John Pearson - James Bond - The Authorised Biography

‘The defeat of the Roumanians really was a great boost to the morale of the whole Service. It happened at a time when we needed a success. It certainly did win us friends inside the casino – after this, nothing was too much trouble for them where we were concerned – and it did a lot for our good name with the French Deuxieme Bureau. Over the years, Mathis has been a good friend, you know. I'm not so sure though that it was good for me to start off with a success like this. In some ways I think that I've been paying the price for it ever since.’

It was unlike Bond to indulge in this sort of introspection. Self-doubt was not a failing that he suffered from. On the other hand, I longed to know how self-aware he really was – how consciously he analysed himself.

‘What price?’ I asked.

Bond glanced up quickly, and then shrugged his shoulders.

‘I'm not sure myself. I suppose that you could say the price of never being quite like ordinary people.’

‘You'd like to be?’

‘Of course. I realize it now, but it's too late. I'm what I am. I know myself quite well enough to know I'll never change. I need this life – I'm hooked on it. Why else d'you think that I'm so anxious for that damned call back to London? But sometimes I'd give anything not to have to worry. And in a way, you know, I blame it all on Maddox that I do.’

‘Why Maddox in particular? Surely your whole life had been setting you apart from other people? You were a born outsider from the start?’

‘Touche,’ said Bond. ‘Of course I was. I was a very mixed-up adolescent. Whatever happened, life could not have been that easy for me, given my background and what happened. The point was, Maddox saw all this. He understood. In his own quiet way he was a very wicked bastard. He indulged me, gave me exactly what I wanted, and made me what I am. It's only now I realize how much he was enjoying it.’

Bond grinned, revealing strong, faintly discoloured teeth. We had stayed too long at the table. The last of the coffee had gone cold, the waiters had already laid the other tables for the evening meal.

‘Time we moved,’ he said. ‘I tell you what. Why don't we have a tour of the island? There's a car here, belonging to a friend. While we're driving I can try and tell you just what happened. Then perhaps you'll understand.’

The car turned out to be a white Rolls Royce Corniche. It had been parked in a lock-up garage under the hotel. As Bond drove it out I saw that the whole rear offside wing was buckled and an expensive gash ran the whole length of the body.

On the front seat there was a woman's pink towelling beach coat, also a pair of gilt-and-diamante framed sunglasses.

‘Shove them in the back,’ said Bond.

He drove with a relaxed control which somehow matched the car, but seemed to have a faint contempt for it.

‘Pity the way the Rolls Royce has become like any other car – just one more status symbol now for rich Americans.’

‘You don't like it?’

‘Everything about it's soft, ridiculously luxurious. This isn't what a car should be. The last real car that Rolls produced was the 1953 Silver Wraith. One of those with Mulliner coach-work, and you have something.’

It was somehow typical of Bond to be complaining about luxury whilst still enjoying it.

I asked him about his favourite cars. The old Bentley was the best. The essence of a car is that it should be part of you, an expression of your character. He explained that for him a motor-car was as personal a possession as his wrist-watch or the clothes he wore. It needed to be absolutely perfect.

We had taken Black Hole Lane – the ocean was bright blue, the island very gentle, like an Isle of Wight gone tropical. There was a pleasing quality about it, something not completely real. The same with Bond – the island suited him. He insisted on stopping at the old fort of St Catherines, and for a while talked knowledgeably about the pirates and the privateers. Bond looked out to sea, and spoke of the ruin of the fauna, and the island.

‘I can remember the same thing with Europe. It's hard you know, not to feel nostalgic for that bad old world. For one thing it had such variety. And, for another, one could still enjoy oneself – if one had money and a little freedom. I had both.’

He returned to the aftermath of the casino job and how perhaps it had been bad for him.

‘There I was, still only seventeen, with suddenly the run of Europe. I'm not complaining. It was a great time – a splendid period to be alive. Perhaps it's only now that I am having to pay the price for all of it.’

After the casino business, Bond was officially enrolled by the Secret Service. He was attached to Station P, controlled from Paris, and used as an operator in the field. But certain things – his youth, his strength and great good looks, his obvious success with women – all placed him in a certain category. As he says, ‘I had a somewhat gilded image.’ Some of his colleagues called him ‘Casino Bond’ – others, more sourly, ‘our young gigolo’. He inevitably attracted envy, but this never worried him. He was a loner. Maddox was the only man he trusted. He was responsible directly to him. He was kept very busy.

For cover, Maddox insisted that he made a show of picking up his studies at the University of Geneva. This he did at the beginning of 1938. Life there was undemanding for a rich young student, and Frau Nisberg was delighted to have him back. He seemed thinner and much older than she remembered him – also quieter. The easy-going, wild young boy had turned into a man. There were no more late-night drinking sessions with the other students, no more skiing escapades to prove himself. He was more reserved, more noticeably Swiss.

He also seemed much more sophisticated, dressing so elegantly now, smoking his foreign cigarettes that made the whole house smell like a bordello. He had his great grey battleship of a motor-car which Herr Nisberg garaged for him behind the shop. He used to drive off in it for days, sometimes for weeks on end. Frau Nisberg was certain that the young Herr Bond had got himself a rich, demanding woman. Frau Nisberg knew the signs. She would hear his telephone ringing in the night and in the morning his room was always empty. He would never leave a note or any hint when he was coming back. She used to tidy up a bit while he was away – he was even more untidy than she remembered – and when he reappeared he was often in a dreadful state – unshaven, hollow-eyed for lack of sleep. ‘Women,’ Frau Nisberg thought, ‘keeping the young Herr Bond away from his studies.’

But young Herr Bond was learning – things which would have turned Frau Nisberg's iron-grey Swiss hair snow-white had she suspected them. On one occasion Herr Nisberg did notice three neat holes in the offside door of the Bentley and wondered. On another, young Herr Bond had been confined to bed after an absence of some weeks. There had been bloodstains on his clothes and instead of old Herr Doktor Neuberg there had been some funny foreign doctor she had never seen before. As she told Herr Bond, he must really be more careful.

But Bond was careful; it was how he survived. One of the highest words of praise in Maddox's vocabulary was ‘professional’, meaning a man who knew his job. Bond liked to think that he was rapidly becoming a true professional.

For several months after the Roumanian job, he had been employed on what was known as ‘bread-and-butter work’ – the essential, down-to-earth, prosaic work of the European secret agent, working for Maddox as a carrier or as a contact man. This involved long, often hazardous, trips across Europe. There were certain routes he got to know – passing through Strasbourg into Germany, or through the Simplon into Italy or taking the unsuspected paths between the customs' posts to enter Spain across the Pyrenees. He would use different covers, sometimes an English student travelling to learn the language for the Foreign Office examination. His favourite cover was to be the self he hankered after – a rich young Englishman on holiday, driving the Bentley, preferably with some, glamorous young thing beside him.