‘I’ve told you to leave me alone. If you knock on my door again, I will call thegendarmes. I have been to see the mayor, Bertrand. The fool! I have told him about the noise. Now, go away!’
‘That’s really not fair, I’m not making any more noise than any other bakery. The ovens have to be turned on to bake the bread.’
‘Well, you must have a very clumsy way of doing it. You make more noise than anyone I’ve known. Now, leave me,s’il vous plaît!’ she says angrily.
And this time she shuts the door firmly on me, telling her dog, ‘Tais toi!’ Be quiet. But the dog continues to bark.
I go downstairs, furious. I know it’s her. I know she can help. What is her problem?
Instead of going into the bakery, I head over to thetabacand climb onto a stool at the bar.
Laurent is there, behind the coffee machine.
‘Any luck?’ Laurent enquires, and I know he’s asking about the flour recipe.
I shake my head.
‘I’ll come over when I close up here,’ he says.
‘What’s the point? We can’t find it. I made these, by the way, while I was in theboulangeriethis morning. Lemon drizzle traybake.’ I put the little rectangular fingers on the counter. ‘Just something to do with my time, while I was waiting …’
‘Another British classic for yoursalon de thé?’ I hear the tease in his voice.
‘I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen now,’ I say, my positivity exhausted.
He picks up a spongy finger, admires its icing, and bites into it, catching the crumbs as they fall. ‘These are good,’ he says. ‘Don’t give up yet. The answer is in the mill, I know it.’
‘But what if it isn’t?’
‘My grandfather didn’t want to give up on the place. I won’t either.’
He pours me some coffee and I slide a euro to him. He slides it back. ‘For the cake,’ he says, and we smile.
I stir the coffee thoughtfully and he says nothing while heeats the lemon drizzle. Then, with a little laugh in his voice: ‘I’m beginning to think that maybe British cakes are needed here in rural France.’
Suddenly I laugh too. When he says it like that, it sounds ridiculous. Why would they need British cakes here in rural France when they have shops and markets in other towns all around them? I don’t know what I was thinking.
‘Madame Bertou was right. Me, British, not even a qualified baker. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just had the idea in my head, another life to lead. On the other side of the rainstorm.’
I wish I hadn’t mention rainstorms, reminding me of how he looked in the rain. How it felt, him standing close to me as the sluice gate began to work.
‘You can’t control what life throws at you. You can only choose how you deal with it. And it seems to me that learning to bake cakes was a very good idea,’ he says with a smile.
Laurent’s three regulars arrive in the café. ‘Bonjour, Messieurs,’ I say.
‘Bonjour, Madame,’ they reply, with a nod and a smile.
‘Ah, gâteaux!’ says one, grinning, and I offer the plate to them.
‘Help yourselves,’ I say, and this time they are far less hesitant, taking one each as Laurent serves their coffee and grins at me … making me tingle and smile back.It’s how you choose to deal with it,I say to myself. I look back at theboulangerie. Right now, bread is how I’m trying to deal with this. But unless we can find the flour recipe, I can’t see why people would choose to come to the shop rather than the vending machine. As Laurent says, it’s like changing your doctor. To get someone to shift their loyalties, you have to give them a good reason to do so.
Suddenly, there’s a shout. ‘Arrêt! Arrêt!Bibi!’
I turn on the bar stool to see Madame B at the top of the stairs from her apartment above theboulangerie.
‘Non! Viens! Arrêt!’
But little Bibi, her little dog by the sounds of it, isn’t listening and is already at the bottom of the steps and careering across the square after the cat.
