2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie (34 page)

I swallow.

He eyes me inquisitorially, sucking away my defences like a monster octopus.

“How on earth did they get there?”

“I’ll tell you how they got there: somebody used the stopper to smash my Porsche last Thursday evening in the car park.”

“
And you think it was me?
” I cry.

I am utterly incredulous now, frowning at Mother, shrugging in bafflement, my whole being a pious offering to integrity, a shamelessly poker-faced bonanza of moral rectitude. Right now, in other words, I’m playing a blinder. I am that desperate for Mother to think of me as a well-behaved, well-raised little daughter.

And Ronan knows it. “You look surprised, Julie.” He smiles.

I hate him. He sees through me. “I thought the gurriers did that to your car?”

“Gurriers
did
do it, only not the ones I thought.”

“I’ll thank you not to refer to my daughter as a gurrier; I think I brought her up exceptionally well.”

“Yes you did, Mother,” I reassure her, secretly wondering what she would think of me if she actually knew what I did to cars and art books and living-rooms and paintings and living things, and things in between like bucket-suffocating tropical fish.

“But there’s something else,” he resumes, stroking his chin.

This reminds me of the headmistress going through my annual school report. “What now?”

“Somebody recently penetrated my surgery.”

“Penetrated,” I comment, taking a panic bite of toast. “A good word.”

“Have you anything to say about that?”

“Certainly wasn’t me.”

“You’re lying,” he says with contempt.

“You’re right; lying is wrong.”

“Children! What happened in your surgery, Ronan? Was there a robbery?”

I pour myself some more tea, splashing, trembling.

“The intruder grilled cheese on toast.”

He examines me with limpid eyes.

Smirking.

Real-time brick-shitting panic now. They found the cheese-on-toast remains I left in the surgery kitchen. But what makes them think it wasn’t Harry?

I glance at Mother, shrugging helplessly at her.

“That doesn’t seem such a terrible crime to me, Ronan,” she says.

Me (tentatively): “I dare say the thief was hungry.”

He straightens up, leaning back further, and strokes his chin some more. “Certain people are not into cheese on toast…” he says mysteriously.

“This is true,” says I.

He adds: “And certain people
are
.”

Oh, I get it. He must be referring to Harry. Harry must detest cheese. This crosses him off the suspect list. Me – I adore cheese on toast.

They’re on to me.

“Stop being so abstruse, Ronan.”

But he ignores me. “Furthermore, toasted cheese was not all the intruder grilled.”

Whatever can he mean?

Again, I glance at Mother, perplexed.

“Do you remember the painting in my office, Julie?” he asks.

“Which one?”

“There was only one.”

“Oh, you mean that lovely one of the goldfish.”

“You think it was lovely.”

Pause.

“Well…it was interesting anyway. I feel sure it had a hidden meaning, even if I could never detect it.”

“Would you like to know what happened to it?”

“I’d love to.”

“The so-called intruder burnt it under the grill.”

Right now, I’m pouring Mother some tea, although her cup is already full. It seems to be a law of nature: when you’re in dire straits, you run out of decent options.

“He burnt it under the grill?”

I eye Mother and she eyes me.

“It was a valuable painting, Julie.”

“Maybe that was its hidden meaning.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as a slightly strange thing for your average intruder to do to a painting?”

“You get all types out there.”

Mother: “Perhaps the gurrier in question ran out of toast?”

I can’t help it: I explode in uproarous laughter. Immediately I apologize for my inappropriate reaction and offer my sympathies in respect of the sad loss of his dear artwork.

“I don’t know you any more, Julie,” says Ronan, darkening.

“Try spending more time at home,” I reply.

He’s not smiling.

“Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud,” Mother teases.

“She destroyed a work of art!” he yells.

“There’s no need to accuse my daughter of vandalism.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

I mean, it’s a scandalous accusation.

“Also, she destroyed the equipment in my surgery.”

Staring out of the window, he patiently awaits my reaction.

Mother looks at me.

I look at Ronan. “What did you just say?”

