An Irishman's Diary

There are many ways of meeting new people and to be introduced at gunpoint is one of them. This is uncommon, yes, but perfectly plausible - the trick is to avoid getting shot.

The only occasion I ever found myself staring down the snout of a shooter was in France seven summers ago when the owner of a restaurant who had just given me a job introduced me to his family.

"Young man," he said, pointing a weapon at my cranium. "This is one of my nine rifles - and this is my son's fiancee, Celine." Delightfully charming as the lady was, I still believe that my decision to keep contact with her to a minimum was the correct one.

Indeed I learned later on that the boss, Christian, who was a patrician in the old style, had once shot his chef in the backside with an air rifle - for a laugh. The word was that the chap couldn't sit for a month afterwards.

Lurid tattoo

Christian was a libidinous hulk of a man who generally behaved like a spoiled baron from the Middle Ages. On his chest he sported a lurid tattoo of a naked woman embracing a large thorny rose. He had two great virtues: hospitality and a love of the unpredictable. When I arrived at his door looking for work his reaction was to give me the job of sous-chef almost immediately.

He apologised for not having a spare room in the house, but said I could pitch a tent in the back garden. This was very welcome, for the restaurant was in the middle of a forest which was miles from the nearest village and a good three hours from Nantes, where I first stayed.

Christian instructed his chef, Patrick (pronounced "patchreek") to teach me how to make every dish on the menu and said that his wife, Christine, would help me with the language.

Progress was rapid on both fronts. Christine made a list of words every day and after lengthy shifts in the kitchen with Patrick, a wizard with food, I was soon up to speed on la cuisine Francaise.

Patrick's absolute devotion to the boss earned him a title in French akin to "Christian's Fool". A man with no family of his own, he had been a bit of a blackguard in his youth and had spent years in and out of reform institutions. He escaped on three occasions but was recaptured each time.

To "profit from life" was the most important thing in his world although the consequences had often been misfortunate. A few years earlier in Paris, when his body and mind were being eaten away by heroin, a friend's husband almost finished him off by kicking him down several flights of stairs. He went into a coma and was lucky not to have died. When he emerged from the sleep, he experienced something of an epiphany and decided to leave Paris for a quiet life by the sea.

Late-night feasts

Now food was his thing - and that, precisely, was the link with Christian, for they both believed that a day without a piece de resistance was a day wasted. The upshot of this was that the entire summer was like one very long feast, a feeling compounded by the fact that dinner took place only after the restaurant closed at about 1 a.m.

Strange characters would turn up late at night for these extravagant affairs. Guests included jockeys, fishermen, retired footballers, the odd dodgy businessmen and at least one bad singer. They would gorge - with a relish similar to that of schoolboys launching into stolen sultanas - on oysters, starling pate, wild boar stew, horse steak or whatever else was going. The local vet was probably the most indulgent. Using the illness of one of the dogs as an excuse, he turned up every night for a fortnight and never left before getting completely drunk. No-one was surprised when the dog finally died, although Patrick, who was devoted to the animal, took it badly.

There were other heavy dealings with fowl and beasts. A lame chicken drowned after it fell into the swimming pool and another was mauled by a dog - Patrick twisted its neck to relieve it of its misery. And Christian was involved in a grandmaster game of wits with a "friend" over the ownership of three racehorses. The denouement, I heard, involved a dead-of-night dash "to take what was mine" and a quick sale shortly afterwards from the back of a lorry. Christian bought a thoroughbred foal with the proceeds.

I was content, meanwhile, to investigate whether or not my tin whistle music would charm the snakes in the garden. It didn't.

As for firearms, I had another encounter with a French gunman 18 months ago, when I was living in what was said to be a rather salubrious part of Paris.

Anxious man

Sitting in my local cafe early one Friday evening, I noticed a very anxious looking man trying to lock the door behind him when he came in. When the patron challenged him, our friend ran to the counter, jumped over it, and grabbed a full bottle of port, holding it like a truncheon. "Call the police. Call the police," he shouted from behind the bar.

At that, a gang of about 11 hard men swept noisily through the door. "You're dead," one of them yelled at the man, who was quaking. "We want our money."

Chairs were hurled and knives were drawn. One man - no joke - was even making threatening gestures with my umbrella.

I was much more concerned, however, about the pistol-toting gangster with the angry eyes who was waving his weapon menacingly at the man with the bottle of port. I will never forget the startling, silver sheen of that gun, the barrel of which I did not look down, for it seemed altogether wiser to seek refuge under the pinball machine.