I can feel tears coming on.

"Julie, you're not yourself. We should meet."

"I'm not not myself," I wail. "I feel like I'm going nuts! Why are you laughing?" myself," I wail. "I feel like I'm going nuts! Why are you laughing?"

"Of course you're not going nuts. You're one of the most balanced people I know."

"You're crazy."

"I mean it."

She's behaving like I'm some kind of saint who missed her vocation. Yes, a saint who smashes and steals and ends wildlives, but a saint none the less.

Problem is, she never smashed a living-room in her life. She never ice-picked a Porsche, tore up an art book, liquidized a squadron of tropical fish, stole a car or induced heat suffocation in a cat.

QED: she's in no position to grasp depravity.

So I end the call, with the footnote that she's not to worry about me, or feel responsible for me, or imagine that she has to come to me and hold my hand.

I replace my phone in my pocket and start walking, hunched, along the exhaust-choked quay, towards the statue of the Great Liberator. As I walk, I press my phone for messages. There are six. Everybody wants me, it seems.

I'm a crazo and I'm in demand.

My solicitor with another brief; a colleague from work; the estate agent with a highly reassuring titbit about the heating system in my new apartment being banjaxed but not to worry because 'it's not a problem'.

Mother. She's commanding me to call her back at once because she's worried about me. And I should try to consider the feelings of a frail old lady for a change. To quote.

Ronan, with a grouchy message informing me that he's just arrived home from the airport and is wondering where his famous Porsche is.

And finallyguess who?

With the following message, spoken, I must admit, in a voice that has a lovely, cheery, hesitant, humorous lilt to it: "Julianne...em...you're not there so I'm just leaving a message, if that's okay, em, did you get cut off yesterday when you called me in Paris? You seemed a bit upset...anyway, just to say I'm back in Dublin now and, if you want to give me a call some time, that'd be great, em, we could even meet up or something...anyway, I'll sign off now, Julianne. See you soon. Bye!"

41 41.

Why do I put myself through this?

Nicole just picks up the phone and tells me she wants to meet me and what do I do? I come buzzing after her like a dragonfly after a turd.

As I wait for her, I'm sitting here on Dun Laoghaire pier on a hot bench drenched in sunlight, facing into the blue bay bend of Sandycove, a gentle breeze tugging at my earlobes, the sun a warm facecloth on my countenance.

Of course, she's late as usual. Half an hour late. It makes the agony worse. It makes it feel like I'm dying for Ronan, thirsting for him. Pining and yearning for him. Craving him like I haven't savaged a bar of Bournville in months. Spluttering and gasping for him.

And of course I am. It's so woefully pathetic it's undignified.

I mean, I still haven't reduced my wedding ring to a sprangle under a lump hammer. What does that say?

This is what I should have done instead: I should have sent Max's remains by overnight parcel delivery to Nicole's B&B (there's nothing in the rule book about keeping dead cats in B&Bs). With a short regret note attached. And had my mobile number changed.

(Besides, a balcony is no place for a cat. The stink is already beginning to escape despite the old tarpaulin I hauled over it. I can only hope and pray Mother does not go out to the veranda to test her fear of heights.) Here she is at last.

She's in a light-blue sweater and white trousers. She's wearing shades and her trademark fragile smile. Her hair seems even more golden than before. She looks relaxed and well.

She sits down beside me and crosses her legs over her conjoined hands so that they are squeezed in between. She apologizes for being so late. Then she smiles warmly and thanks me for seeing her at such short notice. After we get over the unnecessary formalities I go straight for the jugular.

"Actually," she replies, staring out to sea as if there's something on her mind, "it started on a bad note."

"Don't stop there."

"We were invited to dinner by Lucien Morel yesterday evening in his apartment near the Jardin du Luxembourg. He's that art dealer who lectured Ronan in aesthetics at the Sorbonne. It's his former university in the centre of Paris..."

Yes yes yes I know. It's where Ronan went for two years. It gave him an appreciation for art, and posing, and bullshitting, and generally damaged his personality.

"He was flirting with Lucien Morel's girlfriend behind my backshe's an art critic with the Parisien Parisien newapaper." newapaper."

"How awful."

"It really was. I was in the main room with Lucien who was telling me about opportunities in the Parisian art worldof course I didn't have the guts to tell him about what happened to Chi Chi when suddenly his phone went off and I went out into the kitchen, and I saw them together. I can't even remember her name..." when suddenly his phone went off and I went out into the kitchen, and I saw them together. I can't even remember her name..."

"I'm sure he can't either."

"...they were in the kitchen by the window and he had his fingers inside the bra-strap on her shoulder."

"Maybe it was hurting her?"

Nicole is staring wildly at me, as if I should be somehow horrified by her recent predicament. "I went straight back into the living-room, Julianne. It was so humiliating."

"Dump him."

"As it turns out, we made up."

She tells me that from eleven o'clock on Tuesday night to ten o'clock the following morning they made 'love' three times.

