2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie

by Brian Gallagher

  I’m in my power-pinstriped suit. I feel I can accomplish things in it. I’m relieved to see Sylvana getting into a downbeat brown suit and dark-green polo-neck sweater. At nine we are ready to embark into the still bright Paris evening.

  57

  At a quarter to ten I follow Sylvana through the awkward double doors of the Cafe de Flore. Inside is like a busy tea party. The place is glaring with bright yellow light. The atmosphere in this large, box-like, open room is noisy and bustling and intellectual, and I am immediately struck by the soft, bright-red banquettes on which Parisian life is happily chattering. These are fitted in between low wooden partitions on top of which lie salt cellars and baskets of hard-boiled eggs. The yellow-painted, aged walls are almost completely covered with huge old decaying mirrors.

  Ornate chandeliers hang from the high, sculpted, dirt-yellow ceiling. In the left corner a wooden stairway curves its way round, upstairs, presumably to the restrooms.

  The wooden rectangular tables are patronized by the trendy twenties and thirties. But there are the old regulars too, one tableful of whom is engulfed in a bellyful of conversation with a bow-tied waiter in black and white who has just rolled a pencil from his ear and taken a small notepad from the black pouch attached to his belt.

  We are told to wait until a seat becomes available so we stay where we are just in front of the entrance. Recent arrivals are already forming a queue behind us.

  “It’s nearly ten and they’re still not here.” I peer around the large room.

  “Knowing him, they’re probably on a café crawl.”

  Soon we are led to a small red banquette in the far right corner. I climb into the inside seat. Sylvana grumbles a little because she gets to face the wall, so I remind her of who snatched the bed by the window. She orders a ‘cafe espresso special Flore’ from the menu and just to be different I order tea.

  And wait. From here there is a clear view of the door on which my eyes are fastened like bolts.

  Our order arrives and we sip in silence.

  Nothing happens. Everybody seems lost in conversation. Nobody is taking any notice of Sylvana or me, which makes a welcome change. Everybody is too beautiful in here. I watch one slender woman with large eyes animatedly engage her friend whose long arms are folded on the table and who keeps nodding in earnest. At another table sit a group of students in heated debate.

  There’s a guy with black leather jacket, scruffy dark hair and a dark half-day stubble sitting reading a book. At the table next to him is another guy with long greasy hair but stunning Brad Pitt features, staring at length into the distance. Every so often he dips his head and scribbles something meaningful in a notebook.

  “I’m a bit peckish,” Sylvana says.

  “You should have thought of that on the plane. The two of them could walk in any minute.”

  Sylvana: “You expected me to eat that chemically refined chicken and carrot paste, and those gherkin droppings? I don’t think so. What about an omelette au crabe?”

  She’s reading her menu again.

  “That’s a crab omelette.”

  “I know that, Julie, but do you think it’s any good?”

  “It’s one dish I wouldn’t touch with an oar.”

  I idly scan my own menu. On the front cover is printed ‘Saint-Germain-des-Pres’. Beneath this is printed ‘rendez-vous au…Cafe de Flore’, a quote attributed to J.P. Sartre from his Les Chemins de la Liberte. Beneath this is a heavy sketch in pencil of a coffee table on top of which lie a cafetiere, a cup and saucer and spoon, a newspaper, a letter, a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray.

  I’m getting this tingling sensation in my gut. I desperately want a smoke so I light up. I start inhaling vigorously. I still don’t know what I’m going to say to them when they walk through the door. Perhaps I’ll just leave it to instinct.

  “I think I’ll have the crab omelette,” Sylvana says. “I have yet to watch an egg crawl.”

  The waiter comes over and she points to what she wants, then flips the page of the small booklet-menu and points at something else. And in an excruciatingly doggish French accent she says: “Et: haricots verts frais en salade, s’il vous plait. Oh, et un Mere-un Tuborg s’il vous plait. Merci.”

  “Oui madame.”

