Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 148 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

26 | HAPPINESS WITHOUT A SHADOW?

Tracy gazed at him wide-eyed when she met him outside Passport Control at Munich Airport, but she waited until they were inside the little Lancia before she burst into tears. ‘What have they been doing to you?’ she said through her sobs. ‘What have they been doing to you now?’

Bond took her in his arms. ‘It’s all right, Tracy. I promise you. These are only cuts and bruises, like a bad ski-fall. Now don’t be a goose. They could happen to anyone.’ He smoothed back her hair and took out his handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

She took the handkerchief from him and laughed through her tears. ‘Now you’ve ruined my eye-black. And I put it on so carefully for you.’ She took out her pocket mirror and carefully wiped away the smudges. She said, ‘It’s so silly. But I knew you were up to no good. As soon as you said you were going off for a few days to clean up something instead of coming to me, I knew you were going to get into more trouble. And now Marc-Ange has telephoned and asked me if I’ve seen you. He was very mysterious and sounded worried. And when I said I hadn’t he just rang off. And now there’s this story in the papers about Piz Gloria. And you were so guarded on the telephone this morning. And from Zürich. I knew it all tied up.’ She put back her mirror and pressed the self-starter. ‘All right. I won’t ask questions. And I’m sorry I cried.’ She added fiercely, ‘But you are such an idiot! You don’t seem to think it matters to anyone. The way you go on playing Red Indians. It’s so – so selfish.’

Bond reached out and pressed her hand on the wheel. He hated ‘scenes’. But it was true what she said. He hadn’t thought of her, only of the job. It never crossed his mind that anybody really cared about him. A shake of the head from his friends when he went, a few careful lines in the obituary columns of The Times, a momentary pang in a few girls’ hearts. But now, in three days’ time, he would no longer be alone. He would be a half of two people. There wouldn’t only be May and Mary Goodnight who would tut-tut over him when he came back from some job as a hospital case. Now, if he got himself killed, there would be Tracy who would at any rate partially die with him.

The little car wove expertly through the traffic. Bond said, ‘I’m sorry, Tracy. It was something that had to be done. You know how it is. I just couldn’t back out of it. I really wouldn’t have been happy here, like I am now, if I’d shirked it. You do see that, don’t you?’

She reached out and touched his cheek. ‘I wouldn’t love you if you weren’t a pirate. I expect it’s in the blood. I’ll get used to it. Don’t change. I don’t want to draw your teeth like women do with their men. I want to live with you, not with somebody else. But don’t mind if I howl like a dog every now and then. Or rather like a bitch. It’s only love.’ She gave him a fleeting smile. ‘Die Welt, with the story in it, is behind the seat on the floor.’

Bond laughed at her mind-reading. ‘Damn you, Tracy.’ He reached for the paper. He had been aching to see what it said, how much had come out.

There it was, down the central gutter between the first lead, inevitably on Berlin, and the second, equally inevitably, on the miracle of the latest German export figures. All it said, ‘from our correspondent’, date-lined St Moritz, was ‘MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSIONS on PIZ GLORIA. Cable Railway to Millionaires’ Resort Destroyed’. And then a few lines repeating the content of the headings and saying that the police would investigate by helicopter at first light in the morning. The next headline caught Bond’s eye: ‘ IN ENGLAND, POLIO SCARE ’. And then, date-lined the day before from London, a brief Reuter dispatch: ‘The nine girls held at various British airports on suspicion of having had contact with a possible polio carrier at Zürich Airport, also an English girl, are still being held in quarantine. A Ministry of Health representative said that this was purely a routine precaution. A tenth girl, the origin of the scare, a Miss Violet O’Neill, is under observation at Shannon Hospital. She is a native of Eire.’

Bond smiled to himself. When they were pushed, the British could do this sort of thing supremely well. How much co-ordination had this brief report required? To begin with, M. Then the C.I.D., M.I.5, Ag. and Fish., H.M. Customs, Passport Control, the Ministry of Health, and the Government of Eire. All had contributed, and with tremendous speed and efficiency. And the end product, put out to the world, had been through the Press Association to Reuter. Bond tossed the paper over his shoulder and watched the Kaiser Yellow buildings of what had once been one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, now slowly being rebuilt in the same old Kaiser Yellow, file by in their post-war drabness. So the case was closed, the assignment over!

