Chapter 17
I spend the next week cleaning at the boulangerie , getting up early, drinking my coffee and looking out over the lake.
Most days, Geneviève arrives to fish. We greet each other, share a coffee as she sets up her seat for the day, and I leave with my bucket of cleaning products and drive the short distance to the village square.
As I get out of the car each morning, I raise a tentative hand to Laurent as he sets tables and chairs outside the tabac , which I’m pretty sure will stay fairly unused, apart from the three pétanque players, ushered out of their houses for the day by their wives.
I also make a point of bending to stroke the little cat that wanders over to greet me from the direction of the mairie every morning.
I open the door to the boulangerie and the bell above it rings. Already my neighbour upstairs is banging on her floor, telling me to keep the noise down.
I sigh. ‘I’m going to have to take you down if I’m to get any peace,’ I say to the bell. I look around for something to stand on. A chair or a table. It’s been a long time since I’ve done something like this.
I see one in the scullery, a square, dark wood table, and haul it towards the door, half lifting, half dragging it across the polished tiles, so as not to incur any more complaints from the woman upstairs, followed by a volley of barks from her small dog.
I stare at the table. Years ago, I would have climbed onto it and got on with the job, like the time Christmas dinner set off the smoke alarms, scaring the living daylights out of the children and my mother.
Pete’s mother tutted and Pete asked if he should call the fire brigade.
I said no, and handed him a tea-towel, one each to the children, and told them to waft it at the smoke alarm.
I grabbed a chair from the dining room, climbed onto it and removed the battery.
Everything went immediately silent, and the children ran around waving their tea-towels above their heads for the next half-hour while Pete’s mother told him how brilliant he’d been to sort out the problem.
Just like back then, I’m dealing with this problem solo.
I get a chair and put it against the table.
I’m more cautious than I would have been at home.
I step onto the chair first – it wobbles and I grip the back, then slowly lift my left foot to join the right.
I’m crouched unsteadily on the chair, wondering whether to get down and leave it or keep going.
I glance out and see Laurent watching me from the other side of the square.
He’s standing, a chair in hand, putting them out in the sunshine.
I may be crouched on a chair, but my pride is refusing to let me get down.
I straighten and step up to the table. One foot, and then I have to take the leap of faith to get both feet on the table.
I straighten and am face to face with the little brass bell.
I unhook it from over the door. Hopefully, now, there will be less banging from the neighbour.
I look at Laurent who has carried on setting out his tables and chairs. I did it. I didn’t need help. I’m doing this on my own. Little victories, I tell myself. One day at a time. I can do this.
I look down at the floor and my head swims. That’s new.
I’ve never felt that before. I peer up at the door frame and pretend I’m checking for cleanliness while I try to work out how to get down …
or at least wait until Laurent has gone back inside and I can do it as clumsily as I like.
And I do. Once he goes back into the little bar, I crouch on the table, grab the back of the chair and sit down heavily, then shimmy off the table and onto the floor, jarring my knees.
Not so much the woman I used to be, but the one I am today. And that’ll do me.
I pull the table and chair into the window bay, in front of the old oven that’s just for decoration now, and in front of the net curtains I’ve washed and rehung across the window.
I put the bell next to the till. The shop and kitchen are spotless, and I can’t put it off any more. I have to bake bread and make sure it’s good. Laurent’s words ring in my head: if you make decent bread, I’m sure people will come.
I look at the ovens in the bakery behind the counter.
With the kitchen clean and sparkling and work at the mill on hold, today is the day. I need to actually start baking.
It’s just four ingredients: flour, water, yeast and salt.
I can do this.
I prop my phone against the bag of flour I bought at the out-of-town supermarket and follow the YouTube video.
Maybe I can’t , a voice says in my head.
And then I think of Claude. O h yes I can .
I think of Jake, me telling him about every journey starting with the first step.
I think of Annie and her determination to get well enough to visit me here.
I can do this, and I’m going to! I get out the ingredients, begin weighing them, then remember why I’m doing this.
I’m doing it because of Claude, because of Annie. And because I can.
I measure everything carefully, following the instructions on my screen to the letter.
‘Every journey starts with the first step,’ I repeat, as I bring the ingredients together and start to work the dough, ready to bake the next day.
I’m in my own world, enjoying the peace in the privacy of the kitchen.
Maybe there’s something to be said for being invisible after all, left to enjoy yourself, finding your purpose.