Tramp Royale (44 page)

As we left the dining room on that occasion, I told the hostess-manager about it. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind and told me the waitress was perfectly right-one menu to a table; that was the rule.

I answered, "Is that rule of your making? Or is it one laid down by the manager of the Waverly?"

"Why do you ask that?" she said sharply.

"Because I see no sense to it and intend to bring it to the manager's attention if the matter is beyond your control. So is it your rule? Or his?"

She looked disgusted. "Well, it isn't exactly a
rule
in that sense. But everybody knows it. One table, one menu-that's the way things are done."

I gave up and did not bother to speak to the manager. The notion that certain things "are done" and other things "aren't done" is the unanswerable argument of the provincial, to whom the customs of his tribe are laws of nature, as Shaw pointed out long ago. The odd rule about menus was not important anyway; I had spoken to the manageress simply because I disliked being bawled out in public by a person who was being paid to make me comfortable. But I did check as we went along to see if this oddly inefficient practice really was the uniform custom of the country.

It was, without any exception. Shortly before we left I tried to break it once more, simply as an experiment. We were eating alone in the dining room of another hotel, having been granted permission to eat lunch at twelve-thirty instead of one o'clock by special dispensation of the manager because we had a travel connection to make. There was one menu at our table, but about fifty menus in sight elsewhere in the room, so while Ticky was studying the one I turned to the waitress at my elbow and pointed at a menu less than four feet away. "Will you hand me that menu, please?" She shook her head.

I had tried it on her because she looked good-natured. I now answered pleasantly. "Why not?"

"Huh? It's for
that
table."

"So it is. But it is not in use now and won't be until one o'clock. What harm is there in letting me see it for a moment? I won't damage it and I'll give it back in a moment or two."

She seemed to be undergoing some inner struggle. Finally she visibly braced herself, reached out and handed me the other menu. "Just this once!" she warned.

"Thank you."

She looked at us curiously. "You're Americans, aren't you?"

"Yes. Why? Our accent?"

"No, you talk all right. But Americans
always
want extra menus."

We tried to avoid the slops served at the Waverly by dining at public restaurants, but we found the cooking just as bad and the food even less attractively served. One large restaurant which looked all right from the outside served nothing but meat and potatoes, fish and chips-two sorts of potatoes on the same plate, both sorts rendered indigestible. We ate because we were very hungry, drank some tea (no coffee) and never went back. Coffee was served at the Waverly, since it "catered" to travelers, but not in the dining room, only in the lounge; coffee with your dinner cannot be obtained in New Zealand. Every hotel has a lounge, which always has some claim to posh swankness no matter how dreary and dirty the rest of the place may be, and here coffee is served in demi-tasse-which means that you have to wait up to forty-minutes or even longer to get it, that you can almost never get a second cup, and that cream is rarely available. All of which is of little importance as the stuff is usually not fit to drink. I don't know what they do to it. I've encountered bad coffee before, but it must take real talent to make New Zealand coffee. It tastes like a mixture of sorghum and used crankcase oil, but it surely cannot be that.

At last we spotted an ad for the Hi Diddle Griddle, which promised "that Heavenly American Food." We were suspicious as we had encountered "American" restaurants in other countries before, but we had nothing to lose, so we hurried there. It turned out to be a real, honest-to-God American hamburger joint, owned by a New Zealander who had lived many years in the States and only recently returned (through family necessity) and managed by a young Hollander freshly arrived in the country. It was
clean
and the coffee was wonderful, made fresh in Silex pots. They served rare, tender T-bone steaks, six versions of hamburgers, ham and eggs, chicken-in-a-basket, waffles, tender hot cakes, three-decker sandwiches, and home-made American pies. It was the sort of hole-in-the-wall restaurant which can be found two to the block in almost any side street in America but it was the only one of its sort in all New Zealand. We ate there every day we were in Auckland after that. It did not open until evening, so we made do in the daytime with fruit and biscuits that Ticky bought and fetched to our room.

