‘Are you still writing William?’ Dr Roberts had asked, ‘I remember the success you had with ‘Waterways’.’
‘Ah, well, not a book as such, it’s more about articles these days. People seem to want their information in bite-sized chunks. I wrote some literature for the London Canal Museum, before it opened. Updated a few others. Suddenly everyone wants to live on the water.’
‘You should start a blog,’ Dr Roberts said, a slight smile on her face.
The very word made William shiver. ‘I don’t think that’s quite my style,’ he said, though he suspected she wasn’t serious.
‘I tried it once,’ Dr Roberts said, ‘just to see what would happen, how it worked. That was a while ago, before I retired. A sort of self-help forum.’
William couldn’t imagine Dr Roberts needing a support group, and said so.
‘Oh, no – I started it for young parents. Mothers in particular. It’s always been an area of interest. It can be a desperate, lonely time.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘as you may remember.’
Unfortunately for William, he did remember, in spite of his recent attempts not to resurrect those bleak months following Joanna’s birth. What he did recall now with some clarity, were Dr Roberts’ visits, their subdued conversations in the living room, sometimes with Evie wedged between them on the couch. She’d even visited later on, after his wife had left. He remembered her in the kitchen – what had she been doing there? Making a drink perhaps? Washing up? They must have lost touch around the time Francine began to visit.
‘I’d specialised in obstetrics,’ Dr Roberts continued, ‘but then plumped for general practice. My niece went through a difficult time.’ She looked up at William, ‘I wanted to help. Young mothers are chucked out of hospital too soon these days – there aren’t enough community midwives to follow up. Unless your partner’s fully on board or your mum’s round the corner and doesn’t have a job, it’s not easy.’
William nodded slowly. Dr Roberts was certainly animated on the subject; he hoped the conversation wouldn’t stray too far from generalities, rummaging into these buried memories, the dark bundle William tried so hard never to unravel. On top of recent disturbances, he again hovered perilously close to discomfort. Yet looking around the room, at the grey heads nodding and turning at the tables, the clatter of cups and spoons and plates, the past did not threaten. He found this woman’s presence a familiar comfort, this meeting a pleasant interlude. In the unspoken acknowledgement of his past pain, it seemed a bond had formed.
‘And your blog,’ William asked, ‘did it help?’
‘For a year or so it was busy. A lot of traffic, plenty of ‘clicks’. But then I set up a drop-in centre too, twice a week after evening surgery, and I really didn’t have time to do both.’
‘Was that here in town?’
‘No, that was Leicester. I moved there many years ago, in the mid-eighties. I’ve only just come back. I loved the city – the diversity, culture – all the right things. But not to live now. I prefer something a little quieter.’
Dr Roberts stirred her tea though William noticed she hadn’t put any sugar in it.
‘And you?’ she asked, ‘are you still in the same place?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘still there.’ How dull he must appear, an intrinsic part of this sad garden centre scene.
Outside it was growing dark, Dr Roberts began to gather her things. ‘I must be going,’ she said.
They both rose from the table and she held out her hand.
‘Goodbye William. It’s good to see you again.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you too.’ He waited as she wound her way amongst the tables and out through the large sliding doors, then he buttoned his coat and walked home, this time via an even, dry footpath through the park.
As he entered the house, the answer machine was blinking in the hall but he chose to ignore it – it would no doubt be Joanna wanting to know where he’d been. Instead, he hung up his coat and feeling more inspired than he had for weeks, settled down to finish his talk for the History Society.
Twenty-Five
Francine gave up on sleep. She finished clearing away broken glass in the living room and found cardboard to fasten over the empty window frame. A steady draught howled around the edges but for the time being it would have to do. The vitrerie in town would not be open until Monday.
She began working in her mother’s bedroom, throwing open the shutters before dawn, stripping the bed, emptying the old mahogany chest of drawers and sorting yet more piles to dispose of. No longer listless, aimlessly stowing things away, Francine found her energy restored, her preparations charged and feverish. She put an electric heater in the bathroom, took a long shower and washed her hair. She found a different pair of jeans and pulled on a clean top. Then standing in front of the mirror holding the hairdryer she stopped. What on earth was she doing? What was she thinking?
It was eight o’clock in the morning, almost light. Simon might still be at home waiting to leave. She rang his number and when he failed to answer, left a message: Hi, it’s me. I’m fine really, no need to come. Please. I’m ok. Then she sent the same message in a text. Ten minutes later Simon’s text came back: All booked. No problem with flights – will come anyway. Business trip if you like – charge it to the company. Be there around lunchtime. X
Francine stared at her phone. Business trip. Of course. Nothing else.
Simon arrived soon after two. Francine’s state of high energy had continued throughout the morning and she was outside stacking boxes for recycling when his car pulled up. A tiny Peugeot, he seemed to fill it with his bulk. He opened the door and unfolded himself onto the pavement.
Francine put the box down and nodded at the car. ‘Couldn’t they find you anything bigger?’
