Peggy

Over the gangplank, through the glass doorway, into Reception. From hinderdesk, Peggy (marginally the fatter of the two Cerberidae ad portas) intimated to me that the hot tub was being serviced.

…I came to understand, by a curious process of cognitive osmosis – mostly a matter of sifting between Peggy’s blundering hints and the witless evasions of her colleagues and/or fellow shareholders – that something terrible had befallen the Operational Manager.

Peggy and Billy were at their usual stations behind the desk. Peggy maintained the general silence, but was in no way deterred from capering and gurning on her chair in some indescribably grotesque kind of dumb show. What japes! - It was on this occasion that I first remarked upon her predilection for reaching into her décolletage in order to unleash armpit farts on an undeserving world - I thought…

…And by yon indirect way, of gymnasia. At any rate, those superstitious priest-ridden idolaters Peggy and John Virgil would have it so. Those Romish foundlings, suckling at the withered dugs of the triple-breasted whore of Babylon, in their ignorance and ecstatic folly insisted that the Feast Day be marked in some way, and to this purpose sought the endorsement of the departments of Diversity and Diversity-Compliance. John Virgil obtained the…

I swallowed as best I could my fears about how John Virgil Haruspex and Peggy would react to having their ceremonial contrivances disparaged by the bourgeois helot in the ivory tower who had no idea what it was like to have to etc and should check his privilege. In such a grave matter, I determined that I for once would speak with sincerity.

(b) There was substantial overlap between the categories:- e.g. Peggy was both a member of staff and a major shareholder. Indeed, in my own case I was a member whilst simultaneously enjoying a beneficial interest in Pex ‘n’ Quads via the investing trajectory of my Cerebellum Towers pension fund. Equally, Ageing Hippus the yoga god was a paying member, whilst also undertaking those ghastly alarmingly frank yoga posing classes with…

…I found myself staring at and very much resenting Peggy, who had just joined our assembly and was grinning moronically at my discomfort, and whom I still then strongly suspected of culpability in the case of the Phantom Crapper.

That butter mountain Peggy was behind her desk, and she looked at me, and her laughter bubbled forth over her infinite plurality of chins.

But Peggy shook her huge head.

…suppress - was slightly pained that there was no augury for wispy-bearded coprasophers to pore over. In contrast, Peggy did not scruple to rejoice in Mr Petoman’s eponymous feature, but straightway instigated a kind of water closet music or torture chamber duet, encouraging him to join his anal expostulations with her armpit farts, the result being quite literally the most disgusting cacophony ever to disgrace a salon. Herod, who would…