The scene is a local WI meeting in the fictional village of Bishop's Wallop, sometime in the late 1940s.
The two women walked in gladly
and were faced by six rows of grey tubular framed chairs. Five were taken by
warm hats and coats that had not been removed from the persons held within
them. Alice sat alone at a table placed across the front of the chairs, looking
through a pile of thin sheets of paper. She looked up and smiled at Marigold
and Mrs Bidder as they circled around the seating area. Alice stood and walked
towards Marigold, her hands outstretched.
“Thank you for coming, both of
you. I do hope you’ll enjoy it.”
“I’m sure I will. This is Mrs
Bidder, who has come to stay with me for the weekend.”
“How do you do, Mrs Bidder, I
hope you like Bishop’s Wallop. Pity you’re not staying longer, we could have
taken you up Paddlebury Rings, eh Marigold?”
“Not with her ankles. Come on
Mrs B. Let’s get you sat down. We’ll see you afterwards, Alice.” Marigold
steered Mrs Bidder towards one of the chairs, which she immediately hoped they
wouldn’t have to sit on for too long.
“What the heck is Paddlebury
Rings?”
“It’s a big old hillfort
nearby. It’s the best they can do for proper history round here but you get a
good view from the top.” She spoke through the side of her mouth.
“Sounds awful” Mrs Bidder
offered Marigold a sweet from a tiny creased paper bag. They both sat in sucking silence for a while.
A line of ladies took seats in the row in front of them. They too kept on hats
and coats in defence against the plethora of draughts. Marigold mused that it
was a good job that they didn’t need to look at Alice to benefit from her talk.
She was now sat behind a very bulky tweed jacket and a wide trilby hat, which
bobbed about as she spoke to her neighbour.
Marigold couldn’t help but overhear.
“My Arthur’s built us a proper
shed with a padlock on the door. He says we’re going to need to lock the bikes
and tools away now that the prefabs are going up.”
“Quite right.” Her neighbour,
a pheasant feather perched in the side of her hat, leaned in. “I’ve been making
myself get used to locking the side door since the work started. Such a shame
to have to do these things but that’s what happens when you let the socialists
take charge.”
Marigold cast a glance at Mrs
Bidder, who was still sucking blankly on her sweet and didn’t seem to have been
listening. The woman who was at the Tinkers’ supper in the self-trimmed hat,
Miss Messiter, marched to the front and clapped her hands. She gave out a
general welcome and introduced Marigold as a new member and Mrs Bidder as her
guest (Marigold had been forced to hand over Mrs Bidder’s details on a form 48
hours in advance). Everyone turned and smiled politely, at which point Marigold
realised that she was the only woman there who was wearing trousers. She had
got so used to wearing them all of the time now, that to dig out a skirt had
not occurred to her. She pulled her coat a little more tightly around herself
and smiled generally about the room. The evening’s talk was announced as ‘Alice
and Austen’.
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