‘All they had left. It’s fine downhill.’ Simon leant in to kiss her on the cheek, then picked up the box she’d been holding. ‘Where do you want this?’
‘In here, thanks. It’s for recycling.’ Francine watched as he took the box and stowed it in the back of her overloaded car. ‘I need to shift some of this – it’s piling up. I haven’t even started on the bakery yet, or the outbuildings.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m here for.’
Their voices loud, exposed in the midday silence, Francine glanced anxiously up and down the street, ‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘I’ll get lunch.’
As Francine prepared food, Simon wandered round the kitchen, ducking under low beams, taking in the pitted flags, the stone sink, the ancient stove.
‘So, this is where you grew up?’ he said.
Francine laid out cheese, charcuterie and bread on the table. ‘It belonged to my grandfather,’ she said. ‘He was a baker too. Before that it was a farm. The sheds are still there.’ She pointed to the row of low buildings running down the side of the garden to the orchard. ‘That’s where they housed the animals. My grandparents always kept a pig, I could never understand why it disappeared just before Christmas.’
Simon folded his arms and leaned against the sink, ‘This is your heritage then – who you really are? Peasant stock?’
Francine moved him out of the way to fill the kettle. ‘I’ve been away a long time,’ she said, ignoring his irony. ‘None of this is home any more. It’s as if I’ve stepped back into an old skin that doesn’t fit. I don’t belong here now.’
‘Did you ever?’
‘Maybe, but I never wanted to come back, even early on when it was so hard at the school, before I met William. It’s suffocating.’
‘And small town Middle England isn’t?’
‘Point taken,’ she said, brewing the coffee and searching for a second clean mug.
At the table, Simon picked up the loaf of bread and felt the crust. ‘Is this the best you can do?’ he said, raising an eyebrow at her. ‘You’re losing your touch.’
‘It�
��s been in the freezer. I bought flour and yeast but I can’t bring myself to make any yet – I don’t even know if the ovens still work. It’s ten years since my father died. Maman didn’t bake after that.’
‘I could take a look if you like?’
Francine had no thoughts about the bakery, she assumed it would all be sold, whether or not it was a going concern. And she would sell when she was ready, not because someone was chasing her off the premises. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.
But as they sat together at the table, what disturbed her now was not rocks through the window or her failing marriage or worry about Evie. What disturbed her was how distant these things had become in a matter of weeks. Now sitting here with Simon, the familiar fit they seemed to be, how easy it was to forget it all. As she watched his hands break pieces from the loaf, the constant amused light in his eye, she wondered again if it was this she had run from – a raw need she had no right to feel, yet no will to deny.
‘Simon, why did you come?’ she asked. ‘Why are you here?’
Simon put down the bread and looked at her across the table. ‘I think we both know the answer to that,’ he said.
After lunch Simon took out the remains of the broken glass and fixed a sheet of hardboard over the empty window pane. They cleared space in the bakery, stacking the proving trays and cooling racks by the door, ready to be taken away, though Francine wasn’t sure where they would go or who would want them. The wicker bannetons she took into the house. Left in the damp and cold, some had begun to mould and were unusable now. Sourdough had been her favourite; Philippe allowed her to start each new batch and pour the finished dough into the baskets for overnight proving.
Simon checked the state of the oven. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of these,’ he said, running his hands over the door seal, the internal surface.
Francine crouched beside him. ‘I’ve never known it not to work. Maybe the chimney needs cleaning?’
‘Possibly,’ he said, ‘we’ll find out.’ He fetched kindling and small logs from the living room, laid them in the oven and set a match to it.
‘You’ve done this before,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know.’ There was a lot about Simon she didn’t know.
‘Let’s bake,’ he said.
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? We can test the oven.’
‘Ok. The flour’s in the kitchen, in the cupboard above the stove. Yeast’s in the fridge.’ Francine fetched a bowl of water and a cloth and began cleaning the work surfaces, then took the bowls and utensils to the sink to wash, removing the layers of flour, the years of dust. Within an hour the oven was stoked, settling to a steady heat that slowly warmed the room.
With everything laid out, they began to work the familiar ritual, standing side by side, traces of Francine’s past reaching her, stirred up by the warmth from the oven. She thought of her own short-cuts: gas ovens that were cleaner, without the need for riddling, clearing, mopping; the right wood at just the right time to keep the embers fixed, the temperature steady. Her grandfather had even planted the pinewood copse to keep them constantly supplied with fuel. Now she watched the process again as Simon brought it all back to life.
‘Where did you learn about bread?’ she asked. ‘Who taught you?’
‘I did a stint one summer at a ski resort,’ he said, ‘They had a set-up much like this.’
‘In France?’
‘At a guest house in a village near Chamonix.’
‘When was that?’
‘Too long ago – must be thirty years. I was a student, it was when I first fell in love with bread-making. Hadn’t thought about it much before.’
‘You didn’t start out to be a baker?’
