Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006

Just Watching[1] by DeLoris Stanton Forbes

It was a pretty house with a nice porch along the front and big white windows along one side of the door. I looked in while Miss Ascot rang the bell. The woman was on the telephone. I leaned against the window and listened.

“That must be the social worker now, Edna. I’ve got to go. Yes, I’m a little nervous, but lots of people do it. So I’m willing to take a chance.”

Miss Ascot put her finger on the button that rang the chimes again. They sounded nice. I like chimes.

“Yes, I’ll call you later and give you the word,” she laughed. “I’ll be worse off than she is if I have to spend another day with the children and no help. Bye, Edna.” She put the telephone down and came toward the door. I thought she was the prettiest lady I had ever seen.

“Miss Ascot. Come in.” She smiled and opened the screen door. She hadn’t looked at me. It almost seemed as though she kept her eyes away on purpose. Like she was afraid to look.

“This is Julia, Mrs. Kent. Julia, this is Mrs. Kent and she will be your new mistress. I’m sure that you and she will get along just fine. Particularly if you try your best to do everything Mrs. Kent tells you.”

I saw it then — in the corner of the living room. It was a big one, but its glass face was dark. I walked over to it and put my hand on its shiny wooden top.

“Julia!” Mrs. Ascot’s voice followed me. “Mrs. Kent was talking to you.” She lowered her voice a little, almost as though I couldn’t hear if she spoke below a shout. “She loves television. We got one at the institute and she did nothing else from morning to night but sit in front of it. We found we just had to be very firm. Outside of that one little fault I’m sure you’ll find Julia an excellent worker.”

My hand strayed across the cabinet, down toward the knobs. It was real mahogany.

“Yes, I’m sure I shall.” Mrs. Kent made her voice sound like Miss Ascot’s. “You said anyone I got would be — well, we understand. Does she have any peculiar habits?”

Miss Ascot’s voice sounded like ice cream tasted. “Julia is really quite bright, Mrs. Kent. We’re awfully pleased with her progress at the institute. She has been a star pupil. If anything goes wrong, you can reach me at this number. Now, perhaps, you’d like her to meet the children and then we’ll show her to her room.”

They walked off toward a big wide door that opened on a garden and I reached out my hand. I had carefully studied the knobs. I turned the one marked volume way down. Perhaps if they couldn’t hear...

It was cartoons. Crazy Cat. One I’d never seen. But Miss Ascot’s voice, followed by Miss Ascot, came across the room. She made the set black and she said, “Julia, you and Mrs. Kent will make arrangements about your leisure time. Until you have a schedule, you are not to watch TV. Now then, these are the children.” They were brown and strong-looking. Their names were Michael, the biggest; Gladys, next; and Frederick, the baby. They all had round blue eyes. Their mother’s eyes were brown. I wondered about their round blue eyes.

Mrs. Kent told the children to run along and then she took us up the back stairs. We went into a pretty little room with a low, slanted ceiling on the third floor. It was pink and the curtains were flowered. The bedspread was flowered, too. It matched the curtains.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kent.” I smiled at her. “It’s a very pretty room. I like it.”

She smiled back. Her eyes, as I said were brown, and her hair was red. It was long and pulled back with a jewelled clip around it. It hung down, below the clip. Her face was shaped like a heart and her mouth was red, too. She was so very pretty, I thought. I was going to like her very much.

Miss Ascot set my suitcase down. “You unpack, Julia,” she said, “and then come down and I’ll say good-bye to you.”

I was looking in the neat, clean dresser drawers when they shut the door. The drawers had flowered wall paper covering their bottoms.

“It’s just that she’s a bit childlike. An injury to her brain when she was young. We’ve trained her and are prepared to vouch for her. She is perfectly capable of earning her living. But it’s people like yourself, who are willing to take the Julias into their homes, who help the most. Home-life is what they need.”

Mrs. Kent answered but they were so far away by then that I couldn’t hear them.

I started to put my things in separate drawers, but they looked so lonesome that I put them all in one drawer like I did at the institute. Then I went downstairs.

There was a man with Mrs. Kent and Miss Ascot. He was a big man with grey and black hair that waved on his head and round blue eyes. He looked like if you poked him the air would come out.

