2000 - The Feng-Shui Junkie

by Brian Gallagher

  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.”

  “Four times in total.”

  Mother dislikes being teased when she’s sulking.

  “I promise to be a better daughter in future.” I laugh.

  “I don’t need your charity, Julie. If I need charity I’ll ring up that organization that sends out smiling young people on minibuses to make friends with you. I’m not senile or helpless, you know.”

  “Of course you’re not helpless.”

  “That’s not funny, dear. The point is, I sensed something wasn’t right with you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I even called round.”

  “I know. Ronan told me.”

  “I had to put up with that creeping Jesus for three whole hours.”

  “Although it is his apartment.”

  “You ought to tell him he can’t treat his guests like that; it was so obvious he resented me watching his precious digital TV…”

  “Of course he didn’t.”

  “…despite the fact that he was the one who plonked me in front of it in the first place to shut me up for the evening. And then what does he do?”

  “What.”

  “He goes to his bedroom to read a book for an hour, comes back out at nine o’clock and tells me he wants to see the news.”

  “And?”

  “And? I was watching something else.”

  “But you always watch the news.”

  “I was watching Deconstructing Harry.”

  “But you hate Woody Allen.”

  “Yes, but do you think I was going to let him saunter in like the pink panther and dictate my evening’s pleasure? I point blank refused to switch over. I won’t be bossed around by a brat with one or two manners. All my two friends agree. They think he’s very odd.”

  “All dentists are odd, Mother.”

  “It’s all that staring into people’s mouths. It can’t be good for a person’s mental health.”

  “Dental health.”

  “Well? How was your holiday?”

  “Fine.”

  “Did you make any important decisions?”

  I know what she means. “I’m going to hold off having a baby for a while longer. I have to sort one or two things out first.”

  “Such as?”

  “Just one or two things.”

  Very disapproving gap in the conversation at this point. Mother wants a baby even more than I do. My baby, to be precise.

  “I admit you had me completely fooled,” she says at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You went ahead and let me buy a Mickey Mouse blanket for this wonderful child you told me you’d be having next spring.”

  “Oh, Mother! You didn’t go and buy a Mickey Mouse blanket.”

  “I did.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, you’ll have to find an alternative use for it. Use it on your knees instead. Save on your winter heating bills.”

  “Oh, I see: because I’m a stingy cow and prefer to freeze myself to death in my own house – that gives you the right to tell me you’re planning children so that I get my hopes up and go and invest in a Mickey Mouse blanket?”

  What can you say?

  “It was the same with the pram,” she relentlessly pursues.

  “Oh God! You didn’t go and buy a pram.”

  “I did.”

  “Mother, whatever about the blanket, I never suggested you go out and buy a pram.”

  “No. I suggested it for reasons of shrewd financial planning and you let me go ahead and have it delivered.”

  “I told you not to.”

  “Only because you think I can’t afford it. I’m not poor: I have a valuable home and I’m selling it. I think I can afford a pram.”

  “You’re going on as if you’ll be the mother.”

  “Haven’t you heard? These days it’s grandmothers who get landed with all the rearing.”

  “Can we drop this subject now? For the time being you have a spare pram and I suggest that you use it as a shrubbery.”

  I ask her if she’s still thinking of selling her house. I ask her this because something has just occurred to me.

  “I already told you I am. It gets bigger and colder each year. Either that or I’m getting smaller with age.”

  “And warmer.”

  “A small apartment is just what I need, with plenty of spare cash, which I can lavish on myself for a change.”

  I fall silent for a moment.

  “Mother?”

  “What?” she snaps.

  “I have a proposition.”

  “Is he handsome?”

  “I’d like you to move in here for a while.”

  She doesn’t reply for some time.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You just said you wanted to sell your house.”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, you can stay with us while you look for another place and avoid the worry over bridging finance.”

  When she has partially recovered she says she couldn’t possibly move in with us – even temporarily. And this from the person who never ceases to complain that we never have time for her.

  “I’m serious, Mother.”

  “But you two lead busy lives.”

  She really is a sweetie. “Not so busy that we have no time for you.”

  “Well, it’s very thoughtful of you, love, but I don’t know…I’d only make a nuisance of myself.”

  I detect a sudden tearfulness in her voice.

  “You’re a young couple,” she continues. “You have your own lives. I don’t want to interfere.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “Yes I do. I go on about you having children. I don’t mean to, not really. Whatever you decide – you know I’m behind you.”

  “I know,” I reply, my nostrils turning liquid.

