In a very quiet voice, Sylvana wonders why I am dragging myself through the dogshit. She wants to know what my agenda is, meeting Nicole like this and taking her cat.

I turn round to my friend. "I'll be fine. You're going on as if Nicole is some sort of monster. She's not so bad."

She erupts when I say this. So I turn back round to my snacks and for want of something better to do I sprinkle on a few more sesame seeds. "She's no threat any more," I explain. "When Ronan discovers what happened to Chi Chi in his surgery he'll just dump her." in his surgery he'll just dump her."

"What happened to Chi? Chi? " "

"I burnt it. It's unrecognizable."

By the time I've finished recounting the details to her she's calmed down a little. "Nicole is convinced that chi chi brought them both together and now that I've burnt brought them both together and now that I've burnt Chi Chi the paintingshe thinks it has to pull them apart." the paintingshe thinks it has to pull them apart."

Sylvana makes a disreputable sound behind me. "She's one of those."

"One of what?"

"She's a Feng Shui Feng Shui junkie." (She pronounces it junkie." (She pronounces it fung shway. fung shway. ) ) I shrug, feeling a strange resistance creep up inside me. "I suppose you could call her that."

"This chasing after alternative forms of comfort. Why can't people just grow up?"

"I've nothing against people seeking happiness."

"Through chi? chi?" she scoffs.

"Whatever."

"She's pathetic. Why can't you see it?"

"She's just herself."

"You do realize, Julie, that you are actually defending the woman who is presently bonking your husband."

"Presently, she's sitting in a B&B in Dalkey like a sweet-smelling dump site. Alone."

"As far as you know."

She's trying to get me to admit something again. I don't even want to know, so I just bring the plate over to the table and tell her to enjoy her favourite snacks. I then inform her that I'm having a bath and I just walk out.

I'm soaking away in the Jacuzzi, up to my neck in scented froth, bubbling and burbling away. I brought in my gigantic mid-Eighties ghetto-blaster, which has become something of a design classic with its chrome surfaces and bulky knobs and twin cassette deck and wide trunk handle to elevate it to the top of your shoulder and jaunt down Grafton Street in your shades and your tigerskin boots, and your chopstick-short black miniskirt.

Just to get my mind off things, I'm listening to Fatboy Slim telling us about doing something revolting in heaven, which I won't go into right now.

Sylvana bursts through the door.

She plies her way through the steam haze, wielding my cellphone and a wry face. "It's her."

"Mother?"

"That Nicole one."

I eye the phone like it's a dead rat. I stick out my dripping, soapy hand and take it from her. She leaves.

"Yes?"

"Julianne!"

"What."

"I just called to say hi!"

"Hi."

"Is it a bad time?"

"Not at all. It's just that I'm in a hot bath, covered with lemon shower gel and there's shampoo foam stuffed in my ears, nose and throat."

Pause.

She laughs like a soprano into the phone, then apologizes profusely for ringing at this inappropriate time, begging my forgiveness and wondering if she should call back later instead.

There's something so naive, almost, in her response that I calm down a bit and tell her to wait just a second. I put down the phone on a ledge and spray my head with water from the nozzle, and try to wash the shampoo out of my eyes and my aural canal.

Then I grab the phone again and lie back down in the bath until the warm water massages its fingers over my shoulders. "Did Ronan call?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Just now, from his car."

"Are you seeing him tonight?"

"No, he said he has to put in time with his wife tonight."

"He makes marriage sound like purgatory."

"She's a terrible drain on him. He's so unrelaxed at the moment."

"Did you tell him about Chi? Chi? " "

"I couldn't."

"So Paris is still on?"

She doesn't reply.

"Is it?"

"We're going tomorrow morning," she says quietly, as if she's just told me something gruesome.

"Don't go."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't get on that plane with him, Nicole."

"But..."

"Are you superstitious?"

"I suppose I am but..."

"I dreamt something would happen, Nicole. Something bad."

Silence.

"What?"

"There was a plane crash."

"Really?"

"I dreamt I was in this big, empty house with nothing in it but a TV. I was looking for Max everywhere because it was feeding time and naturally the last place I checked was the TV room. Eventually I found him sitting in front of the telly watching a news bulletin. There were pictures of a wrecked aeroplane fuselage. The interesting part was this."

"What?"

"Max was whining."

"Are you serious?"

"Absolutely. The way cats do when they lose a loved one. I'm telling you..."

"How is is Max, anyway?" Max, anyway?"

"Nicole, I forbid you to go to Paris."

"But..."

"You do realize that we are surrounded by spiritual forces."

"I agree with that."

"I mean, you believe in Feng Shui Feng Shui, don't you?" Believe it or not, I pronounce it fung shway fung shway.

"Of course I do."

"And you accept that planes are bad Feng Shui? Feng Shui? " "

"How do you mean?"

Yes. How do do I mean? I scour my memory of the I mean? I scour my memory of the Feng Shui Feng Shui book I recently skimmed. Plenty about cats and fish and colours and plants. Nothing about planes, though. book I recently skimmed. Plenty about cats and fish and colours and plants. Nothing about planes, though.

"Look, Nicole. I'm psychic: I get these vibes. Visions. I've a really bad feeling about this flight. Don't play dice with death."

"God, you really have me worried now."

"It's in the family," I bullshit on. "My mother was a medium."

"Oh, no!"

"So I know what I'm talking about."

"But..." she stalls, "what if...what if the plane doesn't crash and Ronan manages to clinch a deal for my other paintingsthen I know I'll be thinking, you silly thing, you should have gone after all."

"I'll tell your family," I add, perfectly maliciously. "I'll call your father's home and tell them you're going out with a married man. I'll tell Harry where Ronan works...I'll tell his wife...I'll..."

Now I have her laughing hysterically.

She probably thinks I've been out on a binge.

"That's what I love about you." She chuckles. "You're so funny. I wish I knew more people like you."

I do not reply.

"Julianne? Are you there...?"

I still do not reply.

"It's not that I don't appreciate what you're saying..."

"Don't go to Paris, Nicole; 747s have had a bad run recently." have had a bad run recently."

"I know that you probably think I'm stupid and foolish..."

"Did I say that?"

"...but I'll just have to put my life in the hands of...God..."

"God. You speak of God? God? " "

"Fate. I have to go to Paris, Julianne. I've no choice."

She's pleading with me for understanding.

Angrily, I switch off the phone and drop it on to the floor, and turn on my tummy and sink to the bottom of the bath and hold myself underwater like a tropical marine fish, balefully beholding the murky grey. It's hard to cry down here, it's hard to feel sad when you're swallowed up by warm water. What a nice way this would be to die.

I lie like this for a minute, until my chest begins to burst. I force myself to stay down. Now there's this strange garbled sound, which reminds me of the noise a cellphone makes.

My heart makes this skipping, lurching movement and I rise up like the great Leviathan, and the edges of my body are awash with waterfalls. Panting like a beach dog, I stretch my dripping arm down to the floor and pick up my phone again and collapse back into the bathtub, exhausted.