John Pearson - James Bond - The Authorised Biography

There was no mistaking the touch of pride in Bond's voice as he spoke about the boy. He even produced a photograph from his wallet. It was odd to think of James Bond suddenly as a father – especially when one looked at this snapshot of a solemn, eight-year-old oriental version of Bond himself. He had enormous almond-shaped eyes and a Japanese snub nose, but the jaw-line and the mouth were Bond's all right and it seemed as if he had the beginning of an authentic comma of black hair falling across his forehead.

‘What's his name?’ I asked.

‘James,’ he replied. ‘His mother named him after me, although of course, he has her surname.’

‘And does he know that you're his father?’

‘Good heavens, yes. When I returned to Tokyo I suggested to his mother that we ought to marry, but she wasn't very keen. In fact, soon after, she married a Japanese in Shell.’ Bond pulled a face. ‘But to give the man his due he's looked after the boy marvellously, and never stopped me seeing him. I've been out to Japan several times and had him back in England too. I even took him up to Glencoe to meet the family – his family. He's a proper Bond. I've got him down for Eton. He's ten now, so he'll be going in a year or two. Let's hope he does a little better than his father.’

‘Will he?’ I asked.

Bond nodded. ‘Oh I think so. He's more serious than I was at that age, and apparently he's rather clever. Perhaps he's more like my brother Henry. That'd be a joke.’

Bond was so obviously keen to talk about his son that it was difficult to get him to complete his story – especially as he clearly didn't care to discuss in detail the episode that followed his time in Japan. This was the period when he was brainwashed by the Russians before being sent back to England with one deadly purpose – to murder M. Beyond a brief remark about ‘using certain drugs and playing on my subconscious resentment of old M.’ Bond wouldn't talk about how this was done. When I tried asking him if they used Freudian techniques to tap his hostility to all father figures he simply said that it was ‘a murky business’, and that the reconditioning treatment from Sir James Molony quite obliterated the memory of what had happened. As for M., he said that the old man was remarkably calm about the bungled assassination bid which James Bond attempted with the Russian cyanide pistol.

‘He was expecting it of course. He'd had sufficient warning, and I imagine he was secretly delighted to have guessed what I was up to and to have beaten me. He'd won again.’ And certainly the missions Bond was given immediately afterwards were something of an anticlimax when compared with his big important operations of the fifties – assignments like the Thunderball affair or the grandiose Goldfinger business. Bond clearly felt the come-down. I felt he blamed M. for it.

There was another trip out to Jamaica to deal with the gangster, Scaramanga. ‘That was second division stuff, although old Ian did his best to make a story of it all in The Man with the Golden Gun .’ There was another minor Jamaican operation too. Fleming called it Octopussy .

Bond was obviously moved as he talked about Ian Fleming during the last months of his life.

‘For some reason we saw a lot of each other now, you know, and it was really quite a funny situation. Neither of us had foreseen what would happen when he started writing about me back in 1952, and since then his books had changed their character completely. The films had started – Dr. No was filmed in 1961 – and now what someone called the ‘Bond boom’ had begun. I've no idea quite how many million copies Ian's books sold. I don't really care. All that I knew was that this James Bond fellow on the screen wasn't really me at all. It was a funny feeling – not very pleasant. But Ian seemed rather proud of what had happened. “You should be grateful to me,” he used to say. “There aren't many people who become myths in their lifetime.” But I replied that this was something I could do without. He said that in the end he could too. I think that both of us grew just a little bored with all the fuss.’

I asked him if he saw the James Bond films.

‘Oh yes. I think that I've seen most of them. At first I was a bit put out to see that Connery fellow supposedly playing me , but I suppose that's normal. I remember Ian asked me to a special showing of the first film – wasn't it Dr. No ? – in 1962. He thought it was quite a joke to have me sitting there while all the critics thought he'd simply invented Bond. Instead it was rather – shall we say, disturbing. I felt as if my character, my whole identity, had gradually been usurped by someone else. After a while I really wondered whether I existed at all. Ian gave a party after the film. There was more caviare there than I've ever seen in my life but that was Ian for you. I think he'd won several hundred quid a few days earlier at Le Touquet and spent it all on caviare. I remember standing next to some appalling woman who would insist on saying what an oaf this James Bond fellow was and how he simply wasn't credible. Then Ian came up and insisted on introducing me. I remember she was very cross and seemed to think that we were trying to pull her leg.’

‘And did you make money from the films?’

‘You must be joking. Still, Ian didn't make much either, did he? A few thousand, and he died before the real money started. I was in Germany when he died. I heard it over the car radio. It was a dreadful shock. I'd known him so long. It was almost as if a bit of me had gone.’

‘And then?’

‘If you'll excuse me now,’ he said, ‘we'll have another session later and I'll start filling you in about these later years.’

Bond didn't say where he was going but I presumed that he was off to visit his fiancee.

‘And so you're really getting married, then?’

He smiled quite cheerfully.

‘Yes, certainly. I've finally come round to it. Tomorrow in the city hall. Top hat and tails – the lot.’

I presumed he was joking about the top hat but I wasn't sure.

‘And what about the Secret Service? It's really over? All these calls to you from London. They're not trying to make you change your mind?’

He flared at once.

‘They always act like that. While you're available no one's interested, but when you say you'll go they need you. It's too childish. And anyhow, they've left it just a bit too late this time. I've quite made up my mind.’

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes, really. It may seem odd, but I've grown tired of being treated in this fashion. Also I want a little peace and normal living. Now that the chance is there I'm taking it.’

When Bond had gone I changed, swam, ordered myself a whisky sour, then had a solitary lunch beside the pool. I had notes to write up, but Bond's restlessness was catching. There is a limit to the time that one can spend on islands. Suddenly Bermuda seemed too hot, too soporific. The hotel, the whole island seemed to have nodded off to sleep, and I thought enviously of all the honeymooners taking their siestas there behind the hotel shutters.

One really couldn't blame James Bond for settling for the soft life at last. He'd earned every bit of luxury he got. I thought of Honeychile. She was a dominating woman, but Bond would cope with her. Certainly she loved him and he seemed fond of her, probably the best way round for both of them. She would have the man she loved, and he would have, not passion, but at least a rich and beautiful adoring wife. There were worse foundations for a marriage. There was still time for him to have the children he had always wanted – half brothers and sisters for the almond-eyed young James Suzuki. And possibly he'd even buy his house in Kent, with its view of the English Channel and the coast of France.