Amelia De’Ath

…Mr Folt, an orphan of indeterminate provenance, despite his maturity clung most loyally to one Amelia De'Ath, the nanny of his childhood, to the extent that he had apparently spent his entire life in that respectable spinster’s studio apartment in Bath Buildings, making his bed upon her sofa.

…To her former charge, although like him thin and angular, in other ways Nanny De'Ath forms a vivid contrast. Her head is crowned with an outgrowth which, although it does not die back in the winter, changes with the seasons, being vernal in the spring, golden like corn in the summer, and taking on in the autumn the richer auburns and imperial purples of harvested bounty. I cannot truthfully state…

…vestibule and opens the veneered door with its tarnished polymer handle, to discover, upon the tarnished polymer threshold, Ms. Amelia De'Ath. Mr Roger Buggery looks quickly and from force of habit up and down the nasty, dirty little alley. Catching his intent, his visitor scowls, and purses her lips.

…Mr Roger Buggery who, having been vey nastily supplanted by Mr Rex Anusol in the affections both of Ms. Amelia De’Ath and of the Senior Cadre Intimate Needs Commissariat, finds himself in his turn - and considerably more nilly than willy - vey nastily supplanting Mr Widdles in the affections of Lady Luncheon.

Ms. Amelia De’Ath does not for long endure solitude, for there is within ten or twelve minutes to be heard the tap and click of notably punctilious footsteps. These coming to a halt outside De’Ath’s door, a key scrabbles in the lock of that aperture, and Mr Helix Folt announces his return by means of

Ms. Amelia De’Ath corrugates her brow.

…into Cheltenham Road, Mr Helix Folt was able to regain the sanctity of Bath Buildings. Here he found Ms. Amelia De’Ath and Mr Rex Anusol, both clad somewhat mystifyingly in adult diapers and surrounded by a great quantity of polythene, which Mr Rex Anusol was in the process of stapling to the floor and the furniture in the lounge. Sensing their resentment of the interruption to whatever unspecified but no…

…of dirt caught in the iron bands of determinism, picked up his mobile and dialled the number of Ms. Amelia De'Ath.

Mr Roger Buggery was some hours later somewhat disconcerted to receive a visit from Ms. Amelia De'Ath. That excellent lady arrived with a coat rack on wheels, a hot water bottle, and a plastic bag whence she vey punctiliously disgorged a generous length of rubber tubing, which bore in virtue of its pinkness a more than passing resemblance to viscera. Setting down her paraphernalia in Mr Roger Buggery’s beige lounge,…

…The new party consists in a third pair of individuals also familiar to us, which is to say Ms. Amelia De'Ath and Mr Rex Anusol. Of the two, Ms. De'Ath appears rather the more urgent, and there is a gleam in her eye of triumph at encountering the two ingenues of Mangotsfield. The demeanour of her companion is by contrast one of fashionable enervation, inasmuch as to pose the rhetorical…

Ms. Amelia De'Ath curled her lip at this.

After some minutes, Ms. Amelia De’Ath emerges in company with Ms. Gamina Dročerpyatova, Ms. De’Ath in the habiliments of respectable but à la mode widowhood featuring a great deal of black crepe and even a veil, her companion having chosen to present herself to the world in the vestments of a lady not averse to receiving gentlemen callers, on which account she is to be complimented for the authenticity of…