Chapter 29
‘I loved him. I had always been in love with him. And I thought maybe, when your grandmother left, there was a chance for us. And there nearly was. He used to call me Bijou, his jewel, Bijounette, a small trinket. It was a term of affection. It’s why I gave it to Bibi.
Because she is my jewel … and also to remind me of that time. ’
‘I could see the hurt that Claude’s grandfather had caused, stealing Jeanne from your grandfather, but hoped he would come to love me.
I drew on the walls in pencil. But,’ she swallows, clearly finding the memory hard, ‘when your grandmother wanted to return, he came to speak to me. Told me his plan to take her back. It was for the best.’ She sips her drink.
‘I begged him not to. I even begged him to keep me in his life if he did take her back – keep me a secret – but Raoul was an honourable man and wouldn’t do that.
He kissed my cheek and wished me love and happiness.
I never went near the mill again. Instead I would sit and watch from my window, waiting for market day to catch a glimpse of him.
He inspired me to take on the boulangerie .
I trained and took over from the last baker, just to be close to him.
But after Raoul died I closed the boulangerie for good. ’
‘ You were the baker?’ says Laurent, surprised.
She nods. ‘I did my apprenticeship before you came to live with your grandparents. I went away for two years and spent even longer training in different parts of France to learn how to make bread, hoping it would help me stay close to Raoul.’
‘You …’ I’m still flummoxed ‘… you know how to make bread.’
She sniffs and gives a little laugh. ‘Yes. Of course it was seen as a man’s profession, but I was determined.
Got up earlier than everyone else, worked harder.
When I took the place on, I hired an assistant, swore him to secrecy, and we pretended he made the bread, when in fact it was me,’ she says, stroking Bibi.
‘But once the mill closed, after your grandfather died, there was no point in continuing. Customers were fewer and fewer and, of course, with Raoul gone, the mill silent, there seemed little point in going on.’
‘I never knew any of this,’ says Laurent. ‘I didn’t even know you were a baker.’
‘It was easier that way. People can be very distrustful. A woman baker! Nothing much changes. A British woman trying to bake French bread?’ She looks at me and I know what she means.
‘Like I say,’ she sniffs again, ‘I employed Davide and said he was the baker. But he was my assistant. When I decided to close, he moved away and set up a café in the Dordogne.’
‘I remember Davide. And everyone thought it was him leaving that closed the boulangerie ,’ says Laurent.
‘Didn’t that make you cross? Didn’t you want people to know it was you?’ I ask, enraged on her behalf.
She shakes her white head. ‘I just wanted to shut myself away. Live with my memories and play out in my mind what might have been. You see, unrequited love, it’s the love that never dies.’
She looks at me and then at Laurent. We glance at each other and quickly away. That’s not us , I think. It won’t be. I’m not in love with this man. I just … like being with him. That’s all. Nothing more than that.
‘Will you come to the mill?’ I ask Madame B. ‘I think you could help us.’
‘No,’ she says firmly.
‘What? Sleep on it, please?’
She finishes her drink and we watch as she carries Bibi back up to her apartment, shutting the door firmly behind her.