The Summer of Sir Lancelot

by Gordon, Richard

  Sir Lancelot frowned. Felicity stood twisting her fingers round a grubby handkerchief Apart from the acne, the poor dear had chronic sinusitis.

  ‘Daddy‘s terribly keen on the Arts, now he‘s on this Cultural Committee,‘ she continued quickly. ‘And of course every year he goes to the Royal Academy. But I‘ve begun to wonder if our civilization isn‘t cruel to the more unconventional younger poets and things.‘

  ‘It always has been, my dear,‘ replied Sir Lancelot patiently. ‘I am perfectly certain Shakespeare much disliked having to hold all those beastly horses.‘

  She gave a sniff. ‘You mean, Uncle Lancelot, they are just as deserving of a subsidy as — well, the National Theatre and the Festival Hall?‘

  ‘I have never believed any talent should be buried. If it turns out to be counterfeit, it will ring false soon enough.‘

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Lancelot!‘ She gave her colourless smile. ‘Oh, and Uncle Lancelot — do you believe in class distinctions?‘

  ‘My dear girl, don‘t be ridiculous. To a medical man there are only two classes. Alive and dead.‘

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Lancelot,‘ she ended gratefully. ‘Now I must rush for my bus.‘

  She left the surgeon pondering on an Australian bird with a cautious tail in nine letters, from which his thoughts shortly strayed to Euphemia. At least his own side of the family, he told himself with a touch of conceit, didn‘t go about looking like illustrations from a textbook on deficiency diseases.

  ‘ “Cassowary”!‘ he exclaimed. ‘C — A — S — S — O — W — ‘

  ‘I say, Uncle Lancelot.‘

  He threw a highly unwelcoming glance at the door. Randolph entered on tip-toe, closing it softly behind him.

  ‘Uncle Lancelot — ‘

  The youth stood biting his lip. He was one of those pudgy pink-faced shining young men who always look as though they‘ve just stepped from a cold shower.

  ‘I say, will you help me have a bit of fun?‘ he invited.

  Sir Lancelot raised his eyebrows. ‘What have you in mind? Hunt the slipper? Socratic debate? Thought reading? Rape?‘

  ‘Uncle, you‘re a sportsman — ‘

  Sir Lancelot‘s look became even less hospitable. Not least among his lessons of life was discovering that this phrase generally ushered in a touch.

  ‘I mean, you‘ve bashed round racecourses and things,‘ Randolph continued, standing on one leg.

  ‘I have occasionally diverted myself with the Turf, like many English monarchs.‘

  ‘Jolly good. That is, you know the ropes and all that,‘ Randolph persisted, standing on the other one.

  ‘What exactly are you trying to get at?‘ snapped Sir Lancelot.

  ‘You see, I obviously don‘t know much about all that caper. I mean to say, with Dad being — you know.‘ He changed legs again. ‘Particularly as I‘m waiting to go up to Cambridge next term with a scholarship from the Youth Morality Foundation. Wouldn‘t do, you see.‘

  ‘I fail to entirely, but go on.‘

  ‘Fact is, I‘d rather like to have a little bit of a flutter.‘

  Sir Lancelot let out a guffaw.

  ‘Great Scott, man, I imagined you wanted to nobble the favourite for next year‘s Derby.‘

  ‘You see, I‘ve been filling in with this welfare job down in Hoxton,‘ Randolph continued, expanding and raising a grin. ‘I met a very sound fellow down there who‘s mixed up in this horse business somewhere, and he told me the one which is absolutely certain to win the first race this afternoon at Folkestone.‘

  ‘Excellent.‘ Sir Lancelot slapped his knee. ‘Not half enough sporting spirit in the young these days.‘

  ‘Yes, but how do I put the money on?‘ asked Randolph, looking puzzled. ‘I suppose I could go to Folkestone, but it seems an awful long way — ‘

  ‘Here — ‘ Sir Lancelot scribbled on a strip torn from his newspaper. ‘Ring that number, ask for Alf and mention my name.‘

  ‘That‘s awfully good of you, Uncle — ‘

  ‘And now get out. I want to finish this damn crossword.‘

  ‘Yes, of course, Uncle.‘ He hesitated. ‘The horse‘s name is Goose Pimple, in case you‘re interested,‘ he added generously.

  ‘I never bet on meetings at seaside courses, but put your few bob on and jolly good luck to you.‘

  Sir Lancelot bent his mind to the gap in ‘Where‘s my — of old Nile? (Ant. and Cleo.)‘, until a minute later he was interrupted by the appearance of Hilda and Herbert, in tears.

