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Extract from 'Temporary Accommodation' by Sarah Miller Walters


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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Temporary Accommodation is available here as a Kindle download or paperback


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