But still The Big One had got away!

They got to the hotel at about three o’clock. There was a message for Tracy to call Marc-Ange at the Maison Rouge at Strasbourg. They went up to her room and got through. Tracy said, ‘Here he is, Papa, and almost in one piece.’ She handed the receiver to Bond.

Marc-Ange said, ‘Did you get him?’

‘No, damn it. He’s in Italy now. At least I think he is. That was the way he went. How did you get on? It looked fine from down below.’

‘Satisfactory. All accounted for.’

‘Gone?’

‘Yes. Gone for good. There was no trace of your man from Zürich. I lost two. Our friend had left a surprise in his filing-cabinet. That accounted for Ché-Ché. Another one wasn’t quick enough. That is all. The trip back was entertaining. I will give you the details tomorrow. I shall travel tonight in my sleeping-car. You know?’

‘Yes. By the way, what about the girl friend, Irma?’

‘There was no sign of her. Just as well. It would have been difficult to send her away like the others.’

‘Yes. Well, thanks, Marc-Ange. And the news from England is also good. See you tomorrow.’

Bond put down the receiver. Tracy had discreetly retired to the bathroom and locked the door. She now called, ‘Can I come out?’

‘Two minutes, darling.’ Bond got on to Station M. His call was expected. He arranged to visit the Head of Station, a man he knew slightly called Lieutenant-Commander Savage, in an hour’s time. He released Tracy and they made plans for the evening, then he went along to his room.

His suitcase had been unpacked and there was a bowl of crocuses beside his bed. Bond smiled, picked up the bowl, and placed it firmly on the window-sill. Then he had a quick shower, complicated by having to keep his dressings dry, changed out of his stinking ski clothes into the warmer of the two dark-blue suits he had brought with him, sat down at the writing-desk, and jotted down the headings of what he would have to put on the teleprinter to M. Then he put on his dark-blue raincoat and went down into the street and along to the Odeons Platz.

(If he had not been thinking of other things, he might have noticed the woman on the other side of the street, a squat, toad-like figure in a frowsty dark-green Loden cloak, who gave a start of surprise when she saw him sauntering along, hustled across the street through the traffic, and got on his tail. She was expert at what she was doing, and, when he went into the newish apartment house on the Odeons Platz, she didn’t go near the door to verify the address, but waited on the far side of the square until he came out. Then she tailed him back to the Vier Jahreszeiten, took a taxi back to her flat, and put in a long-distance call to the Metropole Hotel on Lake Como.)

Bond went up to his room. On the writing-desk an impressive array of dressings and medicaments had been laid out. He got on to Tracy and said, ‘What the hell is this? Have you got a pass-key or something?’

She laughed. ‘The maid on this floor has become a friend. She understands people who are in love. Which is more than you do. What do you mean by moving those flowers?’

‘They’re lovely. I thought they looked prettier by the window and they will get some sun there. Now I’ll make a deal. If you’ll come along and change my dressings, I’ll take you down and buy you a drink. Just one. And three for me. That’s the right ratio between men and women. All right?’

‘Wilco.’ Her receiver went down.

It hurt like hell and Bond couldn’t prevent the tears of pain from squeezing out of his eyes. She kissed them away. She looked pale at what she had seen. ‘You’re sure you oughtn’t to see a doctor?’

‘I’m just seeing one. You did it beautifully. What worries me is how we’re going to make love. In the proper fashion, elbows are rather important for the man.’

‘Then we’ll do it in an improper fashion. But not tonight, or tomorrow. Only when we’re married. Till then I am going to pretend I’m a virgin.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘I wish I was, James. I am in a way, you know. People can make love without loving.’

‘Drinks,’ said Bond firmly. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world to talk about love.’

‘You are a pig,’ she said indignantly. ‘We’ve got so much to talk about and all you think about is drink.’

Bond laughed. He put an arm gingerly round her neck and kissed her long and passionately. He broke away. ‘There, that’s just the beginning of my conversation. We’ll go on with the duller bits in the bar. Then we’ll have a wonderful dinner in Walterspiel’s and talk about rings and whether we’ll sleep in twin beds or one, and whether I’ve got enough sheets and pillows for two, and other exciting things to do with being married.’

