Robert Silverberg - Warm Man

Mr. Hallinan frowned sympathetically. “Have you any children, Mrs. Erwin?”

“Hah! He’d never give me any—not with my reputation! You’ll have to pardon me; I’m a little drunk.”

“I understand, Mrs. Erwin.”

“I know. Funny, but I hardly know you and I like you. You seem to understand. Really, I mean.” She took his cuff hesitantly. “Just from looking at you, I can tell you’re not judging me like all the others. I’m not really bad, am I? It’s just that I get so bored, Mr. Hallinan.”

“Boredom is a great curse,” Mr. Hallinan observed.

“Damn right it is! And Leslie’s no help—always reading his newspapers and talking to his brokers! But I can’t help myself, believe me.” She looked around wildly. “They’re going to start talking about us in a minute, Mr. Hallinan. Every time I talk to someone new they start whispering. But promise me something—”

“If I can.”

“Someday—someday soon—let’s get together? I want to talk to you. God, I want to talk to someone—someone who understands why I’m the way I am. Will you?”

“Of course, Mrs. Erwin. Soon.” Gently he detached her hand from his sleeve, held it tenderly for a moment, and released it. She smiled hopefully at him. He nodded.

“And now I must meet some of the other guests. A pleasure, Mrs. Erwin.”

He drifted away, leaving Lys weaving shakily in the middle of the parlor. She drew in a deep breath and lowered her décolletage again.

At least there’s one decent man in this town now, she thought. There was something good about Hallinan—good, and kind, and understanding.

Understanding. That’s what I need. She wondered if she could manage to pay a visit to the house on Melon Hill tomorrow afternoon without arousing too much scandal.

Lys turned and saw thin-faced Aiken Muir staring at her slyly, with a clear-cut invitation on his face. She met his glance with a frigid, wordless go to hell.

Mr. Hallinan moved on, on through the party. And, gradually, the pattern of the party began to form. It took shape like a fine mosaic. By the time the cocktail hour was over and dinner was ready, an intricate, complex structure of interacting thoughts and responses had been built.

Mr. Hallinan, always drinkless, glided deftly from one New Brewsterite to the next, engaging each in conversation, drawing a few basic facts about the other’s personality, smiling politely, moving on. Not until after he moved on did the person come to a dual realization: that Mr. Hallinan had said quite little, really, and that he had instilled a feeling of warmth and security in the other during their brief talk.

And thus while Mr. Hallinan learned from Martha Weede of her paralyzing envy of her husband’s intelligence and of her fear of his scorn, Lys Erwin was able to remark to Dudley Heyer that Mr. Hallinan was a remarkably kind and understanding person. And Heyer, who had never been known to speak a kind word of anyone, for once agreed.

And later, while Mr. Hallinan was extracting from Leslie Erwin some of the pain his wife’s manifold infidelities caused him, Martha Weede could tell Lys Erwin, “He’s so gentle—why, he’s almost like a saint!”

And while little Harold Dewitt poured out his fear that his silent 9-year-old son Lonny was in some way subnormal, Leslie Erwin, with a jaunty grin, remarked to Daisy Moncrieff, “That man must be a psychiatrist. Lord, he knows how to talk to a person. Inside of two minutes he had me telling him all my troubles. I feel better for it, too.”

Mrs. Moncrieff nodded. “I know what you mean. This morning, when I went up to his place to invite him here, we talked a little while on his porch.”

“Well,” Erwin said, “if he’s a psychiatrist he’ll find plenty of business here. There isn’t a person here riding around without a private monkey on his back. Take Heyer, over there—he didn’t get that ulcer from happiness. That scatterbrain Martha Weede, too—married to a Columbia professor who can’t imagine what to talk to her about. And my wife Lys is a very confused person too, of course.”

“We all have our problems,” Mrs. Moncrieff sighed. “But I feel much better since I spoke with Mr. Hallinan. Yes: much better.”

Mr. Hallinan was now talking with Paul Jambell, the architect. Jambell, whose pretty young wife was in Springfield Hospital slowly dying of cancer. Mrs. Moncrieff could well imagine what Jambell and Mr. Hallinan were talking about.

Or rather, what Jambell was talking about—for Mr. Hallinan, she realized, did very little talking himself. But he was such a wonderful listener! She felt a pleasant glow, not entirely due to the cocktails. It was good to have someone like Mr. Hallinan in New Brewster, she thought. A man of his tact and dignity and warmth would be a definite asset.

When Lys Erwin woke—alone, for a change—the following morning, some of the past night’s curious calmness had deserted her.

I have to talk to Mr. Hallinan, she thought.

She had resisted two implied, and one overt, attempts at seduction the night before, had come home, had managed even to be polite to her husband. And Leslie had been polite to her. It was most unusual.

“That Hallinan,” he had said. “He’s quite a guy.”

“You talked to him too?”

“Yeah. Told him a lot. Too much, maybe. But I feel better for it.”

“Odd,” she had said. “So do I. He’s a strange one, isn’t he? Wandering around that party, soaking up everyone’s aches. He must have had half the neuroses in New Brewster unloaded on his back last night.”

“Didn’t seem to depress him, though. More he talked to people, more cheerful and affable he got. And us, too. You look more relaxed than you’ve been in a month, Lys.”

“I feel more relaxed. As if all the roughness and ugliness in me was drawn out.”

And that was how it felt the next morning, too. Lys woke, blinked, looked at the empty bed across the room. Leslie was long since gone, on his way to the city. She knew she had to talk to Hallinan again. She hadn’t got rid of it all. There was still some poison left inside her, something cold and chunky that would melt before Mr. Hallinan’s warmth.

She dressed, impatiently brewed some coffee, and left the house. Down Copperbeech Road, past the Moncrieff house where Daisy and her stuffy husband Fred were busily emptying the ashtrays of the night before, down to Melon Hill and up the gentle slope to the split-level at the top.

Mr. Hallinan came to the door in a blue checked dressing gown. He looked slightly seedy, almost overhung, Lys thought. His dark eyes had puffy lids and a light stubble sprinkled his cheeks.

“Yes, Mrs. Erwin?”

“Oh—good morning, Mr. Hallinan. I—I came to see you. I hope I didn’t disturb you—that is—”

“Quite all right, Mrs. Erwin.” Instantly she was at ease. “But I’m afraid I’m really extremely tired after last night, and I fear I shouldn’t be very good company just now.”

“But you said you’d talk to me alone today. And—oh, there’s so much more I want to tell you!”

A shadow of feeling— pain? fear? Lys wondered—crossed his face. “No,” he said hastily. “No more—not just yet. I’ll have to rest today. Would you mind coming back—well, say Wednesday?”

“Certainly, Mr. Hallinan. I wouldn’t want to disturb you.”

She turned away and stared down the hill, thinking: He had too much of our troubles last night. He soaked them all up like a sponge, and today he’s going to digest them—

Oh, what am I thinking?

She reached the foot of the hill, brushed a couple of tears from her eyes, and walked home rapidly, feeling the October chill whistling around her.