Freddy was not as happy, not as entirely satisfied with his situation, as he made out. It wasn’t so much that he worried about being the cricket in the fable, exposed to the oncoming winter. (Though he was.) It was simpler than that. He wanted to be looked up to. He wanted status. When he was twenty-five, lurid sexual exploits did it for him — they won him that status among his envious peers. Now, not so much. They still felt flickers of envy on occasion, sure. They no longer wanted to be him though. He had no money, and the women he pulled these days were not, for the most part, very appealing.
James is staring at his own face in the mirror as he moves the whirring, whirling head of the Braun electric about inside his mouth.
His face has a dead-eyed flaccidity. A flushed indifference. He is looking at it as if it isn’t his own. He feels a definite distance between himself and the face in the mirror. The neon light — a bright lozenge on the wall — isn’t kind to it. He is drunk, slightly. Maybe more than slightly. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He silences the toothbrush, holds its head under the tap for a moment. Should’ve been here, thinking about what he plans to say to Noyer in the morning, not messing about with his PA.
It’s not a joke.
Life is not a fucking joke.
3
Cédric Noyer is a few years younger than James. There is something fogeyish about him though, something which finds visual expression in an incipient jowliness, a softening jawline, a dewlap of self-indulgence threatening his razor-scraped throat. He is wearing a Barbour. He is smoking a cigarette. Parked near him, where he stands in front of Les Chalets du Midi Apartments, is a mud-streaked Mitsubishi Pajero.
He is the owner, James knows, of much land in the area. His father was a farmer — and still is, in a way. He still keeps a small herd, and the family income is swollen with agricultural subsidies. The land is the main thing now, though. The fields in and around Samoëns and Morillon; and, from Cédric’s mother’s side, further up the valley in Sixt.
These apartments are the first development Cédric has undertaken himself. For many years, since the eighties, the family has been selling fields to developers — a hectare here, two hectares there — for prices that went steadily higher and higher. (The latest parcel, with planning permission, fetched well over a million euros.) It was Cédric, supported by his sister Marie-France, who pushed the idea of developing the land themselves — moving up the ‘value chain’, as he put it. He had learned the phrase at the École Supérieure de Commerce in Lyon. ‘I don’t just want to sell milk,’ he had said to his father, trying to put his ambition in terms the old man would understand. ‘I want to make cheese, lots of cheese.’
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.