Beside us there is a little waterfall, clearly from a river feeding into the lake from the rocks above. A stream flows from it too.
‘The brown trout like it here,’ she tells me. ‘There are beehives in the woods,’ she adds, sipping from her cup and pointing across the water with her free hand. ‘On hot days you can hear the buzzing. And further up the lake, you have to go up,’ she points to a rocky outcrop, where the water is tumbling down, ‘climb over it and back down the other side,’ she says about the waterfall. ‘It’s not too hard and beyond that is a place perfect for swimming.’
We lull back into silence and then I say, ‘You spend a lot of time here.’ I’m watching two dragonflies dancing across the water in the sunshine.
‘I like to be here. The peace,’ she says. ‘I started fishing when I was ill. I had cancer. It kept me … in the moment.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve been through the same thing,’ I say.
She nods. ‘If you want to join us, you’d be welcome.’
‘Merci.’ I smile. ‘I found the same kind of peace in baking. I just felt centred. Like nothing else that had happened or might happen was in my mind, just the baking. I would be awake in the night, feeling the dread of it spreading or coming back, and find myself thinking about buttercream icing, Christmas flavours for muffins or what to do with the jars of marmalade I’d made.’
We stare out over the water.
‘It’s whatever brings you peace. This place is very peaceful.’
‘It is,’ I say, looking back at the mill, loving seeing it from this new perspective.
‘Some of the women who come here have had the illness. Others have been touched by it, by their loved ones, family members having it, maybe caring for them, or losing someone to it. Coming here, learning to fish, it is a rest from it. It’s somewhere we can relax, focus, eat and laugh.’
‘That’s perfect,’ I say.
She holds the fishing rod, gently moving her hand and the line in the water.
‘And so you are living here now. How do you like it?’
I let out a long sigh. ‘My visa has just been declined.’
‘Oh. And that makes things difficult now with you staying?’
I nod. ‘Yes. Without it, I have just four weeks before I’ll have to return to theUK. I wanted to open asalon de théhere at the mill but it seems I’ve got a lot of things wrong already since I’ve been here. Put my faith in the wrong people.’
She reloads her hook with bait and then, with a flick of herwrist, launches the line into the air. It lands with softness, precision and a tiny plop.
‘Sometimes you need to stand in the rain,’ she says, ‘to see things more clearly. The best catch comes after the rain.’
I sip the last of my coffee. I’ve made a proper mess of all this, I think, looking out at the dragonflies finally meeting and flying together.
Geneviève sips the last of hers. ‘I have wine if you would like some, or a sandwich.’ She points at the baguette sticking out from her bag. ‘Jambon, beurre?’
I raise a hand. ‘Merci. Très gentille,’ I say. ‘It’s kind of you, but …’ I look at the baguette again. ‘Where do you buy your baguette from?’ I ask.
‘From the vending machine, these days. It’s a shame. Theboulangeriewas very good but there weren’t enough people here to make it pay. Then the owner, he shut very suddenly and left. And it never reopened. A couple of people tried, but it didn’t last. They left very quickly. We wonder what it will be next, if anything. There is nothing left in the village. Laurent tries hard to keep thetabacgoing but numbers in the village are low. He’s a good man, but I wonder how much longer he will manage.’
Laurent, the man I’d more or less accused of hiding drugs in the mill. My cheeks flame. Another mistake in my rush to feel I was at home and had life here sussed. My toes curl. It wasn’t Laurent after the drugs, but Claude.
‘I may owe him an apology,’ I say quietly, and she doesn’t reply, just watches her line, gently tugging at it.
Then she says, ‘It can take time to see how things work,’ she says, and although I turned down her offer, she adds, ‘Let’s eat.’ She lights a small gas burner, sits on a nearby rock and prepares the fish she’s caught on a small wooden board with a sharp knife.
I watch, intrigued, as she fillets it and prepares it for the pan, with bubbling butter, the scent of garlic rising. Then she coversit in a spritz of lemon juice and showers it with freshly chopped herbs, tears off chunks of bread and puts one on each plate. She takes the cork from a bottle of white wine and pours me a glass.
I thank her, and am given a small plate of the freshly cooked fish with the hunk of baguette on the side. It smells amazing. I take a sip of the cold white wine, then put the little stubby plastic glass down next to me and use the bread to scoop up a mouthful of the buttery fried fish. She brings out a tomato from her bag, slices it on the chopping board, then does the same with a pink onion. After drizzling them in oil, she offers the board to me to help myself. I have the fish, the tomato salad and bread on my plate and it feels like a feast. Something so simple yet so perfect.
‘It’s delicious,’ I tell her as the steam fills my nostrils.
‘You must savour food and wine … like life,’ she says, and I couldn’t agree more.
