The girl was sitting by herself, with half a bottle of Bollinger in front of her, staring moodily at nothing. She barely looked up when Bond slipped into the chair next to hers and said, «Well, I’m afraid our syndicate lost again. I tried to get it back. I went ‘avec’. I should have left that brute alone. I stood on a five and he had a ‘buche’ and then drew a nine.»
She said dully, «You should have drawn on the five. I always do.» She reflected. «But then you would have had a four. What was the next card?»
«I didn’t wait to see. I came to look for you.»
She gave him a sideways, appraising glance. «Why did you rescue me when I made the ‘coup du deshonneur’?»
Bond shrugged. «Beautiful girl in distress. Besides, we made friends between Abbeville and Montreuil this evening. You drive like an angel.» He smiled. «But I don’t think you’d have passed me if I’d been paying attention. I was doing about ninety and not bothering to keep an eye on the mirror. And I was thinking of other things.»
The gambit succeeded. Vivacity came into her face and voice. «Oh, yes. I’d have beaten you anyway. I’d have passed you in the villages. Besides» – there was an edge of bitterness in her voice – «I would always be able to beat you. You want to stay alive.»
Oh, lord! thought Bond. One of those! A girl with a wing, perhaps two wings, down. He chose to let the remark lie. The half-bottle of Krug he had ordered came. After the huissier had half filled the glass, Bond topped it to the brim. He held it towards her without exaggeration. «My name is Bond, James Bond. Please stay alive, at any rate for tonight.» He drank the glass down at one long gulp and filled it again.
She looked at him gravely, considering him. Then she also drank. She said, «My name is Tracy. That is short for all the names you were told at the reception in the hotel. Teresa was a saint. I am not a saint. The manager is perhaps a romantic. He told me of your inquiries. So shall we go now? I am not interested in conversation. And you have earned your reward.»
She rose abruptly. So did Bond, confused. «No. I will go alone. You can come later. The number is 45. There, if you wish, you can make the most expensive piece of love of your life. It will have cost you forty million francs. I hope it will be worth it.»
4. All Cats are Grey
SHE WAS waiting in the big double bed, a single sheet pulled up to her chin. The fair hair was spread out like golden wings under the single reading light that was the only light in the room, and the blue eyes blazed with a fervour that, in other girls, in other beds, James Bond would have interpreted. But this one was in the grip of stresses he could not even guess at. He locked the door behind him and came over and sat on the edge of her bed and put one hand firmly on the little hill that was her left breast. «Now listen, Tracy,» he began, meaning to ask at least one or two questions, find out something about this wonderful girl who did hysterical things like gambling without the money to meet her debts, driving like a potential suicide, hinting that she had had enough of life.
But the girl reached up a swift hand that smelt of Guerlain’s «Ode» and put it across his lips. «I said ‘no conversation’. Take off those clothes. Make love to me. You are handsome and strong. I want to remember what it can be like. Do anything you like. And tell me what you like and what you would like from me. Be rough with me. Treat me like the lowest whore in creation. Forget everything else. No questions. Take me.»
An hour later, James Bond slipped out of bed without waking her, dressed by the light of the promenade lights filtering between the curtains, and went back to his room.
He showered and got in between the cool, rough French sheets of his own bed and switched off his thinking about her. All he remembered, before sleep took him, was that she had said when it was all over, «That was heaven, James. Will you please come back when you wake up. I must have it once more.» Then she had turned over on her side away from him and, without answering his last endearments, had gone to sleep – but not before he had heard that she was crying.
What the hell? All cats are grey in the dark.
True or false?
Bond slept.
At eight o’clock he woke her and it was the same glorious thing again. But this time he thought that she held him to her more tenderly, kissed him not only with passion but with affection. But, after, when they should have been making plans about the day, about where to have lunch, when to bathe, she was at first evasive and then, when he pressed her, childishly abusive.
«Get to hell away from me! Do you hear? You’ve had what you wanted. Now get out!»
«Wasn’t it what you wanted too?»
«No. You’re a lousy goddam lover. Get out!»
Bond recognized the edge of hysteria, at least of desperation. He dressed slowly, waiting for the tears to come, for the sheet that now covered her totally to shake with sobs. But the tears didn’t come. That was bad! In some way this girl had come to the end of her tether, of too many tethers. Bond felt a wave of affection for her, a sweeping urge to protect her, to solve her problems, make her happy. With his hand on the door-knob he said softly, «Tracy. Let me help you. You’ve got some troubles. That’s not the end of the world. So have I. So has everyone else.»
The dull cliches fell into the silent, sun-barred room, like clinker in a grate.
«Go to hell!»
In the instant of opening and closing the door, Bond debated whether to bang it shut, to shake her out of her mood, or to close it softly. He closed it softly. Harshness would do no good with this girl. She had had it, somehow, somewhere – too much of it. He went off down the corridor, feeling, for the first time in his life, totally inadequate.
(The Bombard thrashed on up river. It had passed the marina and, with the narrowing banks, the current was stronger. The two thugs in the stern still kept their quiet eyes on Bond. In the bows, the girl still held her proud profile into the wind like the figure-head on a sailing ship. In Bond, the only warmth was in his contact with her back and his hand on the haft of his knife. Yet, in a curious way, he felt closer to her, far closer, than in the transports of the night before. Somehow he felt she was as much a prisoner as he was. How? Why? Way ahead the lights of the Vieux Port, once close to the sea, but now left behind by some quirk of the Channel currents that had built up the approaches to the river, shone sparsely. Before many years they would go out and a new harbour, nearer the mouth of the river, would be built for the deep-sea trawlers that served Royale with their soles and lobsters and crabs and prawns. On this side of the lights were occasional gaunt jetties built out into the river by private yacht-owners. Behind them were villas that would have names like «Rosalie», «Toi et Moi», «Nid Azur» and «Nouvelle Vague». James Bond nursed the knife and smelt the «Ode» that came to him above the stink of mud and seaweed from the river banks. His teeth had never chattered before. Now they chattered. He stopped them and went back to his memories.)