The next day Madame B watches Laurent open the sluice gate, far more smoothly this time than when I did it, and we watch the water fill the pit below the wheel and listen as it starts turning. Under Madame B’s watchful eye, Laurent starts to grind the blend of soft and hard wheat, testing and testing.
‘For the granulation,’ Madame B tells me, when I ask what he’s doing.
She and Laurent stand over the flour, shaking their heads and starting again. And I think about us in the lake:Keep paddling.
And we do keep paddling. We keep going until, later that week, ‘Tiens,’ she says. ‘There.’
‘That’s it?’ I look at the little pile of white flour.
‘Really?’ asks Laurent. ‘You think?’
‘I do.’ She nods firmly.
I look at the pyramid of flour, the foundation on which this place was built.
‘He made me promise never to tell anyone, in those years I helped here, unless they deserved to know. You, both of you, deserve to know.’
‘We did it!’ I say rapturously.
‘We have the flour recipe!’ Laurent kisses Madame B excitedly and firmly on each cheek, then hugs me. ‘Now we have the flour, all we really need is someone who knows how to make bread.’
I look at Madame B, who narrows her eyes.
Laurent lets me go and I feel as if I’ve been wrapped in a soft blanket. Then, in a gentle tone, he says to Madame B, ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend your lives together. I would have liked to see him with someone who made him happy. He was loyal. And maybe he should have taken his chance at happiness.’
‘You made him happy,’ she said, with a watery smile, holding her hand to his cheek, as if he were a little boy. ‘And this, wherever he is,’ she points to the sky, ‘will make him happy. But love is something to be celebrated, wherever you find it. Hold on to it.’
Somehow I find myself staring at Laurent and him at me, and I don’t want to stop.
‘There was a moment, when I thought maybe somethingmight happen – that Raoul might feel about me as I felt about him. But he never got over losing Jeanne to Claude’s grandfather. And I suppose, I never got over him.’
‘When I wasn’t hiding in the kitchen at theboulangerie, I would sit and watch life from my window, wait for market day when we still had a proper market. I’d watch Raoul arrive in town proudly showing off his grandchild. He loved you more than anything, Laurent. Grief can do strange things to people, he told me, when he explained his wife had come back. Losing their daughter, your mother, in that awful car accident. Neither of them ever got over it. It turned their lives upside down. But he carried on, pulling his grandson tighter to him. He just wanted to keep you safe.’
He kept on paddling, I think, tears pricking my eyes.
‘After she left, as I said, I thought there might be hope, but I don’t think he could ever let anyone else in. I loved him. And I think he cared about me, but only as Little Bijounette. A precious friendship. He was older than me, by fifteen years, and I think that mattered to him. Besides, he was still married. But I couldn’t stop hoping that one day …’
‘Well, I see the rumours are true! The old wheel is turning again!’ Claude is standing in the doorway, ruining the atmosphere, like pouring water onto a fire.
‘Bonjour,’ he says, ‘Madame,’ nodding to her.
She sniffs, wipes her nose with a tissue from her sleeve, sets her backbone and lifts her head. ‘Monsieur,’ she replies.
‘May I?’ he asks, and, without waiting for an answer, comes to stand next to the big grinding stones where we’re gathered.
I go cold, as if I can physically feel the frostiness from the two men at either side of me.
Laurent sighs. ‘You again. Like a bad smell, you keep turning up.’ He walks past him towards the door.
‘You leaving, Laurent? Not because of me, I hope! I came tosee if the rumours were true that you were trying to get this place running again. But you must see it’s a lost cause. Like your grandparents. Your grandfather should have realised …’
Laurent’s usual easy-going manner disappears. In one or two huge strides he is standing in front of Claude. He leans in, face to face, and growls, ‘Say another word about my grandparents and I will rip that head of yours off your shoulders.’ He grips Claude’s shirt front.
For a split second I see a flash of fear in Claude’s eyes, but then his smug smile returns and he stands his ground. ‘I understand you were upset about your grandmother wanting to join our family,’ he says, withfauxfeeling, ‘but that, a bit like this place, was a silly dream. She was only ever a pastime for my grandfather. It’s sweet that you think this could be a fully working mill again. Most people aren’t stuck in the past like you. Times change, things move on. This mill will never be what you hope. It’s a fantasy.’
For a moment, Laurent stares at Claude, then suddenly releases him. ‘You’re not worth it,’ he mutters.
‘Laurent,’ I say quickly, ‘could you check if we have any more wood to come in? I may need more for the fire.’
