James Bond creator Ian Fleming did not need to write about Cold War intrigue to consider the ways people scheme against each other. The Shameful Dream, a rare Fleming work published this week, is a short story about a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone.
Flemingโs protagonist is the literary editor of Our World, a periodical โdesigned to bring power and social advancement to Lord Owerโ, its owner.
Bone has been summoned to spend Saturday evening with Lord and Lady Ower, taken there in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.
Bone suspects, with a feeling of โinevitable doomโ, that he is to meet the same fate of so many employed by Lord Ower โ removed from his job and soon forgotten.
โFor Lord Ower sacked everyone sooner or later, harshly if they belonged to no union or with a fat check if they did and were in a position to hit back,โ Fleming writes.
โIf one worked for Lord Ower one was expendable and one just spent oneself until one had gone over the cliff edge and disappeared beneath the waves with a fat splash.โ