Moneypenny Diaries: Secret Servant

by Samantha Kate

  The drive was lined with chestnut-trees; there were sheep grazing in the fields to one side, horses on the other. I rounded the corner to see, in front of me, a very large, very grand mansion – the sort of place one could imagine playing host to an international summit. Parked on the immaculate gravel – raked, I assume – I saw a row of long, dark, shiny cars. I tucked the Mini in as inconspicuously as possible between a Bentley and an Alvis. As I got out, the drivers of both gave me a look of ill-disguised disdain. ‘In my opinion, size is severely overrated,’ I told them. They looked momentarily shocked before settling their peaked hats back over their eyes and resuming their midday snooze.

  There was a uniformed commissionaire at the front door. I said I was there to see Commander Bond. He gave me a form to sign and asked to see my identification, which he handed to an official sitting at a large desk to one side of the grand marble hall. He read it carefully, looked me up and down, then sidled off. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, but I suppose they have to take all possible measures to ensure James’s security. Presumably, his failed attempt on M’s life has made him a prime target for the KGB, and whatever now passes for its counter-intelligence directorate, SMERSH.

  After another long wait, a young man dressed in a suit and white coat approached and introduced himself as Dr Gordon. ‘Miss Moneypenny. Good to meet you. The Commander has been looking forward to your visit. Please follow me.’ As we walked up the stone staircase and along a deeply carpeted corridor, he told me that he had worked with Sir James for five years. ‘You will find the Commander much improved,’ he told me. ‘His memory is perhaps 80 per cent recovered and we confidently expect the rest to return within the next week. You must understand, however, that he’s undergone some fairly intense treatment. It has been physically as well as mentally demanding. We’ve given him twice the normal dose of ECT – seventeen bashes so far, almost one a day. That on top of hours of one-on-one psycho-analysis. The patient has responded exceptionally well, but he is tired and – how shall I put it – somewhat frustrated. He realises the magnitude of what he has done and is eager to make amends in any way he can.’

  We had reached a heavy wooden door, guarded by a uniformed officer. Dr Gordon showed his identification and I signed my name, before we were buzzed in. On the other side, there was a metal gate. Another guard produced a key and turned the lock to let us in. Dr Gordon shrugged. ‘One can’t be too careful. We have a lot of high-profile people coming through here, for whom the need for privacy is paramount. This is our high-security wing. At the moment, the Commander is the only inmate.’ I looked up. ‘Patient, I mean,’ he corrected himself quickly.

  He knocked on a door – again guarded from the outside – then turned the handle and ushered me through, remaining outside and closing the door behind me. I entered a large, comfortable room, furnished like a drawing-room in a grand hotel, with upholstered armchairs and a fireplace. The sun was flooding through tall sash windows. A figure got up from a chair and walked towards me. His face was in shadow and at first I couldn’t make out his features, but when he said, with a familiar smile in his voice, ‘Penny, as desirable as ever. Thank you for coming,’ I knew it was truly James.

  ‘How could I not? It isn’t every day a girl gets to meet a ghost,’ I replied, as I walked across the room and into his open arms.

  ‘Missed you, Penny,’ he said as he hugged me tight. ‘It’s been a long journey home.’

  I looked up, and saw in those grey-blue eyes a rare hint of warmth. ‘Don’t ever try that poison trick on us again. It was hell to clear up,’ I said sternly.

  He laughed. ‘Thank heavens, still the same old Penny. Don’t worry, it’s strictly patriotism for me from now on. “Land of Hope and Glory” and all that stuff. As soon as I can break out of this prison.’

  He led me to the window and looked out over beautifully landscaped gardens. ‘Who’d have thought that one could feel incarcerated in luxury like this? Of course I understand why they’re doing it – and, apart from severe torture,’ he smiled, ‘they’ve taken good care of me. As my memory returns, though, I can’t help but feel that I’m imprisoned in my thoughts. I can’t wait to get out, apologise to M and get back on the job.’

  ‘Is that an offer?’

  He laughed again. ‘With you, any day – you know that. Right now, however, I need to try to do whatever I can to prove my loyalty towards M and the Firm.’

