The Touch

At Toad Hall

Sylvia stood at the library doors and watched Alan as he gazed out the tall windows at the lightning. She wished the drapes were drawn. Lightning had terrified her ever since five-year-old Sylvia Avery in Durham, Connecticut, had seen a bolt of lightning split a tree and set it ablaze not twenty feet from her bedroom window. She had never forgotten the terror of that moment. Even now, as an adult, she could not bear to watch a storm.

Alan must have sensed her presence, for he turned and smiled at her.

"Good fit," he said, tugging on the lapels of the blue bathrobe he was wearing. "Almost perfect. You must have known I was coming."

"Actually, it belongs to Charles," she said, and watched closely for his reaction.

His smile wavered. "He must be a pretty regular visitor."

"Not as regular as he used to be."

Was that relief in his eyes?

"Your clothes will be out of the dryer soon."

He turned back to the windows. "My memory keeps betraying me—I could swear you told me the new peach tree was on the right."

"I did. It's just that it's been growing like crazy. It's now bigger than the older one."

The phone rang and she picked it up on the first ring.

It was Lieutenant Sears of the Monroe Police Department, asking for Dr. Bulmer. "For you," she said, holding it out to him.

The first thing he had done upon arriving at Toad Hall was to call the police and report the disturbance at his home. He had said he didn't want to press charges, just wanted everybody out of his house and off his property. The lieutenant was probably calling to say mission accomplished.

She watched him speak a few words, then saw his face go slack. He said something like, "What? All of it? Completely?" He listened a bit longer, then hung up. His face was ashen when he turned to her.

"My house," he said in a small voice. "It's burned to the ground."

Sylvia's body tightened in shock. "Oh no!"

"Yeah." He nodded slowly. "Jesus, yeah. They don't know if it was the mob or lightning or what. But it's gone. Right down to the foundation."

Sylvia fought the urge to take him in her arms and say it would be all right, everything would be all right. She just stood there and watched him go back to the window and stare out at the storm. She let him have a few moments to gather himself together.

"You know what keeps going through my mind," he said at last with a hollow laugh. "It's crazy. Not that I lost my clothes or all that furniture, or even the house itself. My records! My moldy-goldy-oldy forty-fives are gone, reduced to little black globs of melted vinyl. They were my past, you know. I feel like someone's just erased a part of me." He shrugged and turned toward her. "Well, at least I've still got the cassettes I duped off the records. Got them in my office and my car. But it's not the same."

Something about his speech had been bothering her since he had leaned into the car during the storm. Now she identified it: A trace of Brooklyn accent was slipping through. He had used it jokingly before; now it seemed part of his speech. Probably due to the tremendous strain he was under.

"Maybe you'd better call your wife," Sylvia said. "She'll be worried if she calls and learns the phone's out of order."

Sylvia knew his wife was in Florida. She didn't know exactly why, but assumed that the lady found the storm around her husband easier to weather from a thousand or so miles away.

"Nah. Don't worry about that," Alan said as he walked around the room, inspecting the titles on the shelves. "Ginny hasn't much to say to me these days. Lets her lawyer do her talking for her. His latest message was a packet of divorce papers that arrived today."

Oh, you poor man! Sylvia thought as she watched him peruse the bookshelves with such studied nonchalance. He's lost everything. His wife has left him, his house has burned to the ground, he can't even get into his own office, and he stands a good chance of losing his license to practice medicine. His past, his present, his future—all gone! God! How can he stand there without screaming out to heaven to give him a break?

She didn't want to pity him. He obviously wasn't wallowing in any self-pity and she was sure he would resent any pity from her.

Yet it was certainly a safer emotion than the others she felt for him.

She wanted him so badly now. More than she could ever remember wanting any other man. And here he was, in her home, alone—Gladys had gone for the night after putting Alan's wet clothes in the dryer, and Ba had beat a hasty retreat to his quarters over the garage. Alan had nowhere else to go, and all the moral restraints that had separated them were now gone.

Why was she so frightened? It wasn't the storm.

Sylvia forced herself to go to the bar. "Brandy?" she said. "It'll warm you."

"Sure. Why not." He came closer.

She splashed an inch or so into each of two snifters and handed him one, then quickly retreated to the far corner of the leather sofa, tucking her legs under her and hiding them in the folds of her robe. Why in God's name had she undressed and put on this robe? Just to make him feel more comfortable in Charles'? What was the matter with her? What had she been thinking?

