by Andrew Cook
One assassin was to throw the red bomb and the other was then to press the button on the blue case. However, the Bulgars decided to play safe and press the button on the blue case first, thus concealing themselves in the smoke screen before throwing the bomb. In fact the blue case also contained a powerful explosive device and both assassins were blown to pieces. This concoction was not as far-fetched as it sounded.
In fact this was very similar to the method used in a Russian NKVD attempt to kill the German ambassador to Turkey, the former Chancellor Franz Von Papen in Ankara on 24 February 1942. On that occasion the assassins were also Bulgarians and they too were blown to pieces while Von Papen escaped with only superficial bruises. Other real life events that influenced Fleming plot lines were the tunnel from West to East Berlin that enabled MI6 to tap the Russian telephone system, the KGB spy Khokhlov and his bullet firing cigarette case and the MI6 diver Buster Crabb, who dived under the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze in 1956.
On the other hand, he had no qualms in telling readers that certain events or locations referred to in the books were true or the background to a story accurate when he knew full well they weren’t. In From Russia with Love, for example, he dramatically began his narrative with an ‘Author’s Note’ to the reader in which he claimed that SMERSH was a top secret department that actually existed at the time of writing and was a massive Soviet counter-intelligence organisation employing some 40,000 agents in Russia and abroad. He further claimed that SMERSH headquarters was, in that year of 1956, located at No. 13 Stretenka Ulitsa in Moscow and that his description of the building’s interior that was to be found in Chapter 4 was ‘faithfully described’. Nothing, however, could have been further from the truth. SMERSH (a contraction of Smert Shpionnam, meaning ‘death to spies’) had in reality only existed for three short years between 1943–46 as a small sub-section of the NKVD. No. 13 Stretenka Ulitsa was an address he had chosen at random and was actually a tsarist-era public apartment building that remained as such until its demolition in 2003. Likewise, the man who Fleming reveals to be its real-life chief, General Nikolai Grubozaboyschikov, was a non-existent figment of his fertile imagination.
He was, however, the first to admit to an honest error. While the proof readers and editors at publishers Jonathan Cape did their best, a certain amount of technical errors managed to evade their eagle eye. Readers in particular, loved to write in to him pointing out, for example, that Vent Vert is made by Balmain and not by Dior, that the Orient Express had vacuum and not hydraulic brakes and that you have mousseline sauce and not bearnaise with asparagus. Such mistakes, he told the Daily Express, were really nobody’s fault except the author’s and caused him some degree of embarrassment to see them in print. He consoled himself, however, in the belief that the majority of the public either didn’t mind the occasional error or more likely, didn’t even notice them.
When it came to delivering a plot line, a little like Agatha Christie, Fleming experimented with the method of telling a story. In the Spy Who Loved Me, written in 1961, for example, he made a dramatic departure and told the story in the first person through a Canadian girl by the name of Vivienne Michel. In an even riskier move, Bond does not come into the story until two thirds of the way through the book. While it was in many ways a brave and bold approach, it was not one that was well received by the critics. Charles Stainsby of the weekly magazine Today described it as ‘one of the worst, most boring, badly constructed novels we have read’.
This was not the first occasion on which he had encountered bad or critical reviews relating to his plots. Having had a relatively good stretch between 1953 and 1958, Dr. No, published in March of that year, was accused by some critics of being a re-working of British author Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. Paul Johnson, writing in the New Statesman, went somewhat further by describing the book as the nastiest he had ever read. ‘Mr Fleming’, he wrote, ‘has no literary skill; the construction of the book is chaotic, and entire incidents and situations are inserted and then forgotten in a haphazard way.’ To Fleming, however, the secret of writing a best seller was not to be found in the intricacies or otherwise of the plot, it was all down to the author’s ability to incentivise the reader to turn over the pages. The success of his story telling was all about how you did it rather than what you did. Nothing, in his view, should interfere with the essential dynamic of the thriller. Prose should ideally be simple and unmannered and should not linger too long over descriptive passages. Having said that, he was equally of the view that these rules were occasionally there to be broken. Looking back on the writing of Goldfinger in 1958, he confessed to indulging the reader with large doses of what he considered they should be interested in and proceeded to take up some three chapters in describing in fine, blow-by-blow detail, the round of golf between Goldfinger and Bond. He was equally equivocal that there should be no complications in names, relationships, journeys or geographical settings that would likely confuse or annoy the reader. Unlike Christie plots, he believed there must never be what he felt were indulgent recaps where the central character theorises in his mind on a list of suspects or reflects on what he might have done or what he proposes to do next.
