‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Claude has all the power. He always has. You shouldn’t have paid him.’
‘I thought he would leave the mill alone. I hoped you could still run it if he went away.’
‘And now you’ve paid him off, you can’t stay?’ he adds.
I shake my head. The rain has stopped and drops of water on the leaves above us occasionally fall. ‘I can’t show the profit Imade without that money. It’s not enough. The business had to make a profit. I need to deposit it in the bank and for it to show there. I thought he would go and you could take over the mill. That you’d still be able to keep doing this. But …’
Now it’s his turn to shake his head.
‘I can’t. I don’t have the finances any more.’
We both look out over the water, watching the flashes of blue.
‘So now what?’
‘Go back, I suppose. To where I came from. Disappear into the life I had as if none of this had ever happened. Chalk it up as some mad Shirley Valentine adventure that didn’t have its happy-ever-after.’
We fall silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, finally.
‘I’m sorry too. I wish this could have worked out for you, for us. Madame B was right. Other people have tried to make that bakery work. Why should I be any different? Claude clearly means to intimidate anyone who takes it over and get them to leave, one way or another.’
We can hear music in the distance. The mayor must have put his record player on. I can just imagine people dancing. The mill sounds as I hoped it would on Sunday afternoons – full of people enjoying a tea dance.
‘You deserved a fair shot at this,’ Laurent says.
‘I made my own mistakes. I guess I’m paying for them.’
‘No. You’re paying for the mistakes of the past. It has to stop somewhere. We can’t let that family keep ruling our village – who we buy bread from, who we fall in love with …’
He stares at me and I stare at him, wondering if I’ve heard him correctly.
‘I …’
‘Ssh, say nothing,’ he says, putting his fingers to my lips. Then he leans in: ‘Is this okay?’
I nod.More thanokay!
He kisses me, softly at first, then more intensely, and my senses go through the roof.
I pull back. ‘I don’t want you to think I make a habit of doing this,’ I say with a smile.
‘Like I say, we all make mistakes. I should know. My mistakes have never left me or let me move on. I was so cross when you bought the mill. I thought you were going to rip the heart out of it, paint over the memories,mymemories. I couldn’t move on from the past … It was me who left the first baguette on your doorstep.’
I recoil. ‘You?’ I say, standing up from the rock.
‘I thought you might leave. That I’d still be able to get the mill. But this place is nothing without you … without you pulling us all together.’
‘You wanted me to go that badly?’
‘Then I did, but not now.’
I sit down again. I can’t believe it. This isn’t the Laurent I’ve come to know. Leaving an upside-down baguette is a sinister act that I might have expected from Claude, but not Laurent. I had come to trust him, but now he’s crushed all of that, all of the feelings I had for him. The tears well in my eyes. My voice wobbles and I try to steady it and speak slowly, but a slight quiver betrays me as I say, ‘Well, you’ve got what you wanted all along. I’ll be leaving.’
I turn to go. He doesn’t move.
