And though Bunty has become kinder to him, he looks at Bunty with a righteous contempt.
It overwhelms him.
You killed my child. You are not my father.
Or maybe you didn’t. And you are.
He doesn’t know, which is worse.
There’s only so much of it he can take.
Hence the Xanax, the flumazenil.
Hence the spreading of pain.
“And I wanted to tell you,” Bunty says, “that you were right. You were right about our future. You were right about leaving UP behind. This is partly what this union’s about. With this marriage, we align with Punjab. And what you’ve done for me with Gautam Rathore, Madhya Pradesh can be ours. What you choose to do yourself . . . you take your time. You’re not only marrying into a family today, you’re marrying a woman. I expect she’ll take care of you. I expect she’ll give you a son. But what you do next, that’s your choice. We can leave UP behind. Ram Singh is yesterday’s news.”
“And what about . . .” Sunny balls his fists . . .
“Vicky?”
“Today will be the last time you’ll ever have to see him.”
“Why?”
“I’m selling off the sugar mills.”
“Why?”
“It’s something I should have done a long time ago.”
Sunny clasps his arms behind his back. Takes a deep long breath.
“I should go.”
He takes a half-turn.
“I should have protected you.”
Bunty speaks these words with more emotion than Sunny has ever felt.
“I should have protected you,” Bunty says again.
“When?” Sunny replies.
“When I sent you off to the mill. When Vicky . . .”
Sunny closes his eyes tight a moment.
“I knew what he was doing,” Bunty says. “I shouldn’t have sent you.”
“But you did.”
“Everything since then was to protect you.”
Sunny nods dispassionately. “I should go.”
“I may seem harsh in your eyes.”
Sunny can’t take much more of it.
“I’ll be late.”
He turns and heads toward the door.
“But I’m your father and you’re my son.”
* * *
—
Back in his room, Sunny finds his phone. He calls Eli.
“Bring me whisky. Bring me coke.”
He rocks back and forward while he waits.
3.
For the past few hours Neda has been reading the gossip online. The snippets in the Delhi tabloids. The Punjab papers. Now she knows all about the Enfield-riding, golf-playing bride. Farah Dhillon, rebel Queen of the Chandigarh social scene, with her heart-shaped face and crooked smile.
She’s upset with herself for even feeling this pain.
She conjures Delhi in the late winter. Crisp air, thin blue skies, a lazy mist bathing the lawns under the pale morning sun. Her father smoking a cigarette somewhere. Sunny somewhere. She opens her laptop again, checks Facebook once more, scrolls through the pictures of the party in Sunny’s farmhouse that have been posted in the night. She recognizes almost nothing, but there’s that pool again. Some of the old gang are there, bottles in hand. More foreigners than there used to be. No pictures of Sunny at all.
She thinks of that pool. Thinks of Ajay. Considers him her own.
It’s four thirty in the morning.
She lights a cigarette, walks to the bedroom door, listens for Alex lightly snoring. Walks back out and stands by the window. Watching the sheets of rain. Waiting for the day to come. Waiting for the day to end.
Then what?
Get on with it, she supposes.
She studies the bar trolley, selects the bottle of Absolut, places it in the freezer, lights another cigarette.
* * *
—
Eli pushes the door open five minutes later, dressed in new clothes. A big-collared Hawaiian shirt, black skinny jeans. He carries a tray with a bottle of Yamazaki 50-year-old, an ice bucket, a rocks glass, two cans of Coke. Places them on the coffee table.
“As requested.”
“Where’s the coke?”
He points to the cans. “Right here, motherfucker.”
“Asshole,” Sunny says, putting ice into his glass, breaking open the whisky. “I want cocaine.”
“What am I? Drug dealer? I don’t have.”
“So get some.”
“From?”
“One of those pricks in the ballroom. It’s all mine anyway.”
* * *
—
While Eli hunts the coke, Sunny drinks down a large glass of whisky. He intends to get to the very knife-edge of oblivion, then bring himself back with a massive line.