The Watcher in the Garden

by Joan Phipson

  Nothing occurred to stop her reaching the farther boundary. Once out of range of the house she became a thing of no account and she passed through the shrubs and under the trees, her presence, or her absence, disregarded by the life about her. By the time she reached the second TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED and slipped round it into the road she knew that no steps had been taken against her. In her earlier mood of rage and rebellion she would have felt cheated, deprived even, of her just rights. But this time she came out as she went in; calm, pleased with herself that she had again demonstrated her rights and with only her curiosity unsatisfied.

  She thought often of the face she had seen—that it had let her go without even a call to warn her she was trespassing. Then as the summer’s activities multiplied and the days grew hotter the sensations of that period became overlaid with newer ones. For a time she forgot about the garden and its owner. But it was inevitable that sooner or later the circumstances that drove her through the garden the first time should occur again.

  They did so on a hot summer’s day about Christmas time. This time rage was tempered with grief, and when she rushed again towards the garden it was not bravado, or rebellion, or fury that drove her, but some deeper instinct to escape and to hide away. All she could think of was to get into the garden, to disappear for a time—perhaps forever, screamed a wild thought—and let the wound heal. It was again late afternoon, but being midsummer the sun was still well clear of the western hills, the air still warm from the heat of the day. She burst in through the wire fence, uncaring, and plunged at once among the tall trees and in among the tangled undergrowth. The garden was as quiet as it had been on that first occasion, though now drooping and exhausted after the long day’s sunshine. Smells of hot eucalyptus leaves, dust and rotting aquatic plants from the edges of the shrinking pools came strongly in the warm afternoon. This time the birds were quiet and when they flew, they flew with their beaks open, thirsty for cool air.

  She came to a path, followed it without thinking and found a pool tucked away at the foot of overhanging rocks as steep and sheer as cliffs. Where a little creek tumbled down to the pool from the top of the rocks a hand rail, supported by a bridge of planks, went from one side to the other. The bridge was scarcely visible, but the hand rail was clear against the sky. A grassy area, mown and made smooth, lay beside the pool in the shade of the rocks, and because of the encircling sides of rock and the wilderness of trees that sheltered it from the plunging slope to the gorge it seemed to her a safe retreat, a place to rest and hide, and perhaps to sleep and forget. She flung herself on the grass, stretched out to feel the cool, shaded turf against her body, and the skirt she wore spread itself like a wing over the grass. She scooped the black hair away from her neck, threw it forward and lay face downward smelling the warm earth and feeling the blades of grass against her face. For some time she lay without moving and without thinking. Little by little consciousness drained away from her thinking brain into her body, out along each spread-eagled limb. She became aware of the palms of her hands, her feet with the thongs kicked off so they lay unhindered, pressed into the grass, and the whole length of her in contact with the ground. In her distress she no longer remembered what she had felt on her first visit—that the garden resented her presence. The hostility she had been aware of then had been absent on her second visit. Now, if she had for a moment forgotten the anguish that had brought her here she must have been aware that she was not only tolerated. She was also being healed. On a branch above her head a thrush landed and began to sing. Beside her the little stream fell, tinkling, into the pool. The garden crooned over her through the voices of a million small insects.

  Gradually, as her breathing slowed, she began to lose the sense of herself as separate from what she lay on. She could feel the living and the growing that was going on above, around and directly underneath her, and slowly she became part of it. She found that losing her identity in this way was a kind of sleep, but a waking sleep with all the stress of living smoothed away. In a strange, unthinking way she knew now why she was here, why everything was here, why the sun shone and the wind blew through the branches of the trees. There were no problems. There was no time any more and everything was as it should be. At last she slept.

