The Watcher in the Garden (3 page)

The sunshine was warm, though still pleasant. Across the lawn the cypress trees that bounded the hospital grounds shaded a line of stalls, in the middle of which the cake stall stood discreetly back, in deeper shade than any. The jams and preserves stall, she noticed, was catching the sun at one corner, so that the jars of honey shone golden and the pots of quince jelly a warm, ruby red. Handiwork was right on the edge of the shade and would soon be in the sun. She could see the bootees and baby jackets and bonnets in their pinks and blues and occasional startling yellows from where she sat and was glad that fate had given her the vegetables. But it was the cake stall that attracted the most custom and soon, unless more cakes turned up from somewhere, they would be out of produce. She wondered if the ladies would then be allowed to go home and decided suddenly to try more aggressive salesmanship.

An elderly woman walked across the lawn. She had a mild, approachable face and she carried a shopping bag. When Kitty saw her looking at the vegetable stall she picked up a bunch of silver beet and waved it, not quite under the woman's nose.

“These are lovely and fresh,” she said and to her own ears her voice sounded false and greasy with invitation.

Not being acquainted with her normal tones the woman stopped and smiled. “That's very kind of you, dear. But my doctor won't let me eat spinach.” She did not mean to sound patronising, and perhaps it was the fault of those misleading jeans.

“It's not spinach; it's silver beet,” said Kitty. Her voice was no longer ingratiating and her amiable expression had given place to a formidable frown.

“It's the same thing, dear. They should have told you.” She walked on, her eyes now on the cake stall and Kitty already forgotten. For a moment Kitty stood watching her, as the retreating matronly hips swayed beneath a rather tight beige skirt. She had got away too easily and Kitty knew why. With a great effort she swallowed her annoyance and searched for her next victim.

It promised to be the rector's wife, who now bore down on her, gaunt and earnest and with her eyes fixed on the price tags. She was not given to patronising except at social gatherings, and she now muttered, “Good morning, Kitty. Nice to see you lending a hand,” as her eyes roved over the vegetables. She picked up a bunch of parsley. “This has no price tag. How much is it?”

Kitty had never bought a vegetable in her life and she cast about feverishly in her mind for a likely figure. “Fifty cents,” she said at last.

The rector's wife put the parsley down at once. “That's far too much.”

Kitty hurriedly picked up a small cabbage. “This then, Mrs. Brooks. Look, this is only thirty cents. It feels lovely and soft.”

For the first time Mrs. Brooks smiled. “Crisp is what you should say, Kitty. Not soft. No one wants a soft cabbage. I'll come back later and see what you have left.” And she followed the matronly lady to the cake stall.

Clearly her future did not lie in salesmanship and for a time she gazed, brooding, into space. People came through the hospital gates, walked over to the vegetable stall, and moved on. Kitty barely saw them. Then, when she was beginning to think it must be lunch time, and to wonder whether she was expected to starve in defence of her unwanted vegetables, a young woman with an enormous shopping bag came crunching along the gravel, bustled up to her stall and said, “What have you got? I'm in an awful hurry and this is my only chance to get the week's vegetables. Let me see now. . .I'll have this—and this—and this.” And one after another bunches of carrots, cabbages, plastic bags of early beans, several bunches of silver beet—

“That's silver beet,” said Kitty.

“I know. I want several.”

—and finally a bag of potatoes, went into her bag. She pointed to a pumpkin at Kitty's feet. “And that, too, please,” she said. She looked at Kitty, whose mouth was slightly open and who had not moved for some moments. “Well, aren't you going to add it up?”

By the time Kitty had found a piece of paper and a pencil it had all come out of the bag again. Together they added it up, the money was passed over, the young woman gave Kitty a bright smile and hurried off. Kitty looked at her depleted stall and her good humour returned. Her mother came then, sent her off for a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and when she returned, all seemed set fair for the remainder of the day. Mrs. Hartley went off more confident than she had expected to be.

Her produce was going down nicely. Only one pumpkin remained, a few potatoes and a bunch of parsley, now marked twenty cents. Kitty sat on her box and placidly watched the cake stall across the lawn folding itself up for the day. A woman with a small boy walked up and the woman looked long and hard at the one pumpkin. Kitty, her mind for the moment elsewhere, sat and gazed into space and did not see the small boy reach out for the bunch of parsley.

During the day the sun had passed over and now shone on to the lawn from behind Kitty's right shoulder. It shone on the small boy's face, right into the open mouth that was about to receive half the bunch of parsley. At the same time there was a sound of footsteps on the gravel behind her. She did not notice them, and she did not really hear the male voices as they passed by, either. But the shadow of their passing fell across the stall, darkened the face of the small boy, and for a moment it seemed to her that night had come. It came, not only across the bench in front of her, on to the boy and his mother, but she thought in that moment that it passed right through her like an X-ray, and it carried with it a kind of turmoil of confusion and fear and rage. And before she had gathered her defences the rage broke through, and she bent and picked up the pumpkin and threw it at the child's still open mouth.

