2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie (9 page)

“But that’s what people do when they have flings: they sleep in beds together. Have you forgotten your own philosophy, Sylvana? How women, if they so choose, can turn men into sexual cripples? How if they weren’t programmed to think with their cocks the human race would die out? How sex has nothing to do with love and everything with orgasm? How men conceive of sex as remote-control masturbation with zero emotional content? How kings do it, paupers do it and even American presidents do it?”

“Yes, I remember saying that but…”

“Just because he’s had sex with another woman doesn’t mean he’s stopped loving me…”

“Oh Jesus, Julie, you’re not thinking clearly. Come back…”

“Goodbye, Sylvana.”

I stride quickly through the lobby and pull open the main door of the building. She starts to follow me.

“You’ll lock yourself out, Sylvana.”

“At least have a drink before you go…?”

“Nice try, I’ll call you soon.”

The lobby door slams behind me.

I must say, walking out on her like this feels so good.

Sylvana is absolutely brilliant. She is wise, she is clever, she is strong and beautiful and she’s a fantastic friend.

But that doesn’t mean she’s right about Ronan.

Clarification: she’s right about the fact that he’s a stuck-up, two-timing, arrogant bastard with vanity as thick and immobile as a thousand-year-old oak tree, and it’s perfectly understandable why she nurtures long-standing urges to drown him by hand in a septic tank.

But does that mean I should consider him toxic waste?

“I
noticed your Porsche.”

I spread my husband a wide, jolly smile.

He looks up from the white leather couch in which he is relaxing – aggrieved and stressed out – with a book about Impressionist art balanced on one crossed leg. He’s wearing a light-brown suit, a cream polo-neck sweater and light-brown perforated leather shoes.

Seeing him now properly for the first time since I went on holiday, I suddenly realize that there’s something of the poseur about his handsomeness, something slightly disreputable and untrustworthy.

“It didn’t look in the best of form,” I add.

He is glaring at me now. What a nice way to welcome me home. Nothing about my holiday. Nothing about missing me. No fuss-making. I don’t expect a big red-carpet welcome: a nice smile would be enough. But no.

Since he doesn’t reply, I decide I might as well indulge him in some small talk. “Did you enjoy yourself while I was away?”

Still no reply. He is clearly in a rotten mood. Lesson: never expect perfection in a man whose car has just croaked.

And croaked it has: as I was parking my MG in the car park just now, I happened to pass the piece of banjaxed-looking junk that once went by the name of Porsche. It was lying in state, mourning under the sparkling light of the night lamp. Truly a sad sight.

“Where the hell were you?” he says.

“Haven’t you heard? I was in the Cliff Castle Hotel.”

He just observes me.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I got on?”

“You stood me up, Julie.”

“Thursday is late-night shopping. I couldn’t hold myself back. I craved some kinky lingerie in nice bright colours.”

He leans forward. “So you were actually in town.”

“I was in town. Yes.”

“And you just didn’t bother showing up at La Boheme’s.”

“Kinky lingerie is a vital accessory, Ronan. You of all people should know that.”

He sits back in his seat once more. “I assume
that
one was behind it.”

“Sylvana has a name.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me.”

I smile insanely. “What’s that sweet scent, Ronan?”

It’s not just the smouldering reek of tobacco. It’s what it’s attempting to blot out but not quite succeeding.

“Your mother was here this evening,” he replies.

“My mother smells sweet, but not that sweet.”

“You’d think she might have called in advance to warn me of her imminent approach. She just dropped in as if she owned the place.”

“Is it massage oil? I didn’t know you practised self-massage.”

“I couldn’t get rid of her. She plonked herself in front of the television for the whole evening. Her indiscretions never cease to amaze me…”

“You’re the height of discretion, of course.” I laugh.

“The woman had the nerve to ask me when we were planning on having children. She seems to think that having lived sixty-five years has granted her immunity from proper social intercourse.”

“You’d know all about that.”

“I know not to be inquisitive.”

