I Spy with my WI

A friend complained that whilst she wanted tales of passion, danger and intrigue all her, er, female relative, wanted to retell was what had happened at the latest WI meeting — they had better remain nameless.

I Spy with my WI

"Daphne she's Mossad - what are we going to do?" Ethel hissed in my ear as Ruth Jacobs sat down.

"Why thank you Ruth, I think that's an excellent suggestion, now shall we move to a vote?" Olga Ivanova our current chairwoman was looking strangely triumphant. As far as I know the KGB aren't players any more, so I've no idea who she works for these days.

I leapt to my feet. "Madam chairman."

"Yes Mrs. Atkins?"

"Madam chairman, I am touched by the Institute's generosity and sympathy in the current circumstances and I thank you all for it," a murmur ran around the room. "But Ronnie was, is, my cockerel and I feel it only right that I perform the final offices. I will give the cookery demonstration."

Olga frowned. "But Mrs Atkins, Ruth, er, Mrs Jacobs, has offered us a demonstration of Kosher cooking, so delightfully exotic," another general murmur, was it louder?

"Or I could show you Szechwan cooking," I don't recall ever hearing Mrs Li speak before. I had always assumed she was a rival and now she had shown her cards. This was going to be tough.

I glanced at the hall, there were perhaps ten, maybe a dozen confused expressions, people who had nothing to do with the power play and whom I might swing to my aid, 'though they might be hurt in the crossfire. Nothing for it, ownership should have been enough but I would have to try for sympathy.

"I knew him when he was a day old, well, when he was an egg really," I dabbed at my eyes. It wasn't true of course Ronnie was hatched elsewhere and I only acquired him after the feathers had grown back but they wouldn't know that. "How he managed to get killed out in the car park without being squashed we'll never know and it's very kind of the committee to offer to pay for him but Ronnie was a fine bird and now I want to do the right thing and..." I let myself trail off into a sniffle. Ruth Jacobs was looking thunderous and in the corner of my eye me I noticed Ethel ease open the front of her bag, the part where she keeps the Browning under the tissues.

All round the room similar surreptitious movements and calculating glances indicated heightening tension. Old Mrs. Marchatto was fiddling with her zimmer frame, it had catches here, and there and although she only loosened the connections the shape became obvious. What sort of carnage would there be in here if she opened up with a sub-machine gun? I hugged myself putting my hand as close as I dared to my bra holster.

I sniffed loudly. "Please," I said.

Olga Ivanova took a vote, a very careful and slow moving one.

I won.

Which merely postponed matters but at least the safety catches were slipped back on, most of them.

The business part of the meeting closed in record time and we moved into the Village Hall kitchen. In the ordinary way I would have popped home for a few ingredients and returned. This time I daren't even though I only live next door. I could see Ronnie's hen house from the hall's kitchen window. I could also see where the alarm wire had been cut.

"Shall I pluck the bird, how you say? Ronnie for you Mrs. Atkins?" the offer came from a slim woman who moved with the easy grace of an unarmed combat specialist.

"No thank you Mrs. Al-Filastini," no way was a Palestinian going to see under those feathers. "Ronnie is already cold and plucking him would be difficult. I will show you an old country recipe."

No-one was going to permit anybody to go out of sight for fear of outside reinforcement so everything must be found within line of sight. I set two women gathering wild garlic and another nettles from the hedge by the playground apparatus. Two more collected early shoots of comfrey and some beech leaves from the patch by the gate. I sent Mrs. Willis who, as far as I know reports to no one but her husband and possibly the Church of England to fetch the most important contribution from the brook.

I drew Ronnie without plucking him. There was a bullet hole in his neck but I didn't comment. I wondered who was carrying a silencer, bulky things to keep in a handbag. Hard eyes watched every movement and the entrails were scrutinised more closely than by any college of auguries. One bonus then, nobody knew all of Ronnie's secret. Nobody left in the next two hours, nobody got bored and nipped home 'til it was ready. In ordinary circumstances this would have been a triumph for the Littleton WI but this time it might be a disaster for HMG.

Nothing for it. Ronnie was ready.

I broke open the casing of mud and the skin and feathers came free. You could make out the tattooed patterns showing faintly through the skin in reverse if you knew to look. I hastily dropped the lot into the waste bucket as if it were hot. Actually it was hot, in more ways than one.

Ronnie was surprisingly succulent and the hastily improvised stuffing turned out to be remarkably savoury. The write up in the Parish Magazine was very complimentary but I digress.

Every scrap was eaten and puzzled looks replaced the previously hostile ones. Not a few were glancing at the hen house wondering if this Ronnie were a substitute and the real Ronnie was still there.

Ethel gathered up the bones and dropped them in the bucket whilst Mrs Li organised the washing up. Ethel took the bucket outside and I watched for her to pass the window and empty it into the dustbin.

I watched for her to pass the window and empty it into the dustbin.

Everyone else went quiet and watched me. There came the sound of a powerful engine. The room was half empty in a few seconds and several cars left in a hurry.

"So. You did not know," it was Mrs Al-Filastini.

"Know?"

"Ethel Stevens is Estella Esteban. She is a double and you did not know." She shook her head and left.

I met 'M' the next day. I was on the carpet and I knew it but she seemed remarkably relaxed.

"Esteban reported to her control yesterday evening but he's one of Uncle Sam's. His cover's blown now of course but he got the chicken skin."

"Cockerel," I corrected her. "What happened to it?"

"It's gone to the States," she shrugged. "Not ideal but it could have been worse."

"So the USA now has the knitting pattern for the Special Services Battle Balaclava?"

"Yes."

"Funny sort of world but it's appropriate I suppose."

"Appropriate?"

"Yes," I said wryly. "Ronnie was a Rhode Island Red."

Derek Moody 2001