‘My apologies again for you nearly losing your leg,’ I said to the young Frenchman as he and his family left. ‘And for making you take your pants down on the driveway.’
The Frenchman laughed nervously. ‘No. No. Thank you for a perfect stay,’ he said, and I think he might have meant it. He was an earnest young Parisian who was diligently trying to enjoy every experience of his travels, no matter how appalling.
He and his pretty wife and their adorable two-year-old son had been quietly going around West Cork looking at ‘la nature’ when one day they came back from an outing to the beach earlier than I expected, and Dave the idiot dog was running loose. He hurled himself on the man as he got out of his car.
By the time I got to them, the slender-framed fellow was sprawled across the driver’s seat hyperventilating. The oversized chocolate spaniel had jumped at the car as the door opened and wrestled with the man as he tried to crawl backwards over the gear stick to safety.
With Dave, it’s impossible to say whether he’s trying to greet or guard. I don’t think he knows. In any case, the French chap was limping. Well, it would be truer to say that when I got him standing up and walking, he was dragging one leg behind him, so I insisted he took down his trousers to be certain there was no bite.
