Bond made a noise between a grunt and a snarl and stormed out of the room.
2.
Shrublands
James Bond slung his suitcase into the back of the old chocolate-brown Austin taxi and climbed into the front seat beside the foxy, pimpled young man in the black leather windcheater. The young man took a comb out of his breast pocket, ran it carefully through both sides of his duck-tail haircut, put the comb back in his pocket, then leaned forward and pressed the self-starter. The play with the comb, Bond guessed, was to assert to Bond that the driver was really only taking him and his money as a favor. It was typical of the cheap self-assertiveness of young labor since the war. This youth, thought Bond, makes about twenty pounds a week, despises his parents, and would like to be Tommy Steele. It’s not his fault. He was born into the buyers’ market of the Welfare State and into the age of atomic bombs and space flight. For him, life is easy and meaningless. Bond said, “How far is it to Shrublands?”
The young man did an expert but unnecessary racing change round an island and changed up again. “ ‘Bout half an hour.” He put his foot down on the accelerator and neatly but rather dangerously overtook a lorry at an intersection.
“You certainly get the most out of your Bluebird.”
The young man glanced sideways to see if he was being laughed at. He decided that he wasn’t. He unbent fractionally. “My dad won’t spring me something better. Says this old crate was okay for him for twenty years so it’s got to be okay for me for another twenty. So I’m putting money by on my own. Halfway there already.”
Bond decided that the comb play had made him over-censorious. He said, “What are you going to get?”
“Volkswagen Minibus. Do the Brighton races.”
“That sounds a good idea. Plenty of money in Brighton.”
“I’ll say.” The young man showed a trace of enthusiasm. “Only time I ever got there, a couple of bookies had me take them and a couple of tarts to London. Ten quid and a fiver tip. Piece of cake.”
“Certainly was. But you can get both kinds at Brighton. You want to watch out for being mugged and rolled. There are some tough gangs operating out of Brighton. What’s happened to The Bucket of Blood these days?”
“Never opened up again after that case they had. The one that got in all the papers.” The young man realized that he was talking as if to an equal. He glanced sideways and looked Bond up and down with a new interest. “You going into the Scrubs or just visiting?”
“Scrubs?”
“Shrublands—Wormwood Scrubs—Scrubs,” said the young man laconically. “You’re not like the usual ones I get to take there. Mostly fat women and old geezers who tell me not to drive so fast or it’ll shake up their sciatica or something.”
Bond laughed. “I’ve got fourteen days without the option. Doctor thinks it’ll do me good. Got to take it easy. What do they think of the place round here?”
The young man took the turning off the Brighton road and drove westward under the Downs through Poynings and Fulking. The Austin whined stolidly through the inoffensive countryside. “People think they’re a lot of crackpots. Don’t care for the place. All those rich folk and they don’t spend any money in the area. Tearooms make a bit out of them—specially out of the cheats.” He looked at Bond. “You’d be surprised. Grown people, some of them pretty big shots in the City and so forth, and they motor around in their Bentleys with their bellies empty and they see a tea shop and go in just for their cups of tea. That’s all they’re allowed. Next thing, they see some guy eating buttered toast and sugar cakes at the next table and they can’t stand it. They order mounds of the stuff and hog it down just like kids who’ve broken into the larder—looking round all the time to see if they’ve been spotted. You’d think people like that would be ashamed of themselves.”