James Bond: The Authorised Biography (42 page)

‘I've just had London on the line. It seems they're serious. Could I come up and see you? Yes, straight away. Fine. Many thanks.’

Then he apologized to me, and said he would continue his story later that afternoon.

But he didn't. I lunched alone, then went to sleep beside the pool and woke just before five with a headache. The hotel suddenly seemed empty. When I rang Bond's room he wasn't there, nor was Sir William. I dined alone and was in bed by ten.

Next morning Bond was back again soon after breakfast. He seemed quite jaunty but he made no reference to his telephone call from London nor to what was going on. Instead he took out the gun-metal cigarette case, stretched himself out in the bamboo chair, and continued his story. That mask-like face was adept at concealing what he was thinking. He described the aftermath of Tracy's death. When he got back to London, May was waiting for him in the flat. Winter had started. Nothing had really changed. Even Bond's old arch-enemy Blofeld was still at large and still as menacing as ever. Fortunately M. did have sufficient tact not to give Bond the thankless task of trailing him again.

It took some time for the real shock of Tracy's death to hit him. He had such self-control that his grief remained inside him. Few people realized what he was suffering. Probably the only one who did was Sir James Molony, and his advice was simple. ‘Work!’ Bond did his best to follow it. But something indefinable had gone.

Everything he did was a disaster – he says that he's not certain why. ‘I can't believe that I was any less efficient or aggressive than in the old days but my luck had gone. Gamblers run out of luck. So do agents in the Secret Service. With Tracy's death all my luck turned. None of my 1962 assignments seemed to go right.’

The worst was the Prenderghast Affair and once again Bond's luck let him down; this time, however, with results that shook the whole structure of the Secret Service. Prenderghast was Station Head in Rome. Bond had known him for years and liked him. He had a distinguished record as a Fleet Air Arm pilot during the war and later served with Bond for some years in the 00 section. For the past five years he had been in Rome, and Bond never failed to see him when he was in the city. For Prenderghast was fun. He knew all the gossip and his apartment just behind the Via dei Coronari was a splendid place for lunch. Bond also found him a good friend and a sympathetic listener. He was intelligent, efficient and he knew his job.

It was Bill Tanner who gave Bond the first hint of trouble about Prenderghast, when he mentioned that a man called Croxson had been sending in unfavourable reports about him. Croxson was one of his subordinates and currently was acting Station Head in Milan. He was young and inexperienced – Italy was his first posting after his transfer from the army barely a year before. For this reason Tanner had been treating these reports with what he called ‘a fairly generous pinch of salt’. Croxson and Prenderghast had clearly failed to hit it off, and Croxson had taken to complaining of him at every opportunity. Tanner had tried to smooth things over, but recently the complaints had started up again.

‘What sort of complaints?’ Bond had asked.

‘Oh, quite incredible accusations. Corruption and inefficiency; he even says he's homosexual and that he's working as a double agent for the enemy. If one didn't know old Prenderghast one might be really worried.’

‘This Croxson fellow must be off his head,’ said Bond. ‘It's Italy. They're all mad there.’

Tanner had agreed but added that something would have to be done – probably a transfer for young Croxson at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime it might be useful for someone experienced from Headquarters to go out to Italy and have a quiet word with Croxson and with Prenderghast. Quite unofficially of course, but often a tactful word or two could prevent a nasty scandal. Bond agreed. Tanner suggested that a trip to Italy at that time of year could be enjoyable. And a few days later, Bond found himself aboard an early morning flight to Milan.

He didn't take to Croxson. He found him arrogant and earnest and lacking in all sense of humour. More to the point, he soon found out that he had not one shred of proof to back his accusations against Prenderghast. As far as Bond could see he was suffering from an outsize persecution complex and he tried suggesting that it was best not to go making wild accusations against a head of station without fairly solid proof.

From Milan Bond flew to Rome where he called on Prenderghast. He was glad to see him, especially after all the rumours he had heard. For Prenderghast was looking splendid and clearly was in great form. After the wretched Croxson with all his moanings and complaints, it was good to be with someone who enjoyed himself. It was also good to see an old friend who was doing well. They walked through Rome and Bond enjoyed hearing what was going on. After Americanos at the ‘Tre Scaline’ they strolled up the hill of the Pincio and dined at the Casa Valadier – that is to say, they dined extremely well. They were drinking their sambucas when Bond brought up the subject of Croxson and his reports: Prenderghast appeared to understand the problem. Croxson was young, his wife was difficult, and possibly he had been a little tactless with him in the past. As for the accusations – Prenderghast grinned at Bond. They had both been within the Secret Service long enough to know how easy it could be to make accusations without proof. There was of course no proof? Of course not, Bond replied. And there the conversation ended. Bond returned to London, and a few days later Tanner told him that Croxson was about to be recalled. He had been in Italy on probation and was obviously unsuited for the Secret Service. Perhaps it was hard on him but in the circumstances … Two days later Croxson shot himself.

