Free The Watcher in the Garden by Joan Phipson Page B

me. And you must be Kitty.”
    â€œMy name’s Catherine,” she mumbled. “Mum said I was to bring you straight home. Shall I carry your bag?”
    â€œDon’t be silly.” Suddenly his face dissolved into a smile and before she could stop herself she smiled too.
    â€œOh well. Thought I should offer.”
    â€œRight. Now we’ve got the formalities over shall we go? Are you—” His eyes ran quickly over her. “No, you wouldn’t be driving. Shall we walk?”
    From the beginning she had found him easy to talk to. She even felt brave enough to ask him what sort of a film he wanted to make.
    â€œI’m interested in birds. I have an idea there’d be a market for a sort of detailed thing about the life of some, perhaps unusual, kind of bird. Egg to dead sort of thing. I expect your father will think it pretty unproductive.”
    â€œProbably,” she said. It sounded just the sort of nice idea he would call “dreamland stuff”. But she was surprised when Rupert’s face fell into lines of great despondency.
    â€œI was afraid so,” he said, and heaved such a sigh that she felt he must be cheered up at all costs.
    â€œI can show you a bower bird’s playground.” She looked up into his face to see if it had brightened at all. She was quite astounded at the instant change.
    â€œCan you? Can you really? I should like that. I’ve never seen one, though I know they’re fairly common.”
    â€œNot all that common,” and suddenly there were icicles in her voice. He sensed them at once and was apologetic.
    â€œOh no. I realize that. It was just that—I always seem to miss things other people see quite easily.”
    She took him home via the bower bird’s playground. It meant going quite a distance out of their way, climbing through dense scrub and scrambling up and down hills not at all suited to city suits. It also took them rather a long time. It was Catherine who remembered first. She disentangled herself from the bush that concealed them and pulled impatiently at his sleeve.
    â€œGet up. Come on, quick. We’ll get into an awful row.”
    â€œOh gosh, I quite forgot. It’s all my fault, of course.” Suddenly the concern on his face was wiped away. “But I don’t care. It was worth it. Don’t worry. I’ll say I forced you to take me.” The smiling, conspiratorial look he gave her swept away her last reservations about him. She had never met anyone so easy to get on with. When they finally reached home she introduced him almost as if he were her own private property.
    Her father, naturally, had been waiting impatiently, but the row she anticipated never came. Rupert with great skill explained how inevitable it was they should have been delayed and as they went in to dinner at last her father, seeing the sulky expression for once absent from her face, even put his hand on her shoulder.
    As it happened, Diana was later than anyone, but nothing was said as she slipped into her place half-way through the first course. Catherine had already opened her mouth to introduce Rupert, but her mother somehow got in before her. Then what always happened, happened again. Now that Diana was there the conversation, which had been progressing in fits and starts and mainly involved questions about Rupert’s family and his brief answers, became animated. As usual, Diana only waited for a gap in the conversation to launch into a detailed account of her day. She always did this, and her day always sounded so much more interesting than Catherine’s. This time she made a point of telling it all to Rupert. And Rupert, who had up to now looked a good deal more restrained than he had previously been with Catherine, began to expand again.
    The end of dinner came, and Catherine had not said a word. Her father swept Rupert off to have his talk, and that was the last she saw of him that day. She thought he