Lost At Sea Part 12

"Do you know what happens to people who drive cars like that around here?" he says.

"I have no idea," I reply in a voice that sounds half Bond-like and half petrified. "Why don't you tell me?"

"They get hurt," he says.

There's a silence. "Oh, really?" I say.

"Yes," he says.

I turn away from his stare and look straight ahead.

"What would Bond do in a situation like this?" I think. He'd probably stab him in the face.

"That was a terrible indictment of our country," Hugh says, after the boy leaves.

"Wasn't it?" I say. And then-with a roar of the engine-I set off for Dover and the P&O ferry.

James Bond did not take the car ferry to France. This is the one part of the journey where my plans must diverge from his. He headed instead for Lydd Ferryfield Airport, in Kent, where he drove up a ramp and straight into a Bristol plane bound for Le Touquet. This used to be a regular practice for the rich until the hovercraft killed off the business in 1970.

I haven't yet got used to the Aston Martin. I'm finding it overpowering. I embarra.s.singly judder to an unexpected standstill on Upper Street, Commercial Road, and the A258 in Dover town center. Pa.s.sersby shake their heads witheringly at me. I think they're mistaking my inept.i.tude for arrogance. Were I in my customary c.r.a.ppy car, they'd understand my stalling for what it is. Instead, they're seeing a fabulously sleek Aston Martin braking abruptly, then revving like a lunatic. They probably think it's my sick, slightly odd way of conveying superiority over them.

I reach the ferry. I wind down the window. "It's not my car!" I shout gaily at the immigration officer.

He stares askance at me. "In that case, sir," he says, "please park it over there and step out of it."

"No, no, no!" I say. "I-"

"Sir," he says, "park the car over there and step out of it."

"It's not my car because Aston Martin has lent it to me!" I yell.

"Oh," he says. "OK. Sorry for the confusion. We're on the lookout for a stolen Maserati. I'm an idiot. I saw the Aston Martin and thought Maserati."

"No probs," I say.

"Have a good trip," he says.

"Thanks," I say, and roar off.

I was expecting the hostile glares from pa.s.sersby to continue into France, but once we reach Calais everything changes. I'm still getting constant looks, but now they are looks of adoration. For the first time in my life I am interesting to Frenchmen. They're finding me mysterious and fascinating. Frenchwomen, however, don't seem attracted by me. I'd have a.s.sumed from the books that they'd all want to have s.e.x with me the minute they saw the car, but they don't seem to notice me. It's the men and the adolescent boys who are smitten.

It's a long six-hour drive to Orleans, a place Bond had never cared for: "A priest and myth ridden town without charm or gaiety." I head, as Bond did, for the Hotel de la Gare: "When in doubt, Bond always chose the station hotels. They were adequate and it was better than even chances that the buffet de la gare would be excellent. And at the station one could hear the heartbeat of the town. The night-sounds of the trains were full of its tragedy and romance."

The Hotel de la Gare annoyingly doesn't exist. So, instead, I check into the Hotel Terminus, on the edge of the railway station. Le Cosy is the nearest restaurant. It is 11:00 p.m. Usually I don't eat after 7:00 p.m., but tonight I make a rare exception. I order everything Bond ordered-two ufs en cocotte a la creme, a large sole meuniere, an "adequate" Camembert, a pint of rose d'Anjou, a Three-Star Hennessy, and coffee. It is all incredibly delicious. I get drunk.

I am a happy drunk. The car is parked outside. I watch contentedly as a stream of adolescent boys stare adoringly and take pictures on their phones. Then my happy drunkenness turns to maudlin drunkenness. I'm sick of being the center of attention. Having an Aston Martin is, I reflect, like having a face made of gold. Some people are awed, others hate you and want to hurt you. And there's nothing you can do to get rid of it. I can't help thinking that an Aston Martin would be a liability for a spy.

The coffee and the Camembert and the wine and the brandy swirl toxically inside my now churning stomach. I stumble back to the hotel and to bed. At 3:56 a.m. I awake with a confused shriek, grab my notepad, and scrawl, "3:56 a.m. Hair triangle horse chest," and then fall asleep again. I do not know what "hair triangle horse chest" means.

Bond awoke the next morning, fresh as a daisy, had breakfast and a double coffee at the railway station, and then jumped in his car to continue his pursuit of Goldfinger, motoring "comfortably along the Loire in the early summer suns.h.i.+ne. This was one of his favorite corners of the world."

I awake the next morning feeling unbelievably nauseous and constipated, and stumble blearily across the road for breakfast at the railway station. If there ever was a restaurant here, there isn't now, just a vending machine selling crisps and Twixes.