  It was the dog barking that woke her. She sat up, drawing her legs under her, and the sudden return to common day was confusing and painful. She looked about and at first could see no one, and no dog. Then it barked again and she realized the sound came from above. She looked up. Standing in the middle of the bridge, his hands on the rails, was an old man. The dog was at his feet, leaning over between the rails, peering at her. It was a black, shaggy dog, not very large and not very clear in its ancestry. The man was very tall and very thin. His white hair was fairly long and not very tidy. She recognized the face she had seen at the window. She had not realized that it was such an old face. The eyes, sunk deep beneath a craggy forehead, looked straight at her from under thick, white eyebrows. She looked for signs of anger in its expression, but could see only a great stillness, as if her presence there was something distant and unimportant; as if his own life were lived somewhere deep inside him, safe from superficial irritations like trespassers in the garden.

  But he said now in a voice as calm as his expression, “What are you doing in my garden?”

  “Walking through it.” She thought he would ask why, in that case, she had been lying down by the pool. She had planned to tell him what she thought of people who made others walk two miles for nothing. But his next remark surprised her.

  “Friend or foe?”

  She did not answer for a minute. It was a question that required thought. She had been desperate when she entered the garden. The experience she had had by the pool had somehow put everything right again. Now this old man and his dog had brought it all back. It was impulse, not thought, that made her shout back, “Foe.”

  He did not reply at once. She waited and felt time hang motionless until he said, quite quietly, “In that case I must ask you to leave the garden. I shall give you ten minutes, and then the dog will let me know whether you have gone or not.” He took his hands off the rail, felt for a stick that hung beside them and walked on over the bridge. The dog followed. In a moment they were out of sight.

  She stood up slowly. The words she had been going to say were never said. The defiance drained out of her, and it was as if some of the old man’s stillness had entered her, too. It was not fear of the dog that made her walk quietly away, down the path she had come, out through the fence near the TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED notice.

  “I don’t see why I have to play all these games.” Kitty banged her way down the hall and into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Hartley looked up from the stove, a dripping wooden spoon in her hand. “You need the exercise, Kitty. It’s good for you.”

  “Otherwise you’ll be spotty.” Diana looked her young sister up and down in a way not calculated, but certain to annoy.

  “I’m spotty now. Who cares?”

  They were used to Kitty’s belligerent tone, but Mrs. Hartley felt bound to say, “You aren’t spotty. You have a very nice skin.”

  “If you’d look after it,” added Diana. “Just wash your face now and then.”

  “I do. What do you think I am? Oh hell.” She flung herself on to a chair and dropped her arms and her head on the kitchen table.

  Diana melted at once. “Never mind, Kit. You can look quite nice when you try. And you’re not all that spotty.”

  “But she must have her exercise.” Mrs. Hartley’s efforts at firmness always tended to get undermined.

  “I walk,” said Kitty. “I like it better than terrible games.”

  “She does, you know, Mum,” said Diana. “Up and down those gullies. I can’t think why, but she does.”

  Nevertheless the games remained, even if reduced to a minimum, and once and sometimes twice a week she took herself gloomily off to the sports ground.

  Chapter 3

  It was
some time before she went to the garden again. When she did, it was not because desperation drove her there, or because defiance urged her to challenge the old man’s ultimatum. It was simply that the idea of the old man and his dog had continued to grow in her mind. She felt herself being pulled back again. The garden had begun to grow as an idea in her mind, too, as an alternative world that she could inhabit when her day-to-day existence became too hard to bear. And now that her sudden resentment had cooled she wanted to find the old man again and say, “Friend, not foe.”

  The worst of the summer heat was over when she went back at last. There were hot days still, but the night winds had begun to prickle with cold and the leaves on the deciduous trees had grown dusty and were beginning to change colour. Instead of taking the bus after school she slipped away and made for the TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED notice. This time she climbed through the fence and walked boldly in. She came out from among the trees and took the paved path that led up to the lowest terrace and thence to the level of the house itself. She wondered if the dog would attack her, but there seemed to be someone always controlling it and she decided to take the risk. The terrace was deserted, but the house now loomed above her nearer than she had ever seen it. Today the wind blew from another quarter and the curtain no longer billowed from the upstairs window, though it was still open. The front door stood open, too, and through it she could see a long, carpeted passage with here and there the gleam of brass in the shadows. Faintly through it came the sound of chimes, and then a clock somewhere in the dim cavern of the hall gave out the hour of five o’clock in a low, plangent boom. On a more homely scale, the smell of frying onions also drifted down to where she stood. But she could see no one.