He gives a calm, graphic account of how the spit fountain in his dental surgery is presently lying in shards all over the floor, along with the former glass cabinet. He recounts how the mechanical-arm light has been pulled asunder, the dental chair has been cut into strips with its insides scattered all over the floor and most of the contents of his filing cabinet have been torn into pieces. The damage he estimates at fifteen thousand pounds.

“Shall I go on, Julie?”

I stand up furiously, eyeballing him in total shocked silence. “You’re lying!” I shout.

“It’s true.”

Harry.

It’s the only possible explanation. He must have followed Nicole to the surgery. Or discovered an address, or a name and he traced it to the surgery. He entered via the damaged back door.

Who else could it have been? It makes perfect sense. But not to them: Harry does not eat cheese on toast.

Just my luck.

“I swear to God, Ronan, I did not do that to your surgery. I swear on my grandmother’s grave, I swear on…”

Mother: “It’s okay, Julie. Sit down.”

I sit down, numb.

“I believe you,” she adds.

“Well, that’s no surprise,” says Ronan contemptuously.

“You watch your lip, mister. I’m her mother, and I’m not going to stand here and let you bully her.”

“Bully?” he says, laughing briefly. “Haven’t you heard what she did to the fish, Gertrude?”

Mother is turning white with anger. “Don’t call me Gertrude.”

“Mrs O’Connor.”

“She already knows,” I reply, watching her nervously.

“Did your exemplary daughter tell you that she flushed the fish down the toilet?”

“That’s enough now,” she warns him, “if you know what’s good for you.”

“They were flushed down the toilet. Julie told me herself.”

“No, they weren’t,” she replies, paling.

“Fine.”

“They were flushed down your
gob
.”

“I don’t think there’s any need to pursue this,” I say.

Ronan is frowning now.

“No, Gertrude – Mrs O’Connor – please, do go on.”

“Mother…”

“Did you notice anything strange about your pasta last Monday evening, Ronan?” she says stiffly.

I put my hands up to stop her but it’s too late.

Funereal silence.

The kitchen is a graveyard of soundlessness. Ronan’s face looks like a tomb. It is pale and morbid and shell-shocked. He is speechless as a gagged mummy. He is beginning to understand things about me and Mother that he never before suspected.

Oh God.

She gets up and goes to the sink, turns on the tap, squeezes in some Fairy liquid and starts scrubbing some cutlery, klakking it noisily on to the draining board.

I start pleading: “Ronan, the fish were already dead. Don’t you remember? You put them in the bucket where they suffocated without any water. What was the point in letting them go to waste?”

His countenance registers negative feedback.

“The recipe was straight out of Delia Smith,” I urge.

He starts nodding to himself. “I’m beginning to understand.”

“Ronan, it was authentic cuisine…”

“With a totally tropical taste,” Mother adds, drying the dishes via our Eiffel Tower dishcloth.

Ronan is still sporting his recently crucified expression, his face a damp grey Turin shroud of woe.

His head turns very very slowly towards Mother. His mouth stiffens, and he nods again. “I get the picture.”

“Ronan…”

“One of you actually put the dead fish in the mixer…‘Moulinex’ – now I get it…”

“It was me who did it,” I urge.

“It was me, Julie,” warns Mother, turning to me, trying to cover for me.

“Mother, I’m the one who pasted the fish, have you got that?”

Like, that’s an order.

No way is she going down for me.

Ronan: “And then your mother poured it on my pasta.”

“You’re a quick learner,” she remarks.

“That’s sick.”

Mother: “Were you ill?”

“This is totally insane.”

“They kill fish every day,” she says. “A few more won’t matter.”

“There’s a psychiatric term for this kind of behaviour.”

“Leave Julie alone. She’s a very good person.”

“Do you think so?”

She rises to her full height: “Yes, I do.”

“Then you haven’t heard what she did to Sylvana’s cat?”

Silence. While I die inside.

I was just about to get rid of it. Oh God, Jesus, he must have seen it under the tarpaulin.

“What cat?” Mother demands.

“The dead cat out on the balcony.”

“Are you talking about Prudence?”

“Yes.”

Mother loved that cat. Now I’m really scared.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” mocks the swine. “I don’t mind; I never had much time for cats. It’s just the smell I object to.”