“This is Mr. Kent, Julia,” said Miss Ascot and he shook my hand. His hand was damp. I wiped mine on the side of my skirt. I tried not to let anyone see, but he saw me. I knew because his big round eyes flattened out, just for a minute, to long slits.

“Now, Julia,” Miss Ascot put out her hand. Her hand was dry and kind of rough. It was square, like Miss Ascot. It was an easy hand to shake. “I explained about your salary and your afternoon off. Remember, you’re to be back by nine on your afternoon off.”

I nodded. She had told me a dozen times. I sometimes thought Miss Ascot was a little simple, the way she kept repeating things.

They all said good-bye then and I watched Miss Ascot disappear through the door, heard her go down the steps. I looked at the clock. Almost four. Time for Your Movie Theatre. I looked hopefully at the television set, but its face was blank.

Mrs. Kent gave a nervous little laugh. “Good heavens,” she said, “it’s almost four. I suppose we had better think about dinner, Julia.”

Mr. Kent yawned and started for the stairs. “Guess I’ll catch forty winks. Call me when dinner’s ready.”

Mrs. Kent took me to the kitchen. “Is Mr. Kent out of work?” I asked when she had given me potatoes to peel.

She looked up, startled. “Out of work? Oh — because he’s home in the daytime?” She laughed. She was such a pretty lady. “Paul is a newspaperman. He works at night. He’s what you call a reviewer. That is, he tells people whether a picture or a play or a TV show is good.”

I looked with pleasure on my nicely peeled potatoes. “But how does he know?”

She sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “He gives the readers his opinion.”

I started to ask if he got paid for it, but I looked around the shiny kitchen and decided he must. I made a note in my head to ask him about it. That was the kind of job I’d like. Watching television — and getting paid for it.

Dinner went all right and we got the children to bed. Mrs. Kent sighed then and walked heavily down the stairs. I followed her.

“Julia, you can go to bed now if you like. Mr. Kent went to the theatre this evening and I’m going to turn in early myself. I’m dead.”

I wanted to ask if I could watch the Buzzy Bisby Show, but I was afraid to — on the first night — so I went up to the third floor.

I listened carefully and when Mrs. Kent had gone to bed I sneaked back down. Keeping the volume low I watched clear through Steve Allen. It was wonderful!

I found this method worked very well. I heard Mrs. Kent tell Miss Ascot on the phone that I was very willing. “No, she hasn’t pestered me about the TV at all. She said Howdy Doody was her favorite program and the children usually watch it anyway so she has permission to see that. So all things considered, everything is fine.”

Just fine. I knew I was going to like it there. No one paid much attention to me, except Mrs. Kent. And every night — the television.

But then Mr. Kent began to stay home every evening.

He stayed home in the living room. He had bottles of things in there and he lay on the sofa and drank from them. He never even watched the television at all.

I stood it for three nights. Then I went down. I wore my best dress like a party and I brushed my hair very carefully. It is pretty hair when it’s brushed. It looks like yellow cotton candy.

Mr. Kent was lying on the sofa, his eyes shut. He hadn’t shaved. His face looked dark and scratchy. He was breathing hard. A glass was on the floor beside him.

“Mr. Kent.”

He opened his eyes. He had to look for me before he saw me.

“If it wouldn’t annoy you, Mr. Kent, could I turn on the set? I’ll keep it low and not bother you at all.”

“Good God,” he said, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “Get the hell out of here. Can’t a man have a little peace in his own home?”

I looked at the set. It was a shame. Nobody enjoying it. Nobody at all. I turned to go.

“Just a minute.” He sat up and his round eyes looked glittery. “Maybe you can stay. Nobody else will keep me company. She goes up to her chaste and virginal bed.” He swallowed the rest of the drink in his glass. “Just because a man gets fired — hell, it was no job anyway. The novel, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll write the novel. Sit down, Julia. Here — have a drink.”

I looked at the bottle. The brown stuff in it did not look as though it would taste good. But, perhaps if I went along with him, he would turn the set on.

He poured a drink for me. I was right. It did not taste good but I drank it. He was talking about a lot of things I didn’t understand like “cold-hearted bitch” and “nobody realizes that I’ve got talent.” During this time he had two more drinks and I began to get nervous. It was almost time for Steve Allen. We might miss it.

