Slow Sculpture Read Online Free PDF Page B

was spluttering under the direct and passionless gaze of Halvorsen’s dark eyes, he reached for the first thing he could think of that was not an absolute non sequitur: “One night a couple of months ago Mrs. Martin and I saw her throw a fit of hysterics over something … oh, Miss Schmidt had a magazine she wanted … anyway, after it was all over, Mrs. Martin said something about Mary Haunt that could have been a compliment. I mean, to some people. I can’t think of Mary Haunt ever doing as much for her.”
    “What did she say?”
    “Mrs. Martin? Oh, she said anybody who gets between Mary Haunt and what she wants is going to have a Mary-sized hole through them.”
    “It wasn’t a compliment,” said Halvorsen immediately. “Mrs. Martin knows as well as you or I do what’s between that girl and her Big Break.”
    “What is?”
    “Mary Haunt.”
    O’Banion thought about that for a moment and then chuckled. “A Mary-sized hole wouldn’t leave much.” He looked up. “You’re quite a psychologist.”
    “Me?” said Halvorsen in genuine surprise. At that moment Robin,who had all this while been murmuring confidences to the mixer, switched off the machine and looked up.
“Boff!”
he cried joyously. “Hello, Boff!” He watched something move toward him, turning slightly to follow it with his eyes until it settled on the spice shelf over his table. “Wash you doin’, Boff? Come for dinner?” Then he laughed, as if he had thought of something pleasant and very funny.
    “I thought Boff was out with the Bittelmans, Robin,” O’Banion called.
    “No, he hide,” said Robin, and laughed uproariously. “Boff right here. He come back.”
    Halvorsen watched this with a dazed smile. “Who on earth is Boff?” he asked O’Banion.
    “Imaginary playmate,” said O’Banion knowledgeably. “I’m used to it now but I don’t mind telling you it gave me the creeps at first. Lots of kids have them. My sister did, or so Mother says—Sister doesn’t remember it now. A little girl called Ginny who used to live in the butler’s pantry. You laugh off this ‘Boff’ and the other one—her name’s Googie—until you see Robin holding the door open to let them in, or refusing to go out to play until they get downstairs. And he isn’t kidding. That’s a nice little kid most of the time, Halvorsen, but some things will make him blow up like a little bottle of nitro, and one of ’em is to deny that Boff and Googie are real. I know. I tried to once and it took half a day and six rides on a merry-go-round to calm him down.” He emphasized with a forefinger: “Six rides for Boff and Googie too.”
    Halvorsen watched the child: “I’ll be darned.” He shook his head slightly. “Is that—unhealthy?”
    “I bought a book,” said O’Banion, and, unaccountably, found himself blushing again, “and it says no, long as the child has good contact with reality, and believe me, he has. They grow out of it. Nothing to worry about.”
    Just then Robin cocked his head up to the spice shelf, as if he had heard a sound. Then he said, “Okay, Boff,” climbed down from his chair, carried the chair across the kitchen to its place against the wall, and said cheerfully, “Tonio, Boff wan see cars. Okay. Shall we?”
    O’Banion rose, laughing. “My master’s voice. I got the
PopularElectronics
special issue on this year’s automobiles and Boff and Robin can’t get enough of it.”
    “Oh?” Halvorsen smiled. “What do they like this year?”
    “Red ones. Come on, Robin. See you, Halvorsen.”
    “See you.”
    Robin trotted after O’Banion, paused near the door. “Come
on
, Boff!”
    He waved violently at Halvorsen. “See you, Have-sum-gum.”
    Halvorsen waved back, and they were gone.
    Halvorsen sat numbly for a while, his hand still raised. The presence of the other man and the child had been a diversion from his strange inner explosion and its shock-waves. Now they were gone, but he would not permit himself to