I burst out crying.

Mother takes five small sharp steps up to Ronan and slaps him hard on the face.

Now he’s holding his left cheek, aghast, like it’s just been branded. He’s glaring at her, enraged. Sweat bubbles have appeared on his forehead.

“You’re just a low-life,” she spits at him.

Silence.

“I’d appreciate it if you left our apartment now.”

She’s glaring at him, her face shiny-white as steel. “You’re a bad person.”

“Okay.” He shrugs.

“You’re a no-good
wanker
.”

“I’m a wanker. No problem.”

The technical meaning of the w-word has escaped all of her sixty-odd years on the planet. Mother. You can’t take her anywhere. You can’t even take her home.

“You’re a tomcat – you just can’t keep it to yourself, can you? You’ve been out with another woman.
You’re a shameful adulterer
.”

Hold on. How does she know that? Did Sylvana tell her?

Suddenly, everything makes sense. The pasta sauce. In the normal course of events, pouring that fishpaste on to his spaghetti would be a crazily unhinged thing for someone to do, even for Mother. But not if she did it because she thought Ronan was cheating.

“I’m an adulterer. Is this what Julie told you?” he inquires.

She looks furious.

“Don’t mind him, Mother; he’s not worth it.”

“God knows what lice you’re bringing back home. I’m not an angel myself, but, my God, from the very start I knew you were bad blood.”

“I think it’s time for you to go now, Gertrude.”

Ronan snaps out his cellphone and his wallet. He flips out a card, calls a taxi company and orders a taxi.

“Mother is staying here, Ronan.”

“I’ll go, Julie,” she says. “I can stay with Bridie while you sort out your differences.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

I stand up and start ushering her out of the kitchen. I wish she hadn’t started this; strictly, it has nothing to do with her.

She flings her apron at me (as if I’ve just insulted her) and nails him to the wall with a hard glare. Stalking out of the kitchen, she slams the door behind her, leaving both of us ogling the disapparition.

Ronan with this big red mark on his cheek.

H
e’s leaning on the kitchen sink with his back to me now, staring out of the window towards the apartment block to the rear.

“You’re both cracked.”

“Mother’s right about you,” I shoot back.

“It must be something in the genes.”

“Mother and I are respectable people: we don’t wear jeans.”

“Respectable? Do respectable people do what you pair of madwomen did to those tropical fish?”

“They were already dead.”

“Do respectable people smash cars and…”

“Do respectable people have affairs?”

“So you don’t deny it, then?” he suggests.

“So
you
don’t deny it, do you?”

“I admit that…”

He stops.

“Go on.”

“…I’ve played around…”

He said it
.

“Who is she, then?”

“It’s in the past.”

“She’s dead?”

“No. She’s still alive, as far as I’m aware.”

“What’s her name?”

He turns round. “You’ve changed, Julie. Instead of coming straight out with it, you’ve kept quiet. You’ve been sly. You’ve gone behind the scenes and spied on me and collected information. You’ve been a bitch.”

“When a man is sly he’s a fox. When it’s a woman she’s a bitch.”

“You destroyed my dental surgery, among other things.”

“I swear I didn’t do that.”

“Of course you didn’t. And my Porsche. You smashed that too and removed it to some secret location. The painting…the list goes on and on.”

“Listen to him! Making himself out to be some sort of sanitized martyr. You’re the one who had an affair.”

“I want to know where you put my car.”

I sit down and pour myself some tea. Unfortunately there’s no more than a thimbleful left in the pot. I look up, straight at him. “I am being honest when I tell you, Ronan, that I have not the slightest clue where your car is.”

He doesn’t believe me. “I can’t live like this,” he blurts out.

“Like what?”

“Like this.”

“Like an adulterer? I’m glad to hear it.”

“How do I put this…?” He scratches his crown. “I think that I’ve…”

“What?”

No reply.

“You think you’ve what?”

“Nothing,” he answers, pacing the small area in front of the sink.

“Fallen in love?”

He stops pacing. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Oh, I see. You think you’ve fallen out of love.”

He starts pacing again. “You said it, not me.”