Lady Bumbridge wearily left the meeting with Solange d’Espere, the Masturbation Clinic’s director. She then hailed a kago (a Japanese-style sedan chair) to take her tired body up the hill to Summerhill House on London Road. She always enjoyed seeing Solange and talking of ways of improving the clinic’s reputation and raising awareness of masturbatory issues. She didn’t however look forward to seeing her son at the squat he shared with Helga and Hedwig. She felt that her son, Howard, at 34, had wasted his life and acted like a teenager. She sighed and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

Lord Bumbridge and Hammond Eggs sat at a small table near the kitchen of the Salon du The. The tea room would not be busy for another half an hour or so, giving them enough time to discuss Institutional Club matters without being overheard. Lord Bumbridge looked over to the front of the restaurant to where their respective wives were sat.

Lady Bumbridge was upstairs in her bedroom, sat at the dressing table mirror and examining her reflection. She was about to meet a Mrs Hammond Eggs for luncheon at the Salon du The and was not feeling particularly enthusiastic at the prospect of being nagged at over a lunch of cucumber sandwiches. Clytemnestra Bumbridge had once been an attractive woman, but now, at 64 she looked more like Quentin Crisp than Dame Helen Mirren.

Meanwhile upstairs, Lady Bumbridge was playing hostess to a Mrs Percy de Ath. They sat by the french doors, slightly open to catch the cool breeze, and giggled into their hands, like shy school girls. Lady Bumbridge’s blue-grey eyes always came to life in the company of her best friend. She passed a small plate of eccles cakes to her friend and said “Mercy dear, you must visit the new hairdressing salon “Hair Hitler”, it is very modern, they are even crimping hair, can you believe that?!”, Lady Bumbridge, let out a raucous laugh and Mrs de Ath, looked puzzled, as under her gingery wig she was quite bald. They munched the eccles cakes in silence.

Lady Bumbridge likes a bit of head… on her favourite breakfast, packed with vitamins, minerals and a whole lot of carbohydrates. Go Lady, go!

Lady Bumbridge, hindered by her corns, hobbled onto the balcony to join her husband. She could see a pained expression on his face, and knew it had nothing to do with his priapism. “So, where’s the poor Anuseater?” she asked, turning her scrawny neck from left to right, up and down. Her husband, cleared his throat and with a look of evil merriment, pointed in the direction of the hairdresser’s/barbershop Hair Hitler. Just by the doorway, Lady Bumbridge could make out a man sprawled on the cobbles, yes, it was the Anuseater alright, she recognised the yellow tights.