The Watcher in the Garden

by Joan Phipson

  Catherine found time to visit Mr. Lovett once before September. She went because she would soon be able to tell him exactly what he had to fear—and when—though she knew it would be difficult to persuade him that the information she would give him was accurate. She had no intention of telling him what had happened between herself and Terry. He would not believe it if she did, but, more than that, it was something she could not bring herself to talk about. She tried to believe it was not so, and often she told herself that out there in the bush in the night time and terrified she had suffered a hallucination that would fade if she was patient. And then, clear and sharp, Terry’s thoughts would come across to her and she would know it was true.

  So she went with the idea of preparing the ground and making Mr. Lovett at least take care. For the first time, he was angry with her. It was a Saturday morning, clear and lovely after the night’s frost. Already the reckless almond blossom was out against the northern bank of one of the terraces. Delighted bees were blundering, drunk with joy, among its flushed white blossoms, and some of the wrens and finches were already flying about, preoccupied, trailing lengths of dead grass and fibre. The air was full of buzzing and bird song. As soon as she came he took her down to the look-out.

  “Can you see?” he said. “Can you see where they have begun the bridge? Look, Catherine, and tell me about it.”

  They were standing against the parapet and below them the ground fell away sharply. She moved round to the side so that she stood looking across the narrow gully to the other look-out. Just below where they stood the slope was less sudden and she could see that holes had been dug and cement poured. There were now two pylons, short and squat, side by side from which the bridge would be swung across to a similar pair of pylons beside the other look-out.

  At first she made no comment, but said, “How will you get to it?”

  “By the bridge, of course.”

  “I mean—how will you get to the bridge from here?”

  “There’ll be a path round the side of the look-out. I showed you the plans, didn’t I?” For some reason he was edgy. Perhaps he sensed her antagonism.

  “I don’t remember seeing the path marked. I must have missed it.” The more she looked the more she hated the whole idea and before she could stop herself she said, “It doesn’t look a bit safe. I hope you stop them finishing it.”

  She knew as soon as she said it that he was really angry. She saw his hands clutch the edge of the stone parapet, saw his head turn, not to her, but out to face the empty air, and heard him say with his back to her, “I didn’t bring you here to listen to your views on what is safe and what is not. I can still make my own judgements, even if I have to use someone else’s eyes. I wanted you to tell me what you saw, not what you happen to think.” Even then he did not turn towards her, but she knew he was listening for her answer.

  She never felt less like giving one. She had spoken, if unwisely, from her heart because she cared for his safety. But she had misjudged him. He did not want to be looked after, even by her. At last, very quietly, she began to describe the beginnings of the bridge.

  When she had finished he only said, “Now we shall go up and get Bob to find us some coffee.” Nothing more was ever said about the safety of the bridge, and she knew that she could not mention the subject again. Whatever might have to be done she would have to do on her own. He would not help her, even to preserve his life. And he would not believe her, either.

  Terry, roaring back from the shops on his bike, his head discreetly concealed by the helmet and visor, knew what had happened and permitted himself a fleeting smile.

  August passed, the real spring came and the bridge proceeded. But Catherine was busy finding bird-watching points for Rupert and for once the garden put on its spring regalia without her.

  It was Terry, this year, who was in a position to see the leaves burst out on the trees, the cherry blossom and the daffodils. But he did not notice them. He came only to watch the progress of the bridge.

  Little by little it began to develop, but now that the spring had come it was not growing so fast because the garden demanded more time from Tom and his assistant. He said to Mr. Lovett one day, “You’d think I was being deliberately held back, the way the jobs keep cropping up. Look at that creeper. Why did yesterday’s wind have to tear it away from the house? It’s been hanging there for years. And why did that branch from the old cedar have to fall right across the path this morning? I dunno. You expect a lot to do in springtime, but this—tell you what, Mr. Lovett, it’s got no right to happen now.”

  And Mr. Lovett said, “Unpredictable things, gardens. I expect that’s why we like them. Doesn’t matter, Tom. There’s no big hurry, and you’ll get it done sometime.”

  There was plenty of time for Terry to investigate the work being done on the bridge and, with what Joe could tell him, follow the method of building. There came a time when he could see that the whole strength of the little bridge was going to depend on one or two small areas. It was on these that he concentrated. And slowly his idea clarified and he knew what he should do. It meant taking Joe into his confidence and it went against his nature to confide in anyone. He took some precautions before he did so.

  One day he said to Joe, “Saw you last night. Busting up the post office telephone box.”

  “I never,” said Joe at once.

  “I got witnesses,” said Terry.

  After a pause Joe said, “So?”

  “So I can get you in deep trouble any time I want.”

  “You wouldn’t—?”

  “I’m your friend, aren’t I? ’Course I wouldn’t. Now listen, Joe, and what we talk about now could get you into trouble too, if you was to tell the others—or anyone.”

