Tom Buchanan
He'd had too much. Not a few too many like he did at parties. Not enough to make him forget himself and leave behind the dignity and wealth he wore all day. Just one too many. Just enough to predispose him to deep and sad thoughts, to make him mellow in a way he never was sober or wasted, to make him consider all he had done, and be deeply and truly unsatisfied with it.
Daisy, for a start. Daisy wasn't in love with him, nor he with her. He knew he ought to be, she was beautiful, sensual, his wife… all the things he really should like in a woman. He liked none of it. She had none of the danger of a mistress, none of the youthful vitality of the truly young, and none of the loyalty he knew Mrs. Wilson felt. Loyalty. That was a joke for them. She was never loyal to him, not on their wedding day, not now, five years later. And he knew he couldn't really complain, because where had his loyalty been all those years? He was loyal to no woman, not even the mistress- best of all he had- that was his money.
It didn't matter if he was loyal to her though. They were married, she was his wife and he her husband, and at the end of the long night of partying and dishonesty and cheating, they would wake up together in the same house still wearing their wedding rings. They didn't have to be all the other wanted. Each of them would take what they wanted no matter their marriage.
He took another sip of his whiskey. He was alone tonight, his wife gone out. No, he supposed, he wasn't really alone. His child was in the house somewhere, with that infernal nanny whose bills he paid and whose work he never saw. The clear liquid swirled in his glass as he set it to rest on the table again.
He had a daughter. He knew about his daughter in a hypothetical, distant sort of way. The girl was only four years old. He paid for her nanny, her clothes, her toys, and all the other little things she required. He never saw her. He supposed she must be pretty; he paid for her to be pretty. He supposed she may be social, but as far as he knew she had no friends. Then again, as far as he knew his wife had no friends outside his, but he realized she must.
His daughter was something of an enigma to him. He had wanted a child because that was what married men did. He provided for her because it would be heartless not to do so. He wished he could see his child. Maybe a child, a daughter to dote on and care for, would distract him form the everyday dissatisfaction with his wealth, his work, his wife, and his mistresses. He could get up now and see his daughter, if he wanted. He could go upstairs to her room, where she and her nanny were playing, and call out her name and have her come running into his arms crying 'Daddy! Daddy!' and lift her up to the sky and play with her all night…
What was his daughter's name? He knew, or should have known, but it was hidden, behind uncaring years and the haze now coming over his mind. Where was that haze before? He could feel the whiskey beginning its life-saving work. He would go insane without this drink to prop him up. He would lose everything he had ever known to a mental asylum. He would lose that daughter whose name he was no longer trying to remember. He had lost her already, though, hadn't he? He had lost her to the alcohol on his breath and to the mistresses who would never know her name either and to his wife who was so enamored with the idea of a child but hated caring for the real thing.
He took another sip, draining the glass. Carefully, holding the heavy glass bottle so the shaking in his hand was least noticeable, he poured himself another, and drank again.
Alone, he drank until that God-given haze took over his mind and he forgot all his thoughts of wives and mistresses and daughters. He drank until he could forget he had a wife, or a mistress, or a daughter. He drank until his glass tipped from his weakened grasp and he slept, uncomfortably slouched, in his living room chair.
He woke with aches in his head, back, and neck, much like any other morning.