Free The Restoration Artist by Lewis DeSoto Page B

you’d be coming. The cottage is the last one along the lane.” Simon pointed out the direction.
    I’d been told that all the cottages were named after Corsair ships, and I passed La Belle Poule, La Lutine, La Junon, La Jolie Brise, before reaching La Minerve, each one with its name painted on a tile embedded in the stone next to the front doors. The big key Père Caron had given me slipped neatly into the lock. The door opened into a spacious square room. By the light from the doorway I located the windows and unlatched the wooden shutters, flooding the room with sunlight.
    I had expected to find something rather ramshackle, but the room was clean and tidy. A much-scrubbed wooden table with four chairs stood in the centre, an armoire in the corner, a chest of drawers beneath the window and a long wooden bench with lumpy cushions in front of a large fireplace. A sink and simple stove were situated against the far wall.
    A narrow staircase led up to a bedroom: bare wooden floors, another armoire and a big wooden bed with a night-stand. I opened the windows and shutters, which gave a view onto the sea. Leaving the windows open, for the room was a little musty and would benefit from an airing, I went back downstairs and opened a second door, which led to a long walled garden. I guessed that the small stone hut at the far end was theprivy. There were pink and red roses climbing one of the walls and a row of espaliered apple trees, much neglected, against the other.
    A big leafy fig tree dominated the end of the garden and for a moment the sight of it made me sad. It was a vivid reminder of rue du Figuier. After Claudine and I got married we moved to an apartment on the top floor of a building between the Seine and rue de Rivoli. An old fig tree stood in the courtyard below our windows, a remnant of the orchard that had grown there when the Marais was just a village. I decided to take the presence of this tree at La Minerve as a good omen, confirming my decision to move into the cottage.
    Back in the main room I stood for a moment, savouring the atmosphere. The cottage felt sturdy, safe, welcoming. A refuge.
    “Will it do?” Simon was at the door. “Père Caron says you will be using it as your painting studio.”
    “It’s perfect,” I answered.
    “It’s been empty for a couple of years. My wife gives it a cleaning in the spring. Dust and cobwebs and such.”
    “She did a very good job. I can probably move in tomorrow.”
    “There are dishes in the cupboards and my wife can let you have some bedding. You’ll need a gas cylinder for the stove. You get your water from the well. It’s clean, I checked. No electricity out here so we rely on oil lamps and candles.” He walked over to the fireplace and crouched down, twisting his head to peer up the chimney. “The crows like to nest up there sometimes but it looks like they didn’t bother this year. I’ll arrange for a load of firewood. The mists can be cold if the wind comes up, even in summer.”
    “Thank you.”
    “If you like, I can have my boat at the harbour on the other side tomorrow afternoon and bring you over with your stuff. There is a tractor at Le Port, but it is much faster by boat.”
    “That would be great. I appreciate the offer. I’ll pay you for your time, of course, and for the wood.”
    “Not to worry. It will be good to have someone living here again. Too many have left the village and gone over to the mainland to work. Maybe you will have time to make a little painting for us one day. My Maria would like that.”
    “It’s a deal.” I shook Simon’s hand before he left, pleased at the welcome I’d received.
    I turned and surveyed the room again. For most of my life home had been the dormitory at the Guild—my bed, the cupboard where I hung my clothes, the little bedside locker for my few belongings. After the Guild, I’d had a scholarship to art school and I’d lived in a rooming house on Haro Street in Vancouver, then I’d moved