2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie (25 page)

She also says that was the whole point of
Chi
, the painting. “I know some people think all this is naive,” she says sadly. “But I don’t think so. For instance when I first took up
Feng Shui
I bought two mandarin ducks. If you keep them on a table in the south-west corner of your house, they are supposed to bring romance back into your life. Just four months later I met Ronan.”

She shrugs as if she’s just stated an obvious universal truth. I simply nod and sip away at my coffee and stare out at the island.

Now she gives a few examples of
chi
, reminding me of the
Bagua
mirror, the
Fu
dogs, the harmonious arrangement of her living-room and garden. She explains how
chi
affects the most intimate details of our lives. She speaks of the energy that flows from the moon and regulates menstrual cycles, about the energy that flows from the planets when they form certain configurations, causing whales to beach themselves and insects to behave erratically and birds to migrate.

This woman is utterly unbalanced. A moment ago she was an emotional wreck. Now she’s all enthusiastic again. In the space of two minutes. Talk about giddy.

“This
chi
can come from living things, too,” she goes on. “We absorb the energy of animals around us. For instance, if you have a tortoise in your house, you could be in danger of becoming sluggish and lethargic yourself.”

“No objection to becoming a tortoise at the moment.”

“And if you have fish, they pass on a very vibrant energy.”

“I think I’ll give fish a miss.”

“Cats represent really positive
Feng Shut
. Really boundless energy. They…”

“So let me get this right.” I frown. “By handing me your cat, you’re doing
me
a favour?”

“I’m only saying.”

She slaps me playfully on the arm and laughs heartily, this woman of a thousand moods, this girl with a weathervane flitting about in her soul.

Over towards Dublin Bay you can see dozens of sailing boats riding the breeze like a molten rainbow. You can smell the iodine seaweed from here, hear the gentle lick of the water on the brown-clad rocks at the end of the long garden of the guest house.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” says Nicole.

I nod.

I feel jaded. Dead beat.

I feel like a tortoise.

I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the sea air dancing gently through the corridors of my face. It makes a nice change from the good old dustbin air of the city. It blows like the low melody of a pipe, which I inhale deeply.

Neither of us feels the need to speak.

I open my eyes to a pale-blue, misty sky and a blue-green water channel ripped and torn by currents. Nicole has left the windowsill and has started to unpack her bags. In the background is the sound of Max scratching away in his cat box. Nicole has started chatting away to me again about her life, her lover and her
Feng Shui
 – and I’m listening to her every word and I’m thinking, what the hell am I doing here?

Two days ago I fantasized about bludgeoning Nicole. Then we meet and she tells me the story of her life. And what do I do? I agree to look after her cat.

I
’m back home, if you’ll pardon the expression, awaiting Ronan’s return. Plan: to manipulate him into stopping by his surgery this evening.

Mother is out at bridge. She rang me at the Law Library this morning while I was in court seeking an adjournment for a personal-injuries case. I’d forgotten to switch off my mobile: it screamed through the courtroom, which was so stuffed up with barristers I couldn’t move to the exit. Basically she rang me to tell me it was time for another man in her life and there were a few nice married men in her bridge class. I had no option but to punch her out, even before I had a chance to say hello.

That woman.

Alone I am, therefore, once again, with surely the most spiteful quadruped known to man. He is crouched at the far end of the short kitchen table, ignoring me, chomping away on Nicole’s ‘cat biccies’ and quaffing milk from the plate. My diet lies at the other end of the scale altogether: pineapple wedges. I’m sucking them from an idle fork at the opposite side of the table. Every so often the miniature raptor emerges from his milk for a breather, his eyes sauntering insolently around the room, having for some reason decided that I am a total irrelevance.

Before this tragic twist with Ronan, the only living creature that ever succeeded in making me feel totally ignored was the cat. At this time, Max is making me feel like a tube of yellow-pack toothpaste.

Thank you for your time, Max.

Down again goes the head for some more milk.

And up again.

I am once again ignored.

Sylvana pops in unannounced. Entering the kitchen, she steels Max a power gaze of hatred. He jumps from table to floor and retreats to the skirting boards, cowering.