Gustav Steinhauer, Melville’s German intelligence opposite number and author of the Bank of England Plot, considered by many to be ‘the Real Goldfinger’. National Archive
William Melville, the Secret Service Bureau Chief who smashed the plot to blow up the Bank of England’s gold reserve in 1914. Author’s collection
Fleming’s modus operandi was to crack on at break-neck speed, hustling the reader quickly beyond what he often referred to as the ‘danger points of mockery’. This approach was equally a reflection of his writing technique which embodied the principle of never correcting anything and never looking back at what he had written until he had finished.
At a time when few post-war Britons were willing or able to venture beyond their native shores on a foreign holiday, Fleming’s books were the perfect antidote. His backdrops were always sunny, exciting and luxurious locations. At the same time, his narrative frequently employed the use of familiar names and objects: a Ronson lighter, a 4½-litre Bentley with an Amherst-Villiers super-charger and the Ritz Hotel in London are all points of familiarity that punctuate the reader’s journey to fantastic adventure.
Ultimately, Ian’s real ambition was not to be recognised as a great writer or to write great books but to see his creation James Bond make the transition to the big screen and find the success that that authors like Leslie Charteris had done. As he acknowledged himself in 1962, there was not much money to be made from book royalties and translation rights; it was selling the film rights that made it all worthwhile financially. In this sense, it is significant that when, in 1962, after some eight years of trying, he finally succeeded in obtaining a film deal with Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the film producers found very few of his literary plots of use or value in terms of constructing scripts. Of all the Bond books he wrote, few were to make the transition from book to screen in terms of the plot.
• THE COVERS •
Fleming had done a good job as a cover designer with some of his earlier books, but when it came to From Russia with Love he found the best artist yet. Richard Chopping was 40 and established as a painter of exquisite flowers, plants and insects. After an exhibition of his in 1957, he and his partner Denis Wirth-Miller gave a dinner party. Francis Bacon brought Anne Fleming. Soon afterwards they and Bacon were invited to dine with the Flemings in their house in Victoria Square, a quiet enclave off the Buckingham Palace Road. Fleming, presumably having heard about Chopping’s work from Anne, asked him to paint a picture he could use as the cover for his next book. (According to Chopping himself later, he was the second choice, although the first would have produced the goods even more slowly.) Money wasn’t mentioned. Ian was unfairly self-deprecating about the books themselves (‘You don’t want to read them. They’re rubbish.’) For From Russia with Love, they agreed on a still life
with gun, which Fleming would provide, and thorny rose, on a pale wood-grain background.
Chopping painted this but delivered it somewhat late, at Fleming’s office in Gray’s Inn Road. Fleming grinned as he entered; he was on the phone to somebody. ‘You can ask him yourself,’ he laughed, ‘he’s just walked through the door.’ Chopping found himself talking to Scotland Yard. Three people had met a sudden end from the barrel of a Smith and Wesson revolver. The only licensed Smith and Wesson revolver, in the area they were searching, was the pistol Ian had given him to paint. Ian had borrowed it from a reputable gun dealer. The prime suspect, until forensics fortunately established that this gun hadn’t been fired, was either Chopping, Fleming or the dealer.