  ‘Ye gods! I might as well be sitting in the waiting-room at Euston Station. Go and blow your noses and find your mother,‘ he commanded.

  ‘We‘ve lost Cissy the eat,‘ they wailed together.

  ‘It has probably been run over. It was an extremely unpleasant animal anyway. Now clear off.‘

  ‘She was our special pet,‘ lamented Hilda loudly.

  ‘No doubt your father will provide a replacement. Hop it.‘

  ‘Daddy says he can‘t afford another one,‘ cried Herbert.

  Sir Lancelot threw his paper aside. ‘Look here, you beastly pair of felinophils, London is positively crawling with stray cats. Go and hunt round the dustbins till you find one. If you smother it with DDT you‘ll keep most of the fleas out of the drawing-room. Now get out before I bid you farewell with the toe of my boot.‘

  ‘S — E — R — P - F. — N - T,‘ Sir Lancelot pencilled in with satisfaction, picking up his paper again. He gave a groan. The door was opened. But it was only Mrs Chuffey.

  ‘Ah, my luncheon basket, no doubt,‘ he exclaimed.

  ‘No, sir. There‘s a gentleman to see you, sir.‘

  ‘A gentleman?‘ Sir Lancelot frowned. ‘What sort of a gentleman?‘

  ‘Oh, quite respectable, sir. He brought this letter.‘

  It was addressed simply, ‘Sir Lancelot Spratt, MD, MS, FRCS.‘ He opened it.

  ‘Dear Sir Lancelot, [it said]

  I was utterly delighted to hear you were seen back in St Swithin‘s the other day, and have presumably resumed your private practice in London. I am sure it would be a terrible loss to surgery if you persisted in living in the country. Believe me, as your last house surgeon before you retired, I am enormously relieved that I can once again call upon your wise counsel for my clinical problems. These at the moment, I regret to say, are heavy.

  I have a general practice in this suburb, but I find the work somewhat hard going and not at all as things were in St Swithin‘s. I should be glad if you would kindly give me your opinion of this patient to begin with. I have been trying to make an appointment but something seems wrong with your telephone arrangements. However, I remember Mondays are your usual private consulting days. He is Mr Bovis, a wholesale grocer, who has had dragging pains in his left side for thirty years. I can make nothing of him.

  With best wishes from your ever grateful former pupil,

  Clement E Dinwiddie.‘

  ‘Dinwiddie?‘ Sir Lancelot‘s eyebrows shot up. ‘Sound feller. In g.p., eh?‘ He grunted. ‘Pity he‘s got the wrong end of the stick about me.‘

  He turned the letter idly in his hands.

  ‘Where did you put the visitor?‘

  ‘In the waiting-room, sir. The new drawing room, that is.‘

  ‘H‘m.‘ Sir Lancelot stroked his beard. ‘Er - Mrs Chuffey, I presume my couch and so on are still in Mr Nightrider‘s study?‘

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.‘ She looked shocked at such mention of sacred relics. ‘I would never let them be moved for a moment, sir.‘

  He paused. He looked at the letter. He rose. ‘You know, I think I rather fancy the idea of getting my hands on an abdomen again. Mrs Chuffey -show the patient in.‘

  He strode from the room with the expression of one setting out on a promising morning for Witches‘ Pool.

  9

  ‘Here we are,‘ announced Mr Nightrider, as their taxi turned into Harley Street, at lunchtime.

  ‘By the way, did anyone hear the score?‘ asked his old frie
nd the Bishop of Montserrat, a fat man with the same sallow complexion as the pawpaws he regularly enjoyed for breakfast on his island.

  ‘We were all out for 351,‘ grunted General Bunch. ‘Last I heard, the Australians were ten for one. Jowler got Foreman pretty quickly.‘

  ‘I shall take my pleasure tomorrow afternoon at Wimbledon,‘ smiled Mr Nightrider. ‘I fancy von Schiermacher might well beat Gary Burkett.‘

  ‘My country will soon be playing at Wimbledon,‘ asserted the fourth passenger, a delegate from one of those African states which these days keep turning up so confusingly with a brand new name, Hag, and national anthem, and a prime minister we‘ve just let out of clink. ‘Our honoured President is very keen on sport. Oh, yes. He has opened many acres of tennis courts in our capital.‘

  ‘I doubt if the weather will hold,‘ complained Mr Anthony Waterfall, who was being squeezed into the corner. He was anyway a thin fellow, a good deal craggier than the photographs on the dust jackets of his books. If he always looked pretty miserable, it was through having a tortured soul. His soul had been tortured as regularly as the appearance of his publisher‘s autumn list for about twenty years, and he did rather well out of it. The lunch was to persuade him into lecturing about this soul all over Africa, preferably at his own expense.

