Bond 01 - Casino Royale (20 page)

These scenes always ended in her bitter tears and in moments almost of hysteria.

Each day the atmosphere became more hateful.

It seemed fantastic to Bond that human relationships could collapse into dust overnight and he searched his mind again and again for a reason.

He felt that Vesper was just as horrified as he was and, if anything, her misery seemed greater than his. But the mystery of the telephone conversation which Vesper angrily, almost fearfully it seemed to Bond, refused to explain was a shadow which grew darker with other small mysteries and reticencies.

Already at luncheon on that day things got worse.

After a breakfast which was an effort for both of them, Vesper said she had a headache and would stay in her room out of the sun. Bond took a book and walked for miles down the beach. By the time he returned he had argued to himself that they would be able to sort the problem out over lunch.

Directly they sat down, he apologized gaily for having startled her at the telephone booth and then he dismissed the subject and went on to describe what he had seen on his walk. But Vesper was distrait and commented only in monosyllables. She toyed with her food and she avoided Bond’s eyes and gazed past him with an air of preoccupation.

When she had failed once or twice to respond to some conversational gambit or other, Bond also relapsed into silence and occupied himself with his own gloomy thoughts.

All of a sudden she stiffened. Her fork fell with a clatter on to the edge of her plate and then noisily off the table on to the terrace.

Bond looked up. She had gone as white as a sheet and she was looking over his shoulder with terror in her face.

Bond turned his head and saw that a man had just taken his place at a table on the opposite side of the terrace, well away from them. He seemed ordinary enough, perhaps rather sombrely dressed, but in his first quick glance Bond put him down as some business man on his way along the coast who had just happened on the inn or had picked it out of the Michelin.

‘What is it, darling?’ he asked anxiously.

Vesper’s eyes never moved from the distant figure.

‘It’s the man in the car,’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘The man who was following us. I know it is.’

Bond looked again over his shoulder. The patron was discussing the menu with the new customer. It was a perfectly normal scene. They exchanged smiles over some item on the menu and apparently agreed that it would suit for the patron took the card and with, Bond guessed, a final exchange about the wine, he withdrew.

The man seemed to realize that he was being watched. He looked up and gazed incuriously at them for a moment. Then he reached for a brief-case on the chair beside him, extracted a newspaper and started to read it, his elbows propped up on the table.

When the man had turned his face towards them, Bond noticed that he had a black patch over one eye. It was not tied with a tape across the eye, but screwed in like a monocle. Otherwise he seemed a friendly middle-aged man, with dark brown hair brushed straight back, and, as Bond had seen while he was talking to the patron, particularly large, white teeth.

He turned back to Vesper. ‘Really, darling. He looks very innocent. Are you sure he’s the same man? We can’t expect to have this place entirely to ourselves.’

Vesper’s face was still a white mask. She was clutching the edge of the table with both hands. He thought she was going to faint and almost rose to come round to her, but she made a gesture to stop him. Then she reached for a glass of wine and took a deep draught. The glass rattled on her teeth and she brought up her other hand to help. Then she put the glass down.

She looked at him with dull eyes.

‘I know it’s the same.’

He tried to reason with her, but she paid no attention. After glancing once or twice over his shoulder with eyes that held a curious submissiveness, she said that her headache was still bad and that she would spend the afternoon in her room. She left the table and walked indoors without a backward glance.

Bond was determined to set her mind at rest. He ordered coffee to be brought to the table and then he rose and walked swiftly to the courtyard. The black Peugeot which stood there might indeed have been the saloon they had seen, but it might equally have been one of a million others on the French roads. He took a quick glance inside, but the interior was empty and when he tried the boot, it was locked. He made a note of the Paris number-plate then he went quickly to the lavatory adjoining the dining-room, pulled the chain and walked out on to the terrace.

The man was eating and didn’t look up.

Bond sat down in Vesper’s chair so that he could watch the other table.

A few minutes later the man asked for the bill, paid it and left. Bond heard the Peugeot start up and soon the noise of its exhaust had disappeared in the direction of the road to Royale.

When the patron came back to his table, Bond explained that madame had unfortunately a slight touch of sunstroke. After the patron had expressed his regret and enlarged on the dangers of going out of doors in almost any weather, Bond casually asked about the other customer. ‘He reminds me of a friend who also lost an eye. They wear similar black patches.’

The patron answered that the man was a stranger. He had been pleased with his lunch and had said that he would be passing that way again in a day or two and would take another meal at the auberge. Apparently he was Swiss, which could also be seen from his accent. He was a traveller in watches. It was shocking to have only one eye. The strain of keeping that patch in place all day long. He supposed one got used to it.

‘It is indeed very sad,’ said Bond. ‘You also have been unlucky,’ he gestured to the proprietor’s empty sleeve. ‘I myself was very fortunate.’

For a time they talked about the war. Then Bond rose.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘madame had an early telephone call which I must remember to pay for. Paris. An Elysée number I think,’ he added, remembering that that was Mathis’s exchange.

‘Thank you, monsieur, but the matter is regulated. I was speaking to Royale this morning and the exchange mentioned that one of my guests had put through a call to Paris and that there had been no answer. They wanted to know if madame would like the call kept in. I’m afraid the matter escaped my mind. Perhaps monsieur would mention it to madame. But, let me see, it was an Invalides number the exchange referred to.’

T
HE NEXT
two days were much the same.

On the fourth day of their stay Vesper went off early to Royale. A taxi came and fetched her and brought her back. She said she needed some medicine.

That night she made a special effort to be gay. She drank a lot and when they went upstairs, she led him into her bedroom and made passionate love to him. Bond’s body responded, but afterwards she cried bitterly into her pillow and Bond went to his room in grim despair.

