Chapter Text
The bell rings quietly, but sternly, bringing the room to a halt, silencing the conversations and laughter. Jane Franklin, small, portly, with a spine made of iron, coughs politely before she announces: ‘Welcome, ladies, to the March meeting of the Bath Women’s Institute!’
The hall erupts in applause, with the occasional whoop from their younger members (graciously accepted and ignored by their older counterparts).
‘Everyone take their seats now!’ Jane’s voice bounces imperiously off of the walls of St. Mary’s church hall, a place that is quickly overcome with the noise of shuffling feet and terribly polite excuse me, dear’s.
Joan Diggle - barely taller, but decidedly rounder than Jane Franklin - already uncomfortably hot and sweaty, rolls her eyes as she sees who her name has been placed beside. Rita Wall, a hair’s breadth over 6 feet tall - dressed in an unsettlingly bright M&S floral dress that shows far too much of her small, crêpe-paper soft bosom - broad in the shoulder and stern in the face, looks up at Joan, and her face shifts from a picture of joviality to a bloody thunderstorm.
‘Rita,’ says Joan, trying to keep the strain out of her voice as she sits down.
‘Joan.’ Rita, predictably, does nothing to mask her annoyance.
It’s not that Joan dislikes Rita, really it isn’t. It’s just that there’s something about the other woman that riles her up something awful. Every conversation they’ve ever had has ended in a slanging match, and Joan’s never been over-fond of having to show that side of herself. She can almost hear her mother’s chiding at the back of her head, talking to her sisters, saying that swearing isn’t ladylike; fuck knows Joan’s got a shortage of ladylike charm without being goaded into calling a fellow woman of the Institute a lazy, sour-faced cunt in front of God and Jane Franklin.
Rita shuffles over to the edge of her chair, as far away from Joan as she can get, and promptly begins talking to Lucy Kerrigan about the progress she’s been making in her little bakery up the road in the Orange Grove. Joan grits her teeth, staring straight ahead. It’s been six months or so since Rita bought the bakery, situated irritatingly close to the café that Joan runs, and it’s not made their relationship (for want of a better word) any less fraught. Every day that Rita’s establishment gets more custom than Joan’s, Joan can reliably predict that the old bitch will stroll past the window with a broad, shit-eating grin on her face. Every day that Joan’s café is more popular, Rita will make sure to post something snide and unnecessary on the Bath Small Businesses Facebook page.
Joan had initially tried to rise above it, complimenting Rita on her success, or popping in to chat about their recipes, but six months is a long bloody time to take the high road, and she’s tired of it. So, naturally, when Rita’s bakery is having a good day, Joan will make sure to (anonymously) send bad Yelp reviews of the place, and when Joan’s café is doing well, she’ll make sure that all the outdoor tables are packed, and that she updates her company Facebook page accordingly - along the lines of ‘So grateful for our wonderful customers! Lovely to see so many familiar faces, day in, day out. God bless xx’. It’s petty and childish, yes, but the satisfaction Joan gets out of seeing Rita’s face turn puce with annoyance far outweighs the shame she feels at stooping so low.
Rita is saying something loud and pointless about salt when Jane Franklin coughs aggressively at the front of the group, to get everyone’s attention. Joan allows herself a smirk, when Jane’s wrathful gaze focusses on Rita.
‘Now then, ladies,’ Jane begins, her eyes steely and serious, ‘as always, we shall begin with the minutes from last month’s meeting, courtesy of our darling Meredith…’
There is a smattering of laughter and applause as Meredith Grey stands up and dips into a curtsy.
‘And then,’ Jane continues, fixing a perfectly shaped, arched eyebrow on Meredith and the women who applauded her, ‘we have an absolute treat of a talk, on the common - and uncommon! - plants and flowers of our beloved city, from our dear Anna Maria!’
There is a decidedly less enthusiastic round of applause for Anna Maria Barrow, who stands and smiles tepidly at the group. Joan claps along, forcing an encouraging smile when Anna Maria looks her way. She has never much liked the woman - though Joan’s opinion is quite thoroughly coloured by her dislike of Anna Maria’s ridiculous excuse for a husband - and she has very little desire to sit through two bloody hours of listening to her ramble on about the (thoroughly pedestrian) botany of Bath, but it wouldn’t do to put on a sour face. She isn’t Rita, after all.
Rita who - Joan sees upon peering surreptitiously to one side - is rolling her eyes like it’s going out of fashion. Joan resists the urge to kick her in the shin.
Jane continues talking for a short while, thanking everyone for coming, praising the ‘ladies who bring such delicious treats month after month’, and leading everyone in a short prayer. Joan only half listens to this, and gives a half-hearted amen at the end of the prayer, and then it is time for Meredith to go through last month’s minutes. At this, Joan switches off entirely, and her gaze wanders to the refreshment table.
There is a modest array of treats this month. Some biscuits (dry and flaky, most likely) from Anna Maria, a plateful of tackily decorated cupcakes from Lucille, a bowl of questionably coloured punch supplied by Jane. Then, of course, there is Rita’s cake, in an offensively twee shade of lavender, dotted with little fondant petals. Joan’s teeth hurt just looking at the bloody thing. She has - during her long abandoned attempts at friendship - sampled some of the things that Rita bakes, and they are not unpleasant (that is Joan’s charitable thought, for today), but they are sweet enough that she could barely manage more than a few bites before having to take an embarrassingly long swig of tea.
