2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie

by Brian Gallagher

  Mother, too, was an angel, in her very own inimitable way.

  But a suicide trough there still was. I had a lot of good ideas about how to do myself in. But the most obvious idea of all – flinging myself off the terrace in front of the park – never quite materialized. I suppose I didn’t want to upset Sylvana – considering she often stayed over to thwart precisely that result and she’d have ended up blaming herself.

  Or perhaps it was because in my heart I didn’t really want to do anything stupid – I just wanted to contemplate death from another angle to prove to myself that life was still worth living.

  Or possibly the real reason I didn’t jump off the balcony was that it would finish Mother off. Now Mother is bad enough in a confined space like an apartment or a car, but can you imagine what it would be like sharing a grave? A sheer nightmare. Yes, she’s the ultimate reason I resolved to stay alive.

  But close to death I did come one day. I had been drinking, that old reliable excuse for everything in the world that is excessive, to which I gratefully resort when rational behaviour becomes a burden. I wrote a suicide note to Ronan, care of Lucien Morel. In it, I blamed him for driving me to my death. Tripping over myself with inebriation, I posted it in the local postbox for early collection the following morning. Then I drove round the suburbs looking for something blank to crash into.

  I could not find a suitable wall.

  Either there were children playing tennis or football against it, or there were lamp-posts or cars in the way. Or dogs (cf. my innate fondness for wildlife). Or someone was in the vicinity: it was important to me that nobody would be ogling me in the process of bleeding to death, slumped over the wheel, body crushed, face smashed, wheezing my last blood-curdled breath. I did not fancy being trapped in gyrated metal, surrounded by people combing my hair and foundationing my face and snapping cameras at me for a complimentary front-page grin in the News of the World.

  Finally I found a wall.

  But.

  It was situated at the end of a housing estate. It was perfect but for one thing: I had only thirty feet to accelerate up to eighty miles an hour. The worst I could do to myself was give myself a painful whiplash and a bit of light bruising.

  I was desperate.

  I gave up and came home.

  Then I remembered the letter.

  That whole night I did not sleep a wink. No way was Ronan getting that letter. The following morning I took up sentry duty at the postbox from six a.m. – though the first collection wasn’t until eight. When the postman finally arrived I begged him for the return of my letter.

  “I’m not permitted to return a letter, miss.”

  “It’s a suicide note,” I said quite calmly, though still treacherously drunk and whacked with fatigue.

  “It’s still not permitted, miss.”

  I screamed at the poor man and after a brief interlude I asked him politely to consider whether I was or was not dead.

  It did not take him long to take out a bunch of letters and start flipping through it for one addressed to Ronan Fitzgerald.

  Which he handed me.

  Which I promptly burnt in the sink. Washing the last ashes down the drain, it suddenly occurred to me what a dumb fool I was not to have searched out the docklands: there, there were literally hundreds of walls to choose from, walls of all shapes and sizes and colours and degrees of blankness.

  Doubly grief-laden, I went to bed (in my marital home) for two whole weeks, despite Mother’s valiant efforts to motivate me through pep talks, coffee, chocolate cake, bribery, threats, starvation, Xanax, prayer. She was so worried she even tried piano therapy.

  Then one morning Sylvana came to me with coffee and Danish pastries. I felt sufficiently strong in myself to tell her about my suicide exploits. She attempted to comfort me by insisting that the impulse to destroy myself was not a permanent feature of my being but more of a ‘temporary blip in my sanity’. I thanked her for her enlightenment, I remember, turned over on my other side and told her to buzz off.

  There was this deathly silence from the far side of the bed that made me actually want to turn round and see if I’d hurt her feelings – but I was too proud to do so. That’s when I realized I wanted to live.

  I am now over this sad period in my life. Thanks in large part to my wonderful friend who refused to abandon me even when I begged her to. And thanks, of course, to Mother.