  “Et pour moi, un café espresso double s’il vous plait ”

  On impulse, I take out my phone and hold it for a second, and stare at it. I put it back down on the table. Frustrated, I grab the menu and start reading: Croissant au beurre, brioche au beurre, pain aux raisins, pain au chocolat, Minis, tartines beurre…

  Soon Sylvana’s omelette au crabe and her haricots verts frais en salade arrive, together with the glass of Tuborg beer and my cafe espresso double.

  She starts delicately gobbling the pukish-looking stringy omelette mix. I pull back from the sea smell.

  She’s munching away, now, into her dish, trying to guess the meaning of the various entries on the Les Patisseries page. She’s scoffing her crab omelette like a starved dog and simultaneously she is quoting disapprovingly from the dessert section, mock contempt etched on her brow: will she choose a gateau au chocolat Macao for her dessert? Or a millefeuille, whatever that is? Or a tarte tatin (en saison)? Or the patisserie du jour? Or the cake frais? None of these, of course, will do much for her figure.

  I slam down my cup, twirl the mobile towards me and input Nicole’s number. It’s so noisy in here that when she answers all I hear from her is a squeak that vaguely reminds me of my name.

  “Where the hell are you?” I shout.

  Pause.

  “How do you mean, Julianne?”

  “How do I mean?”

  When I repeat my highly complex five-word question she says she doesn’t really understand.

  “You’re supposed to be in the Cafe de Flore. You’re late.”

  “But we are in the Cafe de Flore.” She giggles, unsure.

  I pause.

  “What are you doing in the toilet?”

  “What?”

  “Have you finished in the toilet?”

  “Julianne, we’re not in the toilet.”

  “Are we talking about the same establishment? The big café on Boulevard St-Germain? With the red benches and the large mirrors?”

  “Yes. We’re upstairs.”

  “There’s seating upstairs? I thought there was just a loo?”

  “There is, but there are tables also. It’s lovely here, Julianne. We’re having a really nice drink together. He’s having – would you believe it – a creme de menthe and I’m having a beer with creme de cassis. We’ve just eaten prawns and garlic sauce. They were great, though I’m glad Ronan didn’t tell me what they were until we’d finished. They have a funny name in French. I’ll read it out to you. Listen to this…”

  I punch out and put my phone away.

  “We’re going upstairs, Sylvana. Leave your revolting mobile egg where it is and follow me.”

  Holding on to the curved wooden bannister rail we climb up the narrow squeaky wooden stairs past paintings of Paris hanging on the stairwell. We squeeze sideways to allow a waiter to pass, an empty tray at his side. We twist round and are now on the first floor. Straight ahead, to my surprise, is a long, narrow room full of people at tables: a banquet of liveliness.

  At once I spy Nicole. She is seated on a curved banquette underneath the stained-glass window in the far right corner. She looks wonderful: soft, innocent, glowing, arms folded loosely. She’s almost in a kind of watery daydream. Obviously dotty with happiness. She’s wearing a loose shirt, the colour of pale-green grass, which accentuates her wonderful suntan. She’s in cream slacks. I can see her feet. Enclosing them are sandals with woven gold straps. I can even make out her light-purple toenail varnish.

  Her long, goldeny hair is back off her shoulders, exposing her long, dangly Rue de Rivoli earrings.

  I advance. Now I can see Ronan’s profile. He’s reading his paper. Wouldn’t you know it: Le Figaro. The paper for the intellectual. Th
e paper for Ronan, the pseudo-intellectual bull-shitter.

  Sylvana: “This should be fun.”

  Nicole says something to him and laughs. He smiles, takes a sip of his green drink and returns to his paper. Nicole hasn’t seen us yet, though she’s facing this way, still daydreaming.

  I advance slowly.

  She looks around.

  Then looks up.

  She sees me. Her eyes are very large and her mouth is slightly open, teetering on the brink of hesitation. She looks like she’s about to break out into a great big smile but she doesn’t quite manage it. She glances at Ronan doubtfully, as if requiring reassurance. Who can blame her for her amazement? We’ve just beamed in here like two apparitions from Star Trek without the fancy gear.

