Of human Bondage

Oscar, The Evil Sul­phura and I have gone to see the new Bond film, Casino Roy­ale. The first ten minutes takes place in a men’s bath­room, in which a fight involving broken urin­als and wildly spray­ing plumb­ing leads neatly into Bond’s iconic flip-around-and-shoot-the-cameraman move.

It is excit­ing and viol­ent and it awakens an urge deep in my bladder.

I squint at my ticket in the dark­ness. ‘8.30 — 11.15’, it says. It is barely quarter to nine. I decide to rush out and back as quickly as pos­sible, but by the time I build up the nerve to slink across my row the first thrill­ing action sequence starts and I’m locked anxiously into my seat.

The fol­low­ing 150 minutes pass in altern­at­ing stripes of exhil­ar­a­tion and lower abdom­inal dis­tress. The film seems to pass in a delib­er­ately pro­voc­at­ive sequence of scenes in which people are vari­ously emer­ging from, plum­met­ing into, pour­ing, drink­ing and occa­sion­ally spurt­ing from mul­tiple bul­let holes with, watery fluids.

‘Stop squirm­ing,’ hisses Sulph.

‘I have to pee,’ I whisper.

‘Just go then!’ she says.

‘I can’t! I’ll miss an import­ant bit of plot!’

Sulph glares at me. ‘It’s a Bond film — Bond good, bad guy evil, woman evil stroke sexy. You’re just mak­ing an excuse because you’re scared of pub­lic toilets.’

‘I am not scared of pub­lic toi­lets!’ I exclaim.

Oscar leans over. ‘Is there a situ­ation?’ he asks.

‘He needs to pee, but he’s afraid to go,’ says Sulphura.

Oscar observes me. ‘You can’t go,’ he says. ‘You’ll miss an import­ant bit of plot.’

I make an expres­sion which weaves tri­umph into excru­ci­at­ing pain. Sulph presses her eye­balls with her fin­gers. We sit back to watch the film, which had just reached a scene in which Bond under­goes hor­rific gen­ital tor­ture. Men­tally switch­ing chairs with him brings only tem­por­ary relief.

The cred­its roll, and because of a very spe­cific form of obsess­ive com­puls­ive dis­order I sit through the entire cred­its, includ­ing the model makers and the drivers of the cater­ing vans. When I see the words JAMES BOND WILL RETURN, how­ever, I’m off like a hare.

The cinema toi­lets are large and white and remark­ably remin­is­cent of the bath­room from the Bond film. The last of the other film­go­ers is leav­ing as I arrive, so I have my choice of urin­als. As the dam bursts, I think as I always do of my favour­ite word for this pro­cess: mic­tur­ate…

Then it’s over, and I’m stand­ing alone at the urinal in the Bond-bathroom, and behind me are the mir­rors for the basins. It’s silent. I can’t hear any­one com­ing. I may not get another chance to do this. Should I? What if someone opens the door just as I’m doing it? I’d hear someone com­ing. Wouldn’t I?

I zip up. Listen. Silent. I’ll never get the chance again. Do it.

The soundtrack begins in my head — twangy gui­tar first, then the tower­ing brass. I spin around, fin­gers cocked like a .38 Spe­cial, and shoot the mirror. 

‘Bang!’ I yell joy­ously at the top of my voice. For a micro­second, I am as happy as it is pos­sible for a freshly-relieved man who has just seen a Bond film to be.

Then I notice that one of the cubicles is not vacant. Under the door, a pair of shoes is keep­ing per­fectly still.

‘Oh, um, sorry,’ I say, ‘I — ’

Then every urinal in the room sim­ul­tan­eously begins its auto­matic flush cycle and the secret agent in the mir­ror leaps in three dir­ec­tions at once and yelps a G above high C.

Oscar walks in. He looks at me. I am stand­ing in the middle of the pub­lic toi­let, shak­ing, my fin­gers cocked like a gun.

‘I’m not doing any­thing,’ I say reflexively.

There is a short silence.

‘It’s alright,’ says Oscar mildly. ‘Pub­lic toi­lets can be scary.’

When we get home, I admit to Oscar that I’ve never read any­thing by Ian Flem­ing. He sighs, reaches into his book­case and hands me a slim volume.

A hun­dred pages in at two the next morn­ing I begin to get frus­trated at how long it’s tak­ing for Bond to make his first appear­ance. Frown­ing at the cover, I try to remem­ber who played Bond in the movie of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I decide it must have been George Lazenby.