  So they talked about the bridge—small matters like strands of wire rope and bolts specially treated by Terry and handed to Joe and the proportions of cement mix. Some of it became a little technical, but not too technical for Joe to understand. In Terry’s mind it was all plain, simple and clear, and its purpose was just as clear—just as simple. Yet somewhere within this meshing of purposeful threads was one unidentified disruptive skein. Somewhere in Terry’s mind was an uneasiness, an abrasive element he could not analyse. A cross-current seemed to be working against his schemes. There were elements in Catherine’s makeup, like conscience and a feeling that to make was better than to break, that until recently had lain dormant in Terry. No wonder he failed to recognize them when they began to stir.

  Catherine, absorbed in her preparations for Rupert, found her thoughts again and again distracted by disconnected, fragmented little pictures of Mr. Lovett’s bridge. Sometimes it would be of a pulley fastened to a wire rope. Sometimes of the cement mixer she had seen beside the pylon. Again, a succession of bolts, screws, and even small pieces of metal she could not recognize, kept unexpectedly getting between her and the work she was trying to do for Rupert. She could make nothing of it. She knew only that behind it all was Terry and that he meant mischief. This much she had already tried to tell Mr. Lovett and he had been angry with her. It was no good going to him again until she had something definite to say. She thought of going to talk to Tom, but there was nothing to tell him, either. Only to be careful, and it was not necessary to tell him that. Someday Terry would make up his mind. Then she would have to act—and quickly.

  She did her best to push it all to the back of her own mind and to think only of Rupert’s business. She partially succeeded because it was an activity she was enjoying and the prospect of taking Rupert to all these places was pleasant, too.

  But her peace of mind was gone. Her family began to notice it. Diana kept her waiting one day when they had planned to take their lunch to a distant wildlife reserve. It was only twenty minutes later than they had planned to start when Diana backed the car out of the garage, but Catherine stormed up to her, dropped the lunch basket with a clatter and said, “It’s not worth going now. You’ve ruined the whole day.” And she marched back to the house
and banged the door behind her. It took Diana and her mother another twenty minutes to persuade her that twenty minutes was not a major disaster.

  There was the time her father said casually at breakfast, “By the way, dear, that chap you sent along to me—Watson, Wisden, Wilson?—some name like that—”

  “Wilson,” said Mrs. Hartley. “Husband of one of my golf women.”

  “Wilson. I couldn’t do it, you know. He had no security at all.”

  “What a shame. They’ve had such bad luck and they so need to get a start again. That bit of property was just what they want.” She filled Mr. Hartley’s cup. “She did make it sound plausible, or I wouldn’t have suggested his calling.”

  The incident would have been forgotten then and there if it had not been for Catherine. Without warning she was suddenly overcome by a feeling of furious, savage indignation. “I suppose you’d have given it to someone who had security, as you call it, and didn’t need it. Can’t you see how wickedly unfair it is? How could you do it?” She spoke loudly and her face was red. Then she stopped and the feeling that had impelled the words disappeared as quickly as it had come. She did not know what had made her say it. She did not even know the man, and now she came to think about it, she didn’t even care about his misfortunes. They were all looking at her, speechless. “Sorry Dad,” she said at last. “Don’t know what got into me.” She left the table, shaking, and they sat and watched her go.

  She did know what got into her, and in the privacy of her bedroom she faced the knowledge. This was a new thing, and where would it end?

  There was an occasion a week or so later that frightened her even more. She had gone into her parents’ bedroom in search of her mother. The room had been empty, but there was some money lying on the dressing table. She knew it was the housekeeping money her father had left before he went to work that morning. At some time during the day her mother would come in and put it away.

  She walked up to the dressing table, looked once towards the door, and very quickly extracted the twenty dollar notes from the little pile. She pushed them into her pocket and walked out quickly.

  It was not until she slipped her hand into her pocket some hours later that it came over her in a cold wave of astonishment and horror that she was now a thief. Choosing her time, she went back to the bedroom. The pile was still there, and she put back the notes. Afterwards she thought for a long time about what she had done, but could find no comfort.

  September came and Rupert came shortly afterwards. He looked a little older, a little more confident, and he was charmingly pleased to see everyone.

  “Di!” he said as she opened the door to him. And he enveloped her in a great hug. Catherine, coming through from the kitchen, saw it and stopped dead. Rupert, peering over Diana’s shoulder, saw her come. His thin face split into an even wider smile and the hand that clasped Diana’s shoulder loosened its grip and waved at her enthusiastically. Any inclination she may have had to take offence or to feel herself overlooked was dissipated before it even began. He freed himself from Diana, almost as if he were taking off a coat, and came towards her.

  “There you are. What luck. This is going to be tremendous.” And he held out both his hands.

  They got to business immediately. First of all it was necessary to go through all the plans that Catherine had made, and they pored over maps and charts and lists of birds, and she described to him the places she thought they should visit.

  “This is splendid,” he said. “Absolutely splendid.”

  And Catherine was sufficiently sure of herself to say, “And Diana helped too. She took me in the car.”

  At first they concentrated on places near at hand and for the first day or so, leaving almost before it was daylight, they set forth on foot, hung about with cameras and binoculars, and tramped home at lunchtime, bedraggled, weary, sometimes elated, sometimes depressed. Often they waited until mid-afternoon and went off then with the same paraphernalia and with flashlights as well. On these occasions they came back after dark. Diana was always waiting for them, but she never offered to go with them. Unnecessary walking was not for her.

