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“I don’t like my strings pulled.”
There’s a clear challenge, a dare, in the way he studies me.
“Can you really stop me selling to whomever I choose?”
“You cannot sell to outsiders. The only people able to own property here are La Canette residents.”
“It’s a catch 22, isn’t it? You don’t want me selling to Morris and Sweeny but won’t let me sell to outside investors.”
He shakes his head. “If we don’t want ordinary people priced out, then we can’t let what happened to the other Islands happen to us.”
“So, no one can build holiday homes? It doesn’t fit with your big lecture yesterday about attracting tourists.”
“We have hotels, we can even have holiday homes as long as they are owned by our people.” He seems to include me in this concept of ‘our people’; has he forgotten the names people called us? The graffiti sprayed on our walls? The lynch mob outside our front door, throwing stones through our windows?
George is watching me, his eyes are clever, and I suspect he knows what I’m thinking. “Where did you last go on holiday?” he asks.
“Mallorca.”
“Where in Mallorca?”
“A small village nearPort de Soller.”
“I know the area.” Then he says what I knew he was going to say. “A quiet and beautiful spot. And…unspoilt.”
I can’t escape the feeling he’s negotiating me into a corner. All the charm and pleasant conversation aside, he is being manipulative. I dislike being manipulated. My back stiffens all by itself; I am, after all, still my father’s son.
His eyes on me are shrewd, but he says nothing. Instead, he gets up and goes over to the coffee machine and inserts another pod to make another coffee.
“The only reason I came back is to sell up. As far as we are concerned, La Canette is a closed chapter.”
He holds another cup and glances at me with a question. I nod. He can fill me up with coffee all he likes, it still won’t change my mind.
When he’s back behind his desk, he says in a different voice, “Hal. I do understand more than you think. There was a time I too was determined to never to come back. I felt there were things that could never be forgiven. But in time I could see that the past cannot be fixed. Some wrongs can never be righted. The only thing we can do is turn a new page and do things differently from now on.”
I lean back and prop my ankle on my knee and try to think. His vision of the island makes sense, but not enough to make me sacrifice my family’s future. I need to sell.
He seems to read my mind.
“There is no reason Low Catch cannot become a holiday home, more than one. But…” He waits for me to meet his gaze. “Do it yourself. You are an architect by training.”
I sit up suddenly, my coffee spills into the saucer. “What did you do? Check my LinkedIn profile?”
He takes a file form his desk tray. “I think you are someone who would bring value to our island. You have the drive and the imagination.” He takes some papers out of the file and offers them to me.
I glance at the first page. My new lease. I resist the urge to fold it and stuff it into my breast pocket so he can’t snatch it back.
“I don’t want to take this under false promises. My plan is to sell.”
He says nothing. Silence seems to be a tactic of his.
“Anyway,” I say, getting up. “Why would you trust me to do something better than Morris and Sweeny? I might build a block of ugly flats that hurt the eye.”
He smiles and there’s a glint in his eyes that remind me of the boy he used to be.
“Because, Hal,” he says with half a smile. “You and I climbed every apple tree and swam in every stream, remember?”
Of course, I remember. But I don’t answer.
