The Lavender Distillery – Part 1: Copper and Steam

"Listen," said Remy. "Not to me. To the still."

Chloe listened. The great copper still hummed and gurgled in the shade of a stone barn, with steam curling from its seams and a thin clear stream of fragrant water trickling into a glass jar. The air smelled so intensely of lavender it was almost dizzying. Beyond the open doors the fields rolled away in purple waves, humming with bees under a hot blue sky.

"It changes pitch," said Remy. "When the oil starts to come, the sound goes higher. Like a kettle thinking."

"It's a very polite kettle."

"It is the most honest thing I know."

Chloe, thirty-two, was a perfume student from Lyon, spending the summer harvest in Provence for her thesis. Remy, thirty-six, ran the family distillery on the plateau above the village. He was lean and sun-browned, with flour-white laughter lines and a faded blue shirt. His grandfather had bought the still before the war, and Remy treated it like a very old, very difficult relative.

She cut lavender with the pickers at dawn and carried armfuls to the barn at noon. She learned to judge the moment of the steam, the colour of the oil, the shift of the breeze. In the evenings they sat on the stone step with a jug of lemon water and watched the fields turn gold.

"I thought the thesis would be about the chemistry," said Chloe.

"And?"

"It's about something else, now."

"What?"

"The way a person pays attention." She looked at him. "I've been learning it from you."

Remy looked at his hands. "That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me. May I tell you something nice back?"

"Please."

"I'd like to kiss you."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Distilled.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Distilled.