  We walked over to the comfortable chairs and sat down. James seemed to want to talk, and I was more than content to listen. ‘I can’t believe what’s happened to me,’ he said. ‘It was only a few days ago that I recalled my original mission to Japan. Now it’s flooding back. Tanaka disguising me as a Jap, showing me Blofeld’s castle. The swim over from the island and up the craggy wall into the Garden of Death.’ He broke off at that point, his eyes far away, as if he was conjuring up a picture of Blofeld’s compound of biological horrors.2 He shivered slightly. ‘I hid out all day, and that night I managed to break into the castle. Once there, however, I made a mistake. That bastard Blofeld had booby-trapped the corridors. I fell through a trapdoor and that was that. She recognised me, of course, the hideous Bunt.3 Even with my eyebrows shaved upwards and yellow-stained skin, there was enough of a resemblance to Sir Hilary.4 I said nothing. They knocked me about a bit, then tied me to a stone chair in this ghastly place they called the Question Room. All I could hear was the loud ticking of a clock. Blofeld told me that I was sitting above a fumerole, a volcanic geyser that erupted every fifteen minutes, sending boiling mud shooting into the air. If I didn’t move before the next eruption, my lower body would be flame-grilled to cinders.’ He turned towards me.

  ‘So I capitulated. I admitted my identity. They took me back to the library – Blofeld and Bunt, mad as hatters both of them. He went for me with a samurai sword. We had a bit of a scuffle and he ended up worse for wear.’ James smiled, acknowledging the understatement. ‘I managed to float away hanging on to a helium balloon. I know, it sounds like the product of a fevered imagination, but it’s true. At last I remember it. I remember the look on that murderer’s face as I strangled his last breath out of him.’ The grim triumph on James’s face would have been unattractive had it not been coupled to the memory of what he had suffered when Blofeld had killed his wife, Tracy, only hours after their wedding.

  ‘The next thing I remember was waking up in a cave on Kuro with a girl with the face of an angel wiping my forehead. You know, Penny, I honestly believed I was a Japanese fisherman. I was happy. When spring came, we went diving together for abalone from Kissy’s small boat. She took care of my every need. It was a simple, contented life, but there was always some little seed of doubt hovering in the back of my mind. Something told me that there had been more to my life. I knew deep down that I wasn’t one of them, whatever Kissy said.’

  He must have caught sight of my raised eyebrows, as he interrupted his narrative to insist that Kissy had had his best interests at heart. ‘I know Bill and Molony have this half-cocked suspicion that she was doping me and holding me captive, but I don’t believe it for a second. What would she have to gain?’

  ‘I’m sure there are many women who would have tied you up for the extended pleasure of your company,’ I told him. ‘In fact, I met quite a few of them at your memorial service. That turns out to have been a waste of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money.’

  James chose to ignore me and continued: ‘When I saw the word Vladivostok printed on a piece of torn-up newspaper in the loo, it was like a flash of blinding light. I knew it was something to do with my past life. From that minute on, all I could think about was going there and finding out, somehow, who I was.

  ‘That was how I ended up on a wharf in the eastern Soviet Union, dressed as a Japanese fisherman, in search of my true self.’ He closed his eyes. When he opened them, I was still looking at him. ‘Sorry, Penny. Rather tired. These treatments take it out of one somewhat. I haven’t even offered you a cup of tea – I’ve even
got all the paraphernalia for making it. Think I’d better take a nap. Thanks for coming. Dinner when I get out of here? Please?’

  I told him that I wouldn’t miss it for the world, hugged him and knocked on the door to be let out. James was indeed back.

  Saturday, 14th September

  Spent the day with Eleanor. It was unusually hot. We took our bathers and a picnic and went up to Hampstead Heath. We swam in the ladies’ pool, then laid our towels out on the grass and let our bodies soak up the soft heat. Apart from a few gently scudding clouds, the sky was a deep blue – ‘the colour of Kim’s eyes’, according to Eleanor. She talked about him a lot. She described their first meeting and how she had been immediately struck by his wonderful manners. ‘I was living in some style with my husband in central Beirut,’ she said. ‘We had a large apartment, staff, a driver, membership of a country club – everything that went with the job of chief Middle Eastern correspondent of the New York Times. Kim, on the other hand, had very little money. He had lodgings out of town and only used to come into the centre a couple of times a week, to fetch his mail, or file his stories. He seemed perfectly content. He accepted Beirut for what it was, without trying to turn it into a European pleasure-land. He always had a great affinity for the Lebanese, a sensitivity towards them – in that respect he was his father’s son. I found all this terribly attractive, of course.

