As they sped by rail across America, Cuneo was amazed by how this trait repeated itself. At every stop, even on the train itself, Fleming would talk to people, write in his notebook and formulate adventures in his mind. ‘He conversed with the crew and made his usual notes. When we arrived in Chicago the next morning, he was all joy. I at once discerned that he had something in mind that would infuriate me, and I was right. “Off,” he chortled, “Off we go to America’s great shrine – the scene of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” “Not me,” I said. “You. But before you go, let’s drop in at a little place they have here in Chicago. Nothing much but something I think you should see.” I took him straightway to the Chicago Institute of Fine Arts, which in my view, is unmatched in all the world. Fleming was entranced, completely enveloped by the masterpieces. He commented in subdued tones; it was as near as I ever saw him come to reverence. He knew a great deal more about painting than I. I do not know enough about painting to say how much he knew about it, but expert or not, few I know have exhibited his deep feeling for it. He forgot St. Valentine’s, I almost had to drag him out. Out in broad daylight, the enchantment evaporated. [. . .] He went off to the St. Valentine’s scene – alone. They told him it was all changed, but he went anyway and scribbled away when he got back.
‘We pulled out in the Super Chief. The great train was almost deserted then, quite a change from pre-war days when it was crowded and gay as a cruise ship. We were half way to Iowa before the Super Chief’s stewards had fully absorbed their instructions on how to make his Martinis. [. . .] I had arranged for him to ride the cab with the engineers, which to my amazement, took quite some doing. I went with him. He was all over the engine, went back into the inferno of noise in the Diesel room – alone – and interrogated the engineer and his assistant on everything from the block signal system to the “dead man control”. [. . .] Ian was delighted as he watched the great care with which they took the big train through the Raton Pass. He was off at every stop through New Mexico and Arizona, talking to the men serving the train, walking briskly around the desert architecture stations, taking mental photographs by the score. [. . .]
‘Fleming was at this time all but unknown. He was, in his own words, “waffling about” not even conceiving remotely of the fame to come.’ Yet he managed to gain access to the Los Angeles Police Headquarters, where he was absorbed by their methods and by their narcotics operation. The same magic worked at Las Vegas, where he and Cuneo were given first-hand instruction on how casinos were run
During the journey they discussed matters of life. One topic was the hankering after fame. Cuneo having once been a promising professional footballer, he explained how glad he was to have rid himself of the desire for applause. Fleming disagreed.
‘“Matter of fact,” he said, “Know what I would consider the ideal existence? Know what I’d like if I could have anything I wanted? I’d like to be the absolute ruler of a country where everyone was crazy about me.” Fitting it to the American scene for my benefit, he said, “Imagine yourself waking up in the White House. Instantly, the radio would announce to a breathless country, ‘He’s awake.’ Bulletins would follow. ‘He’s shaving.’ ‘He’s dressing.’ ‘He’s breakfasting.’ ‘He’s reading the papers in the garden.’ Finally, at 10.30 ’He’s ordered the car!’ And at 11 o’clock,” said Ian, “I’d pass out through the gates, tossing medals to deliriously happy hundreds of thousands.” “I’d like that,” he said, and added, “And so would they. Too bad you don’t like applause.”
‘“Ian,” I said, “You miss the point. I shun applause because I like it too much. It might be like going back on dope.”
‘“That’s good,” he nodded. “Nothing like being aware of your defects of character. A sound approach. You don’t usually admit them, you know.”
‘“Balls,” I said.’
Another subject was the matter of Bond’s extravagant sex life. ‘Holy Smoke! Dragged over coral reefs, caught in steam pipes, sharks by the score, corpses all around – what came to Bond’s mind, I assured him, would be the last to enter mine, or in fact, anyone I knew or had ever known. This amused Ian. I think Bond was a thing apart from him. Though created by him he seemed to be as detached from Bond as a scientist who has created a robot, and indeed, there were a considerable number of times when I thought Bond bored Fleming to tears. But the writing, the craftsmanship of detail, did not. I had the impression that Bond was the mere instrumentation of this craftsmanship, which is most excellent. Indeed, I think that some of Fleming’s paragraphs are all but Keatsian, and that a good deal of his writing will survive James Bond. Fleming didn’t. As a matter of fact, at that time, he was striving to get James Bond living and wasn’t too sure he wouldn’t die before.’
