holding her elbow, but now she shook herself free.

  “It worries you that you should be watched by a—a schoolgirl?” She used the most ignominious term she could think of.

  He was not used to being goaded, but this time he reacted differently. When he spoke his voice was soft, but she could feel the anger beneath. “I think you’ve got something going for me. I think that’s why you’re always watching me.” The softness had gone from his voice when he said, “I’m not interested in schoolgirls. You’re wasting your time.”

  This time the arrogance of it made her speechless. Before she could stop herself she had burst into laughter. The look on his face struck her as funny, too, and, still laughing, she left him standing there and ran up the road. He did not follow her, but when she reached her own front gate she knew it was no laughing matter. They would meet again, whether she liked it or not, and the next meeting would see him putting her down—if he could. It would not be a pleasant experience.

  She continued to visit the garden, partly because it had become her own refuge, partly because she now felt bound to find out how often Terry visited it too, and partly because talking to Mr. Lovett was fast becoming a necessity for her. She could talk to him as she had never been able to talk to her parents, or to Diana, and she now knew that talking to her gave him pleasure, too. She understood at last that she had become important to him. Barriers she had erected unknowingly began to crumble and with increasing confidence and happiness she began to change. Home, as a result, became a much happier place, and it was a pleasant novelty to be welcomed with smiles when she came home.

  But of the secret life—of the garden and Mr. Lovett—her family still knew nothing, nor of the constant threat of Terry’s malice. Sometimes, because she felt the need of support and advice for Mr. Lovett’s sake, she was tempted to tell Diana. But she never did, feeling that to bring it out into the open at home, where so many dreams had been damaged, would be to see it all evaporate before her eyes. She remained silent, enjoyed the new easy relationships at home, and watched for Terry.

  She watched for him in the garden, too, and saw him more often than she had expected. She tried not to let him see her, but she had a feeling he always knew when she was there, just as the garden itself told her when he was about.

  She saw Mr. Lovett, and when he was alone, always went to talk to him. But sometimes he was talking to his gardeners. She had found that on two mornings in the week two men came to look after the garden and mow the lawns. She learned to keep away on these mornings during the holidays and assumed Terry would be keeping away too.

  One day Mr. Lovett said to her, “We’ve got a new gardener’s boy.”

  “What happened to the old one?” She was suspicious at once.

  “Nothing.” He seemed surprised at her question. “Gardener’s boys come and go. They grow up and go to better jobs.”

  Nothing disturbing about it at all. But she found that he came on a motorbike and she managed to turn up once or twice on the gardeners’ morning to see if she could, unobserved, get a look at his face. She knew it would not be Terry’s. Whatever he had in mind, Terry would not be blatant. When she did see it, it was a face she had never seen. But she had become wary of all motorbike riders. There had been times when she was walking along the street when it had seemed to her that someone roaring past on a motorbike had come altogether too close. She had taken to walking on the inside of the footpath—nowhere near the curb.

  She could not forget, either, what Mr. Lovett ha
d said about violence building up, waiting for a fuse to set it off. What kind of a fuse? She did not know what to look for, but waited and watched—and haunted the garden. After the first time she had been frightened by a passing motorbike and had jumped aside, she had wondered if she might, herself, be the trigger. But although she had managed to antagonise Terry she did not think he knew of her friendship with Mr. Lovett. After all, she had gone into the garden the first time with much the same feelings that had taken him there. She wanted very much to see the faces of his friends, but it was more difficult than ever now. She took to going to town and to school by circuitous routes and little-used footpaths. She would try to be inside shops in the town at the times she knew Terry and his friends would be riding by, and she would try to see through the shop windows what their faces were like. Sometimes they had their visors down, and then it was impossible, but often in the early evenings when they were about most, their faces would be unprotected. This was her best chance, but even so it was not at all easy. When she found that after many days of seeing them ride past she was getting nowhere, when all the faces except Terry’s, which she could always pick out, were just as unknown to her as before, she knew that she must give up lurking about small lanes and the interiors of shops. She must give up thinking twice before she left her own house. She must be prepared to face them. They might harass her a little, but they could not be so foolish as to knock her down deliberately on the public highway. It was curious that there was no doubt in her mind that Terry himself would try this if he could.