And it was in that way that the evening passed and Bond’s head reeled with all the practical feminine problems she raised, in high seriousness, but he was surprised to find that all this nest-building gave him a curious pleasure, a feeling that he had at last come to rest and that life would now be fuller, have more meaning, for having someone to share it with. Togetherness! What a curiously valid cliché it was!

The next day was occupied with hilarious meals with Marc-Ange, whose giant trailer had come during the night to take up most of the parking space behind the hotel, and with searching the antique shops for an engagement and a wedding ring. The latter was easy, the traditional plain gold band, but Tracy couldn’t make up her mind about the engagement ring and finally dispatched Bond to find something he liked himself while she had her last fitting for her ‘going-away’ dress. Bond hired a taxi, and he and the taxi-man, who had been a Luftwaffe pilot during the war and was proud of it, tore round the town together until, at an antique shop near the Nymphenburg Palace, Bond found what he wanted – a baroque ring in white gold with two diamond hands clasped. It was graceful and simple and the taxi-man was also in favour, so the deal was done and the two men went off to celebrate at the Franziskaner Keller, where they ate mounds of Weisswurst and drank four steins of beer each and swore they wouldn’t ever fight each other again. Then, happy with his last bachelor party, Bond returned tipsily to the hotel, avoided being embraced by the taxi-man, and went straight up to Tracy’s room and put the ring on her finger. She burst into tears, sobbing that it was the most beautiful ring in the world, but when he took her in his arms she began to giggle. ‘Oh, James, you are bad. You stink like a pig of beer and sausages. Where have you been?’

When Bond told her, she laughed at the picture he painted of his last fling and then paraded happily up and down the room, making exaggeratedly gracious gestures with her hand to show off the ring and for the diamonds to catch the light. Then the telephone rang and it was Marc-Ange saying that he wanted to talk to Bond in the bar, and would Tracy kindly keep out of the way for half an hour?

Bond went down and, after careful consideration, decided that schnapps would go with his beer and ordered a double Steinhäger. Marc-Ange’s face was serious. ‘Now listen, James. We have not had a proper talk. It is very wrong. I am about to become your father-in-law and I insist. Many months ago, I made you a serious offer. You declined it. But now you have accepted it. What is the name of your bank?’

Bond said angrily, ‘Shut up, Marc-Ange. If you think I’ll accept a million pounds from you or from anyone else you’re mistaken. I don’t want my life to be ruined. Too much money is the worst curse you can lay on anyone’s head. I have enough. Tracy has enough. It will be fun saving up to buy something we want but can’t quite afford. That is the only kind of money to have – not quite enough.’

Marc-Ange said furiously, ‘You have been drinking. You are drunk. You don’t understand what you are saying. What I am giving you is only a fifth of my fortune. You understand? It means nothing to me. Tracy is used to having whatever she wants. I wish it to remain so. She is my only child. You cannot possibly keep her on a Civil Servant’s pay. You have got to accept!’

‘If you give me any money, I swear I will pass it on to charity. You want to give your money away to a dogs’ home? All right. Go ahead!’

‘But James’ – Marc-Ange was now pleading – ‘what will you accept from me? Then a trust fund for any children you may have. Yes?’

‘Even worse. If we have children, I will not have this noose hung round their heads. I didn’t have any money and I haven’t needed it. I’ve loved winning money gambling because that is found money, money that comes out of the air like a great surprise. If I’d inherited money, I’d have gone the way of all those playboy friends of Tracy’s you complained about so much. No, Marc-Ange.’ Bond drained his Steinhäger decisively. ‘It’s no good.’

Marc-Ange looked as if he would burst into tears. Bond relented. He said, ‘It’s very kind of you, Marc-Ange, and I appreciate it from the heart. I’ll tell you what. If I swear to come to you if either of us ever needs help, will that do? There may be illnesses and things. Perhaps it would be nice if we had a cottage in the country somewhere. We may need help if we have children. Now. How about that? Is it a bargain?’

Marc-Ange turned doubtful, dogs’ eyes on Bond. ‘You promise? You would not cheat me of helping you, adding to your happiness when you allow me to?’

Bond reached over and took Marc-Ange’s right hand and pressed it. ‘My word on it. Now come on, pull yourself together. Here comes Tracy. She’ll think we’ve been having a fight.’

‘So we have,’ said Marc-Ange gloomily. ‘And it is the first fight I have ever lost.’

27 | ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

‘I do.’

