The Watcher in the Garden by Joan Phipson Page B

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?”
    â€œI 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.
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    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