But we did not find it until we had endured several Waverly meals. During the course of our first dinner there I happened to notice the inscription on the silverware, then asked for the menu again to confirm what I had found. There it was, across the top of the menu:
The Waverly, a Hancock Hotel.

Silently I showed it to Ticky. When she had read it I whispered, "There goes our last chance." When we were back in our room, we sounded each other out, found we had the same point of view: not even to get out of this smelly squalor would we demean ourselves to ask favors of the man who was responsible for this squalor. "The only possible thing I could have to say to Sir Ernest," she said, her tones making the noble title a swear word, "is to tell him what I think of this room of his. But to do that properly I could not first meet him socially through a mutual friend. So we won't look him up."

Nor did we. We had another introduction to a former prime minister who was a warm friend of the United States. We intended to call on him, but, by the time it came to do so, we had had such a taste of New Zealand that we decided that it was more polite not to do so, as we would either have had to drink his tea and lie to him, or drink his tea and tell him the harsh truth of our opinion of his country. Neither alternative was acceptable, so we stayed away from him. In all, we accepted no personal hospitality of any sort in the country, for which I am glad.

We went to bed soon after dinner, as the weather was still stormy and the room was cold. It was only early fall in New Zealand, nevertheless that weekend was cold. The hotel had no provision of any sort for heating the rooms, nor did any but one of the hotels we were in there-Auckland is of the latitude of Norfolk or San Francisco, with a similar ocean-moderated climate. But imagine a San Francisco hotel without heated rooms!

The plumbing was far down another hall, a pot for women, a pot for men, one each, and nearby were shower rooms-or I Should say "room" for it was one room with two doors, divided into two shower stalls by a partition which missed going all the way to the ceiling by about four feet. I did not mind this and Ticky told me later that she had not realized that the men's bath connected so intimately-but I wonder how a single and timid woman would feel to realize that men could watch her bathing by the simple expedient of dragging a chair up to the partition and looking over? That he could even climb over and assault her? Unlikely, I suppose, and no skin off our noses, since we made a habit of showering at the same time.

No tubs, of course. No amenities of any sort-and the toilet tissue appeared to be ancient parchment. After the first day we supplied our own.

Ticky killed a couple of cockroaches and we went to bed. The beds were beds in name only and we could not read, the only light being high in the ceiling. Nevertheless we got to sleep at last.

I woke up covered with mosquito bites and some other bites I was not sure about. Or, rather, I was awakened, for at seven-fifteen there came a sharp knock on the door, it was opened before I could answer, and a Maori chambermaid shoved a mug of tea in my face. Ticky tried to tell her to go away, but the girl was not listening, so Ticky accepted it. She sat up, sipping it and looking at me. "You're wearing a fright wig, did you know?"

"You wouldn't take any beauty prizes yourself this morning, my sweet. But I love you even if you are old and ugly."

"And I love you even when you're horrid, which is pretty often. But I don't doubt I look awful. Honey, could we have breakfast sent up? I've had a terrible night and I'm just not up to facing people and being polite. So please?"

"Did you read the house rules over there on the bureau? No room service. No parking of automobiles. Rooms must be vacated by 10:30 a.m.-or they sock you for another day. And a big, bold-face boast at the bottom 'The Comfort of Each Guest is the Objective of the Management.' "

"Only they failed to capture their objective. I had forgotten that quip about room service. Oh, dear!"

"They haven't, so pull yourself out of that sack. That dining room opens in exactly thirty-four minutes now and they slam it shut sixty minutes later. Get up and make yourself beautiful. Want me to draw you a nice hot tub with lots of bath salts?"

"Don't be nasty." She got up and started brushing her teeth. Presently she said, "They never did bring any face towels and this skimpy little bath towel is still wet-and I'm afraid I got it sort of dirty in the shower last night. There wasn't any place to hang it. May I use yours?"

"Go ahead. Where's my grey suit?"

"Still in one of your bags. There weren't any coat hangers and the maid would only bring me two, when I asked her. Your towel is wet, too."