Ian loved the picture. The usual rate for a book jacket was ten guineas (£10.50) but Chopping asked £30. Ian insisted he was worth £40. Chopping did a few more covers after that, and then in 1961, he began to supplement his income with a lecturing job at the Royal College of Art. He wanted to reserve his spare time for his own work. He was bored by James Bond by then anyway, and refused a fourth commission. However, Fleming ‘insisted, saying “your covers sell the books” although this had previously been hotly denied when I sought to raise my price’.
So Chopping asked for copyright, as well as much more money, and that was agreed. He then asked for royalties and was refused. So he simply put the price up with each successive job, until finally – having been paid £365 for one of them – he was publicised as ‘the highest paid book jacket designer in the world’.
• 10 •
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
• MARRIAGE •
Ian Fleming was unsuited to marriage. He was too moody, too selfish and too easily bored. The liaison with Anne, which began in the 1930s, had endured for a remarkably long time partly because they both had other relationships and other interests to pursue. They did not have to share the same roof for months on end. Sometimes they had to communicate by letter or not at all. They both delighted in sado-masochistic sex, which kept the candle burning, but inventiveness would eventually run out there too.
Once they were married they did their best to avoid passion-killing domesticity. Ian wanted to remain fit and attractive. When Barbara Skelton saw him in 1954 she noticed he no longer was; these days he had a complexion like raw beef and a big behind. Yet Ian’s view, according to Bryce, was that a healthy man in his forties should be made of ‘velvet stretched on bone’ or turn into a middle-aged slob. Aware of increasing flab, he and Ivar agreed that they would both lose it under medical supervision within six months. Each bet the other $10,000 that he couldn’t do it. If they both failed, the $20,000 would go to charity. They both succeeded. Later on, Ian did ‘a champagne cure for chronic alcoholism which I find is very beneficial and my smoking has been vastly reduced, so I hope that before long a new Fleming will arise from the ashes of the old’.
He never felt good enough, or excited enough, for very long. Marriage had motivated him to stick to a routine for a purpose, but it didn’t offer a thrilling life.
He was pleased to have a son, but not particularly interested. Film, TV and serial rights in the Bond books were put in trust for Caspar, but hands-on parenthood offered few delights to either Ian or Anne. Nanny Sillick looked after little Caspar at No. 16 Victoria Square and at their house in St Margaret’s Bay, on the Kent coast. Permanent domestic staff were also in residence in London, which – since both Caspar’s parents were often away – made him the baby boss of his own household. He had been born to parents aged 43 and 38, whose own parents would have expected the children to be ‘brought down’ for an hour in the early evening, and otherwise kept out of sight. So it was for Caspar in the 1950s. Nanny Sillick did the nappy changing and playing with wood bricks, the maid did the laundry, the cook mashed the baby food. After a while the Flemings decided that Nanny Sillick might as well keep Caspar down in Kent all the time, and they would visit at weekends and at Christmas. Christmas at St Margaret’s Bay involved quite a lot of entertaining, so they rented the house next door for a cook. Given James Bond’s fussiness over drinks and cigarettes, guests might have expected superb cuisine. Barbara Skelton, who was a good cook, found their food dreary in the extreme. When she was still married, just about, to Cyril Connolly, Connolly called her after a meal at the Flemings’.
‘“What did you have to eat?” I asked, knowing the form.
“Unripe avocados and some rather dull little soles.”’
Avocados were barely known then, and only Harrods or Fortnums would stock them. Anne and Ian knew the kind of thing they should eat to look smart, but Ian at least was a steak-and-chips sort of person.
Ian’s health was an ongoing concern. By the time he was 50, in 1958, he was in terrible shape. He was often drunk. He had a bad back, dodgy kidneys, a dicky heart and stress. He smoked as much as ever. When he was in Jamaica that year he kept asking Anne, by letter, to find them a house where they could settle down. He wanted a place, he said, where he could afford the heating bills. (The soul of Granny K lived on.) Anne’s solution was a forty-roomed wreck in Dorset, with dry rot and a ballroom. They bought it, and it kept her conveniently occupied for the next four years. Dredging the lake cost quite a lot. When it was finished he decided to take a flat of his own at Sandwich, to be nearer the golf course.
