Bond 03 - Moonraker (30 page)
‘James.’
It was a clear, high, rather nervous voice. Not the voice he had expected.
He looked up. She was standing a few feet away from him. He noticed that she was wearing a black beret at a rakish angle and that she looked exciting and mysterious like someone you see driving by abroad, alone in an open car, someone unattainable and more desirable than anyone you have ever known. Someone who is on her way to make love to somebody else. Someone who is not for you.
He got up and they took each other’s hands.
It was she who released herself. She didn’t sit down.
‘I wish you were going to be there tomorrow, James.’ Her eyes were soft as she looked at him. Soft, but, he thought, somehow evasive.
He smiled. ‘Tomorrow morning or tomorrow night?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she laughed, blushing. ‘I meant at the Palace.’
‘What are you going to do afterwards?’ asked Bond.
She looked at him carefully. What did the look remind him of? The Morphy look? The look he had given Drax on that last hand at Blades? No. Not quite. There was something else there. Tenderness? Regret?
She looked over his shoulder.
Bond turned round. A hundred yards away there was the tall figure of a young man with fair hair trimmed short. His back was towards them and he was idling along, killing time.
Bond turned back and Gala’s eyes met his squarely.
‘I’m going to marry that man,’ she said quietly. ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ And then, as if no other explanation was needed, ‘His name’s Detective-Inspector Vivian.’
‘Oh,’ said Bond. He smiled stiffly. ‘I see.’
There was a moment of silence during which their eyes slid away from each other.
And yet why should he have expected anything else? A kiss. The contact of two frightened bodies clinging together in the midst of danger. There had been nothing more. And there had been the engagement ring to tell him. Why had he automatically assumed that it had only been worn to keep Drax at bay? Why had he imagined that she shared his desires, his plans?
And now what? wondered Bond. He shrugged his shoulders to shift the pain of failure – the pain of failure that is so much greater than the pleasure of success. An exit line. He must get out of these two young lives and take his cold heart elsewhere. There must be no regrets. No false sentiment. He must play the role which she expected of him. The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette.
She was looking at him rather nervously, waiting to be relieved of the stranger who had tried to get his foot in the door of her heart.
Bond smiled warmly at her. ‘I’m jealous,’ he said. ‘I had other plans for you tomorrow night.’
She smiled back at him, grateful that the silence had been broken. ‘What were they?’ she asked.
‘I was going to take you off to a farmhouse in France,’ he said. ‘And after a wonderful dinner I was going to see if it’s true what they say about the scream of a rose.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige. But there are plenty of others waiting to be picked.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Bond. ‘Well, goodbye, Gala.’ He held out his hand.
‘Goodbye, James.’
He touched her for the last time and then they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives.
Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s
I
AN
F
LEMING
was born in London on May 28, 1908. He was educated at Eton College and later spent a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters News Agency where a Moscow posting gave him firsthand experience with what would become his literary
bête noire
—the Soviet Union. During World War II he served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and played a key role in Allied espionage operations.
After the war he worked as foreign manager of the
Sunday Times
, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home “Goldeneye,” he wrote a book called
Casino Royale
—and James Bond was born. The first print run sold out within a month. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring Special Agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His travels, interests, and wartime experience lent authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler described him as “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.” Sales soared when President Kennedy named the fifth title,
From Russia With Love
, one of his favorite books. The Bond novels have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, boosted by the hugely successful film franchise that began in 1962 with the release of
Dr No
.
He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only son, Caspar, went on to become the well-loved novel and film
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
.
Fleming died of heart failure on August 12, 1964, at the age of fifty-six.
