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She was tall and dark with a reserved, unbroken beauty to which the war and five years in the Service had lent a touch of sternness. Unless she married soon, Bond thought for the hundredth time, or had a lover, her cool air of authority might easily become spinsterish and she would join the army of women who had married a career.
Bond's attitude about unmarried women was normal for the 1950's. I HATED the 1950s\1960's.
If you were a woman there wasn’t much of you left for other relationships. It was easier for the men. They had an excuse for fragmentary affairs. For them marriage and children and a home were out of the question if they were to be of any use ‘in the field’ as it was cosily termed. But, for the women, an affair outside the Service automatically made you a ‘security risk’ and in the last analysis you had a choice of resignation from the Service and a normal life, or of perpetual concubinage to your King and Country.
Women had to resign from jobs whatever job they had, not only from the 'Service', if they got married, whether it was England or America. But why are the sex affairs of a man less of a security risk than those of a woman?
Well, he’d just have to wait for news from the only leak in the building – the girls’ rest-room, known to the impotent fury of the Security staff as ‘The powder-vine’.
Ffs. Goddamn prejudiced assholes. It seems to me study after study shows men have the loose lips which flap about, especially in bed (bragging).
It was the beginning of a typical routine day for Bond. It was only two or three times a year that an assignment came along requiring his particular abilities. For the rest of the year he had the duties of an easy-going senior civil servant – elastic office hours from around ten to six; lunch, generally in the canteen; evenings spent playing cards in the company of a few close friends, or at Crockford’s; or making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women; weekends playing golf for high stakes at one of the clubs near London.
He took no holidays, but was generally given a fortnight’s leave at the end of each assignment – in addition to any sick-leave that might be necessary. He earned £1,500 a year, the salary of a Principal Officer in the Civil Service, and he had a thousand a year free of tax of his own. When he was on a job he could spend as much as he liked, so for the other months of the year he could live very well on his £2,000 a year net.
The OO Section of the Secret Service was not concerned with the current operations of other sections and stations, only with background information which might be useful or instructive to the only three men in the Service whose duties included assassination – who might be ordered to kill.
Extraordinary man.’ He paused, reflecting. ‘There’s only one thing … ’ M. tapped the stem of his pipe against his teeth. ‘What’s that, sir?’ asked Bond. M. seemed to make up his mind. He looked mildly across at Bond. ‘Sir Hugo Drax cheats at cards.’
These politicians can’t see that the atomic age has created the most deadly saboteur in the history of the world – the little man with the heavy suitcase.’
He must get out of these two young lives and take his cold heart elsewhere. There must be no regrets. No false sentiment. He must play the role which she expected of him. The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette.
‘I was going to take you off to a farmhouse in France,’ he said. ‘And after a wonderful dinner I was going to see if it’s true what they say about the scream of a rose.’ She laughed. ‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige. But there are plenty of others waiting to be picked.’
