Part 1 (2/2)
The Governor had finished lighting a fresh cigar He looked at the glowing tip and blew on it He said: ”Oh no She was having a wonderful time She probably kneouldn't last for ever, but it hat she had dreaazines dream about, and she was pretty typical of that sort of- the best catch on the island, love on the sands under the palay times in the town and at the Mid-Ocean, fast drives in the car and the speedboat - all the trappings of cheap romance And, to fall back on, a slave of a husband well out of the way, and a house to have a bath in and change her clothes and get soet Philip Masters back He was so abject There would be no difficulty And then she could go round and apologize to everyone and turn on the charht If it wasn't all right, there were plenty of other men in the world besides Philip Masters - and more attractive ones at that Why, look at all the olf club! She could have her pick of theood, and if one was being a bit naughty it was after all only the way plenty of other people behaved Look at the way the filmstars went on in Hollywood”
”Well, she was soon put to the test Tattersall got a bit tired of her and, thanks to the Governor's wife, the Tattersall parents were ood excuse to get out of it all without too much of a scene And it was suirls It was time for some fresh blood So he chucked Rhoda Masters Like that Just told her they were through That his parents had insisted or they would cut off his allowance It was a fortnight before Philip Masters was due back froton, and I will say she took it well She was tough and she had known it would have to come some time or other She didn't squeal For that matter there was no one to squeal to She just went and told Lady Burford that she was sorry and that she was now going to be a good wife to Philip Masters, and she started on the house and cleaned it up and got everything shi+pshape ready for the big reconciliation scene The necessity for bringing about this reconciliation was made clear to her by the attitude of her former cronies at the Mid-Ocean She had suddenly becos can happen, even in an open-handed place like a country club in the tropics Now not only the Government House set but also the Hamilton oods, used and discarded She tried to be the saot sharply snubbed once or twice and stopped going Noas vital to get back to a secure base and start sloorking her way up again She stayed at hoain the act she would put on- the tears, the air hostess cosseting, the lengthy, sincere excuses and explanations, the double bed”
”And then Philip Masters came home”
The Governor paused and looked reflectively over at Bond He said: ”You're not married, but I think it's the same with all relationshi+ps between aas some kind of basic huone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn't care if the other is alive or dead, then it's just no good That particular insult to the ego - worse, to the instinct of self-preservation - can never be forgiven I've noticed this in hundreds of rant infidelities patched up, I've seen criiven by the other party, let alone bankruptcy and every other form of social crime Incurable disease, blindness, disaster - all these can be overcome But never the death of coht about this and I've invented a rather high-sounding title for this basic factor in human relations I have called it the Law of the Quantum of Solace”
Bond said: ”That's a splendid nah And of course I see what you ht Quantum of Solace - the amount of comfort Yes, I suppose you could say that all love and friendshi+p is based in the end on that Hus are very insecure When the other person not only makes you feel insecure but actually seems to want to destroy you, it's obviously the end The Quantuet away to save yourself Did Masters see that?” The Governor didn't answer the question He said: ”Rhoda Masters should have been warned when her husband walked through the bungalow door It wasn't so one and Masters's hair was once again the untidy- it was the eyes and the mouth and the set of the chin Rhoda Masters had put on her quietest frock She had taken off ed herself in a chair where the light from theleft her face in half shadow and illues of a book on her lap She had decided that, when he cah the door, she would look up from her book, docilely, subet up and come quietly to him and stand in front of him with her head bowed She would tell him all and let the tears come and he would take her in his arms and she would promise and promise She had practised the scene lanced up from her book Masters quietly put down his suitcase and walked slowly over to the uely down at her His eyes were cold and impersonal and without interest He put his hand in his inside pocket and took out a piece of paper He said in the ent: 'Here is a plan of the house I have divided the house in two Your rooms are the kitchen and your bedroom Mine are this room and the spare bedroom You may use the bathroom when I am not in it' He leant over and dropped the paper on the open pages of her book 'You are never to enter my rooms except e have friends in' Rhoda Masters opened her mouth to speak He held up his hand 'This is the last time I shall speak to you in private If you speak to me, I shall not answer If you wish to communicate, you may leave a note in the bathroom I shall expect -rooive you twenty pounds a , and this amount will be sent to you by my lawyers on the first of eachthe divorce papers I aht the action because you cannot A private detective has provided full evidence against you The action will take place in one year from nohen my time in Bermuda is up In the meantime, in public, we shall behave as a normal married couple'”
