‘Morning, Mrs R, what’s the word?’ Eram said, trying to catch his breath. ‘May I just say that that is a lovely, what is it, a kaftan? That is a lovely kaftan. Very fetching. Listen, Gehna’s not taking my calls. Is she around, do you know?’

Nina Rai glared at him. ‘Eram. You know you are welcome in my home. But you will enter it with decorum and not like some crazed hooligan. Would you like a bowl of gazpacho?’

‘Mmm, I would absolutely love a bowl of gazpacho, just, not right this second,’ said Eram. He was already backtracking towards Gehna’s room. ‘So, is she here? Gehna?’

‘We had breakfast. She was looking at something on her phone and then she said she had a headache.’

‘Probably came across some big words, ha ha. I’ll just pop in and check on her.’

Eram heard Mrs Rai yelling behind him to leave the door open. It wasn’t that she thought Gehna and he would start fucking as soon as they were alone in a room. At least, that wasn’t her primary concern. What troubled her far more was that the servants—the cook, the cleaning lady, the driver—shouldn’t be handed the means to gossip about her daughter’s morals (or looseness thereof). Which was funny, thought Eram, because how would she explain Gehna’s soon-to-be-enormous belly? He pushed the door to Gehna’s room firmly closed behind him.

The only sound in the room was from the air conditioning. The curtains were drawn. It was a tomb, almost subterranean in the weight of its stillness. Eram’s mind shied away from the implications of that thought.

No.

He felt his way in the dark to where he could just about make out a roughly Gehna-shaped pile of blankets and pillows on the bed. He poked his finger at what he guessed was a shoulder.

‘Oi. Wake up, Rai.’

Nothing.

She was usually such a light sleeper, sitting up in alarm if you so much as glanced in her direction as she slept. Eram began to get that out-of-body-and-in-a-movie feeling again. The scene was ‘Best Friend Commits Suicide’. Here’s what was going to happen: Eram switches on the bedside lamp and sees an empty bottle of prescription pills. He shakes Gehna’s unmoving body in an access of panic while calling her name repeatedly. He also (temporarily forgetting that this is India) yells for anyone to dial 911. Later, after help arrives, but too late, he is a pillar of strength to the grieving family. Gehna looks pale but serene at her funeral while he, Eram, says the words that make the congregation weep. His own pain remains buried until, years later, these unresolved feelings lead to alcoholism, failed marriages, financial ruin and a premature death by chronic loneliness. It is tragic and all quite, quite beautiful.

He switched on the bedside lamp. There was nothing medical on the low table beside Gehna’s bed, just books and a vase arranged with the Oriental lilies she loved. Then he remembered Gehna’s almost pathological aversion to littering and snatched up the waste bin. Torn bits of aluminium foil, the kind used to package pharmaceuticals, lay in a thick layer covering the bottom. He couldn’t tell how many strips there had originally been, but it looked like a lot. Eram’s heart bounced once, twice, and described a perfect Olympian dive straight down his stomach to the ground. He felt like vomiting. Something about the waste in the bin tugged at his attention. He picked up a piece of shiny silver foil to peer at it, and suddenly he was laughing. He flopped back against Gehna’s legs and laughed till he was weak from it. Then he lifted up a corner of the blanket and jostled Gehna aside to make space for himself.