Then all hell broke loose. The Italian press seized on the case. Prenderghast was accused by Croxson's widow as the man responsible for her husband's death. That same evening he was named as the organizer of a homosexual diplomatic network in Rome. More accusations followed and in the midst of this furore, Prenderghast lost his nerve. Two officers of British security caught him as he was about to board a Czech aircraft at Fiumicino. He was brought back to London, and at the Old Bailey, some months later, Prenderghast was sentenced to a total of thirty years for treason. The trial was held in camera, but Bond read a transcript of the evidence. It proved every word of Croxson's accusations.

Luckily for Bond, not a breath of his meeting with the two men came out in court. (Bond is still grateful to Prenderghast for not mentioning it.) But the whole case received so much publicity that M. offered his resignation to the Prime Minister in person. It was refused – but the whole sordid case had clearly cast little credit on the British Secret Service. As for Bond, he felt that it was the final proof that he had lost his touch and that luck had turned decisively against him. M. evidently thought so too (he lacked the P.M.'s generosity towards erring servants) and by this time had virtually decided to dismiss him, not just from the 00 section, but from the Service as a whole. As he put it to Sir James Molony, he had no room in Headquarters for ‘a lamebrain’. Bond was drinking and gambling too much. According to M. this made him ‘dangerous to others’, and once again it was Sir James who really saved him, by suggesting that M. should send him off on some all but hopeless assignment to redeem himself, forget about Tracy and restore his luck. The result was the Japanese assignment described by Fleming in his book,
You Only Live Twice
.

*

Bond was somewhat vague about the Japanese affair, although he did confirm in outline Fleming's version of this most bizarre of all assignments. He went originally to make a deal of sorts with the Japanese Secret Service; they had a cyphering machine which could decode the very top classified Soviet information, and, thanks to Bond, we got it. But in the process he became involved with his old enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who had moved here from Switzerland and set up a suicide establishment in an old castle near Kyoto. Because of this the mission ultimately turned into a journey of revenge.

‘From here,’ he said, ‘my life became very odd indeed. Japan's a funny country and in many ways it suited Blofeld. That poisoned garden that he built – Fleming called it his “Disneyland of Death” – was very Japanese.’

‘But wasn't it satisfying to kill him finally – after all he'd done to you?’

Bond slowly shook his head.

‘Not really. I'd dreamed of killing him almost every night since Tracy died, but when it came to it he was so mad that it was like putting down a lunatic; and everything was happening so quickly that I didn't have much time to savour the finer points of killing him. It was all very odd, what happened then, Blofeld's castle going up in flames, my escape in the balloon and then my plunge into the sea off Kuro island. I owe my life, of course, to that girl that Fleming wrote about, Kissy Suzuki. She pulled me out of the sea and fed me and looked after me, and although my memory had gone, we were very happy.’

‘Was she your ideal woman then?’

‘In some ways I suppose she was. I'd always said that I'd wanted to live with a Japanese – they seemed so restful and obedient – and at a time like that I was lucky to find her. She did everything for me, fed me, bathed me, clothed me – even made love to me, which was very pleasant. But no – I think one would be deceiving oneself if one thought of living with a girl like that for ever. Kissy was sweet – but we hadn't really much in common, and once my memory started to return I left. Somehow I felt I had to find my own country and my own people. Instead, of course, I ended up in Russia.’

‘And what happened to the girl? According to Fleming she was pregnant when you went.’

‘Quite right, she was. To do myself justice, I didn't know – nor could I have done much about it if I had. I really was a mental wreck still. But I went back to Japan, you know – two years later – and I found her, through my old friend, Tiger Tanaka of the Japanese Secret Service. She'd moved to Tokyo where she was working for a U.S. advertising agency. She's a determined girl, and the boy was wonderful – very strong and wonderfully good-looking, although it did feel strange to have a Japanese child as my own.’

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.’