The Final Party by A. A. Chaudhuri

Author:A. A. Chaudhuri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hera Books
Published: 2023-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Johnny

Sorrento, Italy, Tuesday, 6th August 2019

The air con’s on in the gym, but the sweat still pours off me, making puddles either side of the rowing machine as I pull the handle with every ounce of muscle I have. Desperate to blot out the suspicion I saw in Padma’s eyes when I appeared at breakfast this morning, if only briefly. Faster and faster I row, my arms and legs working in sync and at full capacity, my fitness levels being tested to the max, my breathing increasingly laboured. The steady whir of the machine buzzes through my ears despite the fact I have my buds in. I’m listening to The Prodigy, still one of my favourite bands to work out to, reminiscent of drunken university raves, even though my eldest, Josh, tells me I’m lame and should be listening to Stormzy or Drake, who are both so much cooler. I smile to myself thinking back to when I was his age, considering my father to be lame too, never for a second believing that one day I’d be called the same by my own son. Oh well, at least I’m a better father than Ed ever was. I’d like to think that Josh would feel able to come to me should he ever find himself in trouble. That he wouldn’t worry about disappointing me or prefer to live a life looking over his shoulder the way I have the best part of two decades. Waking up every day wondering if it might be my last one as a free man.

I could never in a million years have gone to my father telling him the full extent of the trouble I was in. He’d only have feared for his own reputation, and the first thing he would have done was work out how much damage limitation could be done in terms of his own career, rather than worry about me. He didn’t want me to succeed because he felt I deserved it, or because he wanted to feel proud of me. He did it to serve his own best interests – having a son who would carry on the family name and ideally be another mouthpiece for the Tory party and his political ambitions. Little wonder I couldn’t go to him when I needed a father more than ever. That I couldn’t be honest with him. What I did would have been the stuff of nightmares for him. And that’s why I only told him the bare minimum. Glossing over the grisly details. Because I needed him to speak to the College Master on my behalf. Which he did. And it had helped all of us, kept our names out of the papers, for which I am eternally grateful. But at the same time, it’s something that fills me with shame.

My arms and legs are really aching now, the lactic acid building up, my muscles increasingly tight. I reach my goal of 5,000 metres, then start to slow down, gradually

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.