  The bell rings a fourth time. This is bordering on harassment.

  I twine down the spiral staircase with my empty basket.

  I can’t face it.

  I can’t.

  I will face it.

  60

  I open my front door and press for the lift.

  I travel down the four floors. When the doors open I see the intruder on the other side of the security door, in profile, stooping slightly over the intercom. Her hair seems more blonde than before, but it’s probably just Parisian highlights. She’s wearing a lemon-yellow anorak, a cream sweater and brown trousers, and she’s holding a small package in one hand.

  I walk up to the glass door and push it open, and she jumps, turning to face me. Relief washes over her face and she places a hand on her chest.

  “It’s you, Julie!”

  “Yes, you can call me Julie – it’s short for Julianne.”

  “You gave me a fright.”

  “I seem to make a habit of it.”

  I lean against the open door to signify that I haven’t got all day.

  She doesn’t react to me the way she used to. Her face isn’t lighting up happily and she’s not nodding her head enthusiastically. There’s something different about her. Her head is slightly bowed, her pensive, downcast eyes surrounded by black circles. She looks disconsolate and washed-out.

  I suppose that having stabbed me in the back discourages jollity. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just…came because…I called your mobile – but the number’s been changed.”

  “I was trying to shake you off.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Something occurs to me. “You’ve come here for your cat, haven’t you?” I give her a sly look.

  “No, I haven’t,” she croaks.

  “You’ve come for your easel, then,” I accuse, somewhat relieved that she has not come here for her cat.

  She insists she hasn’t come here for her easel either.

  “Why, then? Oh, I know: you’ve come to tell me you’re sorry for wrecking my marriage. That you’re not proud of what you did. That you’re a dreadful bitch. Is that what you want to tell me? You want me to let you off the hook so that you can go back to Paris with a good conscience?”

  With an uncertain grimace somewhere between a smile and a weep, she holds out both hands. In them is an object wrapped in soft white paper.

  “What’s that?”

  “I brought this for you.”

  “What is it?”

  She steps forward and offers me the wrapped object. I just stand here staring at it.

  “They’re my mandarin ducks,” she clarifies.

  “The orange ones?”

  She nods.

  “Oh, I forgot. I’m not supposed to know they’re orange.”

  “It’s best to keep them on a table in the south-west corner of your bedroom. They symbolize fidelity and happiness. They bring good luck to a marriage.”

  “Do you want me to hit you?”

  She opens the paper to reveal two protruding-beaked, bright-orange porcelain ducks. “They’re for you and Ronan,” she insists. “I wanted to give them to you before I go to Amsterdam. I won’t be needing them any more.”

  Folding my arms, I bore steel into her. “What do you mean, before you go to Amsterdam?”

  “I’m not going back to Paris, Jul…Julie.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to live in Amsterdam. I’m staying with my brother Joel and his wife in their apartment. He’s arranged a job for me there in his English school, teaching En
glish as a foreign language.”

  “Sounds riveting.”

  “I’m catching the plane to Schiphol Airport this afternoon at three – in a few hours’ time. I left my bags at the airport. I’m not staying.”

  “What about Ronan?” I wonder, beginning to feel very unsettled.

  “It’s over, Julie.”

  Pause.

  I try to take in the enormity of what she’s just said. “What’s over?”

  “Me and Ronan.”

  “Since when?”

  “Three days ago.”

  “Give it a while.” I laugh. “In a few days his libido will Rise Again.”

  She shakes her head and looks like she’s about to cry. “We had a huge argument. He accused me of abusing his credit card account. His statement from last June didn’t reach our Paris apartment until last week because we’d moved apartment. I was able to account for just under four thousand pounds, which included some purchases I made in Paris. And a lovely Raymond Weil watch I bought him specially to thank him for organizing the exhibition for me there. But he accused me of lying, because there was still about fifteen hundred pounds unaccounted for. Really expensive women’s clothes purchased in Brown Thomas.”

