She seems a bit taken aback.

"The point is, Nicole, can I trust you? Not even to tell Ronan, for example?"

"Of course you can." She frowns severely. "I won't tell a soul."

I sip my brandy.

Concerned, she asks if everything is okay with me.

"Well...I do happen to have one or two marital problems."

"I know you do," she says kindly. "I don't suppose you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"I never even asked his name."

"Helmut."

Silence.

"Oh, that's..."

"Please don't say it's a nice name, Nicole."

"It's...foreign, is it?"

"Yes. Anyway, we're just having an ongoing..."

She nods reverentially. "It can't be easy."

"...an ongoing difference of opinion: Helmut wants to buy an aquarium. I don't. I don't think I'd make a great carer of fish."

"Of course you would, Julianne," she strenuously objects. "Goldfish are no trouble at all. They stimulate really healthy chi chi. Did you know that whatever is happening in your life is reflected in your fish tank? For instance, if your fish go all slow and dopey it means that in your own life you are becoming lethargic or..."

The woman is unstoppable.

"...and if they start eating each other," she adds with laughable earnestness, "it's a sign that there's too much stress in your life."

Hold on a second.

"Surely if they start eating each other, Nicole, it's a sign that there's too much stress in their their life? Or even that they're, like, hungry?" life? Or even that they're, like, hungry?"

She laughs, in a nice, innocent way, almost as if nothing I say can put her off. "Fish also represent money and marital happiness," she confidently asserts. "A fish tank would do the world of good for your relationship with your husband. I'm serious."

"That I doubt."

"It's true. Really."

"Ronan has a fish tank, hasn't he?"

She nods, puzzled.

"Well, if a fish tank is so good for marriages, how come he says his marriage is over?"

But she blindly continues, as if inoculated against common sense: "It's not just marital happiness; an aquarium can also improve your finances."

"Nicole, can we perhaps change the subject?"

But she insists.

If you place a fish tank in the career area, she harps on, it can have an incredibly positive effect on the amount of money in your bank account. She explains what the 'career area' is. The floor plan of any dwelling is divided up into nine traditional areas, for instance, career, wealth, fame, relationship, health, knowledge...

"And children," she adds with a vulnerable look.

"Children."

She nods, moist-eyed for some reason, then goes back out into the hall, saying she'll show me the 'career area'. I follow her out.

"Most of the energy in the house comes through the front door so the career area is always found here. It represents your vocation, your life path."

"That's something I wasn't aware of."

"Your life path is like a river. Water is a strong element. All this means that you should have fish near the entranceover here, for example..."

She puts her hand on the low bookcase, but I return to the lounge, tired already. She follows me back inside.

"Seriously, Julianne, you should get an aquarium. It would be really good for your marriage. Even if it were just one fish."

"Are you suggesting a threesome?"

"How do you mean?"

"Me, Helmut and a clownfish."

She grins. "It could be your new seabed."

I actually burst out laughing at this.

I exit through the french windows, mentally noting that the key is in the handle. She follows me out to the balcony.

She erupts.

She is enraptured by the view of the park. Enchanted by the colours, the flowers, the trees, the bright water with the white swans and their slender S-shaped necks, the lemon-lime grass, the red-brick wall bordering the park to the right, the red roofs, the large blue basin of the sky...

"I have to paint this."

"I'm sorry?"

"Julianne," she says, almost out of breath, "I have to paint this. It's like paradise."

"You want to paint my park?"

"Would it be okay? My canvas and easel are down in my car."

"You want to make a pirate copy of my beautiful park?"

"Julianne." She turns to me again.

"What?"

"I have an even better idea."

"What?"

"You don't have to agree to this if you don't want toyou'll probably think it's crazy."

She gives me this timid gazelle look first.

"Go on."

"What would you say if I began my painting of Chi Chi up here? For the inspiration?" up here? For the inspiration?"

I avert my eyes to the park, chewing my cheek. She thinks I will be happy to stand here and watch her as she masterstrokes a Chi Chi replica on to her canvas, and uses it as a basis for getting rich quick and laid by Ronan even quicker. replica on to her canvas, and uses it as a basis for getting rich quick and laid by Ronan even quicker.

"You're asking me if you can paint Chi Chi. Is that right? Here on my balcony?"

"Pleasel" she pleads.

"But what about your hair?"

"It can wait," she says, begging.

"But a copy will never be the same as the original."

"I could always try."

I extract a packet of John Player Blue from the inside pocket of my new black jacketto give me something to do as insurance against going crazy. I pull out a cigarette and poke it into my mouth, locate a box of matches and light up, one hundred per cent certain that Feng Shui Feng Shui flip-outs like her ought to be lecturing me right at this moment about how bad nicotine is for world harmony. flip-outs like her ought to be lecturing me right at this moment about how bad nicotine is for world harmony.

Thinking about her request, though, does it really matter what she paints on my damn balcony as long as I get to lock her out and set up a rendezvous in the next hour or so with her principal kick?

"Well, I can see you're serious," I tell her, waving out the match and flicking it over the balcony.

"Would your husband mind terribly?"

"He'd be amused."

48 48.

Nicole is a woman of great charms, as we've seen.

She's managed to persuade me to stand here like some unemployed waster holding aloft a large colour photo of Chi Chi for her to paint. for her to paint.

The...artist herself is in white overalls. Her eyes are darting constantly from the photo to the canvas, which she has pinned to a tall wooden easel. On a small table next to the window are a line of brushes and paint canisters, and pegs and paper, and a bottle of white spirit. Her new painting is beginning to reveal the shadowy forms of eight fish in a pattern analogous to the original Chi Chi. She says it won't be perfect, but adds that since her French contacts appear to be more interested in her 'impressionistic style', the fact that it will be only an approximation to the original should not be catastrophic.

So there she is, jabbing her brush into the palette in her left hand like she's on speed, making countless deft marks on the canvas, though you'd imagine she'd take greater care, considering she's having a go at fooling the whole Parisian art world into believing that Chi Chi number one never actually ended its days inside a grill. number one never actually ended its days inside a grill.

Two details: Nicole has this permanent frown stuck on her brow and she's constantly chewing her lip.

But a more interesting aspect of her work mode is this: as she paints she is unable to keep her mouth shut. Her conversation, as usual, is like the contents of a Christmas stocking: varied, colourful and full of surprises.

After a while, though, as you might expect, she touches down once again in Feng-Shui Feng-Shui fantasyland, so I've started giving off these please-stop-boring-me smoke signals. fantasyland, so I've started giving off these please-stop-boring-me smoke signals.

Nicole heaves this big sigh.

"What?" I say.

"Oh, nothing...it's just that the sun has moved."

She dabs the brush into the blue paint andfollowing the photo carefullyshe starts to paint grass clumps in the background. In blue. I feel like pointing out to her, naive twit that she is, that grass does not generally come in blue. But I have a real horror that she'll start quoting Ronan's expressionist theories at me.

Again, she dabs her brush into the blue.

Angrily this time.

"There is is something the matter, Nicole." something the matter, Nicole."

"You won't believe this, Julianne."

"Try me."

"Guess what Ronan's wife did."

"What?"

"Painting these fish reminded me just now."

"What did she do?"

"She killed half the fish in their aquarium."

"He told you that, did he?"

"Yes."

Filthy liar. They were already dead. More or less.

"And you'll never guess how she killed them."