  She touches him lightly on the arm. But he’s stuck deep in his paper. She should realize by now that she is located way below the Figaro in his order of priorities. She nudges him harder. He raises his creme de menthe and takes a sip and, as he lowers his drink, he glances in our direction. When he sees me his glass halts in mid-air.

  I think he goes white, though I’m prepared to concede it’s a pale shade of grey. As we approach, the vibe is so thick you could cut it with a baguette.

  Nicole snaps out of her daze. She jumps to her feet and throws her arms around me shrieking, “You had me fooled right up to the very last minute! What are you doing here? How come you never said? I had no idea.”

  I respond to her hug like a stiff, rolled-up carpet, although to my credit I do say hello. Disengaging myself from her arms, I stand back to let her hug Sylvana if she wants to and I just glare at Ronan.

  They disentangle themselves and Nicole squeals at Ronan how amazing this is and in high frequency she demands to know what brings us here at no notice.

  I don’t respond and neither does Ronan: he is in puzzled concentration. This is how he looks when he’s been taken for a ride and isn’t quite sure who has ridden him, or hasn’t yet worked out how best to ride back. As he attempts to get a hold on the situation his eyes flicker around the three of us like a lizard’s.

  “Oh my God! I can’t believe you’re here,” chants Nicole, staring happily at me the whole time, head tilted, figertips touching the side of her face.

  She starts jabbering now, a useful release of tension for all. “Ronan do you remember I told you about Julianne and Imelda? They’re my two new, very good friends. Julianne’s the one that brought me to the hospital – you know – after that thing? Come on, Ronan, of course you remember. I told you about her. She’s the one who’s really into Feng Shui. Remember? No, he doesn’t remember – he’s not into Feng Shui.”

  He opens a pack of Gitanes.

  “Ronan.” She nudges his shoulder. “Julianne is the one who moved into a new apartment with her husband Helmut recently; that’s the place where I started repainting Chi yesterday morning on the balcony. And this is Imelda, her friend. I met her at the zoo yesterday.”

  She would have to put it like that.

  “Ronan, is something the matter, love?”

  Love.

  Nicole is frowning down at him. “Ronan!”

  But he has turned away.

  He is withdrawing into himself, considering the equation, measuring the vibes, preparing the perfect word. And he will not be lost for the perfect word.

  “He’s not listening.”

  Nicole is all sighs.

  Me: “He’s not a great listener.”

  “Anyway, this is Ronan, folks.”

  What an embarrassment. She stands there, her hand opened out towards her lover like he’s the next guest on a chat show, grinning away like she’s just escaped some institution.

  An appropriate response from Ronan is still not forthcoming. All he can do is smoke, very calmly, exhaling to the side. Nicole’s orgy of joy is becoming progressively more forced. The smile is fast draining from her cheeks. She frowns, eyeing each of us in turn.

  “Talk about an anticlimax,” remarks Sylvana.

  “Hello there, Ronan,” says I suavely. “I must say, Cannes is a lovely city. A little cool, though, for July.”

  Only his eyes move. Slowly across. They burn into me like two hard, deep, smoking gun barrels. Sylvana is glaring at him. Hatefully. Loyally.

  Ronan consults Nicole: “You have no idea who this is, do you?”

  Nicole’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. Sure she knows who this is, the poor thing craves to say: these are her new friends Julianne and Imelda.

  But sometimes one is afraid to state the obvious. One is afraid that if one repeats the self-evident, the heavens will suddenly open and a swarm of frenzied forked-tongued demons will break out in a chorus of deafening cackles, deriding one for one’s asinine stupidity in missing the insanely obvious. It’s an old school thing. Perfectly understandable.

  Finally, Ronan sniggers. “Congratulations!” he says. “Julianne and Imelda! I especially like the Imelda part. Very suitable.”

  Nicole frowns: “Do you, like…know one another?”

  “You could say that,” I reply.

  “What’s going on, Julianne? Has this to do with Helmut?”

  “No. It’s nothing to do with Helmut.”

  “Helmut!” Ronan sniggers.

  “You people are freaking me out! What is going on here?”

