The Summer of Sir Lancelot

by Gordon, Richard

  ‘Such a problem, baby-sitters.‘ Deirdre sipped one of her husband‘s Martinis. ‘Paul, a cigarette... I must say I‘m glad we‘ve got one of those college-trained nannies living in. Atrociously expensive, of course, but one does so feel one can rely, you know. A light please, Paul. But naturally, in your case,‘ she added to Nikki, ‘you‘d know exactly what to do when the child was ill, or anything.‘

  ‘Yes, I send for a paediatrician.‘

  When Deirdre Ivors-Smith had been Staff Nurse Pott on Virtue ward at St Swithin‘s she had never really liked the female doctors.

  ‘I think that‘s the Breadalbanes‘ Aston Martin, darling,‘ Paul remarked, glancing through the window.

  ‘You know the Breadalbanes, of course?‘ Deirdre asked her guests. ‘Don‘t you? But, my dear, I thought absolutely everybody in London knew the Breadalbanes. Teddy Breadalbane‘s a director of United Drug. They‘ve put up the money for this steroid Paul‘s working on.‘

  ‘I haven‘t sold my soul, though United Drug would probably take over even that.‘ Paul gave a smile. ‘They made a donation, but as my work on the steroid is controlled by the Ministry, even United Drug hears nothing till the report comes out.‘

  ‘Teddy Breadalbane‘s such fun,‘ asserted Deirdre as the doorbell rang. ‘Don‘t you remember, Paul, that time at the Dorchester?‘

  Mr Breadalbane was youngish and tat, and radiated such hearty benevolence that Simon found it difficult to understand how he brought himself to rake in the enormous profits he obviously did.

  ‘I suppose you play the market a bit like everyone else these days, Doctor?‘ he suggested when Simon was wedged in one of the corners. ‘Even if it‘s just a bit of stagging, what?‘ he added mysteriously, giving a laugh.

  ‘'Fraid not,‘ Simon smiled. ‘As far as cash is concerned I seem to have a sock-under-the-bed mentality.‘

  ‘You could do far worse than some of our own shares, y‘know,‘ added Mr Breadalbane, sipping his drink.

  ‘I don‘t think my patients would care to know I had a vested interest in illness.‘

  ‘Oh, UD branches out in all directions these days. I bought a couple of custard companies this very afternoon.‘

  ‘Go on?‘ Simon looked impressed.

  Mr Breadalbane threw a quick glance round. ‘Look, Doctor,‘ he added quietly, ‘you‘re a pal of Paul‘s. Like to make a quick gain? Get your broker to buy Beaulieu‘s Marmalade.‘

  ‘What, you mean the sort “Fit For The Royal Toast”...?‘

  ‘That‘s it.‘ He winked. ‘You won‘t go wrong. Ah, dinner. Isn‘t Deirdre‘s cook wonderful?‘

  The Ivors-Smiths and the Breadalbanes were apparently very close friends, and had many other close friends in the higher-priced districts of London, whom they discussed over dinner at some length. Simon sank into his own thoughts. Business was always a mystery to him. How on earth did people like Mr Breadalbane make millions and millions, he wondered, just sitting at a large desk tooling about with pieces of paper? Behind all those mahogany boardrooms and smart secretaries and heavy luncheons and ten-thousand-quid computers it was probably childishly easy. Easier than doing a mitral valvotomy, anyway. He sipped the delightful Burgundy. He smiled softly as he caught his wife‘s eye across the table. He had something, Simon told himself fondly, greater than either of those polished and prosperous fellows possessed. He was indeed a very lucky man. He took another sip. Yes, it was only by chance the year before at Lord‘s he‘d managed to collect Pete Jowler‘s autograph.

  As both Simon and Paul had an early start at St Swithin‘s the evening wasn‘t a late one, and they separated on the steps, Mr Breadalbane fairly bursting with bonhomie, well before eleven. About then, another party was getting under way behind St Swithin‘s mortuary gate.

  ‘Darling,‘ Tim Tolly called softly. ‘Are you all right?‘

  ‘Darling!‘ Euphemia fell into his arms like a paratrooper going into action. ‘Yes, Anne James gave me a leg up.‘

  ‘Sure nobody saw you?‘ he whispered urgently.

  ‘Not a soul, darling,‘ she told him breathlessly. ‘I put a bolster in my bed. But we‘d better get moving.‘

  ‘My sweet, I could hardly bear waiting for you under that ghastly gate,‘ declared Tim, driving his car towards the West End. ‘But with these light evenings we could hardly have risked it earlier.‘

  ‘It‘s been such ages,‘ returned Euphemia, fondling his hand on the MG‘s little gear lever.