Had this been the case in Bond's day, would he have eaten a Twix for breakfast? I wonder. Probably, judging by his constant desire to f.u.c.k up his body. I eat a Twix and begin to hate James Bond.

I check the novel and read to my disgust that there's a lot more eating and drinking to be done today. Bond had a big boozy and meaty picnic in the foothills of the Jura Mountains, followed in Geneva by a boozy dinner of Enzian liquor, "the firewater distilled from gentian that is responsible for Switzerland's chronic alcoholism"; choucroute; a carafe of Fondant; a gla.s.s of Lowenbrau; a slice of Gruyere; pumpernickel; and coffee. I feel envious that Bond ended his journey inside Goldfinger's villa. Being tortured is the only time during the entire trip he'd have managed to use up any calories.

I jump in the car and head toward Geneva. It was here that Bond picked up a pa.s.senger, a pretty Englishwoman called Tilly: "Their eyes met and exchanged a flurry of masculine/feminine master/slave signals." I've got a pa.s.senger, too-a photographer called Duncan. Our eyes meet and he belches. "Sorry," he says.

This stretch-through the Loire Valley toward the breathtaking, misty foothills of the Jura Mountains-was Bond's favorite: "In May, with the fruit trees burning white and the soft wide river still big with the winter rains, the valley was green and young and dressed for love."

"You're not going to believe this," I say breathlessly to Duncan, "but the Aston Martin has got a connection for plugging in my iPod!" There's a ping from my iPhone. "An e-mail!" I think.

"Duncan," I say, "could you possibly read me the e-mail that's just come through? So what do you reckon, podcast-wise? Mark Kermode's film reviews or ... ?"

"Calm down," snaps Duncan unexpectedly. "You're overstimulated." He glares harshly at me. "You're never going to understand what it's like to be Bond driving through France if you're this overstimulated."

"All right, all right," I say.

Duncan is annoyed with me. I guess we've got cabin fever, having been cooped up together in this Aston Martin for hours. Still, his tone shocks me. I feel as if I've been slapped in the face.

Ironically, Bond actually was slapped in the face by Tilly, his pa.s.senger, after he gave her one master/slave eye flurry too many: "The open palm cracked across his face. Bond put up a hand and rubbed his cheek. If only pretty girls were always angry they would be beautiful." I don't agree with Bond about this. I don't find angry women beautiful. I find them stressful and upsetting.

"Turn off the iPhone!" Duncan snaps. "Turn off your e-mails. Just experience the car and the road. Just experience it!"

"OK, whatever," I say. I do.

"See how nice it is to get rid of all that stimulation and just experience the car," Duncan says after a while. "You can go faster. The car only comes into its own when you actually accelerate."

"So you're saying that to truly enjoy the car, I have to break the law?" I say. But I understand Duncan's frustration. I'm an annoyingly cautious driver. The speedometer of this Aston Martin goes up to 220 mph, and I haven't once exceeded 70 mph.

"OK, I'll overtake that lorry. But just this once." I gingerly touch the accelerator. "Oh my G.o.d!" I yell.

I'm suddenly going 100 mph and the car is so smooth it feels like 30. I've never seen a lorry vanish so quickly in my rearview mirror. I feel like Han Solo in hyperdrive, or Jeremy Clarkson. It feels fantastic. No wonder the rich and boorish love themselves.

We stop to picnic, as Bond did, in the Jura Mountains; Bond "attacked the foothills as if he were competing in the Alpine trails," and so do I-and we make it to Geneva by nightfall. As I pull up outside the fantastically opulent Hotel des Bergues, a rich-looking guest comes over to admire the car.

"I've driven this all the way from London," I say.

"I can see why you'd want to," he replies. "My father bought me one of these when I was seventeen, and I bought myself a Porsche at the same time, and I really preferred this to the Porsche."

"Your father bought you an Aston Martin when you were seventeen?" I shriek, astonished. "You must be unbelievably rich!" He takes a slightly nervous step backward. I'm clearly less of a kindred spirit than he'd initially a.s.sumed. "Plus," I say, "isn't it irresponsible to give a teenager a really fast car? You might have crashed."

"I did crash," he says, impatiently, "but that isn't the point. The point is that, compared with the Porsche ..." He pauses. "Anyway, have a nice night."

"And you!" I say. I think about adding, "I'm really constipated because I've been driving and eating too much," but I decide not to, because that would be too much information with which to burden a stranger. Instead, I head to the toilets, where they're piping choral music into the cubicles. As everything Bond ate comes flooding out, the piped choral music turns into a choir of heavenly voices, filling the cubicle with their magnificence.

Now that, I think, is a fancy hotel.