Simon checked the oven, picked up a couple of thin logs and snapped them over his knee. ‘Nope,’ he said, chucking the wood into the stove and closing the door.
‘So what did you do before?’
‘Architecture.’
‘Really? How come…?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t my choice. Too much theory, not enough hands-on. I did it to keep the peace at home.’
‘Did you finish the course?’
‘I ran out of money, but by then I’d found bread. Simple really. I went back to the village, stayed for a year and learnt everything I needed to know from the patron. The rest, as they say, is history.’
‘Did you never want to start your own business?’
‘I tried that and – no.’
This man has worked for me for ten years, yet I know nothing about him. Francine thought. Why am I only just asking these questions? It seemed naïve, if not careless, in a world of data collection and background checks. She’d been more thorough with Emily, the girl who served in the shop on a Saturday. But watching him now as he worked, his hands twisting and folding, lifting and flattening, Francine knew it wasn’t just the bread that had won her, the perfect batch he’d produced the day he came for interview, that she’d taken home for approval. Even Evie, visiting for the weekend, had been impressed. Here still, was the same power, the same passion. Perhaps after all it had been about more than the bread. A shared process, a mutual skill. Since that night in the bakery, had she been in denial of what was really going on? The shift from familiar to intimate, from intrigue to desire? A phone call in the small hours is not prompted by indifference, much as she tried to pretend it was. Nor was Simon’s response – his letter, his leap to assist. We both know the answer to that, he’d said.
She had so little in common with William apart from the family and the home but even those had never really been hers, just a little patch to which she could lay claim: the living room drawer. Everything else was second hand. Occasion. The French word that also means opportunity. William had offered her just that – an opportunity – a life embraced but never quite owned.
Francine finished kneading, pulled and folded the dough into shape and placed it in a bowl to prove. Then she brushed flour from her hands and turned to Simon. There is only now, she thought, putting a hand up to his face, and this moment is mine. Outside, in the dark, rain had started up again. It beat against the high, round window of the bakery, leaving smudged wet trails that winked in the light from the streetlamp. Inside, the oven roared, filling the room with heat.
Twenty-Six
In the early morning light, Francine turned in the warmth of the bed and watched Simon sleeping. He lay on his back, his arm on the pillow, a shadow around his jaw. At some point the previous evening, they’d moved from the bakery to the bedroom and stayed there, entombed, for the rest of the night. For a moment she lay still, turning over events of the previous day and how they’d ended up here. Then she touched his cheek and crept silently from the room.
Drifting through the next two days, Francine continued with the clearance. But Simon’s presence in the house, her mind torn between loyalty and lust, left her conflicted and confused. Around midday on Monday they drove into town to order a new pane of glass. They planned to have lunch in a small restaurant near the river but as they crossed the bridge that led away from the square, Francine noticed two figures in the distance, standing by a car, deep in conversation.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, catching Simon’s arm.
‘Why?’
‘There’s someone I don’t want to see.’
‘Because of me?’
‘No, it’s not that. I’ll explain later.’
They set off in the opposite direction but a moment later a voice called:
‘Francine! Wait!’ Thierry came up behind them, breathing hard. They stopped on the bridge and Francine paused before turning to face him.
‘Thierry,’ she said. ‘Salut.’ She had no choice but to introduce Simon.
‘Monsieur,’ he said, extending his hand.
‘Simon’s a colleague,’ she added, keeping things obliq
ue.
‘You’re from England?’
Simon nodded slowly. ‘Just over for a day or two.’
His French was good, accented but fluent. Another surprise. ‘Francine asked me to take a look at the bakery.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Thierry waited for further information but Francine made excuses and started to move on before Thierry stopped them again.
‘I gather there was some trouble at the weekend. Friday night, wasn’t it?’
Francine glanced at Simon; news travelled faster than she’d feared.
‘Just an accident,’ she said. ‘Kids probably. Nothing I can’t fix.’
‘Indeed.’ Thierry placed his hand on the wall of the bridge and began to pick at a loose patch of masonry. ‘Well, let’s hope it doesn’t happen again. It’s always a risk with empty property. And we still have our visitors. Your father was always very friendly with them, wasn’t he?’
Francine was about to respond but Simon touched her arm and looked at his watch. ‘We need to go,’ he said.
‘Well, best remember to close the shutters.’ Thierry said, glancing at Simon. ‘I mean, you know what it’s like round here. You don’t want the whole village knowing your business.’
‘I’ll remember,’ Francine said. ‘See you later, Thierry.’
They left him standing on the bridge, aware that he would be watching until they reached the car.
‘So, that’s Thierry,’ Simon said as they drove back to the village. ‘Interesting guy.’
‘I’ve known him a long time – he was a friend, we went to school together. For a while, he was rather more than that. After I left home, he came to Toulouse and got a job. But then…,’ Francine looked away through the window, ‘things changed. He came back here and married Pascale, I left for England.’
The Place Where Love Should Be Page 11
