Stephen Donaldson - The Illearth War

A part of Covenant's mind wondered if he were going to end up paying for all three of them.

Reluctantly, he tasted his gin and tonic, and almost gagged in sudden anger. The lime in the drink reminded him intensely of aliantha . Pathetic! he snarled at himself. For punishment, he drank off the rest of the gin, and signalled to the waiter for more. Abruptly he determined to get drunk.

When the second round came, the waiter again brought three drinks. Covenant looked stiffly at his companions. Then the three of them drank as if they had tacitly engaged each other in a contest.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the driver leaned forward and said, “Buddy, I got to warn you. It's your dough. I can drink you under the table.”

To give the third man an opening, Covenant replied, “I think our friend here is going to last longer than both of us.”

“What, a little guy like him?” There was humour in the trucker's tone, an offer of comradeship. “No way. No way at all.”

But the solemn man did not recognize the driver's existence with even a flick of his eyes. He kept staring into the stage as if it were an abyss.

For a while, his gloom presided over the table. Covenant ordered again, and a few minutes later the waiter brought out a third round-three more drinks. This time, the trucker stopped him. In a jocose way as if he were assuming responsibility for Covenant, he jerked his thumb at the middle-aged man and said, “I hope you know we ain't payin' for him .”

“Sure.” The waiter was bored. “He has a standing order. Pays in advance.” Disdain seemed to tighten his face, pulling it together like the closing of a fist around his nose. “Comes here every night just to watch her and drink himself blind.” Then someone else signalled to him, and he was gone.

For a moment, the third man said nothing. Slowly, the houselights went down, and an expectant hush dropped like a shroud over the packed club. Then into the silence the man croaked quietly, “My wife.”

A spotlight centred on the stage, and the club MC came out of the wings. Behind him, musicians took their places-a small combo, casually dressed.

The MC flashed out a smile, started his spiel. “It makes me personally sad to introduce our little lady tonight, because this is the last time she'll be with us for a while, at least. She's going on from here to the places where famous people get famouser. We at The Door won't soon forget her. Remember, you heard her here first. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Susie Thurston!”

The spotlight picked up the singer as she came out, carrying a hand microphone. She wore a leather outfit — a skirt that left most of her legs bare and a sleeveless vest with a fringe across her breasts, emphasizing their movement. Her blond hair was bobbed short, and her eyes were dark, surrounded by deep hollow circles like bruises. She had a full and welcoming figure, but her face denied it; she wore the look of an abandoned waif. In a pure, frail voice that would have been good for supplication, she sang a set of love ballads defiantly, as if they were protest songs. The applause after each number was thunderous, and Covenant quaked at the sound. When the set was over and Susie Thurston retired for a break, he was sweating coldly.

The gin seemed to be having no effect on him. But he needed some kind of help. With an aspect of desperation, he signalled for another round. To his relief, the waiter brought the drinks soon.

After he had downed his Scotch, the driver hunched forward purposefully, and said, “I think I got this bastard figured out.”

The solemn man was oblivious to his tablemates. Painfully, he croaked again, “My wife.”

Covenant wanted to keep the driver from talking about the third man so openly, but before he could distract him, his guest went on, “He's doing it out of spite, that's what.”

“Spite?” echoed Covenant helplessly. He missed the connection. As far as he could tell, their companion — doubt happily or at least doggedly married, no doubt childless — had somehow conceived a hopeless passion for the waif-woman behind the microphone. Such things happened. Torn between his now-grim fidelity and his obdurate need, he could do nothing but torment himself in search of release, drink himself into stupefaction staring at the thing he wanted and both could not and should not have.

With such ideas about their tablemate, Covenant was left momentarily at sea by the driver's comment. But the big man went on almost at once. “Course. What'd you think, being a leper is fun? He's thinking he'll just sort of share it around. Why be the only one, you know what I mean? That's what this bastard thinks. Take my word, buddy. I got him figured out.” As he spoke, his cobbled face loomed before Covenant like a pile of thetic rubble. “What he does, he goes around where he ain't known, and he hides it, like, so nobody knows he's sick. That way he spreads it; nobody knows so they don't take care, and all of a sudden we got us an epidemic. Which makes Covenant laugh hisself crazy. Spite, like I tell you. You take my word. Don't go shaking hands when you don't know the guy you're shaking with.”

Dully, the third man groaned, “My wife.”

Gripping his wedding band as if it had the power to protect him, Covenant said intently, “Maybe that isn't it. Maybe he just needs people. Do you ever get lonely — driving that rig all alone, hour after hour? Maybe this Thomas Covenant just can't stand to go on living without seeing other faces once in a while. Did you think about that?”

“So let him stick to lepers. What call is he got to bother decent folks? Use your head.”

Use my head? Covenant almost shouted. Hellfire! What do you think I'm doing? Do you think I like doing this, being here? A grimace that he could not control clutched his face, Fuming, he waved for more drinks. The alcohol seemed to be working in reverse, tightening his tension rather than loosening it. But he was too angry to know whether or not he was getting drunk. The air swarmed with the noise of The Door's patrons. He was conscious of the people behind him as if they lurked there like ur-viles.

When the drinks came, he leaned forward to refute the driver's arguments. But he was stopped by the dimming of the lights for Susie Thurston's second set.

Bleakly, their tablemate groaned, “My wife.” His voice was starting to blur around the edges; whatever he was drinking was finally affecting him.

In the moment of darkness before the MC came on, the driver responded, “You mean that broad's your wife?”

At that, the man moaned as though in anguish.

After a quick introduction, Susie Thurston reseated herself within the spotlight. Over a querulous accompaniment from her combo, she put some sting into her voice, and sang about the infidelities of men. After two numbers, there were slow tears running from the dark wounds of her eyes.

The sound of her angry laments made Covenant's throat hurt. He regretted fiercely that he was not drunk. He would have liked to forget people and vulnerability and stubborn survival-forget and weep.

But her next song burned him. With her head back so that her white throat gleamed in the light, she sang a song that ended,

Let go my heart—

Your love makes me look small to myself.

Now, I don't want to give you any hurt,

But what I feel is part of myself:

What you want turns what I've got to dirt—

So let go of my heart.

Applause leaped on the heels of her last note, as if the audience were perversely hungry for her pain. Covenant could not endure any more. Buffeted by the noise, he threw dollars-did not count them-on the table, and shoved back his chair to escape.

But when he moved around the table, he passed within five feet of the singer. Suddenly she saw him. Spreading her arms, she exclaimed joyfully, “Berek!”