The Edna dilemma
Dec 30th 2007
Edna’s tough for a couple of reasons. One, I haven’t quite figured out what she should do in the story. I’ve got her voice pretty well nailed, but I don’t know what she has at stake. But then again, what does Moneypenny have at stake in any of the Bond novels.
The real dilemma with Edna is about changing her name. Edna and Edwin are oddly close. Disconcertingly close, one might say. And it wasn’t a choice I made consciously. Perhaps I was just E-happy that day. But I’m loathe to change it. But what’s in a name. By any other name, Edna would still be an awesome character.
Edwin had spent the entire morning trying to explain to Lifto the magnificent why he shouldn’t rob banks.
“But that’s where the money is!”, Lifto protested, bursting into laughter as if he had said one of the most original things in the long-winded history of saying things. Lifto was disappointed when, instead of joining in the hearty guffaw, Edwin searched for a non-existent speck of dirt underneath his perfectly manicured fingernails.
Lifto did not know quite how to react to this. It was not the kind of response he was used to getting. In fact, this whole morning had been strange. Windsor had come highly recommended, but Lifto felt that something was a little odd. If he had the time, or the inclination, to think about anything other than himself, he might have begun to suspect that he was not wanted. And this suspicion would have been given birth by the woman in the lobby.
Lifto had entered the office and announced himself loudly. “Lifto is here!”
Edna said nothing. In fact, her face did not move at all. After a moment’s consideration, she gave a small sniff. As sniffs, go, it was the third most contemptuous sniff of all time.
You see, Lifto the Magnificent was not, in any conventional sense of the word, magnificent. He was squat, hairy and insisted on wearing a purple unitard everywhere he went. When he became excited (which he did often) his complexion grew a shade of deep red that can only be described as purple’s mortal enemy. He was a hideous creature, prone to fits of absurd melodrama.
When it was cold, like this particular morning, he would wrap himself in a fake leopard skin. But that was all pyrotechnics as far as Edna was concerned. She noticed two things. The slavic accent. And the lack of pants.
She quickly assumed that he was a savage.
What can you say about Topper? He’s Edwin’s lawyer. He’s very short. His appetities and temper are tremendous. He lusts after everything a man can lust after - power, women, money. He’s violent, mercurial, emotional — he’s Dr. McCoy to Edwin’s Mr. Spock. Except that nobody was ever afraid of Dr. McCoy. But Topper? He’ll stab you in the neck with a pen.
The passions that move you and I are not unknown to Edwin Windsor. As he tries to recreate the world in a way that is more efficient, sensible and profitable, Edwin leads people around by his emotions.