On Borrowed Days

‘Life is beautiful.’ said the bartender when he poured me a drink. Perhaps he noticed me brooding and thought I was just another drunk in existential angst. I wasn’t.

‘Yes, it is, my friend.’ I raised my glass to him and smiled. He smiled back and went on to service his other customers drinking off their worries in the shadows.

I preferred to be closer to the lights. I wanted to be seen. Of course I am celebrating. Those sulking in the shadows are people just unsure of themselves, hiding, moody, grieving – not people you want to be around.

I took a sip of the ice cold whiskey and gently placed it on the blue napkin on the polished wooden surface of the bar, and absentmindedly gazed upon the many hued bottles of liquor upon the shelves. They gave an ethereal glow to this otherwise eternally-in-the-twilight netherworld of a hotel bar. Hardly ten people here. Very quiet. The ideal place to have your thoughts uninterrupted against the backdrop of the fading jazz, worth the premium they charge you on the drink.

She sat next to me, confidently and gracefully on the barstool. In striking brilliant red. Minimal jewellery on her self. Hair like glossy black torrents. Subtle hint of an expensive perfume. It seemed surreal that a shade of red would seem so brilliant in the dimly lit bar. My staring may have been obvious. She looked at me with a knowing smile.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ I asked. You know when you see one.

‘Irish Cream, Bailey’s’. There was an elegance in the way she spoke.

I signaled to the bartender. He served the drink on the rocks and placed it gently on a blue napkin. I introduced myself by my first name. She did the same. A few jokes and anecdotes passed. A few shadowy patrons groaned and left the bar.

‘A regular here?’ I asked her.

‘I come here sometimes.’ She took a sip. ‘Once every two or three months. I don’t usually venture out much.’

‘Job? Family Pressure?’ I raised my brow. ‘You know a bit of Bourbon would go fine with that.’ I pointed to her near done drink. I wanted her to have a way out if she didn’t want to answer my question.

‘Bit of both. For me, job and family kind of overlap.’ She finished her drink, and ignored completely my Bourbon advice. As if cue, the bartender filled her drink. I signaled him for another whiskey on the rocks.

‘Interesting. Married?’ A woman like her is always ‘taken’.

‘Yes.’ A subtle smile on her lips.

‘Happily?’

‘Yes, but like all marriages, always with a few regrets.’ Her smile becomes a hard-to-suppress dimpled up mischievous grin.

‘How old is he?’ I was becoming bolder.

‘Older than most guys you know.’ She measured me with her eyes, from my patent leather Oxfords to my immaculate hairline.

Trophy wife to a Sugar Daddy. I thought but didn’t say it. Those were derogatory terms to throw around aimlessly. But it was hard to imagine she was one.

‘So, you?’ she asked.

‘I, what?’ Train of thoughts derailed.

‘Happily married?’ She pointed to my ring finger. ‘I know you are married.’

I looked at my wedding ring. Twenty years of grease and grime, it screamed. I hardly take it off now. It doesn’t fool anyone, with the untanned skin beneath more radiant than the actual ring. Moreover the crow’s feet near my eyes and a few rogue grey strands shout out that I am no young playboy.

‘I think you are.’

‘Sorry, what?’ Train of thoughts derailed. Again.

‘I think you are happily married.’ She laughed.

‘Oh yes,’ I sipped my drink, ‘Happily married. Twins – a boy and a girl. Home. Car. Life secure and sound.’

‘So no regrets at all?’ She sipped hers.

‘Well, life is good. Can’t complain. What’s there to regret? Sunday brunches. Friday Barbeques. Adorable wife. Psychotic teenage kids – class-toppers but still psychotic. (She giggles). Beautiful House. Well-tended garden. Awesome neighbours. Foreign vacations. Foreign Cars. So.. What’s there to regret?’

‘There are no men without regrets in this watering hole.’ She leaned towards me. ‘I just confided in you – a total stranger – that I am married to a much much older guy.’

‘Yes, you did. But you too are happily married.’