”Masters put his hands in his pockets and looked politely down at her By this ti down her face She looked terrified - as if someone had hit her Masters said indifferently: 'Is there anything else you'd like to know? If not, you had better collect your belongings from here and move into the kitchen' He looked at his watch 'I would like dinner every evening at eight It is now seven-thirty'”
The Governor paused and sipped his whisky He said: ”I've put all this together from the little that Masters told ave to Lady Burford Apparently Rhoda Masters tried every way to shake his, hysterics He was unone away and had sent someone else to the house to represent him at this extraordinary interview And in the end she had to agree She had no land To have a bed and food she had to do what he told her And so it was For a year they lived like that, polite to each other in public, but utterly silent and separate when they were alone Of course, ere all astonished by the change Neither of theement She would have been ashamed to do so and there was no reason why Masters should He seemed to us a bit more withdrawn than before, but his as first-class and everyone heaved a sigh of relief and agreed that by soreat credit fro forgiven and forgotten”
”The year passed and it was tio He announced that Rhoda would stay behind to close the house, and they went through the usual round of farewell parties We were a bit surprised that she didn't come to see hi well So that was that until, in a couple of weeks, news of the divorce case began leaking back froland Then Rhoda Masters turned up at Governradually the whole story, including its really terrible next chapter, leaked out”
The Governor sed the last of his whisky The ice lass softly down He said: ”Apparently on the day before Masters left he found a note from his wife in the bathroom It said that she simply must see him for one last talk before he left her for ever There had been notes like this before and Masters had always torn them up and left the bits on the shelf above the basin This ti her an appoint When the time arrived, Rhoda Masters caiven upto throw herself on his mercy Now she just quietly stood and said that she had only ten pounds left fro else in the world When he left she would be destitute”
”'You have the jewels I gave you, and the fur cape'”
”'I'd be lucky if I got fifty pounds for theet soot to live soht Won't you giveat all? I shall starve'”
”Masters looked at her dispassionately 'You're pretty You'll never starve'”
”'You must help ing at Governed to them except a few odds and ends They had taken it furnished The owner had coreed the inventory There only reht second hand, and a radiograht as a last resort to try and keep his wife aolf”
”Philip Masters looked at her for the last tiht You can have the car and the radiograot to pack Goodbye' And he walked out of the door and up to his room”
The Governor looked across at Bond ”At least one last little gesture Yes?” The Governor sone and Rhoda Masters was left alone, she took the car and her engage and her few trinkets and the fox fur tippet and went into Hamilton and drove round the pawnbrokers In the end she collected forty pounds for the jewellery and seven pounds for the bit of fur Then she went to the car dealers whose nameplate was on the dashboard of the car and asked to see the ive her for the Morris he thought she was pulling his leg 'But, ht the car by hire purchase and he's very badly behind on his payments Surely he told you that we had to send hio We heard he was leaving He wrote back that you would be coeh it 'Yes, there's exactly two hundred pounds owing on the car'”
”Well, of course, Rhoda Masters burst into tears and in the end the h it wasn't worth two hundred pounds by then, but he insisted that she should leave it with him then and there, petrol in the tank and all Rhoda Masters could only accept and be grateful not to be sued, and she walked out of the garage and along the hot street and already she knehat she was going to find when she got to the radio shop And she was right It was the same story, only this time she had to pay ten pounds to persuade the ot a lift back to within walking distance of the bungalow and went and threw herself down on the bed and cried for the rest of the day She had already been a beaten woman Now Philip Masters had kicked her when she was down”