  She walked along the terrace past the front of the house to where it ended at one end in a low balustrade. She looked over it and saw the garden fall away below and merge with the natural trees and undergrowth that plunged into the gorge. Looking along the deep cleft of the gorge, she saw the land to the south open out in a succession of hills and valleys that ultimately lost themselves in the blue haze of the horizon. Almost directly below her, jutting out over great natural bastions of rock which overhung the gorge below, was a small stone look-out. A stone seat faced the long view to the south, streaked now with the first evening shadows. On the seat the old man was sitting and the dog lay on the ground at his feet. Both were quite motionless, as if they, too, were carved from stone. She turned, found a path that led downwards to the look-out, and walked slowly towards them.

  Perhaps the dog was asleep and the old man deep in thought, for neither heard her as she came out from among the shrubs and stood behind them. It was curious, seeing them both so close and neither knowing she was there. The dog’s coat, she noticed, was clean and silky, and he looked as healthy as any dog she had ever seen. He lay with his eyes closed and his nose pressed against the ferrule of the old man’s stick. The old man sat without stooping, his shoulders straight and his head high and cocked slightly to one side as if he were listening. The white hair was as dishevelled as the last time she had seen it, like a lion’s mane. It did not altogether conceal the thin, sinewy neck that supported the old man’s head. If there was something grand and leonine about his attitude, there was also something that filled her with vague pity about that glimpse of the old neck rising, vulnerable but indomitable, from the crisply clean white collar.

  It seemed that they would never notice she was there, so at last she said rather more loudly than was necessary, “Friend.”

  She saw the old man give a start and then quickly arrest the movement so that he sat again perfectly still. Only his hand dropped down to the dog’s head to control its sudden bark. He did not turn to look at her, but when the dog was quiet again he said, “So you’ve come back.”

  “I wanted to tell you I’m not really a foe.”

  “The sound of your voice told me that, even then. But declared foes have no place in my garden. Come round here, friend, and sit down.” He still did not turn his head, but he moved a little along the seat so that there was room for her beside him.

  She came forward, walked round the dog, which now regarded her with flattened ears and a thumping tail, and sat down beside the old man. He half turned towards her, but even now he did not look at her directly, but seemed to be gazing far out across the gorge.

  “Now tell me why you keep coming into my garden,” he said in the same quiet voice.

  “I wanted to say I was friend, not foe.”

  He nodded. “That was why you came this time, and I am grateful to you for taking the trouble to come and tell me. But—” His head moved very slightly in her direction, though his eyes remained lost in the distance. “That was not why you came before—twice.”

  “How did you—” She stopped, and then said, “You never saw me. It was dark.”

  A small smile cracked the deep lines of his face. “I never saw you, but I knew you were there. The dog heard you and—I knew.”

  Because he did not seem to be accusing her she put her hand out and touched him lightly on the knee. “Please look at me.”

  He turned his head to face her squarely. She saw the strong nose, the prominent jawbone, the hollow cheeks and the deeply sunken eyes. But the eyes still did not look into hers but over her shoulder at their distant vision. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t see anything.”

  She felt the shock pass through her like a physical blow. He did not wait for her to comment, but said, “You came the first time when it was dark, and I think you simply walked through the garden and out the other side. The second time—I couldn’t guess why you came the second time. I didn’t somehow get the feeling you were on your way to anywhere. I think, don’t you, that as it is after all my garden you might tell me why you come?”