‘Yes, but with regrets!’ She whispered, leaning in and caressing my fingers.

I decided to be honest. I finish my drink.

‘Alright, I had this eventful student life. Sent to a distant city for my higher studies, did everything except study. Made a ton of friends. Good friends. Partied hard. Made trouble for the local authorities. Gambled away a quarter of my inheritance. Did a lot of drugs. Girlfriends. Led an awesome hedonistic lifestyle.’ I beamed with faux pride.

‘So you lived the life.’ She feigned awe. ‘Then what happened.’

‘Then one day,’ I sighed ‘I overdosed on cocaine and was hospitalized. Could have died. I was sent to rehab. Said goodbye to the City.

‘When I was back, I vowed never to go back to that old life. Shortly after that I inherited my father’s business and built up the life I have now.’

‘That’s quite an inspirational tale.’ She spoke still holding my hand.

‘Well, it was okay for a while. But truth is, it is hard to conform to an etiquette and lifestyle you cannot mentally subscribe to. I missed that life. So I tried tracking my friends from that time, thinking we could have a reunion.’

‘So did you?’ She wasn’t feigning anything now.

‘Found out the hard way, that people change. My friends had changed. They had different memories of those. I visited the City but it was so unrecognizable after so many years. So I partied without them. Drank to the heart. Met beautiful women. Celebrated the whole night. Closest I could get to my past without getting burned.’ I emptied my drink.

She did not move an inch.

‘Every now and then, I do this.’ I continued. ‘Under the guise of a business trip, I travel to a faraway place. I have a small party, for myself to rebel against the part of me who wanted to conform to the lifestyle of a middle-aged suburban family guy.’

‘So, what do you do for the guilt?’

‘Guilt?’

‘Of cheating on your wife?’ She had dropped all pretense.

‘I don’t know. I just imagine those days were borrowed from that long lost life of mine, when I had no commitments to anyone. It’s like mentally plucking out the dates from the calendar and putting them in a diary from twenty years ago.’ I didn’t know how I came up with that analogy.

‘That’s clever.’ She smiled.

‘So what do you do?’ It was my turn.

‘For what?’

‘For guilt.’

‘Of what?’ She smiled again.

‘Of cheating on your husband,’ I said hoping it wouldn’t offend her.

‘Oh, he knows.’ She emptied her drink. ‘He knows everything, and I tell him the very next day. He is a good man, and was there for me, when I had lost all hope. But sometimes our relationship bores me, and I get adventurous. Then I confess to him, and he forgives me. Still the guilt tears me up knowing that I will do it again.’ For a moment her eyes focused on somewhere distant.

I said nothing. She asked the bartender to charge the drinks to her room. I reminded her I had offered to buy her drinks. I paid what I estimated to our bill and a generous percentage as a tip. We walked together outside the bar towards the rooms.

‘Which room is yours?’ She asked without looking at me.

‘214.’ I said.

‘Well, yours is nearer.’

When we reached the room, I swiped the access card to let ourselves in. Did not even turn the lights on. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me. We threw ourselves to the bed and tore off each other’s clothes. No Guilt. No Shame. Passion reigned.

*      *      *

I woke up at 7.00 in the morning. She had left by then. The bed sheets seemed like a turbulent sea frozen in time. Subtle hint of an expensive perfume. That was the only sign that she was ever there. I wanted to meet her again, but I knew that was impossible. We were both on borrowed days. I needed to be at the airport for the flight back home.

By 8.00, I was in a cab heading towards the airport. I was thinking what she said about guilt, when I saw a majestic church tucked away neatly in the city’s landscape. I instructed the driver to halt for thirty minutes. That way I could still make it for the flight.  I rushed towards the church’s confessional. When my turn came, I confessed everything to the priest across the lattice screen. Everything. Everything from my hedonistic past to my continual infidelity. How I hated myself for wanting to go back, wanting to run away.

I emerged from the confessional, tear-stained. That’s when I saw her, tears in her eyes, kneeling before the crucifix, oblivious to my presence, confessing, in her nun’s habit.

.