Sylvana, of course, is not the sort of person you can ignore.

“Whose is
that?
” she inquires in her normal imperious tone.

I don’t feel particularly comfortable telling her whose is the cat, so I start preparing a snack on the draining board. It’s Sylvana’s favourite again: cheese and peanuts glued with mayonnaise on to Ryvita crackers.

She repeats her question.

“Oh, it’s just a neighbour’s cat.”

“Why are you blushing, Julie?”

“How much mayonnaise do you like on your Ryvita?”

“Why are you – ”

“It’s Nicole’s cat, okay?”

There’s this creepy silence behind me.

I start humming, sprinkling sesame seeds over the snacks.

“What the
hell
are you doing with Nicole’s cat?”

“She gave it to me.”

“Pardon?”

“She rang me. She was desperate to meet me because she’d just finished with Harry. She had nowhere else to go except to a dingy B & B, where cats are against the rules.”

“I see. You took pity on her.”

“I did not.”

“You pitied her, so you took her cat.”

“I wanted to take care of Max, so I offered.”

“You the great lover of wildlife.”

“Correct.”

There’s a deep sigh behind me.

“Sylvana, I like cats, okay?”

She inquires whether that’s why I’ve imposed a ban on my sister-in-law visiting, the one who brings her cat with her wherever she goes.

“This cat is different.”

“Aha.”

“Max is special.”

“What if Ronan recognizes him?”

“He’s cat blind.”

In a very quiet voice, Sylvana wonders why I am dragging myself through the dogshit. She wants to know what my agenda is, meeting Nicole like this and taking her cat.

I turn round to my friend. “I’ll be fine. You’re going on as if Nicole is some sort of monster. She’s not so bad.”

She erupts when I say this. So I turn back round to my snacks and for want of something better to do I sprinkle on a few more sesame seeds. “She’s no threat any more,” I explain. “When Ronan discovers what happened to
Chi
in his surgery he’ll just dump her.”

“What happened to
Chi?
”

“I burnt it. It’s unrecognizable.”

By the time I’ve finished recounting the details to her she’s calmed down a little. “Nicole is convinced that
chi
brought them both together and now that I’ve burnt
Chi
 – the painting – she thinks it has to pull them apart.”

Sylvana makes a disreputable sound behind me. “She’s one of those.”

“One of what?”

“She’s a
Feng Shui
junkie.” (She pronounces it
fung shway.
)

I shrug, feeling a strange resistance creep up inside me. “I suppose you could call her that.”

“This chasing after alternative forms of comfort. Why can’t people just grow up?”

“I’ve nothing against people seeking happiness.”

“Through
chi?
” she scoffs.

“Whatever.”

“She’s pathetic. Why can’t you see it?”

“She’s just herself.”

“You do realize, Julie, that you are actually defending the woman who is presently bonking your husband.”

“Presently, she’s sitting in a B & B in Dalkey like a sweet-smelling dump site. Alone.”

“As far as you know.”

She’s trying to get me to admit something again. I don’t even want to know, so I just bring the plate over to the table and tell her to enjoy her favourite snacks. I then inform her that I’m having a bath and I just walk out.

I’m soaking away in the Jacuzzi, up to my neck in scented froth, bubbling and burbling away. I brought in my gigantic mid-Eighties ghetto-blaster, which has become something of a design classic with its chrome surfaces and bulky knobs and twin cassette deck and wide trunk handle to elevate it to the top of your shoulder and jaunt down Grafton Street in your shades and your tigerskin boots, and your chopstick-short black miniskirt.

Just to get my mind off things, I’m listening to Fatboy Slim telling us about doing something revolting in heaven, which I won’t go into right now.

Sylvana bursts through the door.

She plies her way through the steam haze, wielding my cellphone and a wry face. “It’s her.”

“Mother?”

“That Nicole one.”

I eye the phone like it’s a dead rat. I stick out my dripping, soapy hand and take it from her. She leaves.

“Yes?”

“Julianne!”

“What.”

“I just called to say hi!”

“Hi.”

