2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie (41 page)

Like an undernourished dog, I sniff away at my discovery. At first I draw in several deep breaths but this makes me dizzy and light-headed. I go more slowly after that, inhaling at a more normal rate.

After a few minutes my nerve endings are beginning to dull. I’m finding it a little hard to breathe. I could topple off the chair on to the floor and not feel a thing. I start sneezing. Nausea fills my mind like thick, black, odourless smoke and I put my head between my knees.

I want to die.

I open my eyes. I’m surprised to find myself lying on the couch in the living-room. Mother is sitting in a chair near me, reading a magazine. I ask her what she’s doing in my apartment and she says Sylvana brought her here.

Which doesn’t exactly answer my question.

Now I remember everything.

My arms are aching and I have a thunderous headache. I feel torn apart as if a tornado has somehow managed to get into me and whirl me round like a ferocious demon, ripping away every ounce of strength and resilience I had inside me. The poisonous spores of germ warfare have invaded my body and sucked its strength dry, leaving it as it is now: a shell, empty and broken. I never thought love could hurt like this. I want a heart transplant. I want someone to donate me a muscle that beats in my chest and keeps me alive, something without feeling or memory, something new and dull and clinical. I don’t know how long I can stand this.

Ronan is everything to me.

He’s my lover. He’s my protector. He’s my best friend. He understands me. He listens to me, in his own way. He loves me. He’s good for me.

I should have listened to Sylvana, that Thursday by the pool. I should have confronted them. At the hospital, when her face was all punched up. Or at her place in front of Harry. I had my chance. Each time I met her I could have come clean. I could have threatened her. I could have punched her in the gob.

I did nothing.

I fucked up.

“He’s gone,” says I, whimpering.

“I know, dear.”

“What did I do wrong?”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“Mother.”

“Yes, Julie?”

“I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I?”

“Don’t be silly.”

She turns away and I am amazed and alarmed to see a tear emerge on to her cheek.

“Mother!” I cry out. “I’ll be okay.”

“Of course you will.” She sniffs. “I didn’t bring you up a softie.”

She takes out a handkerchief from her sleeve, pats her eye and stuffs it back in.

I so badly wanted to protect her from the truth. I wanted her to think I was a success in every aspect of my life. I wanted her to be proud of me. Not just in my career, but in my personal life. I wanted to show her I’d made the right choices, that our joint experience of the same man – her husband and my father – had made me discerning. That her painful marriage was not all in vain – after all, look how sensible and wise I was with the men in
my
life.

I failed.

There is a sad, vacant expression on her face, which I haven’t seen in years.

“You were right about Ronan all along,” I tell her.

“I shouldn’t have interfered,” she replies.

“But you were right. I should have listened to you. Trouble is, when you love someone you don’t want to let go.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Do you remember the time Father returned home, all those years ago, and you let him back?”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember what I said?”

“What did you say?”

Pause.

“I told you you were crazy to have him back. I told you I’d have handled things differently.”

Understatement of the century, Julie. You told her you hated her for being a coward. You told her she was weak. That you couldn’t respect her. That you would never take a man back if he did that to you. You told her she could never be your role model. You knew it all.

“Do you remember I said that?”

“It was a long time ago,” she murmurs finally.

“Not that long ago.”

“When people are in love,” she replies, “they do things for reasons the rest of the world doesn’t understand. I took your father back. I loved him: it’s that simple.”

“That’s what I could never understand.”

“You were only a child.”

“I know.”

She says that only
I
know what is in Ronan’s heart and in my own heart. She adds that if I want to take Ronan back, she won’t try to put me off. I tell her I desperately want to take Ronan back, but I don’t see how I ever can.

But for Mother, I’d be wandering in outer Mongolia, lost, lonely, hungry, cold, bewitched, bewildered and bolloxed.

“Whatever you decide, dear, I’ll be behind you. And so will Sylvana – she’s a sterling girl, she really is. And you know how wonderful I think you are, how beautiful and intelligent and pretty and principled you are, and I think that in the end there is nothing in life that you can’t get through when you put your mind to it’. ‘
Principled?
” I choke, crying.