Ronan has experienced, in a fairly personal way, Mother’s antisocial elephant’s foot. He assumes it’s a lack of social sophistication on her part. Truth is, she gets a real kick out of aggravating him. On the Richter scale of animosity her toleration for my husband is roughly four.

Quite a healthy average, mind you, when set against Sylvana’s permanent eight.

I start walking around the room now, making a big deal of sniffing the air. “You still haven’t told me what that smell is.”

“Tobacco, I’d say,” he arrogantly replies, exhaling a fresh cloud of blue smoke into the air above him.

“No, it’s a fruity scent. Have you been wearing perfume?”

He continues reading.

“I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

He recrosses his legs.

“Or air-freshener?”

“Did you know,” he reports from his page, “that French Impressionists in the eighteen-sixties drew inspiration from Japanese woodblock colour prints?”

This is his polite way of telling me to shut up.

“I was in the bedroom just now,” I sing.

“Is that a fact?”

“I see you changed the sheets,” I add.

I leave this hanging in the air. Although his face betrays nothing I can almost hear his mind unravel at the speed of light. He flips a page.

“I didn’t notice any dirty sheets in the basket, though.”

This is fun.

Without looking up, he speaks very calmly: “You broke our arrangement to meet in town and you’re worried about some dirty sheets.”

“Where are they?”

“If you really want to know,” he says casually, “I took them to the laundry.”

“
You
?”

He looks up. “Precisely.”

“Any particular reason for this rare behaviour?”

Nothing.

“Which laundry?”

Pause.

“It hardly matters.”

“I’d like to know. I’ve got a bagful of washing myself.”

“I’ll take it for you.”

“This is very impressive.”

“I feel like a drink,” he says.

Resting his cigar on the ashtray, he gets up and walks to the drinks cabinet. He pours himself a gin from the measure, uncaps the tonic with the bottle opener and empties it into the glass.

I wander in his direction, over to the aquarium. Our fish always look like they could do with being cheered up, although I doubt us humans have what it takes to make them roll around in the aisles. I bend down and try to attract their attention, tapping my fingernail against the glass. This causes some renewed aquatic flickering. I do so adore causing a sensation with my purple nail varnish.

I turn round again. “Ronan…”

“I’ve had an unpleasant week, Julie. Could you give it a rest?”

He’s had an unpleasant week.

I want to scream.

Why can’t he be honest with me? I could put up with nearly anything provided he were honest with me. Oh please, God, make him stop lying over something we can work out.

I stalk over to the french windows and fling them open, stamp out on to the balcony and slam them behind me. I lean against the railing, staring out at the night, punctured by the solitary white lamp lights posted along the dark pier and seafront, wondering what I am going to do.

Why can’t
I
be honest with
him?

No. I must remain silent. I must. Mother was honest, to her detriment. What if he lies? Continues to lie to me?

I must calm down.

I must bide my time.

I will find out the truth.

Myself.

I
t’s ten a.m. and I’m still at home.

I should be in the Law Library beating away briefs or schmoozing with creeps. Drafting statements of claim, even.

But I’m not.

Why?

I’ve been having a few thoughts over cornflakes, tea, toast and marmalade. While Ronan is safely out of the flat treating someone’s root canal, I have been thinking: okay, we know that this was probably no more than a three-day fling. An aberration. A limited fornication edition. He was just playing around, at the mercy, poor thing, of his hormones.

But.

That doesn’t exactly debar me from checking her out, does it?

This is why I have just lifted up the receiver and dialled Nicole’s home number, having first double-checked that her name appeared in the phone directory.

As I’m crunching the last corner of marmalade-infested toast betwixt my canines, a man’s deep voice answers: “Yes.”

“Hello, could I speak to Nicole Summers, please?”

“Who are you?”

Everybody seems to be in a foul mood these days. At a guess, his spare parts are being poorly serviced at the moment.

“Excuse me,” I daringly reply, “but who are you?”

“Harry. She’s at work.”

“I don’t actually have her work number.”

