“Is there any chance of finding out where she’s living?” He had uttered the question unplanned, but realized its inevitability while Birberger was still rubbing his chin and considering the problem.
“I’ll get the city directory!” he said, rather too eagerly, as though anxious to get Howson on his way.
There were several dozen Williamses, but only one Stephen Williams. Howson studied the address.
“West Walnut,” he said. “Where’s that ?”
“New district since your time, I believe. Big development outside town. A number nineteen bus goes direct.” Birberger was hardly making any attempt to disguise his desire to see the back of his visitor now.
So Howson, dispirited, accommodated him, paying for his food and beer and gathering up his valise. Birberger stumped to the door with him and insisted on shaking his hand, treating it with care as if touching something rare and fragile. But his invitation to come back as soon as possible rang thin.
On impulse Howson asked him, “Say, Mr Birberger! What’s your picture of the kind of work I do nowadays ?”
Startled, the fat man improvised. “Why, you — you sort of look into crazy people’s minds and tell what’s wrong with them. And straighten them out. Don’t you ?”
“That’s right,” Howson said a little unkindly. “Don’t worry, though — I’m not looking into your mind. After all, you’re not crazy, are you?”
The seeds of the most peculiar kind of doubt were germinating in Birberger’s mind as Howson limped down the street towards the stop for a nineteen bus.
Odd: people’s different reactions to telepathists… Howson contemplated them as he sat in the single seat near the driver up front in the bus. He hadn’t examined that problem for years; at the WHO therapy centre he was in isolation from it, because telepathists had become a completely accepted part of the regular staff.
Occasionally, though not as often as he would have liked, trainees came in, and he assisted with their development. Each was unique, and consequently each responded differently to knowledge of his talent. Some were like children with a newfound toy; others were like members of a family in Nazi Germany, who had just discovered that they had Jewish blood and were desperately pretending it made no difference.
It was getting easier to accept the gift, granted. The years of carefully devised propaganda had had some effect. But telepathists were so few they barely even constituted a minority group, and that, rather than conditioning of the public, had been their salvation — at least in Howson’s view. A tiny fraction of the population had actually met someone with the power; consequently, though most people had opinions (’I don’t doubt they do wonderful work, but I wouldn’t like someone poking around in my mind — I mean, it’s the ultimate invasion of privacy!’) few had formed lasting attitudes.
“West Walnut, pal!” the driver called to him, slowing the bus. He was trying to control his prejudice-reactions at Howson’s appearance, and for that Howson gave him a projective wave of warm gratitude. It lit the man’s mind like a gaudy show of fireworks, and he was whistling a cheerful tune as he drove away.
Howson gave a bitter chuckle. If it were always that easy things would be fine !
22
The new development was clean, airy, spacious, with small houses set among bright green lawns. Children on their way home from school ran and laughed along the paths. He thought achingly of the dose ugly streets of his own childhood, and repressed absurd envy. Briskening his pace as much as possible, he followed signs towards the Williams home.
Yes, there was the name on the mailbox: S. Williams. He reached up and pressed the bell.
After a while the door was cautiously opened on a security chain, and a girl of about seven looked through the gap. “What do you want ?” she said timidly.
“Is Mrs Williams in ?”
“Mummy isn’t home,” the girl said in her most grown-up and authoritative voice. “I’m dreadfully sorry.”
“Will she be back soon? I’m an old friend of hers, and I want to—”
“What is it, Jill ?” a boy’s voice inquired from out of sight.
“There’s a man here who wants to see Mummy,” the girl explained, and a clatter of shoes announced her brother’s descent of the stairs. In a moment another pair of eyes was peering at the visitor. The boy was startled at Howson’s appearance, and failed to conceal the fact, but he had obviously been trained to be polite, and opened the door with an invitation to come in and wait.
“Mummy’s gone to see Mrs Olling next door,” he said. “She won’t be long.”
Howson thanked him and limped into the lounge. Behind him he heard an argument going on in whispers — Jill complaining that they oughtn’t to have let a stranger into the house, and her brother countering scornfully that Howson was no bigger than himself, so how could he be dangerous ?
Shyly, the children followed him into the lounge and sat down on a sofa opposite the chair he had taken, at a loss for anything to say. Howson had not had anything to do with children for many years; he felt almost equally tongue-tied.
“Maybe your mother has told you about me,” he ventured. “I’m called Gerry — Gerry Howson. I used to know your mother when she was — uh — before she met your daddy. You’re Jill, aren’t you? And—?”
“I’m Bobby,” said the boy. “Er — do you live near here, Mr Howson ?”
“No, I live at Ulan Bator. I’m a doctor at the big hospital there.”
“A doctor!” This began to thaw Jill’s shyness. She leaned forward excitedly. “Ooh! I’m going to be a nurse when I grow up.”
“How about you, Bobby ? Do you want to be a doctor ?”
“No, I don’t,” said the boy rather slightingly. “I want to be a Mars pilot or a submarine captain,” Then he relented, and with a gravity exactly imitated from some stiff-mannered adult, he added, “I’m sure a doctor’s work is very interesting, though.”
“Mr Howson,” said Jill with a puzzled expression, “if you’re a doctor, why have you got a bad leg? Can’t you have it fixed?”
“Jill!” exclaimed Bobby, horrified. “You know you shouldn’t say things like that to people!”
He was being grown-up, thought Howson with amusement. “I don’t mind,” he said. “No, Jill, I can’t have it fixed. I was born like it, and now there’s nothing than can be done. Besides, I’m not that kind of doctor. I—” He recollected Birberger’s halting, naive description of his work, and finished, “I look into sick people’s minds and tell what’s wrong with them.”
Bobby’s adult manners vanished in a wave of surprise. “You mean you’re a crazy doctor ?”
“Well, now!” Howson countered with a hint of a smile, “I don’t think ‘crazy’ is a very nice word. The people who come to my hospital are pretty much the same as anybody — they just need help because life has got too complicated for them.”
They didn’t contest the statement, but their scepticism was apparent. Howson sighed. “How would you like me to tell you a story about my work?” he suggested. “I used to tell stories to your mother, and she enjoyed it.”
“Depends on the story,” said Bobby cautiously. Jill had been sitting in wide-eyed wonder since Howson’s revelation that he was a “crazy doctor’. Now she spoke up in support of her brother.
“I don’t think we’d like a story about crazy people,” she said doubtfully.
“It’s very exciting,” Howson promised quietly. “Much more exciting than being a spaceman or a submarine captain, really. I have a wonderful job.” He found time to ask himself when he had last realized how completely he meant that declaration before he went on.