Obviously she hadn't been thinking at all. Her hands trembled as she tipped the glass to her lips and let the fiery liquid slide down her throat.

She didn't want this. She didn't want this at all. Because if she and Alan came together, it wouldn't be another casual affair. It would be for keeps. The Real Thing—again. And she couldn't bear another Real Thing, not after what had happened to Greg. She couldn't risk that kind of loss again.

And she would lose Alan. He had an aura of doom. He was one of those men who was going to do what he had to do, no matter what. Greg had been like that. And look what had happened to him!

No. She couldn't let it happen. Not again. No matter how she felt about Alan. She would keep her distance and help him out and treat him as a dear friend and that would be it. No entanglements.

So she put on her just-good-friends face and watched him stalk the room.

But as she watched him, she felt a flame inside glowing, trying to grow and warm her, trying to ignite her need to touch him and be touched by him. She smothered it.

She was not going to get burned again.

Alan watched Sylvia out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to scan the titles on the library shelves. He barely saw the books. Like the song: He only had eyes for her.

Jeez, she was beautiful sitting there in her burgundy robe with her hair down and falling about her face. He had always felt attracted to her, but now… fate seemed to have thrown them together. She was sitting on the sofa over there with her robe demurely tucked around her, but he had caught sight of a length of long white thigh before she had arranged herself, and it was as if one of those lightning bolts arcing across the sky outside had struck him in the groin.

This was crazy! His life had completely fallen apart—he didn't even have a home anymore, for Chrissake!—and all he could think about was the woman across the room from him.

Yet where was all her banter, where were her come-ons when he needed them? He didn't know how to handle this, what to do, what to say.

Hi! You live around here? Come here often? What's your sign?

He took a gulp of the brandy and felt the fumes sear his nasopharynx.

But at last he could admit to himself that he wanted Sylvia, had wanted her for a long time. And now they were here, alone, with all the walls broken down. But instead of playing Mae West, she was suddenly Mary Tyler Moore.

He couldn't let the moment pass. He wanted her too much, needed her too much, especially now. Especially tonight. He needed someone to stand up with him, and he wanted Sylvia to be that someone. She had the strength to do it. He could go it alone, but it would be so much better with her beside him.

He wandered along the wall, gazing at the spines of the books, not seeing their titles. Then he came around behind the couch where she was sitting and stood directly behind her. She didn't turn around to look at him. She said nothing. Merely sat there like an expectant statue. He reached out toward her hair and hesitated.

What if she turns me away? What if I've read her wrong all these years?

He forced his hand forward to touch her hair, laying his fingers and open palm gently against the silky strands and stroking downward from where they fell from the center part. The tickling sensation in his palm sent a pleasurable chill up his arm. He knew Sylvia felt it too, for he could see the gooseflesh rising on the skin of her forearm where it protruded from the sleeve of her robe.

"Sylvia—"

She suddenly jumped up and spun around. "Need a refill?" She took his glass. "Me too."

He followed her over to the bar and stood at her side, desperately searching for something to say as she poured more brandy into the snifters. Alan noticed her hand trembling. Suddenly there was a deafening crash of thunder and the lights went out. He heard Sylvia wail, heard the brandy bottle drop, and then she was in his arms, clutching him in fear, trembling against him.

He put his arms around her. God, she was quaking! This wasn't an act. Sylvia was genuinely frightened.

"Hey, it's all right," he said soothingly. "Just a near miss. The lights will go on soon."

She said nothing, but soon the tremors stopped.

"I hate thunderstorms," she said.

"I love them!" he said and held her tighter. "Especially now. Because I was racking my brain for a way to get my arms around you."

She looked up at him. Although he could not see her expression in the darkness, he felt a change come over her.

"Stop it!" she said. Her voice was strained.

"Stop what?" She was still against him, but it was as if she had just pulled herself a step or two away.

"Just stop it!"

"Sylvia, I don't know what—"

"You know and don't pretend you don't!"

She slammed her right fist against his chest, then her left, then she was pounding at him with both at once.

"You're not going to do this to me! It's not going to happen again! I won't let it! I won't! I won't!"

Alan pulled her tightly against him, as much to comfort the pain he sensed within her as to protect himself.

"Sylvia! What's wrong?"

She struggled fiercely for a moment, then slumped against him. He heard and felt her sobs.

"Don't do this to me!" she cried.

"Do what?" He was baffled and shaken by her outburst.

