Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [6]
At Monte Carlo he made a modest killing at the chemin de fer table, but lost at poker. Neither game excited him as once it might have done. Did he need an opponent of the calibre of Le Chiffre or Hugo Drax, he wondered, to make the game worth the candle?
One evening in the early-summer twilight, he sat at a cafe´ overlooking the Mediterranean at Cannes, hearing the chatter of the tree frogs in the pines. How wonderful this little fishing town must have seemed to its first English visitors, with the softness of its air, the fragrance of the breeze and the simplicity of life exemplified in its food – grilled fish, salads and chilled wine. It was turning into a version of Blackpool now, Bond thought, with the cheap hotels,
the crowds, the youths on noisy scooters and twostroke motorcycles. Soon they’d put a ferris wheel on the promenade.
Bond caught himself thinking in this way too often. In his hotel room he took a vigorous shower, first as hot as he could bear it, then freezing cold, letting the icy needles pierce his shoulders. He stood naked in front of the mirror and looked into his face, with a distaste he made no attempt to soften.
‘You’re tired,’ he said out loud. ‘You’re played out. Finished.’
His torso and arms bore a network of scars, small and large, that traced a history of his violent life. There was the slight displacement of his spine to the left where he had fallen from a train in Hungary, the skin graft on the back of the left hand. Every square inch of trunk and limb seemed to contribute to the story. But he knew that it was what was in his head that counted. That was what M had told him. ‘You’ve been through a lot, James. Much more than any human being should. If you were a normal man – even if you were another double-O – I’d just move you on. Put you on a desk job. But because it’s you, James, I’m going to let that decision come from you. Take three months’ sabbatical, full pay, then come and tell me what you’ve decided.’
Bond put on clean underwear, dress shirt and white dinner jacket with a black cummerbund. At least everything fitted. For all Charity’s home cooking and the occasional delights of the restaurants along the Riviera, he hadn’t run to fat. Tennis and not drinking alcohol must have helped. But his mind . . . Had his mind run to fat?
Tired of the South of France, wishing the days would pass more quickly, Bond had come to Rome and searched out a hotel on the via Veneto of which Felix Leiter, his old friend in the CIA, had spoken warmly when he called him from Pinkerton’s, where he now worked. Felix was a good man, and he’d picked the best. Bond was able to sit on his balcony with a cigarette and a glass of fresh blood-orange juice while he watched the film stars – the real and would-be –
parade up and down between the cafe´s in their evening passeg giata. ‘It’s a bit close to the US embassy for my taste,’ Leiter had warned him. ‘All those Yalies with their button-down shirts and cocktail parties. But I’m sure it’d be fine for a stuck-up Limey like you, James.’
On the Sunday evening after he’d been in St Peter’s Square, Bond, in a simple woollen jacket, charcoal trousers and black loafers, decided to walk down to
a traditional Roman restaurant in the via Carrozze near the Spanish Steps. As he crossed the lobby, a young woman wearing an expensive Dior suit brushed past him. Her evening bag fell noisily to the floor and Bond bent to pick it up, noticing the slim ankles, sheer nylons and elegant court shoes as he did so.
‘How clumsy of me,’ she said.
‘It was my fault,’ said