"Don't fret about towels, the maid will bring some fresh ones when she makes up the room. And we'll buy some coat hangers this morning, if we have to."

But we did not buy coat hangers, as we discovered later that in New Zealand everything buttons up at five p.m. on Friday and remains closed until nine on Monday. The exceptions are negligible. Australian closing hours are inconvenient, but New Zealand closing hours are more in the nature of paralysis. We did not know it yet, but our weekend was to be a complete blank.

Nor did we get dry towels. The comment about the linen charge was an indirect way of telling us that, in a New Zealand hotel, you use the same towel (one, for all purposes), the same napkin, the same sheets and pillow case for the duration of your stay. There was no use to complain; these things are regulated by the government.

I wonder if a government that decides when to change the sheets really has time to take care of more usual government business?

After breakfast (let's not mention it!) I urged Ticky to stay in and work on her clothes and mine. The cyclone seemed to have moved in on Auckland; it was rainy, very windy, and cold out. She agreed. "But be sure to try to find some American cigarettes."

"I'll try." I went first to Thomas Cook & Son. Every place I passed was closed and I was beginning to wonder, but I found it open and Mr. Gunning inside. He looked up, smiled ruefully, and shook his head. "Trouble?" I asked.

"Trouble. From the weather reports now I doubt if there will be any flights even on Monday. Besides that, I can't even get you out of here on Monday even if they do fly. Half the telephone lines are down and I can't begin to complete your reservations."

He showed me what he had planned and how little he had accomplished. Finally I said, "Mr. Gunning, what does South Island have that is unique? That can't be seen on North Island?"

"Mmmm-the Southern Alps. Fjords."

"Is that all?"

"Just about. The best hunting and fishing is there."

"Well, I don't hunt or fish, we live in the Rocky Mountains and much as I love mountains, I can get along without seeing another range of them. And I've seen plenty of fjords, too. If we limited this tour to North Island would it be easier?"

He looked happy. "Much easier."

"Then do it that way. Cut out all plane flights and keep us on this island-my wife will be pleased about that, anyway. She hates to fly, it frightens her. Can you get us out on Monday then?"

He shook his head. "I wish I could, but there is no use in giving you false hopes. This is a weekend. Half the places I'll have to reach will be closed-even if I can get a call through."

"Hotels? Transportation companies?"

"Hotels will be open, of course. Some of the transportation companies may be. Suppose I phone you later in the day? I'll do my best."

I agreed. Then I decided to turn over to him the matter of getting a ship back to the States. I was going to have very little time to haunt the steamship agencies and he probably stood more chance than I did, anyhow, since he knew the ropes. He was obviously able, and willing to try very hard-and the nicest person we had met yet. So I did so, then went out to look for American cigarettes. There were none, of course, but I was very lucky in that the sale of tobacco was permitted up until noon on Saturdays. I bought two or three brands that were recommended as "mild, much like American cigarettes," and went back to the room. I found Ticky swatting cockroaches again.

I do not remember too many details of the rest of that long weekend. I recall it just as the unvarying monotony of that filthy room, long treks down the corridors to try to find other toilets somewhere else in the hotel whenever the single facility reasonably near our room was in use, which seemed to be two times out of three, showers ended by smearing off with a towel that never did dry, a few sober drinks in the funeral-parlor splendor of the lounge, and watching the storm out the window.

I am not blaming New Zealand for that cyclone. Most of the weather while we were there was delightful; New Zealand has an almost ideal climate. We had encountered bad weather in every country we were in; given clean and cheerful indoor surroundings, bad weather is a very minor inconvenience or none at all. It is another matter when you are forced to hole up in filth.

We had tried to go out Saturday evening, but ran into one of New Zealand's most characteristic institutions, the six-o'clock drunk. Their saloons close at six p.m.; the customers spend the last fifteen minutes trying to get really plastered and most of them succeed. At 6:01 the drunks come pouring out on the sidewalks outside every hotel in New Zealand-in fact, marriage of the hotel business to the liquor trade appears to be the cause of New Zealand's scandalous hotels.