Bleu Murder

“But it’s impossible!” Domestic bliss had lasted all of three weeks before the universally divisive subject of money raised its ugly head. Bob Hunt had been nervously anticipating this day since he and his wife Kate had moved to the idyllic French village of St-Sébastien des Vignes in the heart of the rural Vendée. It had taken them nearly twelve years to summon the courage to turn their maison secondaire into a permanent home and it seemed to Bob that a decade of planning had unravelled in the space of less than a month. “We don’t have any choice,” Kate said calmly. They were stood at the end of the narrow alley that passed between their house and the neighbouring property. Bob, with over twenty years’ experience behind him, could tell that Kate’s evenness of tone would last about as long as the gate that they were arguing about. And that had already fallen off its hinges. Twice. “You can’t just prop this,” Kate lifted the loosely connected planks of wood and shook them, “between two posts and expect people not to comment.” One of the planks chose this moment to desert the structure entirely, splintering onto the fragmented tarmac road that passed for the main thoroughfare in St-Sébastien. “It’s been there years,” she continued, “Certainly as long as we’ve owned the house. It was blue then. Look at it now.” Bob picked up the fractured limb and took the rest of the frame out of Kate’s hands before she could do any further damage. “Everything in the Vendée is blue. This, err…” Bob searched his mind for an appropriate description. “This russet colour makes a pleasant contrast.” “But that’s how it should be,” Kate countered. “The whole of France is blue.” “I suppose so.” Bob admitted defeat quickly. He had never quite understood how it seemed possible for there to be so many shades of one colour. He had been amazed the first time they visited the brico, their local DIY store, at just how many different blues there were. One dull afternoon, while Kate was obsessing about cushions, he had counted 151 different varieties. There was Atlantic bleu, Brittany salt bleu, Cote d’Azur bleu, Provence bleu and, of course, Kate’s favourite the Vendée bleu. Any wooden protrusion from every house and every piece of street furniture adorning the département was doused in the regulation colour. Bleu! It was just like blue but with a Gallic shrug.