  It was a happy time, and an interesting time for them all, and Catherine, more and more engrossed in Rupert’s plans, found herself less and less inclined to dwell on vague forebodings. She thought long and hard about the danger to Mr. Lovett. She knew now that when Terry made up his mind, when his plan, whatever it might be, was at last formed, she would be aware of it. She would be able to act then. Until that time her responsibility was to Rupert. As far as she could, she put it out of her mind.

  The weather seemed bent on co-operating, and at first remained fine and calm, and even if early mornings and late evenings were chilly, the sunshine when it was there was warm and comforting. After the first week they began to go longer distances and it was necessary to go in a car. Diana was invited to go with them, but she thanked them politely and said that sitting still for hours waiting for some bird to make up its mind was not her idea of fun. If she was needed she would come, but if they were kindly thinking of her pleasure, thank you very much, but no. So they left her behind and went in Rupert’s car.

  It was about this time that Terry’s father collapsed with pneumonia. When he began to cough rather more than usual and Mrs. Nicholson began darting anxious, angry looks at him whenever he coughed, Terry told her it was only the smoking, and what did she expect? He never liked the idea of his father being ill, though he was ill often enough. It upset him and made him feel both angry and guilty. Plain, ordinary pity for a frail, if querulous, old man was something he never felt. Long before such weakness surfaced in him it had changed to resentment, and he fought against it. The morning he found his father draped, panting, over the cylinder head of one of the old cars his first thought was that “they” were to blame and now he would make them pay for it. This had been his normal reaction. Now, strangely, the anger was diluted by something else. For the first time it occurred to him that his father was in trouble and needed help. For the first time he found an echo in himself of what his father might be feeling. He ran down the back yard, shouting for his mother as he ran.

  When he reached his father the old man had raised himself off the engine on one arm while the other clutched his chest. He was alternately wheezing and coughing, but he stopped long enough to say, “I’m crook, boy. This time I’m real crook.”

  “Why didn’t you stay up at the house if you were that crook? Why did you have to come right down here, for Christ’s sake? You got no sense at all.” Terry’s voice was rough and totally without sympathy, but he pulled his father upright, put one arm over his shoulder and grasped him, none too gently, round the waist.

  “You’re killing me,” said his father. “I got this awful pain just where you’re holding me.” But he clutched his son’s broad shoulder and turned towards the house.

  “I got to get you back, haven’t I? Want me to carry you?”

  Mrs. Nicholson descended on them in a rush, having run all the way down the hill. “What’s the matter? What’s happened to your father?”

  Terry looked at her over the top of his father’s small grey head. “How should I know? He reckons he’s crook. Says he’s got a pain.” He spoke as if the whole thing might have been a put up job—some game his father was playing against them. Yet even as he spoke he recognized that his father was in real pain.

  “I have, too,” said the old man, suddenly finding the energy to sound indignant. “Had it all morning, but I could be dead for all you’d notice.”

  “I knew it,” said Mrs. Nicholson triumphantly. “I knew he was bad. Anyone could see it was more than just the smoking.” And she thrust her hand under the arm that still clutched his chest. “Come on. We got to get you back to the house.”

  He groaned, coughed once more, and then, supported on both sides, began a tottering progress up the hill to the house. His wheezing increased alarmingly, but they only had to stop once while he coughed. Once inside the back do
or, Terry began to steer him towards his bed, but Mrs. Nicholson said, “What do you think you’re doing? You go and get the car out. He’s going to the doctor.”

  “He’s not that bad.” It was not that he did not believe it. He simply preferred it not to be so.

  Mr. Nicholson moaned plaintively and they heard him whisper, “He’d rather I died in me bed. He don’t care what happens to his old dad.” But before he had finished speaking Terry was gone, banging the door behind him.

  They took him to the doctor and the doctor told them he had pneumonia and ordered him to hospital. When Terry and his mother returned to the house his mother said, “It’s the work he has to do—in his state. Always down there fiddling about with those old cars. It’s too much. If he’d got his garage this’d never have happened.” She looked at her son across the kitchen table and slowly picked up her cup of tea.

  Terry said nothing. Across the table, above the teapot and the sugar bowl, his gaze met his mother’s and held, her dark eyes and his cold blue ones, naked through the sparse yellow lashes, and a still, controlled current passed between them, and perhaps a message was passed as well, but no further word was spoken.

  The bout of pneumonia was no worse than others he had had before, but it kept him in hospital for rather longer than they expected. And the longer he remained the more Terry’s determination to get even hardened. Now that he could believe there was a positive need for action the tangled skein in his thoughts, the abrasive element, vanished. The way seemed clear again, the means as simple as he had thought. He went unobtrusively about the garden again and paid a visit to the new look-out. And he summoned Joe for a consultation.

  When it was finished Terry knew a lot more about the bridge than he had before. Careful details began to put flesh on the bones of his plans. On his way to or from the hospital he paid several visits to the hardware shop. Even then the plans might have been stillborn, for he found a certain satisfaction just in making them and he might have simply gone on making plans only for the pleasure of it—except for Mrs. Nicholson.