  She was able to speak again now. A number of excuses came into her mind, none of them true. Ordinarily she would have picked the most plausible and used it. But now she felt what she had never strongly felt before—a wish to be honest. Her problem was to try to find out what the truth had been. She began slowly, looking down at the dog as it sighed and put its nose against the walking stick again. When its eyes closed she said, “That first time—I was angry. I had just—my sister—” She stopped, swallowed and began again. “Suddenly I hated everyone. I had to get to town. I had to walk and I didn’t see why I should walk all that way just because your garden—” She stopped again.

  The old man gave a sort of grunt. Then he nodded and said, “Go on.”

  “I saw your horrible TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED notice and I hated that, too, and I thought I might as well go through. Why shouldn’t I? So I did, but—” She turned and looked into his face now, as if he could see her. “You know, this is a funny garden. It made me feel—it made me feel—anyway, I got through, though I did think your dog would come after me.” A smile crossed his face and again he dropped his hand on to its head. “And it was funny, but next time—I mean when I was looking for a place to go, I suppose to hide, all I could think of was your garden.” She stopped.

  Before she could go on he said, “What were you doing, that second time when Conrad saw you from the bridge?”

  “Nothing. Just lying there. But I’d begun to feel all right again, and I’d gone to sleep. That’s why I was so cross when you woke me. I felt like foe. That’s why I said it. Then I was sorry.” There was no more to be said and she leaned back against the cold stone and drew a long breath. She felt calm, as she had not felt for a long time. Behind them, up the slope of the hill, the drying, dying leaves of the deciduous trees rustled in the autumn wind and below the eucalypts plunged with their shining trunks into the depths of the gorge. Flocks of small birds flew from tree to tree and little, bright parrots were busy with the newly formed seed pods among the undergrowth.

  When he was sure she had no more to say the old man spoke. His voice was quiet, almost as if he were talking to himself. “My garden,” he said, “is not an ordinary garden. It is something more than ‘funny�
� as you call it. I have the curious idea that it is my—” He broke off and for some moments was lost in thought. Then he said, “I shall not tell you what I think. Perhaps I am no more than a fanciful old man. You can find out for yourself in time.” There were questions on her tongue, but she knew they would not be welcome. In any case, there was a tranquillity that flowed about them now that should not be broken.

  They sat peaceful and relaxed together for a time and then he said, “How old are you? Seventeen?”

  “Nearly sixteen. How did you guess?”

  “Voices tell you a lot once you’ve learned to listen. Your voice tells me you’re unhappy.”

  At once she felt herself closing up, prepared to guard her private feelings and thoughts. “I’m bad-tempered, if that’s what you mean. Everyone says I am and I know it.” She spoke bluntly to fend off questions.

  But there were no more questions. He only said, “You tell me you’re friend, not foe.”

  She nodded and then remembered he could not see. “Yes,” she said.

  “Good. It follows then, doesn’t it, that I am your friend?”

  “You don’t have to be. Just because I said it. I don’t care what you are.”

  A real smile came over his face. “What a prickly girl you are. What is your name?”

  “Catherine. They call me Kit at home.”

  “I shall call you Catherine. So, Catherine, whether you like it or not, you must think of me as a friend. That means, you see, that you can come into the garden when you like. But just you. I have to be careful. I can’t have you bringing friends—”

  “I haven’t any friends.”

  “I’m not surprised, if you always accept offers of friendship like this. Still, it doesn’t worry me. I’m too old to worry about those things. So you may come in, ignoring the horrible notice, and you may walk through if you want to. And, if at any time you want to talk about anything, you can find me in the garden, or in the house. You’ve seen the house. Just ring the doorbell and someone will come. I must leave you now. It’s time for me to go in.” He felt for his stick, and she was about to put it in his hand, but drew back in time as his hand found it. The dog jumped up and he got to his feet. She wondered how he was so sure that it was time for him to go.