  ‘My husband was away a great deal. Kim and I started to see more and more of each other. We would go for lunch in Arab coffee-houses on the waterfront, where foreigners rarely ventured. It wasn’t long before we’d fallen in love. He would send me messages – love-notes, really – almost every day. When he was away, I missed him inordinately. I suppose Sam cottoned on soon enough, but I don’t think he really cared. The Times was his number one, two and three priority. Kim was different to anyone I’d ever met. He adored Annie – he’d spend hours and hours helping her with her French homework. He loved cooking and listening to music. Sometimes he’d read me German poetry – his stutter disappeared and he was able to make even that most unmelodic of tongues sing to me. Yes, he drank – we both did – but then so did most people those days. We were perhaps just a little more uninhibited about it. You know, Jane, growing up in America, there was no one like Kim. I couldn’t help myself.’

  Then she turned to me with a smile: ‘What about you? Is there a great love in your life?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘It’s a little complicated.’

  ‘Don’t let minor issues stand in your way,’ she said. ‘Don’t let anything stand in your way. Hell, I’m not going to let a mere technicality like the fact my husband’s been spying for the Russians and has disappeared behind the Iron Curtain stand in my way.’

  ‘You’ve decided to go?’ I asked, even though I felt awkward about probing.

  ‘I think so, but it’s more than a little complicated. I had a letter from Kim last week. Re-routed from his sister’s house. He said he was well and begged me to go out and join him as soon as I could. He said I would be free to leave any time I wanted.’

  ‘Will you go?’ I couldn’t help but ask.

  She looked away. ‘I don’t know. Alexander says I’d never be allowed back. There’s Annie to think about. I honestly don’t know.’

  Friday, 20th September

  R is back. Glory be. He telephoned from the airport to ask if I would consider spending the weekend with him. I accepted without thinking. My bag is packed. He’s going to pick me up at seven. I don’t know where we’re going. It will be a surprise.

  Sunday, 22nd September

  An extraordinary weekend – exquisite both in its pleasure and agony. Why do we have to be part of this strange, strange world?

  R picked me up on Friday night in a beautiful silver Citroën DS, borrowed from a friend. It was another balmy night, the sky so clear that it seemed as if we could see a thousand galaxies. We drove west for hours, stopping on the way for a picnic that he’d brought with him, beautifully packed in a wicker basket with proper linen napkins and a hurricane lamp. It was wonderful to see him again, after all these months. He looked thinner, and I thought I could detect an extra worry crease on his forehead, but he made no mention of where he’d been and I didn’t ask. It’s odd, despite these no-go conversational areas, we never run out of things to talk about. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so at ease with anyone. I don’t know whether spending this time with Eleanor has made me more accepting of R’s comparatively minor deception. I expect so. In any case, our reunion was rather less inhibited than previous meetings.

  He had booked a small inn, under the name of Mr and Mrs Jones. As we walked up the stairs behind our host, I pinched him. ‘Jones?’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, I believe there’s already a couple of Smiths here,’ he whispered back. ‘Wouldn’t want to be too obvious.’ I felt a shiver of anticipation. Outside our room, R asked for the key and said we could manage on our own from here on. Then he pushed the door open, bent his knees, put his arm under my thighs and swept me into his arms, before striding into the room and throwing me on to a huge double bed. It was a wonderful night.

  We slept late on Saturday morning. When eventually we woke, I opened the French windows leading out to a small stone exterior staircase. From there, I could see rolling hills and smell the sea. We dressed quickly, ate a huge breakfast and set off towards the salty scent. It was only then that R answered my repeated questions as to where we were. ‘Dorset,’ he told me. ‘A few miles east of Bridport. I used to come down here as a boy. My grandfather lived over that hill. My mother brought us to stay with him during the war, when my father went off to fight. We used to collect clams on the shore. I’ve always loved the sea.’