It hit him, not in the face, but fair on the chest and he went over backwards, the astonishment on his face dissolving into a roar of pain and protest. By the time his mother had picked him up, still clutching the bunch of parsley, the shadow had passed and Kitty was standing gaping and white-faced.

“You—” said the mother and there was murder in her eye.

Kitty tried to say she was sorry, tried to say she had not meant to hit the child. What she could not say was that for one moment it had not even felt like herself, that something beyond her control had taken charge and she had been helpless. She began to say it, but stopped because suddenly she doubted if it could indeed be true. All she could do was to come to the front of the stall to help console the child. But he shrank away as she came near, and his mother pushed her roughly away.

“You keep away,” she said, and her face was very red. “I'm going to report this.”

It was not necessary to report it, for Mrs. Hartley came up at that moment and it took her a long time to calm both mother and child. When she achieved it and they had eventually moved off she said to Kitty, “What made you do it?”

Kitty shook her head. “I don't know.” Then her voice suddenly rose to a scream as she said again, “I don't know.”

The shadow had quite gone from the bench. Away down the drive four indistinguishable male figures were just turning out of the gate. But neither Kitty nor her mother saw them go.

There followed the usual reproofs and apologies and attempts at explanation that they had learned to accept as normal in Kitty's erratic progress to maturity, and in time, like everything else, it was forgotten. But in Kitty's mind it was not forgotten, and it lingered at the back of her memory—a dark and unexplained cloud. How could she explain the feeling that was always there, that inside her there was and had always been a gap waiting to be filled? In her mind? In her heart? She did not know. But it was there, and she knew it caused all her difficulties. If she told them they would not believe her. Or they would say it was the same with everyone and other people managed to behave in a civilized way. And she would know that was not true and so she could get no help from them. It had to remain her secret until one day she found the answer.

The next time the girl came to the garden, made bold by success, it was broad daylight, a Saturday in early summer. The internal fires that had driven her through it the first time still smouldered, but there had been no recent incident to fan the flames. This time it was more the satisfaction of defying the two uncompromising notices and some curiosity that took her in again. And this time she knew the way. The bright morning light prevented her from taking the direct route the darkness had made possible. There was no point in letting herself be seen and stopped. Besides, there was the dog. She stayed beneath the trees, avoiding the open spaces and keeping to the shrubby parts of the garden. Even this circuitous course to the town was infinitely shorter than the legitimate route. She had calculated a difference of two miles and she challenged those two big notices to stop her taking it. As for whoever cowered inside the big house, the world had not been made only for them.

On this bright, warm morning everything in the garden was busy. There had been rain in the night and the air was full of insects intent on eating and avoiding being eaten, mating, laying eggs, making cocoons, hatching, spreading damp wings, buzzing, clicking, humming. And a multitude of birds were noisily preventing them doing so. In the damp and fecund earth plants were busy, too. The garden sang with growth. This time the girl, whatever her thoughts and feelings, had no effect on the garden at all. She passed through and made no impact. The composite life about her held no part for her and there was not even a ripple in the air as she went by.

This rejection may have given her the idea that she was to some extent invisible, for she stopped once when she was in full view of the house to look about her. The garden came down the hill in a series of terraces and the house stood on one of the upper levels. The front windows were open now and from one of the upstairs ones a white curtain intermittently ballooned out and sank out of sight again as a draught from inside the house fitfully caught it. Unlike the garden that surrounded it, the house seemed still and lifeless. Nothing moved, not even the dog she had heard before. The creepers—jasmine and climbing rose—that grew lustily at each corner of the front façade appeared to be intent on smothering it for good. All the life there was about the house came from these two samples of the proliferating garden. Among so much that was exuberant and even joyful the house stood forlorn—pathetic rather than sinister.

Suddenly the girl gasped and sprang back into the shade of a big rhododendron. There was now a face at the upstairs window from which the curtain blew. It was a gaunt, lined face, and there were dark shadows beneath the cheekbones. It was looking straight at her, and because she had not, after the first brief glance, looked at the upper windows again, she did not know how long it had been there. She waited for a long time without moving, half expecting the front door to open and the dog to come bounding out. She did not dare glance over her shoulder to see if she could reach the boundary before the dog reached her. Instinct kept her motionless, scarcely breathing. But the door did not open. The dog did not come. And after a time she cautiously moved on.

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.