  ‘Twenty-three days exactly since your Uncle Lancelot sewed you up in a sack and dropped you into the Bosphorus. I‘ve counted all of them.‘ Tim gave a laugh. ‘And to think the old ogre‘s miles and miles away in Wales.‘

  ‘No, he isn‘t. He‘s in Harley Street.‘

  ‘Oh,‘ said Tim.

  ‘But he‘s only staying tonight. At first he said he was going home this morning. I met him yesterday,‘ she added.

  ‘Did he mention me?‘ inquired Tim.

  ‘No, as far as I remember he only mentioned the kidney.‘

  ‘I hope his horsewhip‘s in for a refit. Thank heavens I didn‘t pass him on the road, or he‘d probably have run me in for speeding on the spot. As it was, I left on the tail of Charlie Chadwick — he‘s asked me to dinner at his place in Richmond, by the way,‘ Tim added a touch proudly. ‘My prescribing some benemid for his gout seems to have teamed me up in Charlie‘s eyes with Sir William Osier and Lord Lister. Where shall we go?‘

  ‘A night club,‘ said Euphemia firmly.

  He looked surprised. ‘A night club?‘

  ‘Yes, please,‘ nodded Euphemia.

  ‘All right, darling.‘ Tim shrugged his shoulders. ‘Anything you say.‘

  ‘The Asquith,‘ added Euphemia.

  Tim raised his eyebrows. ‘Very well. It‘s a rather fleshy pot, but if you want to, the Asquith it is.‘

  You must remember that Tim Tolly had known Euphemia only on the river bank in the open air before breakfast. She was to him the Amaryllis Milton kept wanting to sport with in the shade. He‘d thought her as much the nightclub type as the girl on the Ovaltine tin, and now she wanted to live it up in the Asquith Club. He didn‘t know much about the place, except its being creepily expensive.

  ‘Just a minor formality, sir,‘ explained the man in the striped waistcoat as Tim vaguely filled up membership forms in the foyer. ‘I really don‘t know why we still bother our guests with it, sir.‘

  ‘I‘d like a quiet table in a corner,‘ Tim addressed the headwaiter as Euphemia appeared from the plushy ladies‘.

  ‘Will you be dining, sir?‘

  ‘No, as a matter of fact, we — ‘

  ‘I‘m ravenous,‘ cut in Euphemia gaily.

  ‘Dining,‘ nodded Tim.

  ‘I want champagne,‘ she announced brightly, sitting down. ‘And oysters.‘

  ‘Oysters! I‘m afraid they‘re out of season.‘

  ‘Then I‘ll have caviar.‘

  ‘They... they don‘t serve it here.‘ Tim hurriedly turned over the menu. ‘We‘ll have a bottle of champagne,‘ he added to the waiter. ‘And some crisps.‘

  ‘This place is quite nice,‘ Euphemia conceded, looking round.

  ‘Well, it has a certain repute, you know.‘

  She puzzled him. Down by Witches‘ Pool she‘d been as delightfully sunny and natural as the weather. Now she was behaving like some jaded actress gritting her teeth with the latest admirer. After all, Tim told himself a shade chillingly, he‘d been captivated by this pretty girl without knowing anything of her background and family, except that she had a highly peculiar uncle. But then, he quickly tried to reassure himself, any girl is likely to seem odd after stuffing bolsters down her bed and dropping from mortuary gates.

  As they danced Euphemia seemed to soften into her Witches‘ Pool mood. ‘I can just imagine Matron‘s face if she knew I was here!‘ she laughed. ‘As for Sister Virtue, I don‘t think the poor dear would ever get over it.‘

  ‘How are you enjoying being a handmaiden of healin
g?‘ Tim grinned back.

  Euphemia wrinkled her nose. ‘Are there any models here, darling?‘ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Models? What, you mean the real ones you actually see in adverts? I believe they all have to work so hard they go to bed with a glass of milk at ten-thirty.‘

  ‘But how about the men who employ the models? You know, the agencies. Like Collins, McKnight, and Wade. Are any of them here?‘

  Tim laughed. ‘They‘re much more likely to be at home, swallowing alkali for their ulcers.‘

  ‘Look - ‘ Euphemia pointed. ‘Who‘s that man in a macintosh?‘

  ‘Macintosh?‘

  ‘Yes, up in the band.‘

  ‘I suppose he‘s one of the cabaret turns.‘ Tim shrugged his shoulders. ‘Though he doesn‘t seem quite the Asquith‘s usual style.‘

  ‘Why, there‘s another one,‘ she indicated. ‘And another.‘

  ‘It must be some elaborate comic act. Anyway, now the music‘s stopped we‘ll soon find out.‘

  7

  ‘Nothing up my sleeve,‘ asserted Mr Geoffrey Nightrider, MP. ‘Nothing whatsoever. Observe.‘

  He shot his cuffs. He was a tall, bony, bald fellow, with a marked air of dedicated superiority. You felt he would have looked good done in stained glass.

