Part 1 (1/2)

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Jaht that if I ever married I would marry an air hostess”

The dinner party had been rather sticky, and now that the other two guests had left accompanied by the ADC to catch their plane, the Governor and Bond were sitting together on a chintzy sofa in the large Office of Works furnished drawing-roo to make conversation Bond had a sharp sense of the ridiculous He was never co deep in soft cushi+ons He preferred to sit up in a solidly upholstered arround And he felt foolish sitting with an elderly bachelor on his bed of rose chintz gazing at the coffee and liqueurs on the low table between their outstretched feet There was so clubable, intimate, even rather feminine, about the scene and none of these atmospheres was appropriate

Bond didn't like Nassau Everyone was too rich The winter visitors and the residents who had houses on the island talked of nothing but their money, their diseases and their servant probleossip about The winter croere all too old to have love affairs and, likehbours The Harvey Millers the couple that had just left, were typical - a pleasant rather dull Canadian ot into Natural Gas early on and stayed with it, and his pretty chatterbox of a wife It seelish She had sat next to Bond and chattered vivaciously about 'what shows he had recently seen in town' and 'didn't he think the Savoy Grill was the nicest place for supper One saw sopeople - actresses and people like that' Bond had done his best, but since he had not seen a play for two years, and then only because the one to it, he had had to rely on rather dusty ht life which somehow failed to marry up with the experiences of Mrs Harvey Miller

Bond knew that the Governor had asked him to dinner only as a duty, and perhaps to help out with the Harvey Millers Bond had been in the Colony for a week and was leaving for Miaation job Arhbouring territories They had been co principally frouards had seized two big shi+pments, the Castro supporters had turned to Jamaica and the Bahamas as possible bases, and Bond had been sent out from London to put a stop to it He hadn't wanted to do the job If anything, his sy export prograar than they wanted, and a ive aid or comfort to the Cuban rebels Bond had found out about the two big cabin cruisers that were being fitted out for the job, and rather thanan incident, he had chosen a very dark night and crept up on the boats in a police launch Frohted launch he had tossed a therh an open port of each of theh speed and watched the bonfire from a distance Bad luck on the insurance companies, of course, but there were no casualties and he had achieved quickly and neatly what M had told him to do

So far as Bond are, no one in the Colony, except the Chief of Police and two of his officers, kneho had caused the two spectacular, and - to those in the know - timely fires in the roadstead Bond had reported only to M in London He had not wished to embarrass the Governor, who seemed to him an easily eive hiht easily be the subject of a question in the Legislative Council But the Governor was no fool He had known the purpose of Bond's visit to the Colony, and that evening, when Bond had shaken him by the hand, the dislike of a peaceable man for violent action had been co constrained and defensive in the Governor's manner

This had been no help to the dinner party, and it had needed all the chatter and gush of a hard-working ADC to give the evening the small semblance of life it had achieved

And noas only nine-thirty, and the Governor and Bond were faced with one ratefully to their beds, each relieved that he would never have to see the other again Not that Bond had anything against the Governor He belonged to a routine type that Bond had often encountered round the world - solid, loyal, competent, sober and just: the best type of Colonial Civil Servant Solidly, competently, loyally he would have filled the minor posts for thirty years while the E to the ladders and avoiding the snakes, he had got to the top In a year or two it would be the GCB and out - out to Godale Wells with a pension and a small packet of memories of places like the Trucial Oman, the Leeward Islands, British Guiana, that no one at the local golf club would have heard of or would care about And yet, Bond had reflected that evening, how many small dramas such as the affair of the Castro rebels must the Governor have witnessed or been privy to! How much he would know about the chequerboard of the small-power politics, the scandalous side of life in small communities abroad, the secrets of people that lie in the files of Government Houses round the world But how could one strike a spark off this rigid, discreet mind? How could he, Jaerous er to his own career, extract one ounce of interesting fact or co a futile waste of tihtlyan air hostess had come at the end of some desultory conversation about air travel that had followed dully, inevitably, on the departure of the Harvey Millers to catch their plane for Montreal The Governor had said that BOAC were getting the lion's share of the Aht be half an hour slower fro himself with his own banality, that he would rather fly slowly and comfortably than fast and uncosseted It was then that he had made the remark about air hostesses

”Indeed,” said the Governor in the polite, controlled voice that Bond prayed ht relax and become human ”Why?”