He could hardly sleep and in the early hours he heard her door open softly. Some small sounds came from downstairs. He was sure she was in the telephone booth. Very soon he heard her door softly close and he guessed that again there had been no reply from Paris.

This was Saturday.

On Sunday the man with the black patch was back again. Bond knew it directly he looked up from his lunch and saw her face. He had told her all that the patron had told him, withholding only the man’s statement that he might be back. He had thought it would worry her.

He had also telephoned Mathis in Paris and checked on the Peugeot. It had been hired from a respectable firm two weeks before. The customer had had a Swiss triptique. His name was Adolph Gettler. He had given a bank in Zurich as his address.

Mathis had got on to the Swiss police. Yes, the bank had an account in this name. It was little used. Herr Gettler was understood to be connected with the watch industry. Inquiries could be pursued if there was a charge against him.

Vesper had shrugged her shoulders at the information.

This time when the man appeared she left her lunch in the middle and went straight up to her room.

Bond made up his mind. When he had finished, he followed her. Both her doors were locked and when he made her let him in, he saw that she had been sitting in the shadows by the window, watching, he presumed.

Her face was of cold stone. He led her to the bed and drew her down beside him. They sat stiffly, like people in a railway carriage.

‘Vesper,’ he said, holding her cold hands in his, ‘we can’t go on like this. We must finish with it. We are torturing each other and there is only one way of stopping it. Either you must tell me what all this is about or we must leave. At once.’

She said nothing and her hands were lifeless in his.

‘My darling,’ he said. ‘Won’t you tell me? Do you know, that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can’t we go back to the beginning again? What is this dreadful nightmare that is killing us?’

At first she said nothing, then a tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

‘You mean you would have married me?’

Bond nodded.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘My God.’ She turned and clutched him, pressing her face against his chest.

He held her closely to him. ‘Tell me, my love,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s hurting you.’

Her sobs became quieter.

‘Leave me for a little,’ she said and a new note had come into her voice. A note of resignation. ‘Let me think for a little.’ She kissed his face and held it between her hands. She looked at him with yearning. ‘Darling, I’m trying to do what’s best for us. Please believe me. But it’s terrible. I’m in a frightful …’ She wept again, clutching him like a child with nightmares.

He soothed her, stroking the long black hair and kissing her softly.

‘Go away now,’ she said. ‘I must have time to think. We’ve got to do something.’

She took his handkerchief and dried her eyes.

She led him to the door and there they held tightly to each other. Then he kissed her again and she shut the door behind him.

That evening most of the gayness and intimacy of their first night came back. She was excited and some of her laughter sounded brittle, but Bond was determined to fall in with her new mood and it was only at the end of dinner that he made a passing remark which made her pause.

She put her hand over his.

‘Don’t talk about it now,’ she said. ‘Forget it now. It’s all past. I’ll tell you about it in the morning.’

She looked at him and suddenly her eyes were full of tears. She found a handkerchief in her bag and dabbed at them.

‘Give me some more champagne,’ she said. She gave a queer little laugh. ‘I want a lot more. You drink much more than me. It’s not fair.’

They sat and drank together until the bottle was finished. Then she got to her feet. She knocked against her chair and giggled.

‘I do believe I’m tight,’ she said, ‘how disgraceful. Please, James, don’t be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay.’

She stood behind him and ran her fingers through his black hair.

‘Come up quickly,’ she said. ‘I want you badly tonight.’

She blew a kiss at him and was gone.

For two hours they made slow, sweet love in a mood of happy passion which the day before Bond would never have thought they could regain. The barriers of self-consciousness and mistrust seemed to have vanished and the words they spoke to each other were innocent and true again and there was no shadow between them.

‘You must go now,’ said Vesper when Bond had slept for a while in her arms.

As if to take back her words she held him more closely to her, murmuring endearments and pressing her body down the whole length of his.

When he finally rose and bent to smooth back her hair and finally kiss her eyes and her mouth good night, she reached out and turned on the light.

‘Look at me,’ she said, ‘and let me look at you.’

He knelt beside her.

She examined every line on his face as if she was seeing him for the first time. Then she reached up and put an arm round his neck. Her deep blue eyes were swimming with tears as she drew his head slowly towards her and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she let him go and turned off the light.

‘Good night, my dearest love,’ she said.

Bond bent and kissed her. He tasted the tears on her cheek.

He went to the door and looked back.

‘Sleep well, my darling,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, everything’s all right now.’

He closed the door softly and walked to his room with a full heart.

T
HE PATRON
brought him the letter in the morning.

He burst into Bond’s room holding the envelope in front of him as if it was on fire.

‘There has been a terrible accident. Madame …’

Bond hurled himself out of bed and through the bathroom, but the communicating door was locked. He dashed back and through his room and down the corridor past a shrinking, terrified maid.

Vesper’s door was open. The sunlight through the shutters lit up the room. Only her black hair showed above the sheet and her body under the bedclothes was straight and moulded like a stone effigy on a tomb.

Bond fell on his knees beside her and drew back the sheet.

She was asleep. She must be. Her eyes were closed. There was no change in the dear face. She was just as she would look and yet, and yet she was so still, no movement, no pulse, no breath. That was it. There was no breath.

Later the patron came and touched him on the shoulder. He pointed at the empty glass on the table beside her. There were white dregs in the bottom of it. It stood beside her book and her cigarettes and matches and the small pathetic litter of her mirror and lipstick and handkerchief. And on the floor the empty bottle of sleeping pills, the pills Bond had seen in the bathroom that first evening.

Bond rose to his feet and shook himself. The patron was holding out the letter towards him. He took it.

‘Please notify the Commissaire,’ said Bond. ‘I will be in my room when he wants me.’

He walked blindly away without a backward glance.