L
ater that evening, after a mixed grill prepared by Mother during which we discuss what I’m going to do with my new apartment now that Ronan has eloped, I call Aer Lingus.

With my Visa card I book two tickets to Paris for tomorrow, Friday, boarding at four thirty a.m. I dial a number for international information. Eventually I get put on to Tourisme France. Four minutes later I have booked one night’s accommodation for two at the Hotel Cadet in Montmartre.

“Does that mean I’m going to Paris, Julie?” she enthuses.

“No, Mother. I’m taking Sylvana.”

W
e descend from our plane at seven a.m. on to the sun-warmed concrete of Charles de Gaulle Airport. We are led into a bleak, modern area, eerie as an abandoned hospital. Signposts in French and English goad us up stairways and along lengthy conveyor-belt corridors, which transmit us eventually to Terminal One, a huge round concrete building filled with shops bustling with a multi-racial, multi-class cast of characters and eventually we locate a sign saying
bagages
.

Recovering our bags finally from the carousel, we pass through the nearby arrivals gates into the arrivals hall. There, we locate some empty seating beside the thick glass walls forming the outer perimeter of the circular building.

Bursting, I rush to the toilets.

Once inside a cubicle I slam across the lock. A minute later it occurs to me that I should phone Nicole. I flip out my cellphone and input her number.

“Julianne! Is it really you?”

“You could say that.”

“You’ll never guess what happened!”

“Try me.”

“Julianne,” she gushes, breathless, “I don’t know where to start. I’m in Paris.”

“Go on.”

“When I met Ronan at the zoo at three he said we were going to France. Just like that. We had to leave immediately because he’d just booked tickets on the catamaran from Dun Laoghaire – completely without warning. He was a bit annoyed because he’d been trying to get in touch with me but I had my mobile switched off. I was never great on technology.”

“You’re more of an artist.”

“I told him I couldn’t leave without telling you first. He said there was no time. We had to leave there and then. I drove in my car straight back to the B & B where I packed my bags.”

“I take it there was no time for a quick shag.”

“Julianne, I’m really sorry we missed each other when you went to the loo in the zoo.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Ronan said he couldn’t stand it at home with his wife and her mother any more. He was furious at what she did to his surgery. But I think what really did it was when she destroyed
Chi
. Still, that doesn’t matter now because I’ve just finished my new copy of
Chi
and I think it’s actually quite good, although Ronan isn’t so sure. Julianne, my life has suddenly changed beyond recognition. Do I really deserve this? Do I really deserve Ronan?”

“You do, actually.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you like that, Julianne, when I told you I was pregnant. I didn’t realize…Imelda told me you wanted a child of your own – it was really insensitive of me and I’m sorry…”

“Yes. I want a child of my own. But for various reasons I can’t have one.”

“I’m really sorry for bringing it up in the zoo.”

“Forget it.”

“I’d love it if you came and visited us here some time, although I know you probably won’t.”

“I’d like that. Where will you be tonight?”

“Tonight? We’re going out to eat soon, to a place called the Cafe de Flore.”

“At what time?”

“Well, Ronan plans to have a stroll before dinner. He wants to walk from the Hotel de Ville across the river to Notre-Dame and across the river again to Place St-Michel, then up Boul Mich, then up Boulevard St-Germain. So I suppose we’ll arrive at the Cafe de Flore for about nine. We did the shops today – they’re amazing. It’s my second time here in a week. I can’t believe it! Ronan bought me this jacket today, right? We went into…”

“Where exactly is the Cafe de Flore?”

I speak a little louder on account of the toilet in the cubicle next to me being flushed.

“It’s actually on Boulevard St-Germain too.”

Which Metro, idiot
.

“Which Metro?”

“I think it’s called St-Germain-des-Pres. It’s great to hear from you, Julianne. It’s a pity you’re not here.”

“Yes.”

“Anyway, when we get settled here in an apartment or something I’ll send you the address. It’d be nice to…”

“Send Ronan my best,” I interrupt.