  We walked in companionable silence until, breasting a hill, we saw the coast in front of us. Waves were slopping on to the shingle beach, where families clustered at the water-line, hobbling across the stones, in and out of the lazy surf. I told R about our childhood holidays at Watamu, up the coast from Mombasa. ‘It was miles and miles of white sand, palm-trees bowing into the clear turquoise water. On our last holiday before the war, we went goggling with Pa. He speared lobsters, which we cooked on a brushwood fire on the beach and ate for lunch, washed down with coconut water.’

  ‘A little more exotic than sausages in Dorset,’ R replied, with a laugh. ‘Despite the war, life was certainly more simple in those days, wasn’t it?’

  I wasn’t exactly sure what he was referring to – which part of our complicated lives – but I nodded anyway. It was a glorious, perfect day and I didn’t want to have to think. We walked until we were hungry, and then we turned inland and found a small pub in the nearest village, where we ate fresh clams in celebration of R’s boyhood and drank cider out of pewter tankards.

  That night, R had booked a restaurant for dinner. After much deliberation, I decided to risk my white linen trousers and striped off-the-shoulder jersey. ‘Will I be allowed in?’ I asked R. He laughed. ‘You look wonderful – like a delicious sailor-boy. They wouldn’t dream of turning you away. This isn’t the Savoy.’

  As we were driving there, I noticed him looking repeatedly in his rear-view mirror. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ I asked. He put his hand on my knee. ‘Of course not. Just habit.’ I caught a glimpse of his face when the moon peeped out from behind the trees, and he was frowning. When I switched on the interior light to reapply my lipstick, he reached sharply across to turn it off. Looking in my wing- mirror, I noticed a car appeared to be following us a hundred yards or so back.

  R said nothing more. He just drove with precision and concentration. When he pulled into a small car-park on the wharf, however, I noticed his shoulders relax as the car behind us kept going. He jumped out and came round to open my door before I could do it myself, and we walked arm in arm into the restaurant.

  He was right about the trousers: it was a darling place and we were greeted warmly by the owner, an old man with ruddy, wind-beaten cheeks, who recognised R on sight and cou
ldn’t have cared less if his companion had been wearing a monkey-suit. He showed us to the best table – in the corner, overlooking the water – and proceeded to ply us with dish after steaming dish of delicious seafood. It was a feast unlike any other and, in both quantity and atmosphere, quite put Scott’s to shame. R regaled me with tales of his eccentric, seafaring grandfather – who I envisaged as a grizzled old fisherman, until R admitted later that he had been a Rear Admiral of the British fleet – and his childhood adventures in Dorset. It was straight out of Swallows and Amazons, which I must have read thirty times when I was a child, sitting in the acacia tree at Maguga, with my legs dangling over the lake.

  It was a wonderful dinner and, although we didn’t discuss the future, I felt the growing possibility that we would spend more time together. We left the restaurant well fed and happy.

  It had started to rain softly and the moon was reflected in the glistening streets. On the way home, I leant my head on R’s shoulder and closed my eyes. Suddenly, I felt him tense. I sat up. He was looking in his rear-view mirror again. He told me to hang on tight – ‘Probably nothing to worry about, but we can’t be too careful.’ He swung the car to the right, down a narrow lane. I turned around; the car behind had followed us. R accelerated until we were hurtling into the deep night along roads barely wide enough for a single car, and crumpled with bends. I clung on to the dashboard, truly scared. I looked behind again. ‘He’s still there,’ I gasped.

  We turned sharply to the left and right again, down an even narrower road. The rain was getting harder, the visibility softer, the road ahead of us fading and emerging through the swing of the wipers. The car was gaining on us, its bright lights blaring through our rear window. R reached up to turn the mirror away, then he muttered ‘Hold on’ again, before slamming his foot down hard. I could hardly bear to look; low branches bore down from either side, corners seemed to materialise out of the darkness right in front of our noses, there one minute, whipped around the next. We sped through puddles, glanced our wheels against the steep bank on the roadside. I was rigid with tension, trying to anticipate each turn so I wouldn’t be flung against R and disrupt his concentration, my eyes fixed on the dark ahead of us.