On the matter of sex, they both agreed that they had been brought up in puritanical societies. Cuneo said he had been educated to believe ‘that evil “thoughts” were as bad as evil “deeds”. The impossibility of this compounded the agony, it being as difficult as Tolstoy’s condition of standing in a corner and not thinking of a polar bear. Fleming all but trembled with anger at the Established Hypocrisy, particularly of the Victorians. “Read the stuff,” he said harshly, “Any of it and you can hardly believe it. In Jamaica I happened to pick up an old account of shooting. ‘“Ah,” sighed the old planter, “To see these beautiful tropical birds, visions of beauty, and now dead through my fowling piece.”’ Suddenly he burst into sustained laughter until his face reddened – real laughter not bitter laughter. [. . .] Actually, he had had one terrifying experience which he remembered with horror, converted into laughter. I thought it was psychologically traumatic, and modified, it appears as one of the incidents in his books.’11
And then there was marriage and children. In the 1920s Cuneo had considered the future. ‘My then view was that, given the allocated three score and ten years, I had fifty years to go – only 2,500 weeks, and I proposed to do what I pleased with them. [. . .] We were all aboard the Titanic and you might just as well have a hell of a time while the voyage lasted. It was the mood of the Roaring Twenties and roar we did, grinding out the juice of each day as if it were the last grape on the vine.’ But all this changed with marriage. ‘Men do not like to use the word “love”. Fleming and I spoke often of our children, and neither used the term; but it was clear to me that Ian “loved” his son Caspar deeply, more deeply, possibly, than most fathers.’
On reaching Denver they took a quick whiff from the oxygen inhalers that were currently distributed throughout American airports, before catching a plane back to New York. It had been an epic, and revealing, journey. ‘Ian used a lot of the material he gathered in his next book. He sent me a first copy, as always, nicely inscribed. I was slightly chagrined to find it contained a character called Ernie Cureo, a taxicab driver, and made routine protest, well knowing I could do nothing about it, that he knew I could do nothing about it and so what the hell. He sent me a plain gold bill-clip inscribed, “To Ernie – my guide on a trip to the Angels and back. 007” The word play, of course, was on Los Angeles.’
FROM ERNEST CUNEO
May 9th, 1956
Dear Ian:
Firstly, I was delighted with “Diamonds are Forever”. It was action packed, as anyone who considers the wrecking of a Lucius Beebe train and the shooting down of a helicopter must readily admit. I did think that the whole business was slightly overorganized for a paltry two million a year. But the descriptions of the train wreck and the queen at sea [the Queen Elizabeth liner] were marvellously graphic writing. Suffice to say that I picked it up and read it through without putting it down – and all without a wet eye for poor Ernie Cureo, the lout. [. . .]
I may be over this summer on the new Mato Magazine.
Until then – Diamonds and Cuneo are forever.
FROM ERNEST CUNEO
Fleming often said that Cuneo had supplied most of the material for Diamonds are Forever, and Cuneo was not short of incidents that he thought Fleming might like to
use in other books.
April 12th, 1957
Dear Ian,
Thanks muchly for your book [Dr No]: I can hardly wait to read it, but I hasten to express my appreciation.
Riding by Glen Echo Amusement Park, it occurred to me, as a lively scene, that Bond should fight a gun duel in the Hall of Mirrors, each man under blazing lights, and the myriad mirrors presenting exact likenesses to the other as target. A horrible lottery: 20 mirrors and 6 shots.
I couldn’t get to Nassau, but I hear that Jo and Ivar had the best time ever and both are in the tan.
You, if you think it wise, might send a copy of your book to Stanley Meyer, Four Oaks Farm, Encino, California, who, in his new position as a director of MGM, might be in a position to get it direct attention.