The Governor paused ”Pretty extraordinary, really A man like Masters, kindly, sensitive, ouldn't nor one of the cruellest actions I can recall in all ” The Governor siven him that Quantum of Solace he could never have behaved to her as he did As it was, she had awakened in him a bestial cruelty - a cruelty that perhaps lies deeply hidden in all of us and that only a threat to our existence can bring to the surface Masters wanted to irl suffer, not as much as he had suffered because that was impossible, but as esture with the ramophone was a fiendishly brilliant bit of delayed action to reone, how much he hated her, how much he wanted still to hurt her”
Bond said: ”Itexperience It's extraordinary howto feel rather sorry for the girl What happened to her in the end - and to hiot to his feet and looked at his watch ”Good heavens, it's nearlythe staff up all this time,” he smiled, ”as well as you” He walked across to the fireplace and rang a bell A Negro butler appeared The Governor apologized for keeping hiht out Bond was on his feet The Governor turned to hih the garden with you and see that the sentry lets you out”
They walked slowly through the long rooarden It was a beautiful night under a full h clouds
The Governor said: ”Masters went on in the Service but soood start After the Bero out of ham Part of him had been killed by the experience He was a uess that what he did to her lived on with hiood at his work, but he had soradually dried up Of course he never round nuts scheme, and when that was a failure he retired and went to live in Nigeria - back to the only people in the world who had shown him any kindness - back to where it had all started froic, really, when I reirl?”
”Oh, she went through a pretty bad time We handed round the hat for her and she pottered in and out of various jobs that werean air hostess, but the way she had broken her contract with I for that There weren't so e of applicants for the few hostess jobs that were going The Burfords got transferred to Jamaica later in that same year and that removed her main prop As I said Lady Burford had always had a soft spot for her Rhoda Masters was pretty nearly destitute She still had her looks and various men had kept her for a while; but you can'tin a s a harlot and getting into trouble with the police when Providence again stepped in and decided she had been punished enough A letter ca she had got her a job as receptionist at the Blue Hills Hotel, one of the best of the Kingston hotels So she left, and I expect - I'd been transferred to Rhodesia by then - that Bermuda was heartily relieved to see the last of her”
The Governor and Bond had corounds of Government House Beyond them shone, white and black and pink under the moon, the huddle of narrow streets and pretty clapboard houses with gingerbread gables and balconies that is Nassau With a terrific clatter the sentry came to attention and presented arain the clockwork sentry rattled briefly into life and there was silence
The Governor said: ”And that's the end of the story except for one final quirk of fate One day a Canadian millionaire turned up at the Blue Hills Hotel and stayed for the winter At the end of the time he took Rhoda Masters back to Canada and married her She's lived in clover ever since”
”Good heavens That was a stroke of luck Hardly deserved it”
”I suppose not One can't tell Life's a devious business Perhaps, for all the harm she'd done to Masters, Fate decided that she had paid back enough Perhaps Masters's father and uilty people They turned Masters into an accident-prone man Inevitably he was involved in the emotional crash that was due to him and that they had conditioned him for Fate had chosen Rhoda for its instrument Now Fate reis Anyway, she ht they both seehed Suddenly the violent dramatics of his own life seemed very hollow The affair of the Castro rebels and the burned out yachts was the stuff of an adventure-strip in a cheap newspaper He had sat next to a dull woman at a dull dinner party and a chance remark had opened for him the book of real violence - of the Comedie Humaine where human passions are raw and real, where Fate plays a ame than any Secret Service conspiracy devised by Governments
Bond faced the Governor and held out his hand He said: ”Thank you for the story And I owe you an apology I found Mrs Harvey Miller a bore Thanks to you I shall never forget her I ht me a lesson”
They shook hands The Governor slad the story interested you I was afraid youlife To tell you the truth, I was at my wit's end to knoe could talk about after dinner Life in the Colonial Service is very huht Bond walked off down the quiet street towards the harbour and the British Colonial Hotel He reflected on the conference he would be having in the uards and the FBI in Miami The prospect, which had previously interested, even excited hied with boredom and futility