"Don't make me need you and depend on you to be there. I can't go through that again. I can't lose one more person, I just can't!"

And then he understood. He tightened his arms around her.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"That's what Greg thought."

"Nobody can guarantee against that kind of tragedy."

"Maybe not. But sometimes it seems like you're courting disaster."

"I think I learned a big lesson tonight."

"I hope so. You could have been killed."

"But I wasn't. I'm here. I want to be with you, Sylvia. And if you let me, I will be with you—tonight and every night. But especially tonight."

After a long pause he felt her arms wriggle out from between them and slip around his back. "Especially tonight?" she said in a small voice.

"Yeah. It's been a long time coming and I don't think I can turn back now."

He waited patiently through another long pause. Finally she lifted her face to him.

"Me neither."

He kissed her then and she responded, bringing her hands up to his face and then clasping her fingers behind his neck.

Alan pressed her against him, nearly overwhelmed by the feelings growing within him, old feelings that had lain dormant so long he had almost forgotten they existed. He opened the front of her robe and she parted his, and then her skin was hot against the length of him. Soon the robes had fallen to the floor and he led her to the couch, where he explored every inch of her with his fingers and his lips as she explored him. Then they were together, straining against each other, strobe-lit by lightning, the thunder and pounding rain all but drowning out the sounds they made as they peaked with the storm.

"God! Is that what it's like?" she heard him say after they had caught their breaths and lay together on the couch.

"You mean it's been so long you've forgotten?" Sylvia asked with a laugh.

She could almost see him smile in the dark.

"Yeah. Seems like forever since it's been like this. I've been going through the motions so long I've forgotten what passion feels like. I mean real passion. It's great! It's like being cleansed. Like being run through a wringer and hung up to dry."

The lights remained out. Lightning still flickered, but not as brightly, and there were increasingly longer intervals between the flashes and the rumbles.

Alan pulled away and went to the window. He seemed to love the storm.

"Do you know that you're the second woman I've ever made love to?"

Sylvia was startled. "Ever?"

"Ever."

"You must have had plenty of opportunities."

"I guess so. Lots of offers, anyway. I don't know how many were serious." She saw the silhouette of his head turn her way. "Only one offerer ever attracted me."

"But you never took her up on them."

"Not because she didn't appeal to me."

"But because you were married."

"Yeah. The Faithful Husband. Who committed adultery every day."

That puzzled her. "I don't get you."

"My paramour was my practice," he said in a low voice, as if talking to himself. "She came first. Ginny had to be satisfied with what was left over. To have been the kind of husband she needed, I would have had to settle for being something less than the kind of doctor I wanted to be. I made my choice. It wasn't a conscious decision. And I never really saw it before. But now that Ginny's gone and the practice is gone, it's all very clear. Too often my mind was someplace else. I cheated on her every hour of every day."

Is he trying to scare me off?

"And now that they're both gone, I feel free to be with you, and that's the most important thing in the world right now."

Sylvia felt a glow upon hearing those words. "Come back over here," she said, but he didn't seem to hear. She decided to let him talk. She sensed it was good for him. Besides, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

"And I'm talking about how I feel. I can't tell you the last time I opened up to anybody. Anybody. Trouble is, I feel lost. I mean, what am I going to do with myself? For the first time in my life I don't know what I want to do. Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to be a doctor. And do you know why? For the money and the prestige."

"I don't believe that!"

"Actually, I wanted to be a rock star but found I had no musical talent. So I settled on medicine." He laughed. "Seriously, though—money and prestige. Those were what were important to the kid from Brooklyn all the way through pre-med and most of med school."

"What changed you?"

"No big deal. I didn't renounce all things material and don sackcloth and ashes. I just changed. Gradually. It started during my clinical training, when I got my first contact with patients and realized they were more than just case histories— they were flesh-and-blood people. Anyway, I achieved both my goals. The prestige automatically came with the degree, and the money came, too. Like one of my professors had told us: 'Take good care of your patients and you won't have to worry about balancing the books.' He was right.

"So I came out determined to be the best goddamn doctor in the whole world. And after I got into practice, it was an all-day job to try to be that kind of doctor. But now I'm not any kind of doctor. I'm a tool. I've become some sort of organic healing machine. Maybe it's time to quit." He grunted a laugh. "You know, Tony and I used to say that when the legal jungle got too thick and the politicians made twenty minutes of paperwork necessary for each ten minutes spent with a patient, we'd chuck it all and open a pizzeria."