  “And I know I’m too harsh on Ronan.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I am. It’s just that I worry about you. I think of your father and what a sor
ry mess that whole thing was, and I think of young men these days and I suppose I just worry.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  Suddenly I feel a pang of guilt. Why am I inviting Mother to stay? I know why. If I am to be honest, I’m doing it to torment Ronan. That is my primary motive. But Mother can benefit too, can’t she?

  “I want you to call your estate agent today to set the whole thing in motion. I don’t see why you can’t move in immediate-ly.”

  To her progressively weakening protests, I keep insisting. I tell her I’ll be calling over to her place this evening around seven to help her pack a few suitcases.

  She tells me that I am a wonderful daughter and she doesn’t know what she’d do without me. And she says she doesn’t really blame me for forgetting to send her a card last Mother’s Day.

  I end the call.

  Mother is moving in. Ha!

  I can’t wait to tell Ronan the good news.

  14

  Marlborough Street.

  Clearway Travel.

  I’ve been peeping through the glass window into the interior of the premises for the last five minutes, in between travel posters announcing special deals to the Azores, the Caribbean, the Algarve and Prague. I don’t know how much longer I can continue to find these posters fascinating without raising attention.

  Your one is inside.

  How different she looks during the day, without her shades, her lipstick, her bikini. Ronan should come here and have a good peep. She’s like she was in that demure dressing-table photograph. Only a lot worse: she’s got dark circles round her eyes (I can see them from here; they’re like huge muddy hubcaps) and she looks rather depressed and exhausted.

  In short, she’s nothing much to write home about.

  Course, that means nothing, as we women know. I myself am not much to write home about, although to judge by the amount of genital pestering I get, maleside – at work or in the middle of the traffic or walking down the street – you’d expect that a lot of pricks out there would simply die to put pen to paper. But then why should any positive self-image I might have depend on, let’s face it, pricks?

  Still, this woman needs to be, how shall I say…demytholo-gized. Ronan should come here and take a close look through the glass. Demagicated women do wonders to stimulate male impotence. Imagine! A live flesh-and-blood woman with minimal cosmetics plus turn-offs such as spots and odours and feelings and spiritual wounds, and fears and hopes and insecurities: Ronan would run a mile if he guessed.

  Option one: I could go in and glean something about her IQ or lack of it. I know Ronan: zero IQ in a Formula One Ride has the same effect on his libido as a quick plunge in an ice bath. Intelligent women, now – that’s a different matter entirely. A high IQ and I swear Ronan would take her even if she looked like the Macgillicuddy Reeks in glasses.

  I know my own husband: as soon as he gets tired of the sex he won’t stay around for the personality because to him a woman without brainpower hasn’t got personality. I mean, why do you think he married me? Because I’m able to give him shit and it sounds intelligent to him, but then anything with shit in it generally convinces him of intelligent personality and seduces him into acquiescence. Besides, hey, I’m a lawyer!

  Nicole doesn’t look like the kind of person who’s got the backbone to give Ronan shit.

  And anyway, travel agent is hardly the correct image for a man for whom snobbery is a mental illness.

  Option two: I could go in and make a scene. Say, go right up to her and ram my arm down her throat and pull out her entrails by the roots and pin them to the notice board and tell her she needs to take a good look at herself.

  Option three: I could just stand here and bitch. Always an insanely attractive option.

  I extract my pack of fags and light one up. Bad for babies, I know, but there you are. I start dragging intensely.

  What do I know about this woman anyway? Apart from the fact that she’s an unscrupulous, immoral, sluttish lust-dog?

  Watching her deal with a customer now, her face lights up and she looks suddenly prettier. She has so much hair that all you can see is an oval opening at the centre – her cute bunny-rabbit face. Her lips, I notice, are large and red. Ideal for phallic gastronomy.

  She comes across as a bit of a blabbermouth. She’s all smiles and shy expressions and profusions of helpfulness.

  I mean, for God’s sake, she’s a travel agent.

  I have to laugh. Travel agent. What do you bet she calls herself an excursion consultant? She’s hardly board-of-directors material. Imagine! She lives out her days tapping on a keyboard, making bookings and phone calls, sending faxes, receiving e-mail, printing printouts, tidying files and smiling at customers. Oh, and brewing coffee.

  Real glass-ceiling stuff.

  Still, I’m worried. For a start, she paints. And she plays the piano. And she sings along. How cultivated! How civilized! How dignified! Doesn’t go too well with the floozie-in-the-Jacuzzi image. Even if according to her partner she does have this voice you’d rush to bury underneath a manhole.

  I can see the two of them right now. In our lounge. Lights dimmed, crimson wine sparkling from two Waterford crystal glasses and the wine decanter with its as yet unchipped stopper. She, straddled across our coffee table geographically below my couch-engulfed husband, in a bikini bursting at the top like two Virgin balloons about to pop under the razor glares of Ronan’s drooling eyeballs, blowing his preferred melody on his favoured instrument, exemplifying effective embouchure, excellent vibrato and perfect finger technique, he melting into the leather beneath him like a helpless whale.