I can just see it. The two of them doing sixty-niners on a pair of cheap French flannel sheets in an expensive hotel room in central Paris at two in the morning, experimenting with options from a variegated oriental menu of positions from which my husband finally chooses one, highly compatible with the survival of the species.

"Nicole, I don't want to be rude but I'd rather not hear about your sexual exploits with Ronan. Talk about something else. Tell me what Morel thought about your other paintings."

"Well...I don't want to boast..." she says.

"Oh, boast away."

"Well'she hesitates'he said he personally loved them."

"He was being polite."

"Julianne..."

"Either that or he was trying to get into your knickers."

Noticeable gap in the conversation here. I ask her what the art critic of the Parisien Parisien thought of her other work. thought of her other work.

"She's just a hack." She sulks. "She knows nothing about art."

"Jesus, would you listen to the modesty."

It's Ronan's fault, of course, putting these pretentious ideas into her squashy head.

"I wasn't going to say this, but Lucien told me he thinks he may have found a buyer for the painting entitled Foetus Foetus."

This whacks me on the head. "You're joking me."

"I'm serious."

"How did you manage to pull off that freak occurrence?"

Nicole frowns uncomprehendingly. "Julianne, did I say something to annoy you?"

I shut up now and let her whine. She tells me she wishes I wouldn't imply she wasn't capable of it, because it's bad for her self-confidence.

She's being assertive for once in her life. That's a positive development, even if it's over painting endeavours that would make a three-year-old doodler look like Picasso. I saw that stuff up in her attic. I saw it all. 'Art'! Are we on the same planet here or what? I mean, are we even talking talking about the same planet? about the same planet?

"Anyway," she adds after a short pause, "I don't really believe I'm as good as everyone says."

Oh Jesus get me out of here.

I stand up abruptly and we start walking in silence along the pier, the harbour water to our left shimmering in the reflected light of the sky. Yachts loll about in the wide basin, the same ones you can see and hear from our apartment, gathered like variously flavoured triangular lollipops, tinkling notes in the light wind blow.

After a while she tells me that she made three resolutions while she was in Paris. The first, she says, is that she wants to live in that fabulous city. Ronan says he's also tempted to live there. He said that going back was a reminder.

"Of what?"

"The first time he fell in love."

"With his wife?" I shoot back.

"No." She sighs. "A Frenchwoman."

I am a hopeless romantic idiot. I really believed I was the first person Ronan fell in love with. And why did I believe this? Because Ronan told me I was.

I have to get home. Where I can crawl on all fours to my private waste-paper basket and chuck myself in.

But she doesn't give me a minute.

"My second resolution is that I've decided to become a Feng Shui Feng Shui consultant." consultant."

I turn my head away land look at the colourful boats.

"I mean," she clarifies, "in my spare time."

"And that's supposed to make it okay?"

"It's very big in Paris," she says.

"Yes, well with a population of up to eight million..."

This seems to confuse her. "No. I mean Feng Shui Feng Shui is big in Paris." is big in Paris."

"Oh, I see what you mean."

"We were in a bookshop in Boul Mich, as Ronan calls it. It had loads of books on Feng Shui Feng Shui. Ronan translated from some of the introductions, because my French isn't perfect. I bought one book called Feng Shui et le Bonheur Feng Shui et le Bonheur. That means"

"I know what it means."

"His French is fantastic."

"It's not bad."

"Sorry?"

"French is an interesting language."

"He said that Feng Shui Feng Shui could be seen as an aesthetic moment in the course of the great Hegelian Dialectic towards the Absolute." could be seen as an aesthetic moment in the course of the great Hegelian Dialectic towards the Absolute."

I'm staring at her now, searching for bye-bye-brain signs.

But suddenly she bursts out laughing at the ridiculousness of it. "He can be so silly!" she shrieks, unable to stop giggling.

"He's an absolute jerk," I reply.

"But he thought my Feng Shui Feng Shui idea was a good one. He said I could advertise my services in the papers and magazines. I already have a mobile phone so I'm set up. The idea is that you go into other people's houses and for a small fee you give them" idea was a good one. He said I could advertise my services in the papers and magazines. I already have a mobile phone so I'm set up. The idea is that you go into other people's houses and for a small fee you give them"

"What's your third resolution?" I rudely interrupt.

Recovering her dislocated centre of gravity, Nicole tells me she's come up with this plan. She says she has decided to repaint Chi Chi.

I look away.

Then I look back.

"What the hell do you mean?"

"I mean"

"I thought Chi Chi was over? Finito? How can you repaint something that's dead?" was over? Finito? How can you repaint something that's dead?"

"I was thinking of repainting Chi Chi from the professional photograph I had taken of it. It's the perfect solution. I know Ronan will agree when he finds out." from the professional photograph I had taken of it. It's the perfect solution. I know Ronan will agree when he finds out."

"You mean, you're going to pass off a copy as the original."