Rough Cut by Owen Carey Jones

dream, his fantasy, had actually become a reality, that he had become the proud owner of a luxury motor yacht. But he realised that with the boat came many responsibilities. For one thing, maintaining and running a boat of that size would not be cheap. With her fifteen foot beam, the Esprit was far too big to moor in the canal by the apartment. The berth at the Capitainerie alone would cost him around two thousand euros a month. And then there would be insurance premiums, repairs, fuel. His head was spinning with all the things that were going to cost him money.
       Buying the boat had taken most of the money he had received from his father and the more Jacques thought about it, the more he realised that he would have to put into practice what he had always told Yvonne; he would have to make the boat earn its keep. More than that, it would have to earn his keep too. His mind eased a little as he worked out in his head that it would not take too many charters to cover the costs and he relaxed, resolving to go that morning to see Gilles at the charter agency in the Place des Artisans. Gilles would be able to advise him.
       An hour or so later, Jacques walked into Gilles’ office. He was slightly nervous but confident that he would soon have the solution to the problem of how to pay for the maintenance and running of the Esprit de Jacques.
       The charter agency’s small office was wedged between the tower which kept vigil over the main entrance to the town and a restaurant. Inside there were two desks, at one of which Gilles was sitting going through the papers in front of him and occasionally signing his name. To the right of Gilles, a young man sat at another desk. He was Gilles’ assistant and it was he who looked after the agency when Gilles was not there. Between and slightly behind the two desks a flight of stairs led to another office on the floor above. In the window facing onto the Place, there was a large display board covered with photographs and details of boats which the agency had available for charter. Above the centre of the room, a large fan rotated lazily, helping the warm air to circulate.
       Gilles looked up from his paperwork as Jacques approached him tentatively.
       “Bonjour, Jacques. What can I do for you?” he asked.
       Jacques sat on one of the two chairs in front of the desk. “I’m looking for a bit of advice,” he said.
       “Advice? Advice about what?” asked Gilles as he adjusted his large frame, muscular from regular weight training at the gym in Sainte Maxime.
       “About chartering a boat, of course. What else?”
       “OK, Jacques. What did you have in mind? An inflatable? A rigid?”
       “No, no, you don’t understand. I don’t want to hire a boat. I want you to arrange for my boat to be chartered.”
       “You want me to arrange charters for your boat.” Gilles looked up at the fan as it made a leisurely rotation. “Jacques, it is usual for a person to own a boat before he hires it out. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t got a boat, have you?”
       “Yes. Yes, I have. I bought it a few days ago.”
       “OK, Jacques, so you have a little boat, good. The smallest size we deal with is five metres. How big is yours?”
       “It’s…” Jacques knew Gilles wasn’t going to believe him, “It’s a twenty metre Johnson with twin Detroit nine hundred diesels,” he blurted out.
       Jacques watched apprehensively as Gilles coloured with anger and rose from his chair. He rested his hands on the desk and leaned towards Jacques.
       “All right, Jacques, you’ve had your little joke,” he said threateningly. “Now push off back to your petrol pumps and leave me to get on with my work.”
       “But…” protested Jacques, rising from his seat and backing away slightly. Gilles was a big man and although Jacques was hardly a six stone weakling himself, he had always found Gilles intimidating and never more so than at that