2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie (50 page)

“There’s a special delivery for a Julie O’Connor,” says a man’s voice.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s from a woman called Summers. Can I bring it up?”

Automaton-like, I press the buzzer and through the receiver you can hear the main lobby door click as he pushes through. There’s a rumpus now in the elevator shaft next to the apartment. I can hear the doors clank open outside my door. I run into the bathroom and put on my slippers. The bell rings again and there’s also a knock on the door. Quickly, I towel my dripping hair and rush back out over the water-discoloured woodblock floor.

I open up.

It’s a thin, spidery-looking man with a very pale, sickly face and a moustache. He’s holding a large object about a foot high, contained in a blue bag with red bubbles on it and a scrawl in yellow writing:
Fishmania
.

That’s that aquarist down the road in Dun Laoghaire.

“Bring it in here, please.”

I lead him into the kitchen.

“No. On second thoughts, leave it in the hall. Fish are supposed to be kept in the hall – near the entrance.”

He says he doesn’t think it matters too much, provided I feed them every day.

He clearly hasn’t heard of
Feng Shui
.

He puts the large object down carefully on top of the low bookcase in the vestibule. He lifts up the blue plastic bag. There is revealed to me the most beautiful goldfish bowl I have ever seen, swimmering with the loveliest small goldfish, fluttering orange and gold over a sparkle of multicoloured crystal stones that resemble boiled sweets.

The man says that this Nicole woman is something else. She rang him an hour ago from an aeroplane, just as it was about to take off. She was in a desperately worried state and told him that she needed to have eight goldfish delivered to a friend, and one had to be either a black fish or a carp of similar size. To stimulate
tea
, he added, observing that he was under the impression that tea grew on trees and not in fish tanks.

The poor ignorant man hasn’t heard of
chi
either.

Then, he recounts, she kept him on the phone for fifteen minutes and gave explicit and detailed instructions: she wanted him to prepare a glass bowl at least twelve by twelve inches, round, and with a large air surface; there were to be multicoloured stones at the bottom, in particular plenty of green, there had to be a plant of some sort and he was not to include goldfish with a reputation for bullying.

He hands me a letter now. “Then she dictated this letter over the phone. Excuse the handwriting, I couldn’t get her to slow down.”

I take the letter from him and open it.

“She took ages to remember her husband’s credit card number,” he observes.

I’ve already started reading.

Dear Julie
,

Please forgive me for writing to you in this way but I had no choice. After I said goodbye to you I opened up the plastic bag you gave me and took out your wonderful jasmine plant. Julie, it means so much to me. I realized there was so much more I wanted to say to you, but I couldn’t because I didn’t have your number. So much has happened between us that it would be wrong to let it go. Julie, I want you to come to Amsterdam to visit me and Debbie soon. Will you come to the christening? Please, please do! I must go. Here’s my number: 086⁄8577646. Please call me – I’ll keep my phone switched on all the time. Life is so crazy!

Love Nicole

The man is saying something to me about changing the water once a week and feeding the fish once a day with a small amount of flakes, but I’m not really paying any attention. He’s saying something to me now about a balanced diet, about how overfeeding can kill fish, but it goes completely over my head. I am staring at one goldfish on the outer edge, shimmering orange in the hall light, almost motionless except for the slight paperlike flutter of his wisp-thin fins in the water, and the gills opening and closing like they’re munching plankton, and the flickering of the tiny protruding black button eyes, and each fish seems so alone in his (her?) own little world and yet I’m sure each partakes of what is undoubtedly a bat-wild social life. And I read the letter once more just to be sure. She’s invited me to Amsterdam. Not a mention of Ronan, he’s out of the picture. Not a mention of Sylvana, just the two of us and Debbie, and does she really want me to attend the christening, is she serious? I want to call her to tell her yes, I’d love to, but I think I should give it a day or two to let things calm down a little, and I can’t believe she really went to all that trouble to get these wonderful fish to me. I really can’t…

…and at some point I sense that the man has quietly left the apartment because the door recently made that closing sound doors tend to make when people leave rooms…

…and I’m feeling this inexplicable feeling. I just adore her fish, I adore the harmonious way they move, the peaceful way they pout and trip through the water like they’re on marijuana. Perhaps this is what
chi
is all about, perhaps this is what Nicole meant by
chi
being narcotic, or let me see…was she referring to rhododendrons?

It’s not often in life that I get crazy ideas.

No. And now is not a bad time to start, is it? Crazy ideas don’t generally occur to one when staring into a fish bowl, but then I’ve always thought fish were totally underrated.

I’m going to call Nicole after all.

I go back into the bathroom, retrieve my mobile and dial her number.

It’s ringing. My heart is thumping madly.

I get her voicemail.

Don’t panic. It doesn’t matter.

“
This is Nicole Summers, em, if you’d like to leave a message, please do so after the bleep
.”

“Nicole? Hi, it’s Julianne. Nicole, I got your beautiful aquarium with the wonderful goldfish. I don’t know what to say, so I won’t try…Nicole, Sylvana and I have just booked a holiday for four in New Orleans for a fortnight, to start next week. Oh, and by the way, you and Debbie are coming. You won’t have to pay a penny. Don’t you dare say no: the money’s already paid, so if you even think of selling out, you’re dead. Have you got that? Sylvana says that if you let us down she’ll personally go to Amsterdam to drag you both on to the plane. So both of you are to keep a space free in your hectic social schedule. I’ll call you tomorrow with the details…”

I punch out.

Now I call Sylvana. As usual, I get her voicemail.

“Sylvana – Julie. Please disregard my last message. I’ve booked a holiday for four in New Orleans for a fortnight. To start next week. With me, and Nicole and her baby. She says she’s thrilled by the idea. She says we’ll have an amazing time. She says if you let us down she’ll personally go to your place and drag you on to the plane. I
know
you’re tied up. I
know
it’s impossible. I
know
you will lose business and will have to quell rebellion on your return, but
please? Just for once in your life?
I’ll love you for ever. If it’s any consolation, I booked it on Ronan’s Mastercard. Oh, and if you dare say no I will seriously consider taking him back into my life. Be in touch. Bye.”

Immediately I call Trailfinders. It’s just ten minutes before closing time. I demand a fortnight’s package in New Orleans in the top hotel, to begin next Saturday, very approximately.

“No problem, madam,” says the gent on the phone.

Ten minutes later he’s located four seats on Virgin Atlantic on next Thursday morning’s flight from London to New Orleans, via New York, returning on Christmas Eve. With carrycot thrown in.

They do a range of hotels.

Book the most expensive, I command.

Do we want rooms with balcony? he asks.

Yes, I reply: we never take less than superior de luxe.

Do we wish to avail ourselves of a fascinating city tour of this historic city and an escorted tour of the Deep South, which takes in the historic plantation mansions?

Book every tour in sight, I reply.

Do we wish to avail ourselves of a dinner jazz cruise on the
Creole Queen
paddle steamer?

Jesus, I say, book it, book it.

He takes our names and books us into the Hotel Sainte Marie, a hotel with every luxury you could ever dream of, right in the heart of the French Quarter, just half a block from the cafes and jazz clubs of Bourbon Street.

Is that
real
bourbon they’re talking about? I ask the man.

“Also,” I add, “we want a four-wheel Chevrolet Blazer. And if you wish to throw in a chauffeur for an additional charge – young and hungry and built like a lust-god – that would be entirely acceptable.”

It comes to almost five and a half thousand pounds, he says, laughing. And are we happy with that?

“Perfectly,” I reply.

Then he asks for my credit card number.

Now let me see.

What
is
his number?

EOF