David Szalay - All That Man Is

He steps forward to shake James’s hand and offer him a brief supercilious smile — he treats him like a sort of servant, someone with a measure of technical expertise, like a plumber or a mechanic.

He is very proud of his apartments, James sees that immediately.

So he is tactful, as they inspect them together, the show flat first.

Paulette is with them. A quiet presence this morning. She left the hotel very early in the morning, and drove home to Cluses. When she showed up again at nine she looked extremely tired.

‘Very nice,’ James says to Cédric, of the kitchen in the show flat. His tone is flat and polite, not enthusiastic. Cédric, wandering through the apartment in his Barbour and mustard-coloured corduroy trousers, does not seem to notice this.

They stand on the balcony, admiring the view.

‘ Magnifique ,’ James says, more fulsomely. They are speaking French.

The air has an autumnal feel this morning. The early mist has lifted. The sun is warmer now. Now. Do it now. Say something.

‘Do you have any other development plans?’ James asks, still staring at the dramatic mountain that hangs over the village.

‘Of course,’ Cédric says in a manner which suggests he is not minded to discuss the subject. The sun has raised a sweat on his smooth forehead. He lights an American cigarette.

‘I know you’ve been a bit unhappy with the service,’ James says.

Cédric shrugs, still getting his fill of the view. ‘If you sell the flats, it’s okay,’ he says.

‘Oh, we’ll sell them,’ James assures him. ‘We’ll sell them. There won’t be a problem there.’

‘Then okay.’

‘No, why I mention it is,’ James says, ‘we’ve been focused mainly on the more traditional areas. I mean as a firm. Which is why we might not have been able to give you the time and attention you’re entitled to. Now we’re planning to start something more focused on some of the newer areas.’ There is a short pause. Then he says, ‘I’m planning to start something.’

There it is.

He’s said it.

It’s out there.

I’m planning to start something.

Is Cédric even listening?

James says, ‘I think there’s huge potential in some of the newer areas. I’m sure you agree.’

‘Of course.’ Cédric says this without looking at him.

‘So I want to focus on this area,’ James says. ‘Make something happen here. I think together we can make something happen here.’

He is smiling.

‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he says, ‘about what other plans you have. Maybe get involved at an earlier stage. For instance, these flats,’ he tells him, ‘are fine. They’re very nice. I have to say, though, I think we can go upmarket with any future developments you have in mind. This is a stunning valley. It has a traditional feel unlike anywhere else I know in the French Alps. I mean the heritage aspect. Plus the ski infrastructure is improving all the time. There’s more money to be made from high-end stuff. We could do luxury here. Do you see what I’m saying?’

He felt mortal, this morning, waking with a headache from the wine and aquavit, his lanky frame patched with sorenesses. A sort of weak milky light slipped through the curtains. Hardly enough to see his watch by.

Time is slipping away.

He is not young now.

I am not young , he had thought, sitting there in the hotel with his hands in his lap, staring at the floor. When did that happen?

He has started lately, the last year or two, to have the depressing feeling that he is able to see all the way to the end of his life — that he already knows everything that is going to happen, that it is all now entirely predictable. That was what he meant when he talked to Paulette about fate.

And how many more opportunities, after this one, will there be to escape that?

Not many.

Maybe none.

If indeed this is an opportunity. It seems it might not be, after all.

Cédric is showing no interest in his proposal. Squinting in the sunlight, lifting the cigarette to his small mouth, he seems more interested in the light traffic passing, leaving the village on the road to Morillon, than in what James is telling him. Which is now that it will be necessary to invest more up front in the future to maximise the potential of the property. ‘There is more risk,’ he says. ‘If you want to offload some of that risk, we can find other investors to come in alongside you.’

Cédric grunts, unenamoured with the idea.

‘Anyway,’ James says, trying not to feel discouraged, ‘let’s talk about what plans you have, and take it from there.’ He hands Cédric a business card, one of the new ones he’s had made. ‘I want you to call me,’ he says.

When they have finished looking over the apartments, he stands Cédric a coffee in a promisingly chichi little place in the village. Watches him eat a pastry — a tarte aux fraises — breaking it up with the side of a fork.

Paulette is still there, with an empty espresso cup, emailing.

Cédric has now shown some interest in James’s pitch — has offered anyway to drive him around the valley and show him some of the sites he has in mind for development.

And James is starting to think, while Cédric scrapes the crème anglaise from his plate with the side of the fork, about where he can find some money — a few million, let’s say — to put into French Alpine property. He has some numbers. People Air Miles knows. It is, indeed, all about who you know. That much is true. Matching money with opportunity, taking a percentage. Taking something for yourself.

For about an hour, they drive through the valley. Cédric seems to own about half of it, keeps pointing to fields and saying they’re his.

They stop at one of them. It is on a slope just above the old village, up where the houses thin out and the pasture starts. Cédric says his family have owned this land for eighty years — it was where the herd went when it first emerged from its winter quarters, until the snow melted higher up. Le pré du printemps , he says its name is. He seems to think it’s his most promising plot for development.

‘What are you planning then?’ James asks him.

‘Something like the other,’ Cédric says, meaning the Chalets du Midi Apartments.

No, no. Forget that.

Small- to medium-sized chalets, James thinks. Eight maybe, nicely spaced. And apartments, in the middle somewhere. Maybe ten apartments. Parking underneath. Leisure facilities. Everything high spec. Plenty of slate, zinc.

He does some preliminary sums, standing there up to his knees in the tired summer grass.

Cédric is smoking.

‘What about planning regulations?’ James asks him. ‘Do you know anyone who can help us with that?’

It turns out Cédric’s aunt is the deputy mayor. His extended family is all over the local administration like ivy.

‘This is an excellent site,’ James says. He is looking down at the slate roofs of the village: disordered, monochrome, bright. It is eerily still now, the village, in the early afternoon. End of the season. Autumn dead here, nothing happening. Eagles turning over the shadow-filled deeps of the valley all day.

And far away, the other side, smothered in forest, in shade.

In silence.

Sunday morning. They are walking up Tranmere Road, past terraced houses, the windows of the front rooms sticking out like smug little paunches. Muscular black Audis, BMW estates, VW Touaregs are parked outside. The spaces that separate the houses from the pavement are marked off by low walls, sometimes a bit of thinning hedge. There is usually a metal gate, less than waist high. Then tiles to narrow front doors. It is fashionable, James notices, to have, in the pane of glass over the door, the house number as islands of dark transparency in a milky frosting.