David Szalay: London and the South-East

DIETER FLOSSMAN HAS been on Paul’s mind a lot these last few days. Managing his software firm in Stuttgart, it is unlikely that he thinks about Paul at all when they are not actually speaking on the phone. Paul, on the other hand, thinks about Dieter all the time. While he waits on the platform of Hove station in the morning; throughout the slow, stopping journey; when he sinks to the Underground at London Bridge, and when he is lifted out of it at Holborn, Dieter is foremost in his thoughts. Exactly a week ago, with very little fuss, after a single short, sharp pitch, he sold him a full-page, full-colour ad in the automation systems software section of European Procurement Management . (Dieter did not know, of course, that his ad would be the automation systems software section of European Procurement Management .) Paul faxed him an agreement form, which Dieter said he would sign in time for the positioning of his ad to be discussed at Paul’s ‘pagination meeting’ at the end of the afternoon. Paul went to the Penderel’s Oak. It was his first sale in some time.

On Monday morning, the fax was not there. A quick call to Dieter elicited an apology, and an assurance that he would send it through immediately. A further call, towards the middle of the afternoon, and Dieter’s secretary, Frau Koch, said that she thought Herr Doktor Flossman had already signed the fax, and that she would send it as soon as she had a minute. She took down Paul’s fax number. The next morning, there was still no fax. And then Dieter seemed to disappear for a few days. Paul was calling him so much he knew his fourteen-digit number without having to look it up. Every day, the first thing he did when he arrived at work was phone Dieter. Dieter was never there, only the severe Frau Koch. Herr Doktor Flossman, she said, is always busy. If he has something to say to Herr Doktor Flossman, he should put it in an email or a fax. Frantic, Paul got Elvezia to phone pretending to be his secretary. He got Murray to phone pretending to be his boss. He tried to flirt with the impervious Frau Koch, and when that did not work, stabbed the white mute key with his finger and unleashed a stream of obscenities. ‘You fucking fucking fucking fucking bitch … Yeah, not to worry. I’ll call back tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow’s the weekend, isn’t it. I’m playing golf up in Scotland. Yeah, very nice. Looking forward to it. You been to Scotland, Frau Cock …’

That was this morning.

And now Dieter is there , is saying, ‘Ah, Mr Barclay, we speak at last!’ His tone, wonderfully, suggesting that the wretched week of silence was simply unfortunate, that there was nothing sinister involved.

‘Better late than never, Dieter,’ Paul says loudly, still smiling.

‘Yes indeed.’

Dieter’s English is faultless. It is difficult to tell, from his voice, how old he is. Paul imagines him to be in his mid-fifties; lean, sinewy, probably a mountain-biking enthusiast, a potholer, a weekend naturist. The voice is good-humoured in a boring, irritating, overbearing way.

Starting to doodle, Paul says, ‘How you doing?’

‘I’m very well. But I think that’s just because it’s the weekend tomorrow!’ And Dieter laughs — he laughs , as though he has said something funny. Paul laughs too, more warily, in what probably seems to Dieter a more English way — but what he takes for Englishness is in fact the sarcasm, more or less open, that Paul is unable to prevent himself from putting into his laugh. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean. I do know what you mean.’

Suddenly more serious, Dieter says, ‘What can I do for you, Mr Barclay?’

‘Well, it’s about this ad, Dieter.’ Paul maintains a weary, we’re-both-busy-men-of-world tone of voice. His style, as a salesman, is modernist — that is, he is almost an anti-salesman, scrupulously avoiding any of the formulaic patter, the importunate over-sincerity still taught in the training room. From the start, he had felt his way towards a more subtle style — offhand, low-intensity. It is a style that has served him well; though in truth, less and less so in recent years. Is this because it is becoming more difficult to sell the space? It seems to be, and Paul sometimes wonders why this is, what has changed. Possibly the prospects, through unending exposure to salesmen and sales techniques. Possibly, he sometimes feels, he himself is losing the underlying pressure, the vestigial old-school salesmanship that is always essential, even to a modernist. It seems likely that he brings less energy to the task than he used to. Possibly it is the product itself — the various publications in the Park Lane portfolio are no less useless now than they ever have been, are still simply pretexts, utterly stripped down, for selling advertising space. With the possible exception of the in-flight magazines — very much the firm’s prestige publications — it is unquestionably a waste of money for anyone to advertise in them, for the simple reason that they have no readers. Some are sent out as junk mail, but in most cases the only copies printed are those sent to the advertisers themselves. In any normal sense, then — certainly in any sense that the advertisers would recognise — these publications do not actually exist . They are like a stage set, an illusion, a fiction sustained from the sales floor. This minimalist approach to publishing had been very successful at first. Now, though, it seems more and more difficult to sell the space. Or maybe it isn’t. Paul is never sure. Perhaps his memory is playing tricks on him. He sometimes thinks it would be worth improving the publications, or getting some proper publications — becoming, in essence, a proper publishing company. But then the whole point, the whole idea of Park Lane Publications is that it is not a proper publishing company.

*

He was in the Penderel’s Oak with Murray when Andy walked in to tell him that Flossman had phoned. They had been there since twelve, in an awkward, dark, dead space near the toilets and the cigarette machine. Lifting his eyebrows, Andy made a drinking motion. A few minutes later, treading with his eyes on his brogues, he was holding pints. He landed them on the table, shoving them among the many empties. ‘All right,’ he said plummily, pulling up an upholstered stool. ‘All right, lads.’ He turned his head to take in the muted ragu tones of the pub. The other people there were mostly tourists putting away late lunches, traditional pub fayre — pies and square-cut chips, the sauce in sachets, the cutlery wrapped in maroon paper napkins. ‘Michaela in today?’

Paul shook his head — an emphatic no.

‘Will she be in later …?’

‘What are you doing here, Andy?’ Paul said. ‘Why aren’t you at the office? Why aren’t you on the phone?’

‘What are you doing here?’ Andy laughed.

‘Don’t fucking laugh.’

‘Just a quick one —’

‘You don’t have time for quick ones! What’s your problem?’ Andy’s boyish smile wavered, went slightly bewildered. Paul said, ‘You’re not here to have a laugh. You’re not going to make any deals sitting in the pub all day. No wonder you never make any deals.’ Andy was not smiling any more. ‘Why aren’t you on the phone, now , calling people?’ Flushed — his full face as crimson as the lining of his chalk-striped suit — Andy said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. In his five months at Park Lane Publications he has made only one ‘deal’ — sold a quarter-page mono ad to a Belgian keyboard manufacturer — and that in his second week, when everything seemed to be going so well.