‘I was only sighing with love.’
‘Well, you must have got a Force Five sigh. Now listen. I’m posting my birth certificate to you tomorrow with a covering letter to the British Consul saying I want to get married to you as soon as possible. Look, you’re going up to Force Ten! For God’s sake pay attention. It’ll take a few days, I’m afraid. They have to post the banns or something. He’ll tell you all about it. Now, you must quickly get your birth certificate and give it to him, too. Oh, you have, have you?’ Bond laughed. ‘So much the better. Then we’re all set. I’ve got three days or so of work to do and I’m going down to see your father tomorrow and ask for your hand, both of them, and the feet and all the rest, in marriage. No, you’re to stay where you are. This is men’s talk. Will he be awake? I’m going to ring him up now. Good. Well, now you go off to sleep or you’ll be too tired to say “Yes” when the time comes.’
They had not wanted to let go of each other’s voices, but finally the last good-night, the last kiss, had been exchanged, and Bond called the Marseilles number of Appareils Électriques Draco, and Marc-Ange’s voice, almost as excited as Tracy’s, was on the line. Bond dampened down the raptures about the ‘fian-çailles’ and said, ‘Now listen, Marc-Ange. I want you to give me a wedding present.’
‘Anything, my dear James. Anything I possess.’ He laughed. ‘And perhaps certain things of which I could take possession. What is it you would like?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow evening. I’m booked on the afternoon Air France to Marseilles. Will you have someone meet me? And it’s business, I’m afraid. So could you have your other directors present for a little meeting? We shall need all our brains. It is about our sales organization in Switzerland. Something drastic needs to be done about it.’
‘Aha!’ There was full understanding in the voice. ‘Yes, it is indeed a bad spot on our sales map. I will certainly have my colleagues available. And I assure you, my dear James, that anything that can be done will be done. And of course you will be met. I shall perhaps not be there in person – it is very cold out these winter evenings. But I shall see that you are properly looked after. Goodnight, my dear fellow. Goodnight.’
The line had gone dead. The old fox! Had he thought Bond might commit an indiscretion, or had he got fitted to his telephone a ‘bug-meter’, the delicate instrument that measures the resonance on the line and warns of listening-in?
The winter sun spread a last orange glow over the thick overcast 10,000 feet below the softly whistling plane and switched itself off for the night.
Bond dozed, reflecting that he must somehow, and pretty soon, find a way of catching up on his sleep.
There was a stage-type Marseilles taxi-driver to meet Bond – the archetype of all Mariuses, with the face of a pirate and the razor-sharp badinage of the lower French music-halls. He was apparently known and enjoyed by everyone at the airport, and Bond was whisked through the formalities in a barrage of wisecracks about ‘le milord anglais’, which made Marius, for his name turned out in fact to be Marius, the centre of attraction and Bond merely his butt, the dim-witted English tourist. But, once in the taxi, Marius made curt, friendly apologies over his shoulder. ‘I ask your pardon for my bad manners.’ His French had suddenly purified itself of all patois. It also smelt like acetylene gas. ‘I was told to extract you from the airport with the least possible limelight directed upon you. I know all those “flies” and douaniers. They all know me. If I had not been myself, the cab-driver they know as Marius, if I had shown deference, eyes, inquisitive eyes, would have been upon you, mon Commandant. I did what I thought best. You forgive me?’
‘Of course I do, Marius. But you shouldn’t have been so funny. You nearly made me laugh. That would have been fatal.’
‘You understand our talk here?’
‘Enough of it.’
‘So!’ There was a pause. Then Marius said, ‘Alas, since Waterloo, one can never underestimate the English.’
Bond said, seriously, ‘The same date applied to the French. It was a near thing.’ This was getting too gallant. Bond said, ‘Now tell me, is the bouillabaisse chez Guido always as good?’
‘It is passable,’ said Marius. ‘But this is a dish that is dead, gone. There is no more true bouillabaisse, because there is no more fish in the Mediterranean. For the bouillabaisse, you must have the rascasse, the tender flesh of the scorpion fish. Today they just use hunks of morue. The saffron and the garlic, they are always the same. But you could eat pieces of a woman soaked in those and it would be good. Go to any of the little places down by the harbour. Eat the plat du jour and drink the vin du Cassis that they give you. It will fill your stomach as well as it fills the fishermen’s. The toilette will be filthy. What does that matter? You are a man. You can walk up the Canebière and do it at the Noailles for nothing after lunch.’
They were now weaving expertly through the traffic down the famous Canebière and Marius needed all his breath to insult the other drivers. Bond could smell the sea. The accordions were playing in the cafés. He remembered old times in this most criminal and tough of all French towns. He reflected that it was rather fun, this time, being on the side of the devil.
At the bottom of the Canèbiére, where it crosses the Rue de Rome, Marius turned right and then left into the Rue St Ferréol, only a long stone’s throw from the Quai des Beiges and the Vieux Port. The lights from the harbour’s entrance briefly winked at them and then the taxi drew up at a hideous, but very new apartment house with a broad vitrine on the ground floor, which announced in furious neon ‘Appareils Électriques Draco’. The well-lit interior of the store contained what you would expect – television sets, radios, gramophones, electric irons, fans, and so forth. Marius very quickly carried Bond’s suitcase across the pavement and through the swing doors beside the vitrine. The close-carpeted hallway was more luxurious than Bond had expected. A man came out of the porter’s lodge beside the lift and wordlessly took the suitcase. Marius turned to Bond, gave him a smile and a wink and a bone-crushing handshake, said curtly, ‘A la prochaine,’ and hurried out. The porter stood beside the open door of the lift. Bond noticed the bulge under his right arm and, out of curiosity, brushed against the man as he entered the lift. Yes, and something big too, a real stopper. The man gave Bond a bored look, as much as to say, ‘Clever? Eh?’ and pressed the top button. The porter’s twin, or very nearly his twin – dark, chunky, brown-eyed, fit – was waiting at the top floor. He took Bond’s suitcase and led the way down a corridor, close-carpeted and with wall brackets in good taste. He opened a door. It was an extremely comfortable bedroom with a bathroom leading off. Bond imagined that the big picture window, now curtained, would have a superb view of the harbour. The man put down his suitcase and said, ‘Monsieur Draco est immédiatement à votre disposition.’
Bond thought it time to make some show of independence. He said firmly, ‘Un moment, je vous en prie,’ and went into the bathroom and cleaned himself up – amused to notice that the soap was that most English of soaps, Pears Transparent, and that there was a bottle of Mr Trumper’s ‘Eucris’ beside the very masculine brush and comb by Kent. Marc-Ange was indeed making his English guest feel at home!
Bond took his time, then went out and followed the man to the end door. The man opened it without knocking and closed it behind Bond. Marc-Ange, his creased walnut face split by his great golden-toothed smile, got up from his desk (Bond was getting tired of desks!), trotted across the broad room, threw his arms round Bond’s neck and kissed him squarely on both cheeks. Bond suppressed his recoil and gave a reassuring pat to Marc-Ange’s broad back. Marc-Ange stood away and laughed ‘All right! I swear never to do it again. It is once and for ever. Yes? But it had to come out – from the Latin temperament, isn’t it? You forgive me? Good. Then come and take a drink’ – he waved at a loaded sideboard – ‘and sit down and tell me what I can do for you. I swear not to talk about Teresa until you have finished with your business. But tell me’ – the brown eyes pleaded – ‘it is all right between you? You have not changed your mind?’