Excerpt from ch24 of Helix Folt the Conservative

The familiar black Lexus bears Mr Roger Buggery down the long and winding drive, past the breezeblock folly, past all the sedulously faked neoclassical sculptures, past all the fibreglass hermit grottoes, and under the glazed redbrick arch into the quadrangle, where Mr Roger Buggery is put down like a turd. “That door,” says Mr Jagtar Singh, indicating one among many, “is where you must go.” “Chill,” says Mr Roger Buggery uncertainly and also nastily, “like I like thought like the like salon, yeah?” and “peace.” Mr Jagtar Singh, ignoring Mr Roger Buggery’s protestations, drives the familiar black Lexus off to be fumigated. Mr Roger Buggery watches nastily as it glides away beneath the glazed redbrick arch and disappears. Then he opens the one door among the many, and suffers himself to be subsumed once again into the bowels of Luncheon, which is just nasty. After a great deal of traipsing up and down an immense number of striplit corridors, and trying the handles of an immense number of locked doors, and bearing the affronts of an immense number of disconcertingly tall under-footmen, Mr Roger Buggery at length finds himself in a sort of large hall, filled with benches, ill-lit and fetid with the exhalations of those of the Marxist fraternity whose birth and breeding sufficiently offsets their scrofulousness. Certain of these gentlemen are of Mr Roger Buggery’s acquaintance; Sir Gerald Inhali, for instance, is to be observed chuckling satanically over some witticism laconically delivered out of the side of the mouth of Mr Milton Djugashvili. At the front of the hall is a low dais or stage, whereon has been set a plywood veneer desk behind which Mr Tad Curmudgeonly whispers into the ear of Lady Luncheon. Among the personages seated along the benches placed in rows in the middle of the hall, Mr Roger Buggery espies and flinches at the sight of Ms. Amelia De’Ath in the company of Mr Rex Anusol and the Hon. Adrian Rorschasch-Blott. A few rows back, alone presumably having chaperoned thither her brother, Ms. Minerva Ledwitch attends to her knitting. Three or four seats along from her, Lady Inhali is deep in fatuity with two or three of Stokes Croft’s most unhygienic poets and - horror of horrors! nastiness of nastiness! - none other than Mr Roger Buggery’s own dearly beloved wife. Mr Roger Buggery’s head whirls. His whole future, that creaking and maggoty edifice constructed from a lifetime’s expenditure on subterfuge and mendacity and fraud, is in the balance. He cannot allow Lady Luncheon, still less Ms. Minerva Ledwitch, to condescend so as to notice his wife. Meanwhile, the day’s business is at hand. Time and tide await no cunt, yeah? Of Sir Ezra Tertiary-Syphilis, there is as yet no sign. Mr Roger Buggery extends his scaly neck from his brown shirt’s greasy collar. His villainous head swivels nastily on that stalk. The measures thus undertaken avail him not. Woe! Woe and thrice woe unto him! “Chill,” he mutters nastily unto himself and, just as nastily, “peace.” He fishes out the invitation, greasy with the maculations of a fortnight in the Buggery pocket. There it is in black and white. The opportunity to denounce either Sir Ezra in se, or a proxy of the latter’s choice. Or a proxy of the latter’s choice. How much fraud in the dissembler’s glib phrase. Mr Roger Buggery steels himself, draws a deep breath. Ms. Amelia De’Ath scowls at the sidling, insinuating approach of Mr Roger Buggery. Likewise Mr Rex Anusol. “I hardly think this is the occasion,” murmurs the latter gentleman, “for making an exhibition.” “I hardly do neither,” says Ms. Amelia De’Ath pursing her lips, “it ain’t not proper, genteel refined folk being put to the necessity of mixing with uncultured persons what don’t not know how to conduct their selves.” “Chill,” says Mr Roger Buggery nastily, “like who like fuckin’ like arx like you, yeah?” and “peace.” The Hon. Adrian Rorschasch-Blott, having plastered across his face a polite wince, is so good as to intervene. “I rather think,” says he, “that the business of the gentleman is with oneself.” “Chill,” says Mr Roger Buggery nastily, “like I’m like sposed like to like be like denouncing like the like Channel fuckin’ Islands cunt, yeah?” and “peace.” The Hon. Adrian Rorschasch-Blott plasters across his face an exquisite, inconsolable grief. “Sir Ezra in se was the arrangement, I rather think,” says he, “or, failing that, a proxy of his choice.”