“Is it a bad time?”

“Not at all. It’s just that I’m in a hot bath, covered with lemon shower gel and there’s shampoo foam stuffed in my ears, nose and throat.”

Pause.

She laughs like a soprano into the phone, then apologizes profusely for ringing at this inappropriate time, begging my forgiveness and wondering if she should call back later instead.

There’s something so naive, almost, in her response that I calm down a bit and tell her to wait just a second. I put down the phone on a ledge and spray my head with water from the nozzle, and try to wash the shampoo out of my eyes and my aural canal.

Then I grab the phone again and lie back down in the bath until the warm water massages its fingers over my shoulders. “Did Ronan call?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Just now, from his car.”

“Are you seeing him tonight?”

“No, he said he has to put in time with his wife tonight.”

“He makes marriage sound like purgatory.”

“She’s a terrible drain on him. He’s so unrelaxed at the moment.”

“Did you tell him about
Chi?
”

“I couldn’t.”

“So Paris is still on?”

She doesn’t reply.

“Is it?”

“We’re going tomorrow morning,” she says quietly, as if she’s just told me something gruesome.

“Don’t go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t get on that plane with him, Nicole.”

“But…”

“Are you superstitious?”

“I suppose I am but…”

“I dreamt something would happen, Nicole. Something bad.”

Silence.

“What?”

“There was a plane crash.”

“Really?”

“I dreamt I was in this big, empty house with nothing in it but a TV. I was looking for Max everywhere because it was feeding time and naturally the last place I checked was the TV room. Eventually I found him sitting in front of the telly watching a news bulletin. There were pictures of a wrecked aeroplane fuselage. The interesting part was this.”

“What?”

“Max was whining.”

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. The way cats do when they lose a loved one. I’m telling you…”

“How
is
Max, anyway?”

“Nicole, I forbid you to go to Paris.”

“But…”

“You do realize that we are surrounded by spiritual forces.”

“I agree with that.”

“I mean, you believe in
Feng Shui
, don’t you?” Believe it or not, I pronounce it
fung shway
.

“Of course I do.”

“And you accept that planes are bad
Feng Shui?
”

“How do you mean?”

Yes. How
do
I mean? I scour my memory of the
Feng Shui
book I recently skimmed. Plenty about cats and fish and colours and plants. Nothing about planes, though.

“Look, Nicole. I’m psychic: I get these vibes. Visions. I’ve a really bad feeling about this flight. Don’t play dice with death.”

“God, you really have me worried now.”

“It’s in the family,” I bullshit on. “My mother was a medium.”

“Oh, no!”

“So I know what I’m talking about.”

“But…” she stalls, “what if…what if the plane doesn’t crash and Ronan manages to clinch a deal for my other paintings – then I know I’ll be thinking, you silly thing, you should have gone after all.”

“I’ll tell your family,” I add, perfectly maliciously. “I’ll call your father’s home and tell them you’re going out with a married man. I’ll tell Harry where Ronan works…I’ll tell his wife…I’ll…”

Now I have her laughing hysterically.

She probably thinks I’ve been out on a binge.

“That’s what I love about you.” She chuckles. “You’re so funny. I wish I knew more people like you.”

I do not reply.

“Julianne? Are you there…?”

I still do not reply.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re saying…”

“Don’t go to Paris, Nicole; 747
s
have had a bad run recently.”

“I know that you probably think I’m stupid and foolish…”

“Did I say that?”

“…but I’ll just have to put my life in the hands of…God…”

“God. You speak of
God?
”

“Fate. I have to go to Paris, Julianne. I’ve no choice.”

She’s pleading with me for understanding.

Angrily, I switch off the phone and drop it on to the floor, and turn on my tummy and sink to the bottom of the bath and hold myself underwater like a tropical marine fish, balefully beholding the murky grey. It’s hard to cry down here, it’s hard to feel sad when you’re swallowed up by warm water. What a nice way this would be to die.

I lie like this for a minute, until my chest begins to burst. I force myself to stay down. Now there’s this strange garbled sound, which reminds me of the noise a cellphone makes.