Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [19]
He threw a note on to the preposterous bill and went back to the call box. He was connected to Scarlett’s office without demur.
‘Scarlett? It’s James Bond. Are you on for tomorrow?’
‘Yes. Are you?’
‘What time should we arrive?’
‘About ten. Shall I pick you up from your hotel at nine? Then you’ll have time to warm up for a few minutes.’
‘All right.’ He hesitated.
She was quick to notice. ‘Was there something else?’
He had been on the point of asking her to dinner.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing else. Just remember. You’re on probation.’
‘I understand. A
` demain.’
The line went dead.
Bond slept like a child in the quiet cocoon of his hotel room. A dinner of scrambled eggs from room service, three large bourbons and a hot bath made the barbiturate unnecessary.
In the morning, he exercised strenuously, pushing himself through sixty sit-ups and a variety of stretching exercises for the legs and back that Wayland had shown him in Barbados. The maid brought him breakfast as he was cooling down, and he ate it wrapped in a towel at the table in the window. The coffee was good, but he could never feel enthusiastic about croissants. At least there was something approaching marmalade.
After a shower, Bond changed into a sea-island cotton shirt, short-sleeved, charcoal trousers and a blazer. He wasn’t sure what the dress code of the Club Sporting de Tennis would be, but in his experience such places in France generally tried to outBritish the British in their display of checks and loud
‘club’ ties. He put his tennis clothes in a small holdall and went down to the front door.
At one minute to nine, a white Sunbeam Alpine drew up with a squeak alongside him. The hood was down, and in the driving seat, in dark glasses and a distractingly short red linen dress, was Scarlett Papava.
‘Hop in, James. You can push the seat back if you like.’
Before he had had time to settle himself, she let in the clutch, and the little car sped off towards the place de la Concorde.
Bond smiled. ‘Are we in a hurry?’
‘I think so,’ said Scarlett. ‘If we can manage to get you a game with Dr Gorner, you’ll need to be at your best. I suggest you have a little warm-up first. He’s rather competitive.’
Scarlett swept on to the Champs-E
´ lyse´es and sank
her right foot. ‘You have to take these chaps on,’ she said. ‘ These French drivers, I mean. Play them at
their own game. There’s no point in being a shrinking violet.’
‘Why did you go for the Alpine, not the Tiger?’
said Bond.
‘My father found it for me. Second-hand. The Tiger’s bigger, isn’t it?’
‘It has a V8 engine,’ said Bond, ‘but the Sunbeam chassis can’t really handle that much torque. Anyway, you don’t need it. Not the way you drive.’
At the E
´ toile, where fifteen streams of traffic
merge and battle for survival, Scarlett gave no quarter, and a few terrifying seconds later, in a barrage of hooting, they were on their way down the avenue de Neuilly. A small smile of triumph flickered round Scarlett’s lips as the wind blew back her dark hair. The Club Sporting was hidden off a discreet, sandy avenue in the Bois. Bond and Scarlett walked across from the car park, through the hissing lawns where hidden sprinklers played, and up the steps into the enormous modern clubhouse.
‘Wait here,’ said Scarlett. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’
Bond watched the slim legs, bare to mid-thigh, as she walked away, with a slight rolling dip of the hips, towards the secretary’s office. It was the walk of a confident girl, he thought, athletic and sure of herself. He looked at the notices on the board: club
tournaments, ladders, plates, knock-outs, seniors’ and juniors’ competitions. The names of the entrants included some of the best-known families in Paris. Towards the top of the second ladder, he saw the name ‘J. Gorner’. If the top echelon was the first and second teams, men in their twenties of nearprofessional standard, that must mean Gorner was a formidable player.