A WhatsApp from Maddie says:Proud of you, Mum.YOLO! Jake’s coming round to the idea. It’s just going to take a little time for it to sink in. He’s worried in case you get ill. But I’ve told him they have doctors in France too. And, as Dad says, you can always come home. #CoolMum! xxx
I smile and send her a picture from inside the train.On my way! Xx
When I arrive in France, I file off the train with the other passengers and I know the first thing I want to do, but I have to focus hard on driving on the other side of the road. I take it slow and steady. I stop in the first small town I come to and, as if Fate had a hand in it, I’m opposite aboulangerie. I park in the square and head towards where the scent of baking bread is coming from. Next door is a coffee shop, with seats outside. I look at the rows of baguettes and, under the glass of the counter, curls of croissants, puffed up and glazed.
‘Une baguette, s’il vous plaît,’ I say to the woman behind the counter.
‘Bonjour, Madame,’ she says, and I realise I’ve made my first faux-pas by not saying ‘good morning’ first.
‘Pardon. Bonjour, Madame.’ I order the baguette and a croissant, and pay. I step out of the shop and find a table and chairs outside the adjoining café, where I order ‘Un café au lait, s’il vous plaît.’
The smell of the baguette and croissant is too much for me to bear. My stomach rumbles, my mouth waters.
As I wait for the coffee, I hold the warm baguette in one hand and tear off the end. It cracks and little shards of the hard, glazed exterior drop to the ground. Inside, the bread is white, light and airy, warm and welcoming as its comforting smell rises.
I put the piece of bread into my mouth. At first, again, there’s the crack and crunch of the exterior … not soft like the ‘French’ bread you get in British supermarkets. It is completely different inside too: soft, salty and beautifully risen. I chew and let the contrast of the two textures, the crunchy coating and fluffy interior, dance on my tongue before I swallow. This is why I’m back. The simple pleasures. A young woman brings me my coffee and wishes me ‘Bon appétit.’ The steam from the coffee rises and blends with the aroma of the freshly baked bread. I tear off another piece of baguette, and bite, then sip the coffee.
A message pings on the family WhatsApp group. It’s from Maddie again, hoping I’m okay. I tell her I am and I’m in France, stopping for a break and a baguette before driving on to the south of Brittany, to where Dad and I holidayed. I reassure her again that we both love her and her brother, and will always be there for them, when they want us to be. And then I send her a snap of my baguette and coffee.
Looks great. We’re home. Hope you loved myDJing at the party!Jake responds.
I did! Xx. Then I add,Go for your dreams, with a smiley face, and he sends me a smiley face with hearts. Everyone should beencouraged to go for their dreams, I tell myself, and hold the phone to my lips, as a wave of homesickness washes over me.
I remember the house Pete and I bought when the children were small, the house we had always planned to extend with my small savings pot. But when Maddie and Jake moved out to lead their own lives, we didn’t need a bigger house. It suited us well, and it’ll carry on suiting Pete – close to the golf course, not far to town, the doctor and the out-of-town supermarket. And, of course, the garden centre for coffee. He’s happy there. It’s his world. But I couldn’t stay there, like him, just waiting for grandchildren to come along.
You too, says Jake.It’s time you did something for you, rather than spending your time worrying about us!
I send him a smiley face with hearts this time and, not for the first time over the past few hours, brush away proud, happy but sad tears, registering the passing of time. It goes so quickly. One minute I was making Easter bonnets and driving to after-school clubs, looking after them when they were ill in the night, and the next, life had become very quiet after they’d left home. They were the ones coming in to sit with me when I was ill in the night. And now time has marched on again, and it’s up to us to keep up with it.
Just follow your heart, I say.
Maybe I will, he says.Maybe it’s time we made the leap and went for it inSpain!
I reply:You won’t know unless you give it a try. You can always go home if it doesn’t work. But at least you’ll havetried.
He sends me a thumbs-up emoji.
I finish the coffee and take the rest of the baguette back to the car. I’m fired up to complete my journey to Brittany and the little village I left behind.
‘You are back?’ says the old man, Monsieur Martin, peering atme through his thick glasses, a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He is wearing nothing but a vest, with braces holding up his trousers, and is clearly drinkingpastis, judging from the smell on his breath.
‘I am,’ I say, to the owner of the only hotel in town.
‘But you just left?’ he says, frowning. ‘You forgot something?’
‘Yes, I suppose I did,’ I reply, thinking that if I told him I’d forgottenme, it might take more explaining than is really needed right now. ‘But I would like to rent the room again, please.’ The one Pete and I had stayed in to celebrate the end of my treatment – a friend of a friend at the golf club had recommended it, for a peaceful, rural escape, with good walking and cheap wine. It was where I may have left a bit of me … And certainly my dreams.
‘How long for?’ he asks, sucking at his cigarette and apparently wondering if he has space in his reservation diary, which I’m pretty sure he does. This is not the sort of hotel people are flocking to. The town is small, quiet and, right now, exactly where I want to be, next to the village with an abandoned mill that I hope will have my name on it one day …
‘For as long as it takes,’ I say, ‘at the same rate we stayed when we were here before.’
‘As long as it takes?’ He shrugs. ‘As long as it takes to do what?’
‘To find out who owns the old mill in the Village du Grand Lac.’
‘Le moulin? The old mill.’ He looks confused. ‘But why? Everybody can use the lake. Why do you want to know who owns it?’
‘Because … I want to buy it.’
