‘Did I wake you?’ he asks.
‘It’s certainly early,’ I say, pulling my dressing-gown around me.
‘I wanted to come here before I open thetabac,’ he says.
I look at the hammer in his hand. ‘What are you doing anyway?’
He lets it swing by his side and pushes back his hair, shiny in the sunshine. ‘Well, the mill isn’t that far from being ready to try. I need to fix the last of the paddles on the wheel. Come and see.’
I follow him outside, up the slope on one side of the mill, across the lawn to the other side of the building where the wheel is mounted on the wall there. He’s carrying what looks like a wooden paddle. ‘This is one that was broken. I’ll get it in place. Then …’ – he looks up at the wheel as if it lived and breathed, with affection and a hint of excitement – ‘… we will be ready to give her a test run.’ He pats the wheel. ‘Once she is turning, we test all the joints to make sure they are moving smoothly and that the wheat can be ground. Then we can make the flour, as long as we have the right ingredients.’
‘But I thought you knew how to make flour. You’re a miller!’
‘I know how to work a mill, and how to grind the grains, but we want the recipe for flour that was ground here. Let’s hope we can find it somewhere on the walls inside. Another reason I should have returned sooner than I did – I would have been able to get my grandfather’s recipe, which wheat to use and in what quantities.’
I’m staring at the wheel too. ‘You really think it could be working soon?’
He jumps down into the dry pit where the wheel sits off the ground, attached to the wall and the workings inside, ready to replace the rotten paddle. ‘It’s not far off. I’ve been working on it for nearly a year. And then the mayor told me it had been sold.’
‘When was the last time the wheel turned?’
‘Five years ago, just before my grandfather died. I should have come back and helped him way before then. Instead, I thought I was doing the right thing in staying away. I thought I’d brought shame to the village.’
‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ I say, feeling his hurt.
‘But I realise now I should have been here. It’s what he would have wanted.’
The next week I don’t go to theboulangerie. There’s no point until we have the flour. While Laurent works on the wheel and checks the mechanisms, I take delivery of the tables and chairs I’ve bought from thebrocanteand put them in the cellar out of the way. I tidy any junk into one corner and carefully stack all the furniture, the crockery and cutlery I’ve bought in boxes in the middle. With that done, I begin to paint the walls in the big room, a clean, crisp white. Together we work on giving the mill a new lease on life. Laurent works early in the morning, then goes to open thetabac, returning after lunch for a couple more hours.
This morning I make coffee and take it outside along with some cherry Bakewell tarts I made that morning. I lay the tray on a table and sit on one of two mismatched chairs I’ve put there, next to the fallen tree trunk, then call Laurent from his work on the wheel. He vaults out of the water pit and joins me, looking out over the lake, forearms resting on his long thighs, holding the small cup in his big hands. It has become a little routine in our new working relationship. Coffee and cake before he heads off to thetabac. I hand him a tart and we’re happy to sit here without talking, just gazing at the lake. I wonder what it was like when Laurent’s grandparents were here.
‘Tell me about your grandparents,’ I ask, as we watch the kingfishers, entranced by their flitting this way and that.
He sighs, puts down his cup and sits back. ‘My grandparents were here for some years, but in the end, as I said, my grandfather was running this place on his own, after my grandmother, Jeanne, died. Some years before that, she had left. My grandfather stayed here and kept the mill going, me with it. I was raised here in these woods, with the swimming hole further down the lake. I had the best childhood.’
‘Where did your grandmother go?’
‘To the next town,’ he swigs his coffee, ‘to be with her lover there. She left the family, me and my grandfather, for him. She gave up everything, as if we hadn’t been through enough when my mother died. Then, when her lover moved on to someone new, she came home. The villagers thought my grandfather was mad to take her back … but he loved her. Nevertheless, it tore through the heart of the family. I couldn’t move on from it like he did. He was a big man with a big heart. He forgave her. I couldn’t.’
‘I can imagine … I mean, what kind of person would do that, just leave their husband and grandson to be with another man? Sorry, I didn’t mean …’
‘It’s fine. My grandfather was a strong man. He just kept going. Brought me up and ran this place.’
‘So why did you leave?’
He sighs. ‘I played rugby. My grandfather was very proud. But I had a temper, a hot head. I was angry about losing my mother, angry that she was foolish enough to drive intoxicated. And when my grandmother left my grandfather like that, I was away, in the South, playing for my team. He was almost broken and I hated that he was alone here. I blamed her and her lover for causing him so much heartache. I was told I was a good player, could’ve been great, but I lost it once too often on and off the pitch and was eventually dropped by my team. I just … felt I’d let him down. The village was proud of me, until I blew it. So I stayed away. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed by me. I wanted to save him from that. I carried on as if this place didn’t exist.’
We sit in silence for a moment or two.
‘But you’re back now.’
He nods. ‘Yes, but it’s too late. My grandmother died first. I came back to see my grandfather before he died, but I shouldhave been here. He was running this place on his own. I should have helped him. He always told me to go and make the most of my life, but I should have stayed. Instead I was working vineyards, getting into more trouble with other workers. I missed rugby, the physicality of it. I missed being proud of myself. Eventually, I retrained as an engineer … tried to become respectable, but none of it brought me joy. I realised I wanted to be here, to bring the mill back to life.’
‘And the writing on the wall?’
He chuckles. ‘As a youngster I wrote most of those orders there when I couldn’t be bothered to find the order pad! Other than that, I don’t know. I guess someone declaring their feelings, venting their fury about a lost love. Maybe someone who came here to find peace when it was quiet.’
‘Ah …’ I smile. ‘So not you or anyone you know, then?’