“Come here, Julia,” he said suddenly, patting the sofa cushion beside him. I put my glass down and went over. My head felt funny.

I stood next to him and he pulled me down beside him. “You may be sub-normal, but you’ve got an above-average shape.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “What do you think about, Julia? What do you think of us?”

I found his arm was heavy. I couldn’t sit up straight so I leaned back and he moved closer.

“I’m happy here, Mr. Kent. This is the first time I’ve lived in a home. Mrs. Kent is good to me.”

His round face floated over mine. “Mrs. Kent is good to nobody. Not unless they’ve got something she wants. Then she’s as sweet as honey. You wouldn’t be that way, would you, Julia?”

His other arm moved on my shoulder, down.

“Mr. Kent.” I tried to sit up.

“What do you want, Julia?”

“Mr. Kent. The television?”

“Sure,” he said. “In a minute.”

It didn’t take long. Then, like he promised, he got up and turned the set on. The blackness went and exciting people came and went, singing, laughing, dancing. It was wonderful — as always. I forgot Mr. Kent.

And so it was all right again. I could come down freely. Mr. Kent was most always there. But it didn’t matter. We understood each other.

At night, with the television, I felt as though this house were mine.

But one night Mrs. Kent came down the stairs. Mr. Kent had sent me into the kitchen for a fresh bucket of ice. I heard her voice and waited in the entry, behind the swinging door.

“Paul — I thought I heard someone talking. What are you doing down here?”

He answered loudly. I think he wanted me to hear. “The TV. Just watching the TV.”

“Oh. Hadn’t you better go to bed? You’ve been drinking again. That isn’t helping you find a job, or write that book you keep talking about either.”

I heard him move. His voice got thick, like it was sometimes when he was with me on the sofa.

“Can I sleep in your room, Karen?”

“No. Not tonight. You know I can’t abide the smell of liquor.”

“No — you can’t, can you?” He stomped angrily across the room and I heard a click as he turned the television off. “In fact, you can’t really abide me, can you, Karen?”

“Not very often, Paul.” Her voice cracked like ice on the river.

I heard the loud sound and I pushed open the door to look. He had hit her and she fell as I watched, slowly, like a slow motion scene in an old movie. Her head made a funny noise against the bricks of the fireplace. We’d had watermelon once at the institute and somebody dropped one. It sounded like Mrs. Kent’s head did when it hit. Splonk.

He drew back, his mouth open, but making no sound. He leaned down over her and raised up. He looked around and I was careful to keep out of sight. He took a long taste from the bottle. Then he took hold of her feet and pulled her behind the sofa next to the wall. He pushed the sofa back over her. He went to the bathroom and brought a wet towel. He wiped the bricks. He took the towel away.

I was in the living room when he came back. The ice was on the table. I was turning the television set on.

He put his hand on mine and turned it off.

“How would you like a little vacation, Julia. A couple of weeks at the beach? In the city? Anywhere, anywhere at all.”

I kept my eyes down and my hands clasped lady-like behind me.

“I don’t think Miss Ascot would let me go.”

“Damn Miss Ascot.” Little beads of sweat stood out on his brow. He was thinking, hard. It was like watching a play — he was looking for a way out.

I poured him a drink. “Here, Mr. Kent. You don’t look so good. This will make you feel better.”

His hand went around the cold glass. His round blue eyes looked at me and suddenly they became flat and narrow.

The phone rang and he answered it. He talked for a while out in the hall and then came back. He didn’t know I went to the kitchen. He raised the glass to his lips; I knew Mr. Kent had found a way out.

He’s lying beside her now. I found the package high on a kitchen shelf where Mrs. Kent had told me to put it, away from the children. Rat poisoning, it said, with a red skull and crossbones. While Mr. Kent was out at the phone I put it into the whiskey.

He knew, I think, right away but he’d taken a huge swallow the way he always did and it was too late. It didn’t take long after that. It was easy, even for me, to see Mr. Kent’s only way out. Blame it on the hired girl. I’d seen that done on television at least a dozen times.

I wiped off fingerprints and put glasses in their hands — just long enough to leave their marks.

As soon as Steve Allen is over, I’ll go to bed.

Somebody will find them by morning. I hope the next house I go to has color. Twenty-four inch.