  “I get you.”

  “He was really furious about the money. I told him it must have been…someone else. But he didn’t believe me, because I admitted I’d bought that peach dress on the same day. Things came to a head then, but Ronan was already getting restless. The Chi replica which I painted was a flop. My career went downhill after that. It’s my own fault, Julie – I don’t blame you for doing that to Chi.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I think that’s the real reason Ronan dumped me. Also, he couldn’t handle the idea of a baby; he was probably just staying around until it was born.”

  She informs me that Debbie was born last week.

  She has a baby girl.

  Nicole is saying something to me about her beautiful baby girl now, but I’m barely listening. I put my head back against the glass door and take a deep breath. A baby. I’m beginning to feel this dread, this utter desolation, an inkling of the huge chasm in my world, of the giant empty treasure chest inside me.

  I try to distract myself by focusing on her gift.

  “Aren’t those the very same ducks that brought you and my husband together?”

  She nods reluctantly.

  “So now that it’s all over, you just dump your ducks on me.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  Her fingers curl slowly back over the bright-orange ornaments, enclosing them like a cage.

  “Ronan never really loved me anyway,” she mourns. “I thought when he came to the birth and saw his child, it might be different. But you were right: you’re the one he loves.”

  “I hope it was sheer murder,” says I.

  “I…”

  “The delivery. I hope it was sheer murder.”

  “It wasn’t easy.”

  “Good.”

  “Julie, listen to me: it’s you he loves. He really does.”

  I crack up now. “Amn’t I so lucky? He loves me. Hurray! What am I supposed to do with that useless piece of information? I’ve gone through hell. Have you gone through hell?”

  She just stares at me. “He wants to see you.”

  “I’ll send him a photograph.”

  “He told me himself that he wanted to make his marriage work.”

  “That was just an excuse to get rid of you.”

  “He really meant it, Julie. He repeated it on the plane from Paris this morning.”

  “He was on your plane?”

  “Yes.” She nods earnestly. “He’s coming back for good, Julie. He’s going straight to your home this afternoon.”

  “This is my home. I hope you didn’t give him the address.”

  She swears on her mother’s grave that she didn’t.

  “Good. Now you can go.”

  “Julie, I know that nothing can make up for what happened.”

  “You heard me.”

  “I just want to say…”

  “Go.”

  “I just want to say that I’m sorry about everything.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Please.”

  “I’m not interested. You’ve messed up my life. Now just take your stupid ducks and leave, and this time don’t come back.”

  She stares at my wall of hardness, mouth trembling, as I point to the car park. I feel no pity. She deserves no pity. She’s had my husband’s baby. She’s a whore. I want this disease away from me.

  She bursts into tears before me.

  I stand and watch, cold and unfeeling. I want to be cruel. I want to see her in agony. She ripped through my life and caused me such pain, and she thinks everything will be okay again if she comes here and says sorry and gives me a few ducks and walks away again. Just like that. I hate her.

  I hate myself.

  There’s something else. Something inside me. A feeling within that makes me scared. I am frightened, repulsed by what is on my mind. I am staring at the misery of another woman and all I can think of saying is: “Well, when you’ve finished crying you can get the hell out of here and never come back.” Is that not revenge? Is this what all these months have been about? Revenge? Is this what I want? To make her suffer because she robbed from me a priceless gold chain I had no idea contained a permanently weak link?

  Face to face, looking into her pained eyes, it’s not so easy to hate. I can feel it beginning to evaporate in the wash of her tears.

  I tell her to stop crying. I tell her to come up to my place for a cup of tea and something to eat.

  No, she says, I’m right; she should never have come. She’s only making things worse. She’ll call a taxi immediately on her mobile phone. She will leave now and never bother me again. She’s sorry for bothering me in the first place.

  And I’m standing beside her ordering her to come up to my place before I create a scene.