  ‘Here I have a perfectly plain silk handkerchief, as may be purchased in any haberdashery. Kindly note the front...the back. I screw the handkerchief thus in my fist. And behold! The answer‘s a lemon.‘

  With finger and thumb he placed the fruit delicately on the sideboard. Mr Nightrider was a keen amateur magician. He entertained his family with it generously, and all his friends were privileged to sit through an hour or two‘s tricks after dining.

  ‘My next,‘ he continued, still looking saintly, ‘will be the Afghan Bands. Nothing, I assure you, up my sleeve. Ah, good morning, Mrs Chuffey,‘ he broke off, hastily shoving his implements into a drawer.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Going to be another scorcher later on, I‘d say.‘

  ‘My breakfast,‘ he announced, rubbing his hands. Though a man with strict views on self-indulgence, his fifty press-ups every morning in the bedroom had left him a confirmed breakfast-addict.

  ‘Oh, no, sir. This tray‘s for the Master, sir.‘

  ‘Indeed?‘ He looked at her with the expression of a saint whose halo had fused at a particularly awkward moment.

  ‘I just came to get the best dining room cruet, sir.‘

  ‘Mrs Chuffey — ‘ He surveyed bleakly the steaming porringer, the brace of boiled eggs cosy in their little woolly jumpers, the neat toast in its silver rack, the coffee pot exhaling so fragrantly. He continued in a fruity voice, ‘I do not wish to sound legalistic, but I think I must point out that I am the Master now.‘

  ‘Oh, no, sir,‘ she insisted politely. ‘Sir Lancelot will always be the Master to me.‘

  ‘Is that,‘ he demanded sternly, ‘my Times?

  ‘It was the one in the hall, sir.‘

  ‘If you please, Mrs Chuffey!‘ He held out his hand. ‘At least I shall insist on reading my newspaper first, even if I must eat my breakfast second. What damn cheek!‘ he added as the cook carried the tray upstairs. ‘Thank heavens the fellow is going to decamp before lunch.‘

  He stared grimly through the dining room window at a hazy summer‘s Saturday morning in Harley Street. It had seemed such a sound idea when his sister Maud had suggested a few weeks before that he rent her London house. The delightful new home Mr Nightrider was building in Kent had progressed at the speed of the pyramids, suddenly leaving his family roofless. Anyway, he wanted to stay the summer in town, having added to his duties in the House and in the Chair of both St Swithin‘s Governors and the National Council of Morals, Chairmanship of the new Committee of Commonwealth Culture — he collected committees as other men collect stamps or wives. The rent was pretty stiff, of course. But Harley Street was delightfully central, the house big enough comfortably to entertain cultured guests from the Commonwealth, the furniture was tasteful, the cook was in residence. And his brother-in-law, Sir Lancelot, was permanently occupied fishing in Wales.

  Mr Nightrider rubbed a chin like the front of a tank. A fair and righteous man, he had felt it only proper to lodge Sir Lancelot in the spare room for his night in London. Though he found his company as congenial as a dental abscess — the man seemed to have no respect whatever for Governors of hospitals or of anything else — he felt a second night‘s hospitality reasonable when his brother-in-law pronounced himself exhausted with frustrating and unfinished business. He now hoped the goodness of his heart wouldn‘t have to show further elasticity.

  ‘If only I had not to preserve the dignity of a Member of Parliament,‘ he muttered, ‘how I would give that fellow a piece of my mind!‘

  He sat down and started reading The Times, wondering when breakfast was going to appear. It did in twenty minutes, simultaneously with Sir Lancelot.

  ‘My dear fellow, good morning, good morning,‘ the surgeon began heartily. ‘What a good omen this mist is! When it clears by and by, it will help Jowler get a bit of movement off the wicket.‘

  ‘I am afraid I am not familiar with the niceties of cricket. Tennis is a more rewarding spectacle to me, and I hope on Tuesday to take advantage of my ticket to Wimbledon.‘

  ‘Girls in frilly knickers playing pat-ball,‘ Sir Lancelot dismissed it genially. ‘Do get on with your breakfast if you want, Geoff. I‘ve had mine.‘

  ‘So I noticed.‘

  ‘Good gracious, man, you don‘t cat that Beaulieu‘s marmalade stuff, do you?‘ added the surgeon. ‘You know they soak the oranges in sulphuric acid till the skins drop off? Where‘s the paper?‘ he demanded, looking round.

