David Szalay - All That Man Is

How well he knows these Alpine villages. Spick and span. Flowers and flags everywhere. The mountains hanging there decoratively, harmlessly, looking like pictures of themselves. And in the streets, the atmosphere of a posh suburb. Not a leaf out of place. An oppressive tidiness. Still, there is something here — a vestigial sense of a place with a life of its own. A few little streets that are still unspoilt, he thinks. There is still scope, in other words, for some money to be made.

She asks him, as she searches for her keys, hauling up handfuls of stuff from the depths of a large leather handbag, how he slept.

He says, ‘Perfectly. Thank you.’

‘That’s good.’

From his high forehead the hair, greying, hangs back in waves. He is getting craggy with the years — his sunglasses accentuate this. A sort of authority is growing in him too. He waits for her to find her keys.

‘And where,’ he asks, ‘will the new télécabine go from?’

‘Over there.’ She pushes her sunglasses up her nose and points past the petrol station, towards the entrance to the village where they arrived yesterday, the avenue of linden trees.

‘And when will it be finished?’ The question is important.

‘In time for the season,’ she says. She has found her keys, and is looking at some message on her phone.

‘Promise?’

She looks up.

He is smiling.

‘I promise,’ she says.

It takes less than a minute to drive to Les Chalets du Midi Apartments. They look smaller in the sunlight than they did last night, and even less inspired. The wasteland around them looks scruffier too, full of weeds and muddy hollows where huge puddles were, after the latest storm to trundle thunderously down the valley.

He stands there, looking at it, while she talks on her phone.

It might be Noyer she is talking to and he tries to hear what she is saying.

When she has finished, he half-turns his head to her and says, ‘That was the boss?’

‘It was.’

‘Everything okay?’

‘Everything,’ she says, ‘is okay.’

‘What’s he like?’

The question seems to surprise her. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s…’ She takes a moment to think about it. ‘Fine.’

‘Does he know what he’s doing?’

Again she seems surprised. She says, ‘I’m sure he does. Why?’

‘Just wondering.’

Not only is her English perfect — she has, when she says some words, some vowels, an actual English accent, a sort of semi-posh London accent.

‘You must have lived in London at some point,’ he suggests, smiling at her in his sunglasses, not moving from where he is standing.

She says, ‘I did.’

‘Thought so.’

He is still looking at her. She is petite, a neat little figure. The dress she is wearing stops halfway down her thighs. Quite a stylish dress. He thinks — La belle plume fait le bel oiseau . The thought makes him smile again.

‘So — what do you think?’ she asks seriously, after a few seconds. Her finger finds the scar on her lip. She has a habit of touching it sometimes, of putting a finger to it for a moment.

He turns his attention to the brown development, its dour little windows.

There is nothing interesting about it whatsoever.

‘Nice,’ he says, finally. ‘Shall we?’

For the layout of these spacious apartments, the architect strived to achieve the maximum use of the available space. As a result, these apartments have a very practical layout. The living room with open kitchen provides access to the spacious terrace of 8m 2. The terrace is south facing and offers impressive views over the valley. Furthermore, these apartments offer a spacious bedroom…

His own words, written without ever seeing the place. Off-plan prose.

They stand in the show apartment.

Even after the unpromising exterior, he is disappointed. The whole thing makes a naff impression. The laminate flooring, the sub-IKEA furniture, the shitty pictures on the walls. Expense has been spared — that hits him the moment he steps in the door. The spaces are too tight. It isn’t ‘spacious’ at all, not even in the estate-agent definition of the word. It feels pinched. There is definitely no wow factor, except slightly out on the terrace, with the mountains shoving up into the sunlight.

Still, it won’t be an easy sell. Not at the list prices.

Who was advising Noyer? he wonders, stepping back inside. All this tatty stuff is just a false economy. Unless he didn’t have the money. In which case other investors should have been found. No problem. James knows where to find them, where to find money for things like that. Once Giles took him along to an event at the Gherkin — the money was waiting for them there, suited, smiling, munching nibbles.

Must be that Air Miles just wasn’t paying attention here. This is pretty small-time stuff. No oligarchs venture up this sleepy valley. Méribel it ain’t. Might as well do it properly, though. Squeeze everything you can out of it. Like this you’ll end up selling them for fifty thousand less. Why throw that money away? A few showy pieces of furniture, Smeg fridge, a touch of marble in the bathroom. Stuff like that makes the deal happen. These people fly in for a day. First impression is all they have.

He opens and shuts something flimsy in the kitchen.

Has to be some kind of wow factor.

The curtains, he thinks, look like something from a youth hostel. Some kind of hideous floral print, for fuck’s sake.

She sees he isn’t impressed.

‘You don’t like it?’

‘It’s fine,’ he tells her. ‘I mean,’ he says, ‘it’s economy, of course.’

He smiles at her. Sees she knows what he means. Has had the same thought herself. ‘Who was advising Monsieur Noyer here?’ he asks. And then says, smiling at her again, ‘I know you weren’t.’ From the way she dresses, just that, he knows she wasn’t. He wonders whether to say it to her. Something like that.

It’s too late, though. She is already saying, ‘No, I wasn’t. I don’t know.’

‘Madame Noyer, maybe?’ It’s a joke, sort of.

She just says again, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Is there a Madame Noyer?’ he asks.

‘There is.’

‘Let’s have a look at the others then,’ he says.

—

Unfurnished, the other apartments are more appealing. There is, at least, a sense of potential in their emptiness. They will all, though, be the same as the show apartment. Despite what she said, Noyer obviously does not know what he’s doing. He needs help. He needs someone to hold his hand. Which is exactly what James was hoping to find — someone in need of help.

He wonders whether to even show them the show apartment. Might be better to show them these empty ones.

He stands at a window in the ‘penthouse’ — four hundred and twenty-five thousand euros (excluding VAT) — a duplex at the top of the development, with views up and down the valley. The valley ends in a mass of overlapping peaks. A wall of them. The other way, the horizon is low.

There is no flooring down here yet, just the screed under his feet as he walks around.

‘This one sleeps six, yeah?’ he asks.

‘Eight,’ she tells him.

‘Eight?’ He sounds sceptical, like a journalist interviewing a politician on TV.

She says, ‘Including the sofa bed in the living room.’

‘Right. Okay.’

He wanders over to one of the windows, larger here than in the other apartments.

‘Fireplaces would have been nice,’ he mentions.

‘There was an issue,’ she says. ‘About the insurance.’

‘Yeah?’ He stands at the window, looking out. ‘Still.’