  She puts her ducks into her pocket and suddenly turns round and walks away. I take a step in her direction, then halt. She stops at the low wall just outside the entrance, semi-concealed by a conifer in a huge earthenware pot. She takes a small rucksack off the wall and swings it on to her back, and now she lifts something else off the wall.

  At once I recognize what it is. It’s a baby’s carrycot. Turning to face me again from a distance of about twelve feet – her cheeks running – she says she’s sorry about everything and she hopes that one day I will have it in my heart to forgive her. Then she turns on her heel.

  “Nicole!”

  She stops. She doesn’t turn round.

  I command her to, in effect, get her and her baby’s sorry ass up to my place before I throw a temper tantrum.

  She turns slightly, head lowered, baby-bearing, forlorn.

  “I’ve already put you through hell,” she says, weeping.

  “At least,” I say, uncertain, “let me see the baby.”

  She turns slowly and reapproaches me.

  “Step inside or else the door will lock.”

  She comes into the lobby. The door bangs shut behind us. She lifts up the carrycot and my heart literally skips a beat. The tiny baby’s dazzling eyes. Her minute, cherubic, snow-white face. As I stroke her cheek, little Debbie’s expression now smudges up like a wrinkled glove.

  I poke my small ringer into her left hand, which curls round it like a baby crab. Her infant odour is upsetting me. Nicole is smiling sadly at me now. She says Debbie likes me.

  “Do you really think so?” I wonder, my heart falling. I gently stroke her tiny, light, fawny head and now she starts wailing like a siren. Is she hungry? That’s what babies do when they’re hungry, isn’t it? Wail? Either that or she’s allergic to me.

  Nicole hands me the carrycot and while I’m holding it steady she lifts Debbie out of it and cuddles her. Then, because she must see how attached I am to events, she asks me if I’d like to hold her.
<
br />   I could easily have said no. I could have said: I’m useless with babies; I drop them like a bad juggler (of course, the whole point is I haven’t dropped even one yet). I could have said: babies make me nervous. They make me unbalanced. Neurotic. Cantankerous. They bring out the psychopath in me. They’re not safe with me, I mass-murder them in my spare time. Give me the mandarin ducks instead – way safer.

  I could have said: Please go away, you wagon, and take bambino with you and die of disease.

  But no, like a fool wallowing in a pool of misery I willingly accept her offer to cradle in my arms the result of my husband’s fornications.

  I can just picture Sylvana admonishing me with raised finger: “This is the best it gets, Julie. They might look nice dolled up in a cradle but the truth is other. Truth is, babies represent being pissed on, squawked at, puked over and shat upon for three years, and thereafter the very same, metaphorically, for a generation.”

  But.

  It doesn’t seem to matter any more; I love holding Debbie. I want to go on holding her for ever. I am amazed at how light this wailing noise box is, wrapped in her tiny pink shawl. I stare at her cute wet eyes and can’t help feeling fantastic.

  In minutes this wailing dream has turned my upper arm into a soggy handkerchief. I’m rocking her gently to and fro, and stroking her beautiful little head. I’m all over her, shushing and purring and murmuring and humming to her like a primeval Italian mama. Soon she calms down.

  “She’s taken to you already.” Nicole smiles.

  “Do you think so?”

  I don’t want to let go of her. This beautiful, fleshy, talcum-powdered, baby-smelling creation is knocking out a hole in my heart. I have both arms wrapped round her, protecting her just underneath my neck, this tiny being who is presently chortling and dribbling and scratching my left ear (does my maternal manner please her?). She’s burrowing her tiny warm head into me, so I kiss it and I am speaking to her, rocking her to and fro very slightly, stroking her forehead ever so gently, smoothing down the thin strands of her fair hair and now I kiss her ever so softly on the cheek and nose, and she’s making a chuckling, breathy, coughing noise, which might well be an infant’s version of a pleased laugh, and I respond by making these cooing noises in her ear.