Sorry we missed, but look forward to seeing you this summer.
TO ERNEST CUNEO
As a result of a successful takeover bid by a Canadian syndicate, Fleming found his career at NANA abruptly terminated.
23rd May, 1957
My dear Ernie,
I have never thought that Mr. Wheeler’s strong point is tact, but I have just had a surprisingly abrupt letter from him terminating my position with the syndicates at ten days’ notice.
This communication stung me to reply in similar vein and I enclose a copy of my letter to him.
At the same time I am writing at once to you to explain that if we are to engage in officialese ping-pong this is the choice of Mr. Wheeler and not of me.
Ivar and I had lunch together yesterday and I gather there has been a further change of ownership in the syndicates and that you have a tough job ahead of you sailing the ship more or less single-handedly, so naturally the last thing I want to do is rock the boat, even with the smallest ripple.
My friendship with you is far more important to me than my status with N.A.N.A. and now with the syndicates, and if you tell me there’s no money in the till to pay out anything in compensation for loss of office I shall dry my tears and merely help myself rather more liberally to caviare when we meet at the “Twenty One” in August.
As the years progressed, and Britain gradually declined from being an imperial power to simply just a power, Cuneo felt that relations between Britain and the US were becoming frostier than before. ‘Bill Stephenson was gone and much of the British American rapport evaporated with his departure. This affected deeply British-American friends. Fleming and I were no exception.’ When he teased Fleming about this he realised that he was, above all, a die-hard patriot. ‘That Fleming had his logic-tight compartments there can be no doubt. I discovered this when he was more or less savagely attacking the White House. I took on Buckingham Palace, deriding the monarchy as a fantastic anachronism.
‘“No,” said Fleming, “It’s a ballet, say what you will, it’s a ballet.” I said that what was once the signature of empire was now a tourist attraction – and that the old adage that history repeats itself but only as a farce was never more apparent than in the trooping of the colors.
‘He almost burst into tears. He said, “No, Ernie, it’s a ballet, maybe, but a beautiful one.” He was both sad and deeply moved. I hadn’t the slightest doubt that ballet or not, he’d lay down his life for it.’
In 1961, by which time Britain’s global presence had been all but dismantled, Fleming suffered a heart attack.
TO ERNEST CUNEO, ESQ., 784 Park Avenue, New York, 28
1st June, 1961
My Dear Ernie,
A thousand thanks for your splendid screed of May 16th which came as a powerful injection of mescalin in the midst of my ludicrous health problems.
These are now resolving themselves and I am more or less erect (in a respectable way). But I am afraid with an endless vista of twenty cigarettes and three ounces of liquor a day and, worst of all, no women, scrambled eggs or golf.
It’s all quite ridiculous, and I am finding myself hard put to fill the vacua thus created.
It is no help to be told by Noël Coward that I must become “more spiritual”, or by my ex Naval Intelligence Chief that I must write his life. Nor am I thrilled by the prospect of correspondence, chess or petit point, which are also offered.
Anyway I am definitely booked on the Queen Elizabeth on July 20th and, in the meantime, I look out of the window at the rain and eat food cooked in kosher margarine. What a life! [. . .]
Ivar moves from race course to race course watching his horses come in last. So far as McClory12 is concerned I have a meeting with my Counsel next week on the copyright side, but my impression is that I will not have the satisfaction of seeing him shredded in the Courts since Jo [Bryce] thinks it would be vulgar for Ivar to go on the witness stand!
My immediate interest is trying to get hold of the Times’ obituary which they had spruced up by a friend of mine when the tomb yawned!
With much affection,
TO ERNEST CUNEO
28th June, 1961
My dear Ernie,
I very greatly enjoyed the round tour of your innermost thoughts and though sometimes I find myself slightly airborne by the loftiness of your ratiocination, I think I have more or less got the photo.
By chance Bryce was sitting before me here yesterday afternoon and I allowed him a glimpse of your palimpsest. It entirely delighted him though, as in all great testaments, there were certain passages, notably those dealing with higher mathematics, which were too much for the common clay of his mind.