James Bond said the words at ten-thirty in the morning of a crystal-clear New Year’s Day in the British Consul General’s drawing-room.

And he meant them.

The Consul General had proved himself, as British Consuls so often do, to be a man of efficiency and a man with a heart. It was a holiday for him and, as he confessed, he should have been recovering from a New Year’s Eve hangover. And he had shaved many days off the formal period of notice, but that, he explained, he had occasionally, and improperly, risked in his career if there were exceptional circumstances such as the imminent death of either party. ‘You both look healthy enough,’ he had said when they first visited him together, ‘but that’s a nasty cut on your head, Commander Bond, and the Countess is perhaps looking a little pale. And I have taken the precaution of obtaining special dispensation from the Foreign Secretary, which I may say, to my surprise, was immediately forthcoming. So let’s make it New Year’s Day. And come to my home. My wife is hopelessly sentimental about these occasional jobs I have to do, and I know she’d love to meet you both.’

The papers were signed, and Head of Station M., who had agreed to act as Bond’s best man and who was secretly longing to write a sensational note to the head of his London Section about all this, produced a handful of confetti and threw most of it over Marc-Ange, who had turned up in a ‘cylindre’ and a full suit of very French tails with, surprisingly, two rows of medals of which the last, to Bond’s astonishment, was the King’s Medal for foreign resistance-fighters.

‘I will tell you all about it one day, my dear James,’ he had said in answer to Bond’s admiring inquiry. ‘It was tremendous fun. I had myself what the Americans call “a ball”. And’ – his voice sank to a whisper and he put one finger along his brown, sensitive nose – ‘I confess that I profited by the occasion to lay my hands on the secret funds of a certain section of the Abwehr. But Herkos Odonton, my dear James! Herkos Odonton! Medals are so often just the badges of good luck. If I am a hero, it is for things for which no medals are awarded. And’ – he drew lines with his fingers across his chest – ‘there is hardly room on the breast of this “frac”, which, by the way, is by courtesy of the excellent Galeries Barbés in Marseilles, for all that I am due under that heading.’

The farewells were said and Bond submitted himself, he swore for the last time, to Marc-Ange’s embraces, and they went down the steps to the waiting Lancia. Someone, Bond suspected the Consul’s wife, had tied white ribbons from the corners of the wind-screen to the grill of the radiator, and there was a small group of bystanders, passers-by, who had stopped, as they do all over the world, to see who it was, what they looked like.

The Consul General shook Bond by the hand. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t managed to keep this as private as you’d have liked. A woman reporter came on from the Münchener Illustrierte this morning. Wouldn’t say who she was. Gossip-writer, I suppose. I had to give her the bare facts. She particularly wanted to know the time of the ceremony, if you can call it that, so that they could send a camera-man along. At least you’ve been spared that. All still tight, I suppose. Well, so long and the best of luck.’

Tracy, who had elected to ‘go away’ in a dark-grey Tyroler outfit with the traditional dark-green trimmings and stag’s-horn buttons, threw her saucy mountaineer’s hat with its gay chamois’ beard cockade into the back seat, climbed in, and pressed the starter. The engine purred and then roared softly as she went through the gears down the empty street. They both waved one hand out of a window and Bond, looking back, saw Marc-Ange’s ‘cylindre’ whirling up into the air. There was a small flutter of answering hands from the pavement and then they were round the corner and away.

When they found the Autobahn exit for Salzburg and Kufstein, Bond said, ‘Be an angel and pull in to the side, Tracy. I’ve got two things to do.’

She pulled in on to the grass verge. The brown grass of winter showed through the thin snow. Bond reached for her and took her in his arms. He kissed her tenderly. ‘That’s the first thing, and I just wanted to say that I’ll look after you, Tracy. Will you mind being looked after?’

She held him away from her and looked at him. She smiled. Her eyes were introspective. ‘That’s what it means being Mr and Mrs, doesn’t it? They don’t say Mrs and Mr. But you need looking after too. Let’s just look after each other.’

‘All right. But I’d rather have my job than yours. Now. I simply must get out and take down those ribbons. I can’t stand looking like a coronation. D’you mind?’

She laughed. ‘You like being anonymous. I want everyone to cheer as we go by. I know you’re going to have this car sprayed grey or black as soon as you get a chance. That’s all right. But nothing’s going to stop me wearing you like a flag from now on. Will you sometimes feel like wearing me like a flag?’