Holidays, at least, were chosen by Ian, for Ian. In a repeat of the Esmond-Anne-Ian trip to Cornwall, he was hoping somehow to re-live happier, more innocent times. He loved fast cars and had enjoyed Kitzbühel thirty years ago, so in mid-1950s he drove Anne and Caspar to Austria in his Thunderbird in summer. There was a golf club, so he played golf. Anne painted. Presumably Nanny Sillick spent her days with the little boy. When Caspar was 7 or 8, he had a governess, who would accompany them on holiday and to Jamaica and give him the kind of attention that his parents were too self-absorbed to offer. At 10, in 1962, Caspar had a companion: his cousin Francis. Anne’s sister, who like Eve Fleming’s brothers was unable to manage life, died of drink that year, leaving Francis motherless. Anne more or less took him in as a companion for Caspar. It was probably too late. Anne herself was by that time addicted to barbiturates, which Caspar started taking occasionally when he was 11.
In 1960, they went to Kitbühel in winter but Ian couldn’t ski. He could hardly breathe. His circulation was suffering, his heart and lungs weak. The marriage was awful. He was nasty when he was miserable and there were arguments about Goldeneye. Anne wanted him to sell it.
She had a reason: Blanche Blackwell.
• LOVE •
In 1956 Ian had met his fantasy woman. She was not in her 30s – she was only four years younger than he was – but she was the soul-mate he knew he wanted: a kind, smart, independently wealthy Jewish divorcée with an exotic heritage. She had been born in Costa Rica into one of Jamaica’s oldest plantation families, the Lindos, and had married a Blackwell, related to Ian’s friend John Blackwell, from the family who ran Crosse and Blackwell.
She had one son, Christopher. Her home was in Jamaica, but because Chris had been until recently at Harrow, she had spent the past several years in England. She had inherited thousands of acres of land on the island, including the part she sold to Noël Coward. Ian knew her brother, and he had been told by various people that she was an interesting woman, likeable and self-assured. There had been an affair with Errol Flynn, who had wanted to marry her.
When they met for the first time, at a social gathering, she found Fleming dreadful. She happened to mention that the area where she lived was becoming the latest gay hangout, and he said, ‘Don’t tell me you’re a lesbian then.’ He called her, in conversation with someone else, a stupid bitch.
Somehow, in spite of his insulting behaviour, they got together in the winter of 1956. Anne at the time was in England, in rehab at a health farm. She needed to stop taking the tablets. She was also avoiding Jamaica, where the Spartan facilities and irritable, preoccupied husband had become a strain. So Ian and Blanche were free to
shop together for toys that Caspar could play with when he came to Jamaica next year. They were both invited to Noël Coward’s house. Blanche swam like a fish. Everyone could see that she and Ian were flirting. And pretty soon, they were always invited to the same parties.
A photograph of them together on the beach shows that they were both running to fat, but they look happy. She was much better at managing him than Anne was and less insistent on being noticed. Later, as his health worsened, somebody remarked that she was exactly what he needed – a nanny.
As Christmas approached, both Ian and Anne were in England. At home Sir Anthony Eden was prime minister, but in October and early November the uproar over Suez – his disastrous attempt, with French and Israeli collaboration, to get rid of the socialist President Nasser of Egypt – left him facing fury in the House of Commons. He and his wife Clarissa required privacy, so they rented Goldeneye for a few weeks after the ceasefire of 7 November.
In theory, the governor of Jamaica’s wife would arrange that they were properly catered for. In the event, it was the governor’s wife and Blanche Blackwell who organised everything, and Ian’s local attorney, Lahoud, who acted as liaison with the prime minister’s party. The Edens were delighted with the place; it had the peace and quiet and warmth they needed and was miles from everyone they knew. Sir Anthony Eden had liver trouble caused by a botched operation, and there had been a series of operations that never seemed to help. What was not well known that he had been prescribed the sedative and stimulant drug drinamyl, against anxiety. It can affect judgement.