Joan’s contribution is, in her expert opinion, the best of the bunch: a modestly sized, tastefully decorated Victoria sponge, light and fluffy and kept beneath the window so it remains cool and pleasant to eat. She has spent years perfecting her recipe, and she is incredibly proud of it.
Out of the corner of her eye she can see Rita eyeing up the table as well, running her gaze across the cakes and biscuits with a critical expression. No doubt she is convinced of the benefits of far too much icing and far too little flavour besides simple sweet and salt.
There is a small kerfuffle at the front of the room, as Anna Maria takes the proverbial stage and Tammy (one of their younger members, a sweet girl with pink hair and a ring through her nose) helps her set up the projector for her presentation, and then the dire old woman is talking, and talking, and talking, and Joan’s brain clicks off completely for the rest of the evening.
When Joan comes to, drifting out of a daze that is populated mainly by what tomorrow’s menu will look like, and what young Tammy would look like without her sensible little tea dress on, and is suddenly, uncomfortably aware of a weight on her shoulder. She looks down, and for a moment is so completely stunned that she uses the ability to speak.
Rita Wall. Asleep. On her shoulder.
‘Rita,’ Joan hisses, when the power of speech returns to her, elbowing the woman in her substantial ribs, ‘wake up!’
Rita snorts, hiccups, and blinks blearily awake, and then it seems that she, too, loses the use of her tongue as she takes in the position she has ended up in. Joan bites her tongue trying not to laugh as the other woman practically launches herself across the bloody room. There is a round of applause (apparently Anna Maria’s talk is finally over), which is a relief, considering the string of abuse that Rita very promptly hurls in Joan’s direction. Joan, who is more or less used to being ranted at by mad women, takes it in her stride, and watches with an amused expression as Rita’s face turns a concerning shade of red.
‘You shouldn’t get so worked up, Rita,’ Joan murmurs, ‘it’s bad for your blood pressure.’
Rita, for her part, looks as if she is about to explode, as she spits her reply. ‘Piss off, Joan.’
Joan, plastering her face with the most saccharine smile she can manage, immediately stands up in time with the rest of the group, and does her best to waft dramatically past Rita in the direction of the refreshments (that her wafting is interrupted by a large, sensibly-shod foot planted directly in front of her is irrelevant; she has won this round).
Women’s Institute meetings, in Joan’s humble opinion, are often very similar to the gatherings of mismatched pigeons one sees flapping around the streets of Bath. There is very little rhyme or reason to them, and they are easily vexed by outsiders, but (and this is terribly important) they are easily brought together by the promise of food. So, naturally, when it is time for refreshments, the table holding said refreshments is descended upon with a barely-suppressed voracity.
The punch is ladled clumsily into little paper cups and passed around the gathered hoard, the cakes and biscuits are picked at and cooed over. Joan stands back, trying to avoid the sudden surge of activity that - until a moment ago - would have seemed terribly uncharacteristic of the sensible, sedate ladies of the Bath WI. She is nudged and jostled every which way (every movement followed by a flurry of apologies), until everybody seems to have received their portion of the spoils and started to return to their seats.
Everybody, that is, besides Rita Wall.
She is standing, staring at the remains of Joan’s cake, seemingly oblivious to the flitting about of the women around her. In many ways Rita is a bedrock - one of the few things that Joan will begrudgingly admit that she admires about her - still and unmoveable amidst chaos that would have swayed lesser women. Her face, much like the rest of her, is also unmoveable, stony and silent.
Joan sighs. She is not about to nudge past Rita to get a slice of her own bloody cake, as much as she would like some, but she is also absolutely not going to stand there and engage in casual conversation with the woman (not that Rita has ever been capable of that, or not with Joan at least). The seconds that pass, as Joan hovers, waiting impatiently for a slice of the cake that she made herself, are agonisingly slow and uncomfortable. Joan isn’t even sure that Rita has registered her presence until the taller woman turns around, with an unkind smirk.
‘Did you forget to ice that, Joanie?’
Joan, who generally dislikes being called Joanie, sighs, quickly erecting the fortitude that she always needs when engaging in a slanging match with this insufferable woman.
‘It’s a new style, Rita, so you can actually taste the cake. Not that you would want anyone to taste yours, I suppose,’ Joan feels herself grow a little bolder as she speaks, ‘we can’t have the entire Institute sicking up cake all over the floor.’
Rita purses her thin, pink-painted lips, ‘I wouldn’t think there was anything in your cake to taste, Joanie, there’s so little of it to go around.’
‘No, dear, it only looks like that because it has been eaten. You remember what cakes look like when people actually enjoy them, don’t you?’ Joan feels the venom rise in her voice, and gives herself a quiet pat on the back as Rita’s face flushes a horrible shade of puce, a colour that most closely resembles a dying baby mouse.
‘When people enjoy my cakes they do not leave leftovers, dear , as you can see.’
Joan realises, far too late, that she hasn’t had a chance to look how Rita’s cake had fared in the ravenous descent of the middle-to-old-aged women. Rita, flourishing with a self-satisfied smirk, steps aside to reveal a plate that has been all but licked clean, and Joan feels her heart drop into her belly.
She waits just a heartbeat too long before responding, racking her brain to come up with something suitably cutting, suitably biting, a witty little rejoinder that would bring her back to equal footing with Rita Wall. Something is forming on the tip of her tongue, just waiting to rip Rita to shreds, just as Jane Franklin sways over in her horrible Boden dress and begins showering Rita with praise for her ‘delicious, exquisitely decorated cake.’
Joan is fairly certain that, in this particular moment, she would very much like the ground to open up and swallow her whole.