One thing is quite clear to both of us. The velocity of your thought, as also the velocity with which you cover the ground, betoken the constitution, physical and mental, of a giant, and we both feel, if you have not already done so, that you should add a codicil to your Will bequeathing your cadaver in toto to an appropriate medical or scientific institution. (Perhaps you might even spare a small piece for the Bryce Foundation!)
To get back to duller subjects, my health continues to improve and Ivar’s horses continue to lose.
The rest we will discuss while the shadows gather round the skirts of Goose Egg and the ice of the emptying glasses rattles against our teeth.
With renewed and warm thanks for your positively stupendous letter.
‘I saw Ian several times after his first heart attack. [. . .] Ian’s aura showed he had been hit much more severely than he believed. He was annoyed more than alarmed, he smoked as much and drank and ate the same and stated emphatically that he intended to be bored by no regrets.
‘He was in fullest faculty, of course, and if anything more effervescent than ever. He, however, lacked much of the aura, and when I saw him in London, I noted the crowsfeet around his eyes – born of heavy laughter – looked tired.[. . .]
‘Actually, he was getting a bit sick of Bond before the Big Breeze Blew: he was contemplating killing him off in a final book. He had achieved a very considerable measure of success. He was required reading in Mayfair and on the North Shore. He had ignited a quite satisfactory and top-drawer readership. I think that when it exploded in a Vesuvius of popular consumption, it was as much a surprise to him as to anyone else.’
On reviewing Fleming’s life, Cuneo returned to his Arthurian analogy: ‘He felt no particular discontent with himself. He felt much discontent with the world in which he lived, for he was a knight out of phase, a knight errant searching for the lost Round Table and possibly the Holy Grail, and unable to reconcile himself that Camelot was gone and still less that it had probably never existed.’
5
Diamonds are Forever
It was in New York, on the way home from Goldeneye in March 1954, that Fleming noticed an advertisement in American Vogue – ‘A Diamond Is Forever’. It caught his imagination, and for a short while Atticus ran items about these glittering treasures. On 20 June, he reported on the fifth largest diamond the world had ever seen. It came to 426½ carats and weighed 3.4 ounces in the rough – a splendour that was done little justice by being photographed alongside a box of matches. ‘But,’ he wrote, ‘I suppose De Beers think
of diamonds simply in terms of carbon burned into the form of crystals in which each atom is tetrahedrally linked to four others at distances of 1.54 Angstrom units, with a hardness of ten on Mohs’s scale and a specific heat of 0.147, and that these crystals (perish the thought) burn at around 1,000 degrees Centigrade and produce carbon dioxide gas.’ Angstrom, Moh and matchbox aside, the stone was still worth £100,000. So rare an item, so tormented its measure, so seductive its allure – here were the makings of a typically Flemingesque romance.
Diamonds are Forever drew Bond into the spectacular world of international diamond smuggling. The plot ranged from Sierra Leone, via Amsterdam to New York, Saratoga and Las Vegas and saw 007 working undercover to infiltrate a powerful criminal network – The Spangled Mob, run by brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang whose employees included a pair of homosexual hitmen, Wint and Kidd. It involved horse racing, fast cars, mud baths, gambling and the freewheeling American go-between, Tiffany Case, with whom Bond fell in love. The climax came at Seraffimo Spang’s ranch, Spectreville,1 where Bond sent him to his death by diverting his private steam train into an abandoned mine. Returning to Britain with Tiffany on the Queen Elizabeth liner, Bond overcame an assassination attempt by Wint and Kidd and later went to Africa where he not only plugged the diamond pipeline but dealt fatally with Jack Spang. The book ended with Tiffany and Bond living together in his London flat and the prospect of marriage hanging in the air.
Fleming worked harder on this novel than he had for the previous three. He took advice from De Beers, who allowed him to watch the sorting and cutting of diamonds, and consulted Sir Percy Sillitoe, ex-head of MI5, who ran the International Diamond Security Organisation.2 What inspired him most, however, were his own experiences.
The Man with the Golden Typewriter Page 9