  We sit down. Sylvana and I on two stools opposite Nicole and Ronan. He takes another drag of his Gitane and smiles, shaking his head, sitting back in his seat. Then he takes a further sip of his creme de menthe, cigarette-end brushing against the glass. And he replaces the glass on the table.

  Now he takes a second cigarette from his box, perches it on his lips, strikes a match disdainfully against a Cafe de Flore booklet and exhales deeply, spreading white smoke up into the ceiling. He relaxes his weight back against the banquette. His old confidence and superiority are returning. He has got the measure of the situation.

  “You’re cleverer than I thought, Julianne.”

  He says this while staring into the distance.

  Sylvana: “It’s just that you’re stupider than we thought.”

  Nicole, by now, is a monument to the totally bewildered. She is desperate for somebody to clarify the situation. But we are all sitting caged in deadly silence, all the deadlier for occurring bang centre of probably the noisiest, busiest café in Paris.

  I turn to Nicole and address her in my most elegant voice: “Nicole, there’s something you ought to know.”

  “What?”

  “Shall I tell her, Ronan?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Thank you.”

  I draw in a breath. “Nicole, the slice of whaleshit to your left happens to be my husband.”

  I can’t even begin to explain to you the sense of utter, profound satisfaction and exuberance I am presently feeling, having finally got this little matter off my chest. It’s been excruciating, bottling it up for so long.

  “Would that be a fair analysis, Sylvana?”

  “Which part? The husband part or the whaleshit part?”

  “Both.”

  Sylvana (trying not to grin): “Yes, I think that would be fair.”

  I feel totally liberated.

  You want to see Nicole’s reaction. It’s straight out of a horror movie: the flesh on her face has turned practically green, though not from jealousy. No. It’s the visage of someone who’s just discovered, for instance, baby roaches in her yoghurt. She is a tremoring, shaking mass of flesh, palpably on the verge of emotional collapse.

  Hands against her cheeks, she turns to her dear love, distraught. “Is this true?” she stammers.

  “Their little ploy won’t succeed,” he says in her direction. “Yes, I went through a marriage ceremony with this woman two years ago.”

  “He thinks it was a tedious, forgettable experience,” I tell Sylvana, who’s got this great expression on her face.

  “I know,” she replies.

  “I wouldn’t quite put it that way,” he counters eloque
ntly.

  Nicole: “I don’t believe this is happening.”

  Me: “I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time.”

  “The deception is despicable,” Ronan says calmly.

  Sylvana: “That’s laughable, coming from you.”

  Nicole: “I don’t believe this is happening. I…”

  Her mouth is trembling. Her mascara and make-up are running together in black and white streaks down her cheeks.

  “…I trusted you, Julianne!”

  “I trusted my husband, you bitch!”

  “There’s no need to upset Nicole,” says Ronan in a natural voice.

  “Oh, please excuse me for upsetting you, Nicole. Please excuse me for being cheated on. Please excuse me for coming home one day and finding both your clothes all over the kitchen floor and our double bed slept in by you. An appalling indiscretion on my part. Please excuse me for informing Harry and thus getting you beaten up. Please excuse me, let me see…oh yes, please excuse me for smashing up your living-room…”

  I’d give anything for you to see their faces now.

  “…although I have to say there was something about that festive experience which was particularly fulfilling – especially the tropical marine aquarium.”

  While Nicole is gaping at me like a frightened tropical fish, Ronan is examining me objectively. Suddenly I remember the cat. I’m dead scared they’re going to bring up Max.

  “And lest you think I have one ounce of decency in me, Nicole, I want to state categorically that I think that your Feng Shui obsession is a lump of codswallop for the mentally undernourished.”

  “Don’t forget the Porsche, Julie,” remarks Ronan.

  Sylvana: “Try some Viagra to- compensate.”

  Ronan again: “Or your highly original fish recipe, a most civilized way for people to behave.”

  Sylvana, raising her eyes, mutters: “You deserved it, you prat.”

  Ronan: “And Nicole’s painting, which you…”

  “Chi? ”