  ‘I don‘t know, but possibly my wife or Hilda have it in their rooms,‘ replied Mr Nightrider bleakly.

  He had just hidden it under the cushion of the armchair, being fond in the evening of doing the crossword, which Sir Lancelot mutilated briskly on sight.

  ‘I don‘t suppose anything interesting‘s happened.‘ Sir Lancelot settled in the chair and lit his pipe. ‘Though I always miss The Times. It does one good to have at least one real laugh a day.‘

  ‘You mean the Fourth Leaders? I myself sometimes find them quite amusing.‘

  ‘Good grief, no! There‘s no need to be deliberately funny in The Times, any more than to be deliberately funny in Punch. Do get on with your bacon, Geoff, it‘ll be quite disgusting cold.‘

  You may remember we last saw Sir Lancelot standing on the pavement outside a fishing shop, radiating black thoughts like gamma rays from a radioactive isotope. Now he was staring benevolently at his brother-in-law forking up breakfast, with an air of docility suggesting he‘d undergone the leucotomy Tim Tolly suggested. Why, you may ask, this surprising change of mood? I‘ll tell you. It was through a letter Mrs Chuffey carried up with the boiled eggs.

  ‘My dear Lancelot, [it said]

  So good of you to drop me a line while you are in Town. I‘m glad to say I‘ve never been fitter, and give thanks to your great care and skill every time I sit down to eat. I shall be quite up to the Lord Mayor‘s banquet next winter - which as you may have heard will be a somewhat important one for me personally!

  As for Chadwick, he is rather a tough customer but perfectly straightforward, and quite a decent little person at heart. It is strange you should ask after him, for I heard in the City only today that he is in difficulties — rather serious ones. Take-over trouble, I believe. You will realize that I cannot put more on paper, I‘m sure.

  What a miserable start to the Test. I do wish England could find a decent pair of openers.

  Yours ever,

  Kenneth.‘

  Sir Lancelot took it from his pocket and read it over again. ‘Difficulties,‘ he murmured fondly. ‘Rather serious ones.‘ He already saw himself buying up Witches‘ Pool at the auction. He twitched his MCC tie. His back felt splendid.

  These pleasant thoughts were interrupted by his brother-in-law-c
learing his throat.

  ‘I still have that nagging pain in the right side,‘ he announced gloomily.

  After all, it Sir Lancelot insisted on staying he might as well cadge some medical advice. Like many men with a youth spent grinding their fellows into the mud of football fields or proceeding at great rates up rivers in reverse, Mr Nightrider was a chronic hypochondriac.

  ‘Perhaps you should try loosening your waistcoat.‘

  ‘It comes on immediately after meals,‘ persisted Mr Nightrider, indicating the pathological area. ‘I fear it may be something organic. The appendix, perhaps? The gall bladder?‘

  ‘Wind,‘ diagnosed Sir Lancelot briefly. ‘Yes, Mrs Chuffey?‘

  ‘What would you be fancying for lunch, Sir Lancelot?‘

  ‘Lunch!‘ Mr Nightrider spilt his coffee. ‘But surely, Lancelot, you are leaving this morning? I mean, the congested roads this time of the year — ‘

  ‘I have to get a haircut, and I might as well spend the afternoon at Lord‘s. I think a grilled Dover sole, Mrs Chuffey, and one of your apple pies. They are quite delicious, Geoff,‘ he added as the door shut.

  Tm afraid I‘ve not had the opportunity of judging. Her cooking has been somewhat uninspired during our tenancy.‘

  ‘That reminds me.‘ Sir Lancelot relit his pipe. ‘I was down at my solicitors‘ on Thursday. You don‘t seem to have paid your first quarter‘s rent.‘

  Sir Lancelot had his hair cut in London only at Humble‘s in St James‘s, an establishment all mahogany and discreet whispers which had snipped the heads of Church and State for nearly two centuries. When an hour later he turned the familiar corner from Piccadilly, he drew up aghast. Where Humble‘s had once stood with the durability of the Rock of Gibraltar was now a large hole with mechanical grabs and bulldozers mudlarking in the bottom of it.

  ‘Blasted property developers!‘ he snorted.

  Wandering towards Piccadilly Circus as the sun began to melt the morning mist Sir Lancelot‘s eyes fell on a pair of glass doors labelled GENTLEMEN‘S HAIRDRESSER AND STYUST.