4

Early next day I went to collect Sir Lancelot for the conference and found him in a prickly mood in his braces.

‘Good morning, sir,’ I greeted the old boy brightly. ‘According to the telly, it’s going to be a nice hot day by courtesy of Bubblo Soap.’

He grunted.

‘I trust you slept well, sir, on your Pompadour Beautylaze Couch?’

‘Archbold,’ muttered the surgeon, ‘who had spent the night flying out to examine a meat packer in Chicago, insisted on discussing the conference agenda over what he described as a “working breakfast”. To my mind, discussing anything whatever over breakfast is perfectly abnormal, Breakfast is not a meal. It is another of those intimate morning rites necessary to equip one for the day.’

Being one who likes to take a bit of a run at the day myself, I sympathized with him.

‘I’m afraid our American chums just feel frustrated they can’t invent a twenty-five-hour day, sir,’ I observed. I hope the breakfast was a decent one?’

Sir Lancelot shrugged his shoulders. ‘I ordered from the menu some Sunbasked Crushed Vitamin-Chocked Oklahoma Wheat Ears and a Piping Hot Farm-Fresh Present From a Happy Hen. I got a plate of cereal and a boiled egg.’

I noticed from his tray the management had tried to make up for this by adding a coloured paper cap with Good Morning, Folks! written on it, a folder of matches with a girl suffering from mammary hypertrophy on the cover, a sheet of black-edged paper headed Your Sixty-Second Sermon for Today, and a plastic box done up with ribbons containing a complimentary pink carnation for the buttonhole.

‘No gentleman,’ ended Sir Lancelot sadly, ‘would of course ever contemplate wearing in his buttonhole anything but a red carnation.’

We slipped down the express elevator to the street, and pretty cosy it was out there, too, particularly as in America, where they do everything properly, they don’t only have heat but they have humidity as well. We picked up a cab, the driver put us square on the international situation, and we arrived at the Conference in the Liberty Room of the Washington-Herxheimer Hotel.

Early in the proceedings I began to suffer from a chilly feeling which had nothing to do with the air conditioning.

I’m much in favour of medical conferences, as long as they’re properly organized. At a medical conference in England they naturally always provide a hall for a few enthusiasts to hear another one rambling away over some cracked lantern slides shown upside down. The rest of the doctors take the chance to clear off and play golf, or to go on the toot with other doctors out of sight of their patients.

But when American doctors hold a conference, they jolly well confer. I was banking on everyone gently drifting away once Archbold had raised the tapes with his Presidential address, so I could pass a happy three weeks seeing the sights of New York, such as Jack Dempsey’s Bar and the burlesque shows. But those enthusiastic chaps went hammering at the door of knowledge from eight in the morning till six at night, with an hour off at noon for waffle-burgers and Coca-cola. And anyone mounting the rostrum with a folder of notes slimmer than the Manhattan telephone directory was clearly thought to be betraying the great traditions of American oratory.

‘Thank you, Grimsdyke, for kicking me on the ankle when I started to snore,’ mentioned Sir Lancelot, when we were released at the end of the day.

‘Not a bit, sir, Always glad to avert an international incident.’

‘I fear I must have been sadly wrong over the years,’ he sighed, ‘when I held at St Swithin’s that anyone could express all his knowledge of any scientific subject on a postcard. Though how an executive or anyone else can possibly ever feel completely healthy in this place is totally beyond me.’

He indicated with his umbrella a poster outside the subway announcing that we’d arrived in National Nephrosis Week, while from other posters I gathered the citizens had only just got over National Hemiplegia Week and could look forward after Sunday to a jolly National Schizophrenia Week,

‘Our American chums are well up with the clinical articles in the Reader’s Digest, and regard Time as the great healer, sir,’ I suggested. ‘They’d never fork out for our dear old British charities with their Spare a Copper for the Distressed Gentlefolk or Our Roof is Leaking.’

‘They certainly have an eye for clinical detail. Even in the obituary pages of the newspapers. The New York Times this morning quite reminded me in parts of the Pathologist’s Handbook.’

I nodded. ‘Especially as the undertakers oil round the margins with cosy invitations to let them lay you out on the never-never. Could make an executive feel pretty nasty over breakfast I should think, particularly on hot mornings with a hangover.’

‘Odd,’ mused Sir Lancelot, hailing a cab, ‘that everyone here should take death so extremely seriously.’

But our American chums don’t pass their days simply looking forward to their absolutely slap-up funeral, any more than we spend ours puffing our churchwardens in our smocks at the doors of our thatched cottages, in between Morris dancing and trying to trace our ancestors. The clouds of oratory were brightened no end by the nightly flashes of hospitality, and after a week even Sir Lancelot started making concessions to the New World, such as drinking Scotch-on-the-Rocks and calling Archbold by his christian name. Though he still wouldn’t dress up in white blouse and trousers like Dr Kildare to visit Archbold’s private hospital, saying he refused to go around looking like a ruddy West End hairdresser. For years, of course, he had found it unnecessary to go round looking like anything but Sir Lancelot Spratt.

As for our American chums, they took to calling him ‘Lance’ and asking him all about our National Health Service, even though they did imply that anyone walking about with a mouthful of free teeth was undermining the great traditions of Western democracy.