After a slight halt in the conversation she agrees to send Ronan my best. “I’ve told him about you,” she avers. “He says you sound fun.”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Is everything…okay your end?”

“See you later.”

Dude.

“
Julianne
!”

Coldly, I press the ‘off button.

I
feel as if I am moving through a silent film.

We are on the Metro, which connects the airport and the city, fleeting through space and time towards the centre of Paris. The train tracks gallop underneath, a calming rhythm. Sylvana is seated opposite, face resting on the palm of her hand, elbow stuck on the narrow window ledge. We don’t speak. You can see her reflection in the window, her silent, almost grim-looking profile, which forbids disturbance. I wonder what she’s thinking of. The meeting she missed? The employee she meant to fire? Ronan? Nicole? Me?

Sylvana never feels the need to discuss her inner life.

Outside, the sky and the fields glow in a hue of red. The clouds, which seemed puffy and white from the exterior, are now light purple. It’s the tinted glass.

Inside, it’s as if the carriage is woven out of the French flag: everything is blue and red and white. And clean, modern and stylish. Sitting across the aisle are two Arab women, heads covered with black veils. There’s a black man in a suit, with briefcase and glasses. Everyone has bags. We’re the only ones in here who look even vaguely European, which is nice for a change. You get so tired of meeting white people your whole life. It’s like the only bread you’re allowed to eat is white sliced pan. So refined it becomes banal.

The train stops and starts and stops again. It begins to fill up. Some passengers read their
journaux
, others books, others stare blankly out of the window. One man with a pole-thin head and short, curly hair puts his head back and closes his eyes. Tired people stand up and queue, holding on to the straps or the bars, jostled from side to side by the lurching motion, waiting to get out. Once the train is stationary, the doors clank open, the exchange of sombre human beings is made and the doors clank closed again.

I try to think a little of the evening ahead. Of what I should say, or what approach I should take. But soon I give up. I will know at the time. I lose myself instead in the hypnotic whirr of train motion.

We change Metro at Chatelet Les Halles. We fly through the remaining Metro stations to our destination: Cadet, where our hotel is located. Around the corner, past a
boulangerie
, a
patisserie
, a
pharmacie
and an
epicene
, is the entrance to the Hotel Cadet.

We pass through the automatic sliding door into a narrow reception area with a pale marble floor and thin columns supporting the high, slanted white ceiling. To our right are three black leather seats surrounding a low table, a display cabinet with crystal glass objects for sale, a revolving shoe polish machine and a door to the left-luggage room. To the left is a high reception desk shaped into a tall round island, a kind of outpost with a deep hole in the middle. Standing inside the hole is a man in uniform, presumably from North Africa.

He greets us with a cheeky smile, bright white teeth and two twinkly eyes. He hands us forms to fill in. Name, address, nationality, passport number. Luckily my passport contains my maiden name – it was issued before I was married. O’Connor: this is how I shall henceforth be known.

The man points to a rack of leaflets just beside the entrance where we will find maps, museums, opening nights, cinemas, clubs and anything that two fancy-free ladies could hope to find to titillate them on a Friday night, as if that’s why we’ve come to Paris. He is full of good humour and polite laughter, but all we are in the mood for, really, is shutting him up with a smile, which of course he seems to appreciate.

A teenage boy with short blond hair and perfect skin brings us up in the elevator to the second floor. He leads us through a chic, grey-carpeted corridor with ceiling spotlights and modern art prints, and shows us into our room. It is small but impeccably clean. More grey: the headboards and the long narrow dressing-table on which stands a small television. Beneath this is a tiny fridge, concealed in a varnished wooden cabinet. More modern art prints on the walls. I squeeze past the two beds, pull back the white net curtain and open the window. No air enters: we are sheltered by a small courtyard.

I hand the
garçon
a two-hundred-franc note, which he takes with an oddly formal, boyish ‘
merci
’. When he leaves us to our nightmare of cramped space, Sylvana informs me that I just handed him roughly twenty pounds.