  All five glanced anxiously heavenwards as they climbed from the taxi. Like every previous day that June it had started as clear and blue as a starling‘s egg, but by midmorning great surly clouds were elbowing their way across the sun, until the sky now looked as grey and unattractive as a plate of cold porridge.

  ‘You must find this house remarkably convenient, Geoffrey,‘ observed the Bishop of Montserrat as the taxi was paid off.

  ‘Yes, I rented it for the summer from my brother-in-law. He‘s Sir Lancelot Spratt, you know — the surgeon.‘

  ‘Ah, yes.‘ The Bishop nodded. ‘He took the stomach out of Mandalay.‘

  ‘A surgeon?‘ Anthony Waterfall looked startled. ‘I hope there is nothing surgical left about? I have such a horror of things like that. I always faint immediately at the sight of blood.‘

  ‘Dear me, no, Mr Waterfall,‘ his host assured him. ‘All the medical impedimenta are kept strictly out of sight. And my brother-in-law himself, whom I invited for a few days, left this morning.‘

  ‘I do so hope you‘re right,‘ said Anthony Waterfall doubtfully. ‘If I even go to the dentist‘s, I am upset for weeks.‘

  ‘In my country we have many famous surgeons,‘ mentioned the African. ‘Oh, yes. Our honoured President is very keen on surgery.‘

  ‘So pleasant for your children to be near Regent‘s Park,‘ remarked the Bishop as they all mounted the steps. ‘They flourish, I trust?‘

  ‘Indeed yes, Arthur. My eldest, I am glad to say, suddenly seems to be taking a great interest in literature. Randolph is preparing his mind for serious work at Cambridge. And the two little ones shared the Good Conduct Prize at school. Here we are, Mrs Chuffey,‘ he added, opening the front door.

  He was glad to notice her fresh white overall as she gathered the hats and umbrellas. He felt it important when entertaining members of Government committees to make a good impression. One never knew where it might lead to.

  ‘A glass of sherry?‘ he invited, leading his four guests into the drawing room. He wondered if he might squeeze in a few conjuring tricks afterwards.

  Mr Nightrider pulled up. He frowned. In armchairs on opposite sides of the fireplace sat an elderly man and a smart middle-aged woman, both concentrating on old copies of The Field. Neither took the slightest notice of the new arrivals.

  ‘Doubtless friends of my wife‘s,‘ he whispered quickly to his companions. ‘She will not be joining us at lunch, naturally.‘

  He grimly determined to raise the matter, as he often put it rather nastily in the House, at a later and appropriate occasion.

  ‘You won‘t mind us, I‘m sure?‘ he asked the elderly visitor jovially.

  The man looked up. ‘I‘ll shift my mac,‘ he murmured, freeing a chair. He got on with his Field again.

  ‘Luncheon will be ready in a minute, I am sure.‘ Mr Nightrider reached for the decanter. ‘Ah, here is Mrs Chuffey now,‘ he added with relief. ‘Perhaps, gentlemen, if we take our sherry glasses— ‘

  ‘Mr Gregson,‘ said Mrs Chuffey.

  The elderly man rose and followed her out.

  ‘Extraordinary!‘ muttered Mr Nightrider.

  ‘Most,‘ grunted the General in agreement.

  Mr Nightrider noticed the middle-aged woman eyeing him sternly over the top of her magazine.

  ‘Forgive me for not introducing,‘ he remarked hastily, raising a smile. ‘This is the Bishop of Montserrat, Mr N‘agga, General Bunch, and of course Anthony Waterfall. No doubt you are waiting to see my wife?‘

  ‘Very kind of you, I‘m sure, but I‘m waiting to see the doctor.‘

  The smile switched off at the mains. ‘The...the...? One...one moment.‘ He shot outside. ‘Mrs Chuffey! Will you please inform that woman in the drawing room this very instant that the house is no longer in use for purposes of medical practice.‘

  ‘Oh, but it is,‘ she returned calmly. ‘Sir Lancelot is consulting. Dr Dinwiddie sent him quite a batch of new cases.‘

  ‘Sir Lancelot!‘ Mr Nightrider‘s eyes flashed to the closed door of his study. ‘Consulting, indeed! In my house! I think I‘ll just have a word with — ‘

  ‘Would you mind?‘ Mrs Chuffey barred the way. ‘You can‘t go interrupting a surgical consultation like that. Really, sir! I‘d have thought a gentleman like you‘d have known better.‘

  Mr Nightrider halted. He wiped his bald head with his handkerchief. ‘Perhaps we could have some lunch?‘ he asked weakly.

