"It iss the little matter o' the Mothers' Union."

Nessie stopped knitting. What's up wi' the Mothers' Union?"

"The pair of you are what's up with it."

"What d'ye mean, d'ye mean?" demanded Jessie. "We run it wi' an iron hand, iron hand."

"Well, now, ladies, the iron hand seems to be the trouble. Ye cannae go on like the Gestapo."

"Who's complaining?" demanded Nessie wrathfully.

"Chust about everyone," said Hamish Macbeth.

"We've done nothing wrong, nothing wrong," said Jessie. "We've made sure the church hall is clean, and that place was a sewer, a sewer."

"Yes, and it iss the grand job the pair of you are doing at fighting the germs, but is there any need to fight the others?" Hamish reflected it was an odd world when the Mothers' Union was being run by two childless spinsters. Did anyone ever use the word "spinster" anymore? What was politically correct? "Miz" was irritating and pretentious. Single? And why should women who were not married be considered strange in any way? He was not married himself.

"I'm speaking to you, Hamish Macbeth," shouted Nessie, penetrating his thoughts, "and all you can do is sit there like a gormless loon after insulting us."

"Insulting us," chorused Jessie.

"I wass thinking about Margaret Thatcher," lied Hamish.

"What about her?" asked Nessie, a look of reverence in her eyes.

The sisters adored Margaret Thatcher.

"Well, now, Mrs. Thatcher-"

"Baroness Thatcher," corrected the Currie sisters in unison.

"Lady Thatcher, then. Now, herself would run that Mothers' Union with a firm hand. But she would delegate responsibility, draw everyone in. You get more out of people if they like you. Diplomacy is the word, ladies."

"And what do you know about Lady Thatcher?" jeered Nessie.

Hamish half closed his eyes. "It wass the great day," he crooned, his Highland accent becoming more sibilant as he worked himself up to telling one massive lie. "I wass down in Inverness and there she wass, just doing her shopping like you or me."