The Watcher in the Garden Read Free Page B

misleading jeans.
    â€œIt’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.
    â€œIt’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—
    â€œThat’s silver beet,” said Kitty.
    â€œI know. I want several.”
    â€”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