A Ship in the Wind - Fat Dogs and French Estates - page 87

At that point James reappeared with monsieur who was looking sterner by the minute.
“You must to come now to my study. It is where I relax,” he said.
I didn't feel that activity and this man could possibly go together so I was intrigued to
discover what it took to unwind him.
“Excellent monsieur , we'd love to see it,” I replied.
At this, Jack stared at me pointedly and hissed, “For God's sake stop being so keen.
Let's get on with it and set sail for another port as quickly as possible.”
“Okay, okay but we have to have a quick look in there. It's his pride and joy.”
Ignoring his unintelligible response, we followed monsieur into his study.
“Bloody hell, it's a set from the Pirates of the Caribbean !” whispered Jack.
He was quite right. The room was illuminated by two huge fish tanks that were pos-
itively bulging with shoals of iridescent fish. Other than that it was hideous. The window
was round, small and offered very little in the way of natural light. This was mainly be-
cause it was filled in with differently coloured pieces of stained glass: blue, green, purple
and off-white. The room was made murkier still because two of the walls were green and
two were darkish blue. Fortunately the ceiling was white, otherwise, to continue the naut-
ical theme, we'd have been sunk.
Soft furnishings included a couple of easy-to-trip-over floor cushions and a substantial
cocoon-style raffia armchair that was suspended from the ceiling by a large chain. This was
accompanied at floor level by a ship-sized anchor upon which a lump of gnarled driftwood
(I think) had been fixed. It formed a coffee table which had a conch shell on top.
However, the pièce de résistance was the creation in the centre of the room. It was
a near life-sized model of three skeletal figures, each holding a staff and clinging on to
one another apparently trying to escape from a kraken of some kind. At first I thought it
was completely made of metal, but then monsieur flicked a switch which illuminated light
bulbs fixed in the eyes and staffs of each figure. It was then that I realised this horror was
masquerading as a standard lamp. I didn't noticed him loom up behind me and jumped in-
voluntarily when he spoke.
“This is my sanctuary. I come here to think.”
Even I couldn't think of an appropriate reply to this.
“Oh, how interesting,” I managed to say and rushed out to find Jack who had escaped
to the hall.
“I don't reckon it was just the wind that caused her to leave him,” he said as I joined
him.
Our exit from the blue oblivion was rewarded by a refreshing return to normality. I
cheered up as we toured the upstairs rooms which were spacious, mostly fitted with large
picture windows and had nice standard magnolia-coloured walls. Furnishings were con-
ventional, too, apart from the unusually high number of volumes on la loi sur le divorce
(the divorce law) which were strewn about like scatter cushions.