She climbed in to the back seat and he followed. She said, «You don’t seem to know much about Christmas. You make plum puddings at least two months before and let them sort of settle and mature. And church isn’t till eleven.» She glanced at him. «Actually I came to see how you were. I gather you’ve been in trouble again. You certainly look pretty ghastly. Don’t you own a comb? And you haven’t shaved. You look like a pirate. And» – she wrinkled her nose – «when did you last have a bath? I wonder they let you out of the airport. You ought to be in quarantine.»
Bond laughed. «Winter sports are very strenuous – all that snowballing and tobogganing. Matter of fact, I was at a Christmas Eve fancy-dress party last night. Kept me up till all hours.»
«In those great clod-hopping boots? I don’t believe you.»
«Well, sucks to you! It was on a skating-rink. But seriously, Mary, tell me the score. Why this VIP treatment?»
«M. You’re to check with HQ first and then go down to lunch with him at Quarterdeck. Then, after lunch, he’s having these men you wanted brought down for a conference.
Everything top priority. So I thought I’d better stand by too. As you’re wrecking so many other people’s Christmases, I thought I might as well throw mine on the slag-heap with the others. Actually, if you want to know, I was only having lunch with an aunt. And I loathe turkey and plum pudding. Anyway, I just didn’t want to miss the fun and when the duty officer got on to me about an hour ago and told me there was a major flap, I asked him to tell the car to pick me up on the way to the airport.»
Bond said seriously, «Well, you’re a damned good girl. As a matter of fact it’s going to be the hell of a rush getting down the bare bones of a report. And I’ve got something for the lab to do. Will there be someone there?»
«Of course there will. You know M insists on a skeleton staff in every Section, Christmas Day or not. But seriously, James. Have you been in trouble? You really do look awful.»
«Oh, somewhat. You’ll get the photo as I dictate.» The car drew up outside Bond’s flat. «Now be an angel and stir up May while I clean myself up and get out of these bloody clothes. Get her to brew me plenty of black coffee and to pour two jiggers of our best brandy into the pot. You ask May for what you like. She might even have some plum pudding. Now then, it’s nine-thirty. Be a good girl and call the Duty Officer and say OK to M’s orders and that we’ll be along by ten-thirty. And get him to ask the lab to stand by in half an hour.» Bond took his passport out of his hip-pocket. «Then give this to the driver and ask him to get the hell over and give it to the Duty Officer personally. Tell the DO» – Bond turned down the corner of a page – «to tell the lab that the ink used is – er – home-made. All it needs is exposure to heat. They’ll understand. Got that? Good girl. Now come on and we’ll get May going.» Bond went up the steps and rang two shorts and a long on the bell.
When Bond got to his desk a few minutes after ten-thirty, feeling back to nine-tenths human, he found a folder on his desk with the red star in the top right corner that meant Top Secret. It contained his passport and a dozen copies of blown-up photostats of its page 21. The list of girls’ names was faint but legible. There was also a note marked «personal». Bond opened it. He laughed. It just said, «The ink showed traces of an excess of uric acid. This is often due to a super-abundancy of alcohol in the blood-stream. You have been warned!» There was no signature. So the Christmas spirit had permeated even into the solemn crevices of one of the most secret Sections in the building! Bond crumpled the paper and then, thinking of Mary Goodnight’s susceptibilities, more prudently burned it with his lighter.
She came in and sat down with her shorthand book. Bond said, «Now this is only a first draft, Mary, and it’s got to be fast. So don’t mind about mistakes. M’ll understand. We’ve got about an hour and a half if I’m to get down to Windsor by lunch-time. Think you can manage it? All right then, here goes. ‘Top Secret. Personal to M. As instructed, on December 22nd I arrived at Zurich Central Airport at 1330 by Swissair to make first contact in connexion with Operation "Corona"…’»
Bond turned sideways to his secretary and, as he talked, looked out across the bare trees in Regent’s Park, remembering every minute of the last three days – the sharp, empty smell of the air and the snow, the dark green pools of Blofeld’s eyes, the crunch as the edge of his left hand, still bruised, thudded down across the offered neck of the guard. And then all the rest until Tracy, whom, without mention of romance, he left in his report on her way to the Vier Jahres-zeiten in Munich. Then the report was finished and the muted clack of Mary’s typewriter came from behind the closed door. He would ring Tracy up that night when he got back to his flat. He could already hear her laughing voice at the other end of the wire. The nightmare in the plane was forgotten. Now there was only the happy, secret looking-forward to the days to come. Bond lost himself in his plans – how to get the days off, how to get the necessary papers, where to have the service in Scotland. Then he pulled himself together, picked up the photostat containing the girls’ names and went up to the Communications Centre to get on the teleprinter to Station Z.
M would have preferred to live by the sea, near Plymouth perhaps or Bristol – anywhere where he could see the stuff whenever he wanted to and could listen to it at night. As it was, and since he had to be within easy call of London, he had chosen the next best thing to water, trees, and had found a small Regency manor-house on the edge of Windsor Forest. This was on Crown Lands, and Bond had always suspected that an ounce of «Grace and Favour» had found its way into M’s lease. The head of the Secret Service earned £5,000 a year, with the use of an ancient Rolls Royce and driver thrown in. M’s naval pay (as a Vice-Admiral on the retired list) would add perhaps another £1,500. After taxes, he would have about £4,000 to spend. His London life would probably take at least half of that. Only if his rent and rates came to no more than £500, would he be able to keep a house in the country, and a beautiful small Regency house at that.
These thoughts ran again through Bond’s mind as he swung the clapper of the brass ship’s-bell of some former HMS Repulse, the last of whose line, a battle-cruiser, had been M’s final sea-going appointment. Hammond, M’s Chief Petty Officer in that ship, who had followed M into retirement, greeted Bond as an old friend, and he was shown into M’s study.
M had one of the stock bachelor’s hobbies. He painted in water-colour. He painted only the wild orchids of England, in the meticulous but uninspired fashion of the naturalists of the nineteenth century. He was now at his painting-table up against the window, his broad back hunched over his drawing-board, with, in front of him, an extremely dim little flower in a tooth-glass full of water. When Bond came in and closed the door, M gave the flower one last piercingly inquisitive glance. He got to his feet with obvious reluctance. But he gave Bond one of his rare smiles and said, «Afternoon, James.» (He had the sailor’s meticulous observance of the exact midday.) «Happy Christmas and all that. Take a chair.» M himself went behind his desk and sat down. He was about to come on duty. Bond automatically took his traditional place across the desk from his Chief.
M began to fill a pipe. «What the devil’s the name of that fat American detective who’s always fiddling about with orchids, those obscene hybrids from Venezuela and so forth? Then he comes sweating out of his orchid house, eats a gigantic meal of some foreign muck and solves the murder. What’s he called?»