”Oh, I don't know It would be fine to have a pretty girl always tucking you up and bringing you drinks and hotyou wanted And they're always s to please If I don'tfor it but ht ideas too” Bond had no intention ofanyone If he did, it would certainly not be an insipid slave He only hoped to ae the Governor into a discussion of some human topic

”I don't know about the japanese, but I suppose it has occurred to you that these air hostesses are only trained to please, that they ht be quite different when they're not on the job, so to speak” The Governor's voice was reasonable, judicious

”Since I' ate”

There was a pause The Governor's cigar had gone out He spent a ain When he spoke it seeained a spark of life, of interest The Governor said: ”There was a man I knew once who must have had the same ideas as you He fell in love with an air hostess andstory, as a matter of fact I suppose,” the Governor looked sideways at Bond and gave a short self-deprecatory laugh, ”you see quite a lot of the seamy side of life This story may seem to you on the dull side But would you care to hear it?”

”Very much” Bond put enthusiasm into his voice He doubted if the Governor's idea of as seamy was the sa any et away fro sofa He said: ”Could I have soot up, dashed an inch of brandy into his glass and, instead of going back to the sofa, pulled up a chair and sat down at an angle from the Governor on the other side of the drink tray

The Governor exaar upright so that the long ash would not fall off He watched the ash warily throughout his story and spoke as if to the thin trickle of blue smoke that rose and quickly disappeared in the hot, moist air

He said carefully: ”This man - I'll call him Masters, Philip Masters - was almost a contemporary of mine in the Service I was a year ahead of him He went to Fettes and took a scholarshi+p for Oxford - the nae doesn't matter - and then he applied for the Colonial Service He wasn't a particularly clever chap, but he was hard working and capable and the sort of ood solid impression on interview boards They took hieria He did well in it He liked the natives and he got on ith them He was a man of liberal ideas and while he didn't actually fraternize, which,” the Governor sot him into trouble with his superiors in those days, he was lenient and huerians It came as quite a surprise to thear The ash was about to fall and he bent carefully over towards the drink tray and let the ash hiss into his coffee cup He sat back and for the first time looked across at Bond He said: ”I daresay the affection this younge in other walks of life have for the opposite sex Unfortunately Philip Masters was a shy and rather uncouth young man who had never had any kind of success in that direction When he hadn't been working to pass his various exae and rowed in the third eight In the holidays he had stayed with an aunt in Wales and cli club His parents, by the way, had separated when he was at his public school and, though he was an only child, had not bothered with him once he was safe at Oxford with his scholarshi+p and a sh So he had very little tiirls and very little to recommend hi the frustrated and unhealthy lines that were part of our inheritance fro hoith hi that his friendly relations with the coloured people of Nigeria hat is known as a compensation seized on by a basically warm and full-blooded nature that had been starved of affection and now found it in their simple kindly natures”

Bond interrupted the rather soleresses is that they don't know anything about birth control I hope he ed to stay out of that sort of trouble”

The Governor held up his hand His voice held an undertone of distaste for Bond's earthiness ”No, no Youabout sex It would never have occurred to this young irl In fact he was sadly ignorant of sexual land, but very coree, of edies” Bond nodded ”No I ath to show you that as to co innocent with a warm but unawakened heart and body, and a social clumsiness which roes instead of in his oorld He was, in short, a sensitive , but in all other respects healthy and able and a perfectly adequate citizen”

Bond took a sip of his brandy and stretched out his legs He was enjoying the story The Governor was telling it in a rather elderly narrative style which gave it a ring of truth

The Governor continued: ”Young Master's service in Nigeria coincided with the first Labour Governot down to was a reforot a new Governor with advanced views on the native problem as surprised and pleased to find that he had a junior member of his staff as already, in hislike the Governor's own views into practice He encouraged Philip Masters, gave him duties which were above his rank, and in due course, when Masters was due for a rade and was transferred to Bermuda as assistant Secretary to Governar s too bored by all this I shan't be long in co to the point”