‘It is now four o’clock,’ announced Sir Lancelot, snapping open his watch in the middle of Fifth Avenue on the Saturday afternoon, which was free for sightseeing. ‘And I must confess I should much like a peaceful cup of tea.’

The old boy had certainly passed a wearying day, what with nearly getting shot by one of the strong-arm chaps they keep to stop people helping themselves in New York banks, and trying to find where they hid the trains in Grand Central Station. Particularly as the temperature was so high I fancied the heat was even getting into the martinis.

‘If one can obtain such a thing as tea in the tumult of this urban Niagara,’ he added.

‘That looks a quiet little spot over there,’ I suggested, indicating a neon sign. ‘The one that’s called The Haven of Rest,’

‘That should suit me perfectly.’

I must say, we took to the place as soon as we stepped off the sizzling sidewalk under the striped canopy, and pushed through the big plate-glass doors into the soothing air conditioning.

‘A very decent small hotel,’ conceded Sir Lancelot, glancing approvingly round the lobby.

‘Just the spot for a long cool beer,’ I nodded,

The lobby was done in restful purple, with some well coiffeured bunches of flowers standing agreeably in the corners. There was piped music, naturally, but instead of Top Hat and South Pacific it was soft and gentle stuff played quietly on the organ. Best of all, there seemed absolutely no one about, making a change from our own hotel lobby, which was bags and bustle all round the clock.

‘Not much sign of life,’ I remarked. ‘I suppose the cafeteria’s on the roof.’

‘Do you know, Grimsdyke,’ announced Sir Lancelot suddenly, ‘I’ve more than half a mind to move my quarters here for the rest of the conference. You stay where you are, of course. This is far too quiet for you. But it will suit me absolutely down to the ground.’

At that moment a purple door marked ‘Reception’ opened, emitting a thin pale chap with grey hair, wearing the usual black jacket and striped trousers.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ said the chap, in a quiet respectful voice which seemed to please Sir Lancelot no end. ‘I am Ed Samboys, the manager here. May I ask whom you have called to see?’

‘We haven’t called to see anyone,’ I told him.

‘Ah, no,’ murmured the manager.

‘As a matter of fact,’ went on Sir Lancelot, ‘I wondered if you happened to have a room available.’

Mr Samboys let fall a sigh.

‘I’m real sorry, sir, but at this moment I guess all our rooms are occupied.’

‘I only want a single room,’ added Sir Lancelot. ‘Not a double.’

The manager looked a bit worried at this, but apologized, ‘We’re mighty busy this time of the year, sir. I guess it’s the sudden heat.’

‘Quite,’ nodded the surgeon. ‘Had I any acquaintances visiting New York just now, I should do my utmost to get them into one of your cool rooms. I have formed an excellent impression of the establishment.’

Mr Samboys bowed.

‘I suppose I couldn’t book a room for later?’

The manager gave a smile and a quick rub of the hands.

‘Sure you can, sir, we always advise our folk to think ahead.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Who would the room be for, sir?’

Sir Lancelot frowned slightly. ‘For myself, of course. I suppose you can give me a definite date? I shall be needing it quite soon.’

Mr Samboy’s smile sagged a bit in the middle.

‘Quite soon, sir?’

‘Exactly,’ Sir Lancelot told him briskly. ‘In the next day or two at the latest. Indeed, I am quite ready to move in now.’

‘Aw, you poor guy,’ muttered the manager. ‘You poor guy.’

‘I say,’ I chipped in, feeling pretty thirsty. ‘Do you think you could fix me up with a beer?’

The manager’s jaw unhinged rather more. ‘Fix you up with a bier? What, right now?’

‘Yes, of course. Where’s the bar?’

‘Say,’ exclaimed Mr Samboys. ‘Do you guys know where you are?’

‘Damnation, man,’ exploded Sir Lancelot. ‘This is the Haven of Rest Hotel–’

‘It’s the Haven of Rest Funeral Parlour, that’s what,’ said the manager, staring a bit.

‘Grimsdyke!’ hissed Sir Lancelot.

‘Sorry,’ I apologized. ‘Wrong number.’

‘Hey, wait a minute!’ As we made for the door, Mr Samboys replaced his smile and did a quick handwash. ‘You gentlemen have gotta think of the future. Yes, sir! And our terms are mighty moderate. We’ve buried five generations right here in New York City. We have a fine name for consideration of the bereaved ones’ feelings, particularly financial. We have twenty storeys of magnificently appointed air conditioned apartments–’

Sir Lancelot grabbed the door handle.

‘Not today,’ I told the chap.

‘But say, listen. We do a mighty fine embalming job on easy terms.’ Mr Samboys gave a little laugh. ‘Die now, pay later, you know.’

‘No thank you!’ roared Sir Lancelot.

‘My friend here,’ I explained to Mr Samboys, ‘already has his do-it-yourself kit.’

We stepped on to the roasting sidewalk.

‘Embarrassing,’ muttered Sir Lancelot. ‘Damnably embarrassing.’

‘There’s one thing, sir,’ I consoled him. ‘At least you’ve tried the only digs in New York where they don’t advertise all the rooms with television.’