David Szalay - All That Man Is

They are about twenty yards ahead of him. They seem to have forgotten he is there. Murray stops, to save himself embarrassment, and turns to the sea.

Hooded, he takes up a position of heroic reflection, hands resting on the top bar of the metal railing that follows the edge of the walkway, eyes seeping water and fixed on the distant island, far out over the windy inlet, no more than a dark horizontal smudge.

And, nearer, in the middle distance, some sort of yacht. More of a fucking ship, actually. How many decks does that thing have ? Four, five? Must be a hundred yards long, at least. It moves on the waves, you can see, if you keep your eyes on it.

And look at that! Look at the way the sunlight falls down between the clouds! White the sea underneath it. Sudden islands of blinding white. The yacht turns black, waves blink around it. Sudden islands of blinding white. And in Murray, watching, an unfamiliar euphoria. Sudden islands of blinding white. Then melt away. Dull sea.

Damp wind in his face.

He turns his head in the hood of his jacket, sees the lovers still necking further up the walkway, in the shelter of a wind-mangled pine.

Fuck it.

His eyes find the superyacht again.

And fuck that as well.

Aye, fuck the lot of it.

Yesterday. In the afternoon, he left the house in Lowndes Square, the huge house still holding the shock of what had happened. Chelsea, seen through the window of the Maybach. Sloane Street, its familiar shops — Hermès, Ermenegildo Zegna. Cheyne Walk. Traffic heavyish at four. Dark November day. Low tide, the Thames, dull mudflats. That park, on the other side, the south side. Then small streets, and the heliport. The windy platform over the water. The loud, leather-trimmed pod of the Sikorsky. They were about to fly upriver, over the western districts of London. As the helicopter turned over the water, wavelets fleeing from the downdraught, he looked back at it, at London, the place that for some years had been his home. Then it was dropping away, to something merely schematic, a monochrome expanse spread out in the light of the late-autumn afternoon. He would never see it again.

The decision had been made standing at a window in Lowndes Square, staring out. The decision to jump into the sea. To drown himself. It had seemed like some sort of solution.

Farnborough airport.

A two-hour flight to Venice.

From Venice airport, a hired limousine.

Venice itself hidden in darkness and drizzle. It was there, somewhere, on the other side of the water, an eroding monument to lost wealth, to lost power.

The harsh, tall light of the docks. The hum of the pump as the yacht took on fuel. The smell of the fuel. Someone holding an umbrella.

And Enzo, the first officer, waiting for him at the end of a strip of drizzle-wet carpet: ‘Welcome aboard, sir.’

Enzo told him that they would be all set in half an hour, wanted to know where they were headed.

A pause.

He had not thought about it. It made no difference.

‘Uh,’ he said. ‘Corfu.’

Enzo nodded, smiled.

And Mark, the head steward: ‘Will sir be dining this evening?’

‘Just a snack,’ he said to him. ‘Thank you.’

It arrived, later, with a half-bottle of Barbaresco. He did not touch the food. He had a glass of the Barbaresco.

It was from his own estate, a property he had acquired some years ago. An impulsive thing. He has only been there once. He finds it hard to picture the place. They had flown over it in the helicopter, he and the previous owner, a Piedmontese or Savoyard aristocrat, a youngish man, pointing things out to him, shouting over the shriek of the machine…

Silence.

He was lying on the bed, waiting for the yacht to start moving.

He did not mean to fall asleep. He meant to jump into the sea. He meant to drown himself. And yet, for the first time in many days, he simply fell asleep.

In the morning, the yacht is at anchor, a kilometre or two from the Croatian shore. Enzo has phoned to say there is a storm out in the Adriatic. He has apologised for the delay, and said they will be on the move again at some point in the afternoon, when the storm out at sea has passed.

Nearer the shore, where the yacht is anchored, it is a windy, unpleasant day. Sometimes rain.

He turns down Mark’s suggestion, in the middle of the morning, to take the launch and visit the little seaside town that they can see.

Instead, he picks at his lunch in the small private dining room — a single table, able to seat only eight — on the middle deck.

He feels like an imposter in the world of the living, still in the same clothes he fell asleep in, still carrying the stale, days-old scent of Cartier Pasha.

When he woke up this morning, grey light was gathering at the windows. Lifting his head, he looked at it, puzzled. Then he understood. One more day.

It would have to be done at night. No one would notice then, and try to save him. No one would notice — just, in the morning, his quarters empty, and all around the inscrutable sea. The long, dissolving wake.

He is a man in his sixties, with a heavy paunch. A hard handsome face. He has lost much of his hair. He is wearing a shirt with an exaggeratedly large collar, black silk. White leather shoes.

The sea is blue like flint and cold and unforgiving. Squally rain speckles the tall windows of the private dining room, and across the restless grey water, the Croatian town huddles on the coast. Stony hills loom above it, collide with clouds.

He puts down his fork and summons Mark. When he appears, he asks him for a cigar, and Mark addresses himself to the humidor.

Mark presents him with the cigar and asks whether he would like a digestif. A shake of the head.

‘Will that be all then, sir?’ Mark asks. Mark is from Sunderland.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

With the laden tray, Mark leaves.

Some minutes later the cigar is still unlit.

He lets himself out onto the terrace and stands there, looking down at the surface of the sea, which moves with smooth, heavy movements.

Smooth, heavy movements.

Heavy shapes finding the light and losing it as they move.

Heavy, more than anything.

Heavy.

And he wonders, half-hypnotised by the heavy shapes finding and losing the light: How much does the sea weigh? And then, his logical mind working on the question: What is the volume of the sea? And then: What is its average depth? What is its surface area? Those two facts, he thinks, must be easy to find out — and then you would have the answer, since the volume of water is effectively the same thing as the weight.

He steps inside, out of the wind, and summons Mark.

When the steward appears, he says, ‘Mark, I want you to find out two things for me.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What is the average depth of the sea.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Mark says.

‘And what is the surface area.’

‘Of the sea, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything else, sir?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll find out for you, sir.’

‘Thank you, Mark.’

Alone, he waits impatiently for the numbers, and sitting at the dining-room table, finally he lights the cigar.

A few minutes later there is a little tap on the door.

‘Yes.’

‘I have that information for you, sir,’ Mark says.

‘Yes?’

‘The average depth is three thousand, six hundred and eighty-two metres,’ Mark says.

‘So deep…?’ he murmurs, writing it down. ‘Okay…’

‘And the surface area is three hundred and sixty-one million square kilometres.’

‘You’re sure?’

Mark hesitates. He googled the questions. His employer, though, only vaguely knows what Google is and probably thinks that Mark has spent the last few minutes phoning marine experts at the world’s leading universities — people who would be happy to be interrupted in order to help him with his important work.