“Who’s this?” he inquires less gruffly.

“It’s just a friend.”

“And you don’t know where she works?”

“We haven’t met in a long time. Not since college.”

“She didn’t go to college.”

Pause.

“I meant, not since
I
went to college.”

“Actually, she was at college.”

Further pause.

“Piano school,” he says with an edge.

So she
is
cultured.

“She was always interested in music,” I offer outrageously. “Does she still play?”

“I sold her piano last week. She was always banging away at it. Never any peace. I do a lot of DIY. I couldn’t hear myself hammering.”

He sold the piano. Lucky for the piano. How I’d love to have hacked away at the piano keys and the soundboard with my icepick, chopping through wood and wire.

“I suppose painting is a lot less noisy,” I remark.

“Except she
sings
while painting.”

I pay him the compliment of finding this comment funny and he seems to warm to me. Another innocent just like the rest.

“Does she still work for…” says I, fishing in an empty barrel.

“She’s still in the travel business. She’s in town these days. Recent transfer. Clearway Travel in Marlborough Street.”

I underscore this mentally. “She was always interested in travel,” I say, hopelessly out of my depth.

“Still is. She was in Portugal this week.”

“Really? I saw her yesterday afternoon.”

“No, she flew back yesterday evening.”

“But I’m certain it was her. The long golden hair…everything about her. That’s why I’m calling.”

“What was she wearing?”

“A cream-coloured suit and shoes, a white blouse, a lemon…er…shades.”

There’s a long pause in the conversation at this point.

“Where did you see her?”

“By the canal.”

“What was she doing?”

“She was sitting on a bench.”

“So why didn’t you go over and say hello?”

“She was with some guy.”

“Oh, she was.”

“Yes, she was sitting on top of him. They were moving around like a chainsaw. He looked like he was in serious pain. Are you her brother?”

No reply.

“I felt it would be wrong of me,” I add, “to disturb her simply for old times’ sake.”

There’s still this pained silence.

“
Bitch
!” bursts out through the receiver.

I can’t tell you how much this moral support means to me.

“I hope I haven’t…”

“Describe the man to me.”

“I’m very sorry for being the bearer of such…sad tidings…”

“I want to meet you.”

“Oops! My hot chocolate is boiling over. I have to go. Goodbye.”

I press the red button.

I get showered, faced and dressed.

And drop into my car like speed.

On my way to Clearway Travel, I phone my mother.

She picks up. “I’m busy,” she says at once.

Immediately I regret phoning her. She can be so moody. I make a daily habit of forgetting this, due to what she calls my ‘generous forgiving nature’. The label has stuck. I really believe my mother endowed me with it years ago with a purpose: she knew she could devote her life to the unfettered pursuit of her greatest pleasure – grumpiness – and get away with it. Knowing I’d still love her.

I do my best to disguise the wobble in my voice. “It’s me.”

“It’s me.
It’s me
. Great introduction. You know, the world is full of people called me. And I’m lucky enough to know just about half of them…”

I let her rant on in that articulate voice of hers, roughened and deepened by her sixty-five years, so much so that with each passing year she sounds more and more like my late grandfather.

The problem is she thinks I view her as a hollow wooden charity box into which you dump your weekly dues and promptly forget for another week. Actually, I love her to bits.

“So, which me is it this time? If it’s Bridie, you and John owe me five pounds for beating you at bridge. Or is it a different me? Is it the me who failed to clean behind the taps when I pay her handsomely at least to pretend she’s a cleaner? Or the me who gave me a tea cosy for my birthday last March when she knew I wanted that bracelet? Or the me who conveniently forgot about me last Mother’s Day? Would it be that me, perhaps?”

Let me point out at once that Mother was not always like this. I think that her separation from Father left a permanent imprint on her personality.

So I just keep my trap shut.

Some time passes.

“I was worried sick about you,” she says eventually.

She really is a dear.

“There was no need to be.” I sigh. “I was with Sylvana.”

“I left a message on your phone at least twice.”