  ‘The shrimps are on the table, sir.‘

  ‘A slight but quite ludicrous mistake by the domestic staff,‘ he explained to his guests in the drawing-room. ‘I am sure you will overlook it when you see what excellent fare they provide. Would you now come through to luncheon? No, not you, madam, only the gentlemen.‘

  ‘I‘m afraid I‘m not very hungry,‘ protested Anthony Waterfall, sniffing in the hall. ‘The smell of antiseptic or whatever it is seems to linger in these doctors‘ houses. It quite turns my stomach.‘

  They all sat down to their shrimps.

  The author‘s appetite revived when he noticed the cold lobster and Chablis to follow, and Mr Nightrider, who usually took only mineral water with his food, downed half a bottle of wine and began looking less like a badly defeated amendment. By the end of the meal he was addressing his guests as though they were his right honourable friends on the benches opposite.

  ‘Culture, of course, is our most priceless export,‘ he mentioned as Mrs Chuffey cleared away the strawberries and left them with the decanter.

  ‘In my country we are already very cultured,‘ pointed out Mr N‘agga. ‘Oh, yes. Our honoured President is very keen on culture.‘

  ‘Have you thought, Mr Waterfall, how your delivering fifty lectures on “The Novelist‘s Soul in the Atomic Age” would be a contribution to our export drive quite equal to, shall we say, the Metal Box Company‘s? Port? We already have our glasses, Mrs Chuffey,‘ he broke off crossly as she burst in and started rummaging in the sideboard.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir. I was just looking for a specimen bottle.‘

  ‘A what?‘ Anthony Waterfall‘s jaw dropped.

  ‘A bottle for a specimen, sir. No, that‘s for blood.‘ She discarded one. ‘And that‘s for urine.‘ She put aside another. ‘This is the one for the stomach contents,‘ she added in the direction of the author. ‘Sir Lancelot is just drawing them out of a patient with a stomach tube.‘

  ‘I don‘t think I feel very well,‘ announced Anthony Waterfall.

  ‘Mrs Chuffey!‘ Mr Nightrider jumped up. ‘This is outrageous! Can‘t you see we‘re in the middle of our— ‘

  ‘I‘m sorry, sir,‘ she apologized, hurrying off with a pint-sized jar, ‘but I can‘t keep Sir Lancelot
waiting. Not while he‘s got a stomach tube down a patient, can I?‘

  ‘Mr Waterfall, I must most deeply apologize! Some quite exceptional combination of unfortunate circumstances — ‘

  ‘Somebody give me air,‘ muttered the author, pulling at his collar.

  ‘Perhaps the lobster was a trifle heavy,‘ murmured the Bishop as the General threw open another window.

  ‘My country has the biggest lobsters in the world. Oh, yes. Our honoured President is very keen on — ‘

  ‘Remember reading a story once,‘ the General broke his silence. ‘By Conan Doyle. Or Cronin, perhaps? Can‘t recall. Chap affected by sight of blood like our friend here. Wife being operated upon upstairs. House like this, y‘know. Moulded ceilings. Chap noticed bloodstain up there. By the chandelier. Gets bigger. Bigger. Splash! Drop starts to fall — ‘

  ‘I think I want to go home,‘ decided Anthony Waterfall, rising shakily.

  ‘My dear, dear, sir!‘ Mr Nightrider hurried round the table. ‘Perhaps a little sit-down-‘

  ‘In the end it wasn‘t blood at all, o‘course,‘ explained the General.

  ‘I want to go to bed. Somebody take me home and put me to bed — ‘

  ‘I‘m sure that a few minutes in the chair by the window, my dear Mr Waterfall — And what the hell are you doing here?‘ he demanded as his daughter Felicity burst in.

  ‘Daddy — ‘

  Her chin was in the air. Her flattish chest was heaving. Her sniffs resonated round the room.

  ‘Daddy, I wish to become married.‘

  ‘What? What?‘ cried Mr Nightrider. ‘Felicity, this is neither the time nor place — ‘

  ‘Doesn‘t your daughter‘s happiness come before anything else in the world?‘ she countered breathlessly.

  ‘Perhaps you would like us to withdraw at such a delicate domestic moment?‘ inquired the Bishop, who had been fanning Anthony Waterfall gently with his table napkin.

  ‘No, no! I am sure she has merely some form of acute hysteria — ‘

  ‘Mrs Chuffey!‘ Sir Lancelot‘s voice bellowed outside. ‘I want a vomit bowl.‘

  ‘Vomit bowl? Vomit bowl?‘ she muttered, reappearing to rummage in the sideboard again. ‘I don‘t know, really, I can‘t seem able to find a thing since the place was let.‘