”I'ot a picture of the man You must have known hiot to know him still better in Bermuda I was just his senior and he worked directly under ot to Bermuda yet It was the early days of the air services to Africa and, for one reason or another, Philip Masters decided to fly hoer home leave than if he had taken shi+p froht the weekly service of Imperial Airways - the forerunner of BOAC He had never flown before and he was interested but slightly nervous when they took off, after the air hostess, whoiven him a sweet to suck and shown him how to fasten his seat-belt When the plane had levelled out and he found that flying seemed a more peaceful business than he had expected, the hostess came back down the almost empty plane She smiled at him 'You can undo the belt now' When Masters fumbled with the buckle she leant down and undid it for hiesture Masters had never been so close to a woe in his life He blushed and felt an extraordinary confusion He thanked her She smiled rather saucily at his embarrassment and sat on the arm of the empty seat across the aisle and asked hi He told her In his turn, he asked her about the plane and how fast they were flying and where they would stop, and so forth He found her very easy to talk to and ally pretty to look at He was surprised at her easy ith him and her apparent interest in what he had to say about Africa She seelamorous life than, to his mind, he did She made him feel important When she went away to help the two stewards prepare lunch, he sat and thought about her and thrilled to his thoughts When he tried to read he could not focus on the page He had to be looking up the plane to catch a gliave hi people on the plane, it seemed to say We understand each other We're interested in the saazed out of the , seeing her in the sea of white clouds below In hisat her perfection She was small and trim with a milk-and-roses complexion and fair hair tied in a neat bun (He particularly liked the bun It suggested that she wasn't 'fast') She had cherry red s lips and blue eyes that sparkled with uessed that she had Welsh blood in her, and this was confirmed by her name, Rhoda Llewellyn, which, when he went to wash his hands before luncheon, he found printed at the bottoazine rack beside the lavatory door He speculated deeply about her She would be near hiain? She ht even be et between trips? Would she laugh at hiht she even complain to the captain of the aircraft that one of the passengers was getting fresh? A sudden vision ca turned off the plane at Aden, a complaint to the Colonial Office, his career ruined”

”Luncheon came, and reassurance When she fitted the little tray across his knees, her hair brushed his cheek Masters felt that he had been touched by a live electric wire She showed hies, how to get the plastic lid off the salad dressing She told hiood - a rich layer cake In short she made a fuss of him, and Masters couldn't remember when it had ever happened before, even when his mother had looked after him as a child”

”At the end of the trip, when the sweating Masters had screwed up his courage to ask her out to dinner, it was alreed A ned from Imperial Airways and they were married A month after that, Master's leave was up and they took shi+p for Bermuda”

Bond said: ”I fear the worst She rand' She liked the idea of being the belle of the tea parties at Government House I suppose Masters had to murder her in the end?”

”No,” said the Governor ht about why she er of flying Perhaps she reallycouple arrived and settled into their bungalow on the outskirts of Hamilton ere all favourably impressed by her vivacity and her pretty face and by the way she made herself pleasant to everyone And, of course, Masters was a changedback, it was almost pitiful to watch him try to spruce himself up so that he could live up to her He took trouble about his clothes, put sorew a ht it looked distinguished At the end of the day, he would hurry back to the bungalow, and it was always Rhoda this and Rhoda that and when do you think Lady Burford - as the Governor's wife - is going to ask Rhoda to lunch?”