‘On all holidays and feast days.’ Bond got out and removed the ribbons. He looked up at the cloudless sky. The sun felt warm on his face. He said, ‘Do you think we’d be too cold if we took the roof down?’

‘No, let’s. We can only see half the world with it up. And it’s a lovely drive from here to Kitzbühel. We can always put it up again if we want to.’

Bond unscrewed the two butterfly nuts and folded the canvas top back behind the seats. He had a look up and down the Autobahn. There was plenty of traffic. At the big Shell station on the roundabout they had just passed, his eye was caught by a bright-red open Maserati being tanked up. Fast job. And a typical sporty couple, a man and a woman in the driving-seat – white dust-coats and linen helmets buttoned under the chin. Big dark-green talc goggles that obscured most of the rest of the faces. Usual German speedsters’ uniform. Too far away to see if they were good-looking enough for the car, but the silhouette of the woman wasn’t promising. Bond got in beside Tracy and they set off again down the beautifully landscaped road.

They didn’t talk much. Tracy kept at about eighty and there was wind-roar. That was the trouble about open cars. Bond glanced at his watch. 11.45. They would get to Kufstein at about one. There was a splendid Gasthaus up the winding streets towards the great castle. Here was a tiny lane of pleasure, full of the heart-plucking whine of zither music and the gentle melancholy of Tyrolean yodellers. It was here that the German tourist traditionally stopped after his day’s outing into cheap Austria, just outside the German frontier, for a last giant meal of Austrian food and wine. Bond put his mouth up close to Tracy’s ear and told her about it and about the other attraction at Kufstein – the most imaginative war memorial, for the 1914-18 war, ever devised. Punctually at midday every day, the windows of the castle are thrown open and a voluntary is played on the great organ inside. It can be heard for kilometres down the valley between the giant mountain ranges for which Kufstein provides the gateway. ‘But we shall miss it. It’s coming up for twelve now.’

‘Never mind,’ said Tracy, ‘I’ll make do with the zithers while you guzzle your beer and schnapps.’ She turned in to the right-hand fork leading to the underpass for Kufstein, and they were at once through Rosenheim and the great white peaks were immediately ahead.

The traffic was much sparser now and there were kilometres where theirs was the only car on the road that arrowed away between white meadows and larch copses, towards the glittering barrier where blood had been shed between warring armies for centuries. Bond glanced behind him. Miles away down the great highway was a speck of red. The Maserati? They certainly hadn’t got much competitive spirit if they couldn’t catch the Lancia at eighty! No good having a car like that if you didn’t drive it so as to lose all other traffic in your mirror. Perhaps he was doing them an injustice. Perhaps they too only wanted to motor quietly along and enjoy the day.

Ten minutes later, Tracy said, ‘There’s a red car coming up fast behind. Do you want me to lose him?’

‘No,’ said Bond. ‘Let him go. We’ve got all the time in the world.’

Now he could hear the rasping whine of the eight cylinders. He leaned over to the left and jerked a laconic thumb forwards, waving the Maserati past.

The whine changed to a shattering roar. The windscreen of the Lancia disappeared as if hit by a monster fist. Bond caught a glimpse of a taut, snarling mouth under a syphilitic nose, the flash-eliminator of some automatic gun being withdrawn, and then the red car was past and the Lancia was going like hell off the verge across a stretch of snow and smashing a path through a young copse. Then Bond’s head crashed into the wind-screen frame and he was out.

When he came to, a man in the khaki uniform of the Autobahn Patrol was shaking him. The young face was stark with horror. ‘Was ist denn geschehen? Was ist denn geschehen?’

Bond turned towards Tracy. She was lying forward with her face buried in the ruins of the steering-wheel. Her pink handkerchief had come off and the bell of golden hair hung down and hid her face. Bond put his arm round her shoulders, across which the dark patches had begun to flower.

He pressed her against him. He looked up at the young man and smiled his reassurance.

‘It’s all right,’ he said in a clear voice as if explaining something to a child. ‘It’s quite all right. She’s having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry. You see – ’ Bond’s head sank down against hers and he whispered into her hair – ‘you see, we’ve got all the time in the world.’

The young patrolman took a last scared look at the motionless couple, hurried over to his motor cycle, picked up the hand-microphone, and began talking urgently to the rescue headquarters.

THE END