  It concerns me that in such romantic circumstances, IQ is frankly irrelevant.

  Oh God! I want to die.

  She stands up now. She goes in behind. Must be on coffee and biscuits duty.

  I enter the premises. It is average to plush. I grab a few brochures big enough to hide my muggins behind and I sit myself down on this soft spring-attached seat with armrests to keep you from bouncing off.

  Five minutes later Nicole comes out carrying a tray with three steaming mugs of coffee on it, which she distributes to her colleagues. Then she retakes her seat and presses a buzzer for the next customer.

  She won’t recognize me, I know, because Ronan removed all pictures of me from the apartment. But it’s wise to take precautions so I keep the magazine in front of my head. I have it opened at Greece, Cyprus and Rhodes, where a woman with long blonde hair is posing neo-naked on the beach, her head juxtaposed beside an inset of the Acropolis.

  I flip the page. There’s a white Greek church with those Spanish-type bells on top. But there is no old woman emerging, as you’d expect, dressed in black; there’s no local wedding procession, no patriarch with robes and a funny top hat. Instead there’s this perfect West-European couple, the girl carrying a map and the guy in these ridiculous floral shorts (neither is carrying a camera – that’s how subtle it is). They’re so good-looking, though, it makes you wonder why they don’t just advertise the models and leave out the scenery.

  Gradually, I lower my brochure. The customer sitting immediately in front of the Nicole woman has just stood up. Nicole says goodbye to her and gives her a nice, friendly smile. She picks up the phone now. Straining my ears, I can make out her voice. It is soft and soothing. Like Wella shampoo. It is keen and friendly, and worried and interested, and can’t do enough for you.

  I am feeling more nervous now than ever.

  She’s the nicest three-day lay I’ve ever seen.

  15

  I’m sitting in my car across the road from Clearway Travel, waiting for her to come out for lunch.

  Sure enough, at twelve thirty she emerges from a nearby alleyway, a tall, slender figure in a brown velvet jacket and a tan skirt, wearing shades even though it’s overcast. What with the burgundy envelope case under her arm and the high heels tap-tap-tapping against the pavement, she reminds me of an accountant in drag.

  This isn’t sour grap
es. I’m not afraid of being fair-minded about her. I’m not afraid of admitting that she has nice long legs and a pleasant face and a great head of hair, for such a slut.

  I get out of my car and follow her up the street.

  She disappears into a newsagents.

  I stop at a shop window.

  She comes back out a minute later with a copy of Image magazine under her arm. And she’s got this lollipop stuck in her gob, which makes watching her a treat. She drags me through the city centre, down O’Connell Street, towards the bird-shatted black statue of Daniel O’Connell.

  From a safe distance of one foot behind her I am trying to sniff out her brand of perfume. Such things tell a lot.

  She stops suddenly to do some window shopping and I almost bump straight into her. I proceed past her and duck into a nearby porch. She is inspecting the posters of a competitor travel agency. Market research? This is impressive. And she the glorified coffee grinder.

  A few minutes later she proceeds up the street past me and I fall into motion behind her again, still dying to locate the brand of perfume. I close in once again. I’m getting White Linen. No. Charlie? Hm, difficult one, that, when you’re dealing with this end of the scale.

  God, though, I am so tempted here and now to shove her off the pavement in the path of an oncoming CIE bus. And shadow Ronan to the funeral celebrations, surprising him over my Calvin Klein sunglasses with a graveside eyebrow smirk that reads: this is just a warning.

  She turns her head to the right and I duck left. This is a dangerous business. I fall back. She leads me across O’Connell Bridge, thronged with tourists and prams, and mis-fed Dublin-ers. She muddles her way through the human blizzard, stopping and starting, and avoiding and hesitating, and moving forward by degrees.

  A few minutes later we hit pedestrianized and busy Grafton Street. I’m on to my second cigarette. She leads me to the top of the street, through the gigantic entrance of Stephen’s Green shopping centre on the corner, a huge rectangular edifice with three floors of absurdly white galleries, columns, arches and glass roofing that reminds you of a wedding cake.

  She drags me through a succession of clothes shops. In the first, she dives head first into a loose lingerie bin, but the knickers and bras on offer are too cheap (decency-wise) for her liking – which is curious. In the second she gets into this conversation with the shop assistant about bra-strap rashes, while I contemplate nightdresses behind a nearby pillar. In the third she purchases black stockings, suspenders, panties and a few Wonder brassieres – not a drop of lemon-yellow in sight.