”But he worked hard and everyone liked the young couple, and things went along like a uessing, the occasional word began to drop like acid in the happy little bungalow You can i: 'Why doesn't the Colonial Secretary's wife ever takeive another cocktail party? You knoe can't afford to have a baby When are you due for pro to do You'll have to get the dinner tonight I si tiht for you' and so on and so forth And of course, the cosseting quickly went by the board Noas Masters, and of course he was delighted to do it, who brought the air hostess breakfast in bed before he went off to work It was Masters who tidied up the house when he caarette ash and chocolate papers all over the place It was Masters who had to give up s and his occasional drink to buy her new clothes so that she could live up to the other wives Some of this showed, at any rate to me who knew Masters well in the Secretariat The preoccupied frown, the occasional enigmatic, over-solicitous telephone call in office hours, the ten minutes stolen at the end of the day so that he could take Rhoda to the cine questions about ? Do most women find it a bit hot out here? I suppose women (he almost added 'God bless 'em') are much more easily upset than men And so forth The trouble, or at least most of it, was that Masters was besotted She was his sun and his moon and if she was unhappy or restless it was all his fault He cast about desperately for so that would occupy her and s, he settled - or rather they settled together - on golf Golf is veryin Ber the faether at the club afterwards for gossip and drinks It was just what she wanted - a sh society God kno Masters saved up enough to join and buy her the clubs and the lessons and all the rest, but so success She took to spending all day at the Mid-Ocean She worked hard at her lessons and got a handicap and h the little competitions and thea respectable ga of theher there froure in the shortest of shorts with a white eyeshade with a green lining, and a triure, and I can tell you,” the Governor twinkled briefly, ”she was the prettiest thing I've ever seen on a golf course Of course the next step didn't take long There was a mixed-foursome competition She was partnered with the oldest Tattersall boy - they're the leading Ha clique in Ber hellion - handsoolfer, with an open MG and a speedboat and all the triirls he wanted, and, if they didn't sleep with hiet the rides in the MG or the Chriscraft or the evenings in the local night clubs The couple won the coht in the final and Philip Masters was in the fashi+onable crowd round the eighteenth green to cheer the day, perhaps for all his life Al Tattersall, and once started she went like the wind And believe ht it softly down on the edge of the drinks table - ”it was ghastly to see She didn't make the smallest attempt to soften the blow or hide the affair in any way She just took young Tattersall and hit Masters in the face with hi She would coht - she had insisted that Masters shouldtoo hot to sleep together - and if she ever tidied the house or cooked him a meal it was only makeshi+ft and to keep up so was public property and poor Masters earing the biggest pair of horns that had ever been seen in the Colony Lady Burford finally steppedher husband's career and so forth But the trouble was that Lady Burford found Masters a pretty dull dog, and having perhaps had one or two escapades in her own youth - she was still a handsome woman with a twinkle in her eye - she was probably a bit too lenient with the girl Of course Masters hih the usual dreary sequence - ree, violence (he told ht) and, finally, icy withdrawal and sullen misery” The Governor paused ”I don't know if you've ever seen a heart being broken, Mr Bond, broken slowly and deliberately Well, that's what I saw happening to Philip Masters, and it was a dreadful thing to watch There he had been, a man with Paradise in his face, and, within a year of his arrival in Bermuda, hell ritten all over it Of course I did my best, we all did in one way or another, but once it had happened, on that eighteenth green at the Mid-Ocean, there was really nothing to do but try and pick up the bits But Masters was like a wounded dog He just dreay from us into a corner and snarled when anyone tried to co him one or two letters He later toldthe party in ot hi that happened was a crash from the bathroom Masters had tried to cut his wrists with o and see the Governor about the whole business The Governor knew about it, of course, but had hoped he wouldn't have to interfere Now the question hether Masters could even stay on in the Service His work had gone to pieces His as a public scandal He was a broken ain? The Governor was a fine man Once action had been forced on him, he was determined to make a last effort to stave off the almost inevitable report to Whitehall which would finally smash what remained of Masters And Providence stepped in to lend a hand The very next day after my intervieith the Governor, there was a dispatch fro in Washi+ngton to delineate off-shore fishi+ng rights, and that Bermuda and the Bahamas had been invited to send representatives of their Governments The Governor sent for Masters, spoke to hi sent to Washi+ngton, and that he had better have his domestic affairs settled one way or the other in the next six months, and packed hiton talking fish for five h of relief and cut Rhoda Masters whenever we could find an opportunity to do it”

The Governor stopped speaking and it was silent in the big brightly lit drawing-room He took out a handkerchief and wiped it over his face His ht in the flushed face He got to his feet and poured a whisky and soda for Bond, and one for hi like that was bound to happen sooner or later, but it was bad luck on Masters that it had to happen so soon She must have been a hard-hearted little bitch Did she show any signs of being sorry for what she'd done?”