Some people are planning to spend the last night of the year at home with us, “So you can invite your friends too, and we can all ring in the New Year together,” I tell the children — who can’t stop laughing at me for several days thereafter. Now that they are no longer dependant on us for pocket money, their spends on everything from clothes to parties has gone up – “though you don’t see them buying anything for the house,” my wife primly points out every morning on the breakfast table – which is why they can be overheard planning whether to hit Shiro’s or KittySu for New Year’s eve. Later, though, they decide to opt for their own bonfires and parties at friends’ farmhouses, or terraces — tearing into our small party in the bargain.
My daughter wants the telephone number of the bartender I use when I’m not in the mood to mix drinks myself, and before I can protest, she’s booked him for her bunch of friends, leaving me to mind the bar on my own. My son has asked the driver to be on standby, even though I say I might require him to escort drunken friends home. He’s also laying claims on the booze cabinet on the basis of a bottle of scotch he had brought from duty-free a couple of years ago, and which he trots up every time he wants to cadge free drinks. My daughter is less usurious: “Can you ask your bootlegger how much he charges for Black Label and flavoured Absoluts?” she wants to know.
I don’t have a bootlegger, but someone at the office has been checking out, er, non-vendor prices, though if I want any, I have to sign up pronto, there’s a heavy demand for the 31st. “Perhaps we should use a caterer,” my wife tells me, in no mood to supervise the cooking herself — but everything from the neighbourhood tikka-takeaway to party suppliers are chock-a-block with orders, “so, oh well, biryani at home,” she sighs. “We can take our friends to the club,” I volunteer, but everyone’s apprehensive about driving in the fog at night. “Besides, you don’t have the driver, remember?” my wife tells me.
My son wants to borrow my credit cards “just in case”; my daughter wants her mother to loan her money against next month’s salary so she can buy a new dress. Both are in a bad mood, having fought over a pair of boots each claims as her own, though I’ve seen neither of them wear the pair. My wife is also feeling uncharitable about her best friend Sarla who is having a party of her own but hasn’t invited us. “But we haven’t invited her either,” I reproach my wife, only to be told not to stick my nose into her business. My son tells me his mother and Sarla have been having a slanging match the whole week trying to poach friends from each other’s parties.
“How many people will we have?” I ask my wife, writing down a list of things to order for the party. She isn’t sure because our guests haven’t quite confirmed. They might “drop in for a while”, my wife mimics them — clearly, they’re hoping that someone else will invite them to a bigger, more exciting party where there’ll be photographers to take their pictures for the papers. “Maybe you can invite a few people,” she tells me. So all you folks with nowhere to go, there’s bootlegged Black Label and biryani on the house — feel free to bring your friends along.