“Her great-great-grandfather painted postcards in the early 1900s. My mother had a collection of them; she kept them in an old biscuit tin. They were all in the same art nouveau style. She was inspired by one of his designs: a lady sitting in a giant oyster shell, clutching a pearl. She didn’t really like the shape of the shell so she came up with this instead.”
“Have you still got the postcards?” I ask with interest.
“I imagine they’re at Les Saules.”
“Could we look for them sometime?”
He nods. “I’m going next weekend if you want to come.”
“I’d love to. I can’t stop thinking about it. Are there still bees in the walls?”
He shakes his head sadly. “Not anymore.”
“Where did they go?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess they moved on.”
“Unlike me,” I say wryly. “Do you mind if I take some photos?”
“Of course not.”
I start work with Jackson tomorrow and an idea has been forming for the rebrand. The images will help when I run it by him.
Étienne nods downriver. “The next one’s this way.”
We continue along the rocky riverbed. The water is so low thatit slithers like a brown snake through a mini canyon, tumbling in tiny waterfalls as it makes its way toward the Eau de Sainte Églantine factory and beyond.
“So what have you been up to in the last ten years?” Étienne asks as we cross over at a narrow point in search of the most viable path.
“I went to university to study marketing, got a boyfriend, got a degree, lost a boyfriend, got a job, lost a job, got a job, quit to come here.”
He snorts with amusement at my summary before saying, with meaning, “So youdidmove on at one point.”
I glance at him.
“From Jackson,” he clarifies.
“Oh, the boyfriend. Yeah, I’ve dated other people. How about you? How did you and Eve meet?” I ask carefully.
“Through Lise. Eve came to train and to spend time with her sister. She was here for two and a half years and we got together about halfway through that time, but after the Paralympics she wanted to go back home to be with her parents.”
I work through the timing in my head. She won bronze two summers ago—it doesn’t sound like they were together when she died.
“You didn’t try to do long distance?”
“She wanted a clean break.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I understood. We need to climb out here,” he says.
The river has widened again and soon it will be impossible to cross without getting wet. I climb up the steep bank behind him. The Eau de Sainte Églantine bottling factory looms directly in front of us. It’s right at the end of the high street: a busy road linedwith plane trees, shops, bars, and restaurants. It’s not uncommon in France to have a factory right in the middle of a town—the symbiotic relationship between workers and residents is a source of pride here, not something to be hidden away.
Like Château Angèle, the factory is built of limestone, but that’s where the similarities end. It’s art moderne in design: an unembellished large, flat-roofed rectangle, narrow in width, but extensive in length, hugging the river on one side and the road on the other.
The land on the other side of the river has always been a bit of a wasteland, with only the old pavilion, atabac, a shabby café, and low-rent apartment buildings in the vicinity. But the bridge by the factory has been well-maintained and as we walk alongside baskets of purple petunias, I realize that they’re hanging from the railings Mellie pointed out twenty-one years ago: they’ve each been designed to look like flower stems, complete with metal leaves.
A new restaurant has opened up on the other side of the river, and on the back wall is the painting that reminded me of a Disney princess.