He finally turned away from the window.

"Speaking of pizza, I'm starved. Got anything to eat, lady?"

Sylvia slipped into her Mae West voice. "Of course, honey. Don't you remember? You were just—"

"Food, lady. Food!"

"Oh, that stuff. Come on."

They groped for their robes and put them on, then she took him by the hand to the kitchen. She was fumbling in a drawer for a flashlight when the lights came on.

"Whatcha got?" Alan said, hanging over her shoulder as she peered into the refrigerator.

The shelves were almost bare. With taking Jeffy into the Foundation, she hadn't got around to shopping today.

"Nothing but hot dogs."

"Oh, my!" Alan said. "What would Dr. Freud say about that?"

"He'd tell you to eat them or go hungry."

"Any port in a storm. Pop them in the microwave and we'll have byproducts-in-a-blanket."

"That sounds awful!"

"Can't be worse than the meatloaf I had last night. Made it myself—all the flavor and consistency of a Duraflame log." He stuck his tongue out in a disgusted grimace. "Blech!"

Sylvia leaned against him and began to laugh. This was a side of Alan she had never known. A little-boy side that she hadn't even dreamed existed. Whoever would have guessed that the handsome and dedicated Dr. Bulmer could be charming and witty and fun? Fun!

She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed him. He returned the kiss. Without separating her lips from his, she tossed the package of hot dogs back into the refrigerator and closed the door. As she put her arms around his neck, he lifted her and carried her back to the library.

Later, as they lay exhausted on the couch, she said, "We've got to try this in a bed sometime."

He lifted his face from between her breasts. "How about now?"

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Maybe I am," he said with a smile. "Maybe I'm not. All I know is I feel like my life has just begun tonight. I feel giddy, high, like I can do anything. And it's because of you."

"Oh, now—"

"It's true! Look at what's happened to me in the past few weeks. None of it matters now that I'm with you. I can't believe it, but touching you, loving you, it shrinks all those troubles to nothing. For the first time in my life I don't know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow and I… don't… care!"

He got up and put Charles' robe on again. Seeing him in the light now, she noticed how thin he was. He couldn't have been eating well at all since his wife walked out on him.

"Maybe you should open that pizzeria on your own. Put some meat on your bones if nothing else."

"Maybe," he said, walking back to the window.

She put on her own robe and followed him.

"Maybe, like hell," she said, snaking her arms around him and snuggling against his back. The storm was completely gone now. Still he stared out at the sky. "You'll never quit medicine and you know it."

"Not voluntarily anyway. But it looks like medicine is quitting me."

"You still have the Touch, don't you?"

He nodded. "It's still there."

She still hadn't one-hundred-percent accepted the existence of the Dat-tay-vao. She believed Alan, and she believed Ba, but she hadn't as yet seen it work, and the idea was so far beyond anything in her experience that the jury was still out for a small part of her mind.

"Maybe you should lay low with it for a while."

She felt him stiffen. "You sound like Ginny. She wanted me to deny it existed and never use it again."

"I didn't say that!" She resented being compared to his wife. "I just think maybe you should back off a bit. Look what's happened to you since you began using it."

"You're probably right. I probably should let things cool down. But, Sylvia…"

She loved to hear him say her name.

"… I don't know how to explain this, but I can feel them out there. All those sick and hurting people. It's as if each one of them is sending out a tiny distress signal, and somewhere in the center of my brain is a little receiver that's picking up every single one of them. They're out there. And they're waiting. I don't know if I could stop—even if I wanted to."

She hugged him tighter. She remembered the day in the diner after they had been to the cemetery when he had first told her about it. It had seemed like such a gift then. Now it seemed like a curse.

He suddenly turned to face her.

"Now that I'm here, don't you think it's about time I used the touch on Jeffy?"

"No, Alan, you can't!"

"Sure! Come on. I want to do this for you as well as him!" he began pulling her toward the stairs. "Let's go take a look at him."

"Alan," she said, her voice quavering with alarm, "he's not here. I told you before—he's at the McCready Foundation until Thursday."

"Oh, yeah," he said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. "Slipped my mind."

He gathered her into his arms.

"Can I stay the night? If I may be permitted to quote Clarence Frogman Henry"—his voice changed to a deep croak—" 'I Ain't Got No Home.' "

"You'd better!" she laughed. But the laugh sounded hollow to her. How could Alan have forgotten about Jeffy being away? She didn't know what it was, but something was wrong with him.